faderift | OPEN - Follow me home, if you dare to

Lowtown is a hodgepodge of all the best and worst of society, filled now with refugees and people struggling to make ends meet. It's also a good place to disappear, and even if Ellie has been avoiding it lately, there are people here she appreciates, and she's on her way back from visiting one of them.

The local thugs have learned by now to stay well clear of her, and so have the pickpocketing urchins for the most part -- all she has is junk and pocket change.

She sees it only by chance. A young man in tattered clothes, first in front of a merchant's stall, and then suddenly gone. He pops back into sight near Ellie, who stops in place, openly staring. Someone behind her nearly runs into her, curses and keeps moving.

... Ellie glances around, but she's the only one who seemed to notice. She steps to one side, nearer a brick wall and out of the walkway, and watches as the beggar seems to look right through the young man.

She steps closer, amazed, realizing all of a sudden that this must be what other people feel when they see her blink out of sight. Except... she seems to be the only one who sees him at all.

A chill creeps down her spine, a thrill of curiosity and the unknown, something exciting.

Unfortunately, she knows better than to trust, so she watches. For now.

Oblivious to the fact that he's been spotted, the strange young man walks right up to that beggar, gently reaching down to place the apple in front of him with a couple of coins from his pocket. The beggar blinks at it as suddenly it's tangible in front of him, and then, briefly, looks up at his benefactor.

Cole just shakes his head a little, not even saying anything, and walks a few feet away.

The beggar looks down to the apple to start eating it, pauses, and then looks around as if confused where it had come from. The gaunt figure in the hat nods to himself, satisfied with this. He has been forgotten, and the man has been fed. It is a good day.

Ellie watches quietly, confused again. It's not just the invisibility. Even though the beggar saw him, saw the apple and the change, started eating it, and then...

Something bigger is happening here, but she can't quite put her finger on it. It's like looking at this boy makes people confused, or they...

Forget?

This isn't how Ellie's used to magic working -- and she doesn't question why it's not, apparently, working on her. Not yet. She's used to being the exception to the rule. (Infected but immune, hunted but survived-) And who knows, maybe the god-shards in her are the reason. Or the anchor. Who fucking knows.

But more than that... much more than that, she can think of a million fucking ways to use that power that wouldn't involve doing something kind for someone vulnerable.

And here this guy is, doing the last thing most people would.

It's not a question. Ellie follows the boy through the crowd, dodging shoulders until she manages to catch up, keeping her eyes trained on him, making sure she doesn't lose track of him.

She draws up next to him, keeping pace, hands tucked under her cloak.

"... that was a nice thing to do."

When suddenly he has company, Cole jumps, eyes going wide. He definitely hadn't meant to let his hiding slip...but, well, sometimes it happens. Often it happens if the person needs him. Maybe she does, or she will.

At any rate, he keeps walking, all gangly limbs and downcast eyes.

"He was hungry," the boy rasps, shrugging a little. "He needed to eat. I needed to help." It's the truth, and the whole reason - he doesn't elaborate beyond that just yet, watching Ellie with a wary expression.

"Easy," Ellie says, more gently this time. She hadn't meant to startle him; maybe he thought she was going to turn him in to the city guard or something.

The corner of her mouth twists into a small smile. He's right, and that's enough of a reason.

She opens her mouth, pausing, finding her consciousness rubbing up against something that she can't quite name, but something about this boy doesn't seem...

"You didn't need to help," she says. "But you did."

It was more the surprise of being seen that brought him fright...but as she follows, as she talks, as she shows she means no harm and isn't angry, he seems to calm a little bit.

At her assertion, he looks to her, icy blue eyes seeming to look deeper into her than just her face. The chill of frost nips his skin unbidden, his skin heavy with seasalt and grime. Her pain is singing to him, and he's listening.

But externally, he just shakes his head a little. "I did need to," he corrects in his small voice.
"I have to help the hurt. It's what I'm for, the will of the world, whether the withered are willing or withdrawn."

Ellie calms as he does; it's not often that people see her as a credible threat- she doesn't look like much, even with the bow across her back, the half-dozen knives. She's not used to having to put people at ease around her.

Though she doesn't know what he's seeing, feeling, she can see his eyes, and for a second it feels like she could physically fall into them. It's unsettling, off-balance, and she slows as the feeling passes. Perhaps some would be put off by it, but it only makes her fight harder for footing, to look directly at him like it might make him easier to see.

"... what you're for?" she repeats, watching his face. On someone else she'd have assumed they were speaking in metaphor. But this sounds disturbingly literal.

What are you?

"Is that why he didn't see you?"

Cole knows better than to judge a person by the way they look - perhaps she doesn't appear dangerous or even imposing to most, but they can't hear what he can. They don't smell the blood in the water. Feel the guilt. His heart aches for her, and for a moment, he reels in it a little, pressing a grimy hand to his chest.

He takes a long breath in and out.

"Yes," he answers, gaunt face contorted slightly in an anxious frown. "And yes. I...most people...it's easier. When they don't see me. Or remember me. Easier to help them. Some are proud, poised, positioned against people putting pocket money in their palms. If they feel like they got it themselves somehow, they hurt less."

Don't see him, and don't remember him.

Another chill passes over Ellie's skin, leaving her itching, her blood thrumming. It feels like she's on the verge of realizing something profound, but can't think what.

The way he looks at her is both comforting and deeply unsettling, like he can see right through her, deep down to something she works hard at not showing.

"... so why can I see you?"

"Mm...." The little hum of thought he makes is high in his throat, a funny sort of keening that makes his voice break a little. He's still Listening to her, and her hurt is loud, so loud, tiny combustive shots and screams and hisses and clicking, clicking, Clicking that makes blood run cold.

He turns down an alley so they can speak without wading through crowds, coming to a stop tucked in against a wall.

"Sometimes people slip through if they need me," he finally answers, tone gentle. "If their hurt needs to be heard, helped."

Ellie comes to a stop as the boy does, watching him in the half-darkness, shadows falling across his face. Looking directly at her seems to cause him pain, and she fights the urge to pull away, pressing herself to the opposite wall of the alleyway.

Had Ellie not met a woman who called herself a Sin Eater, she might not have believed him. But it's not the first time she's stumbled across someone like this. A thrift-shop angel, a threadbare scrap of grace. She remembers how badly it hurt her to touch Ellie's hands, and how tightly she gripped them anyway.

"... I don't know if it's something you can help," she says, her voice just as soft.

Once Ellie is across from him, he looks openly at her again - able to relax a little bit, not being in the crowd. He can focus better. And he can tell what he's saying stings, now more than a few minutes ago.

"I don't know either," he mumbles. "It isn't always simple. But sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just an apple. Or...."

Drawing a breath in, he sticks out his grimy, bony hand towards her, a greeting with conviction. He tries his best to smile - it's flimsy, like he is out of practice with it. Something trying to be human.

"My name is Cole."

Ellie watches him, watches his movements, his face, his pale eyes. There's something off about him, and while it shivers over her skin, more obvious as she pays such close attention to him, it doesn't feel malignant at all.

It occurs to her that he could be lying, but she's known liars. And despite the way he doesn't quite nail being friendly, his eyes are utterly sincere.

It's painfully obvious that he's trying to do this because of- whatever he feels from her. What the universe is telling him she needs from him. But she doesn't have it in her heart to deny him.

"... Ellie," she answers, and grasps his hand. Her touch is careful, like she expects it to hurt him. Maybe it does.

She carries so much guilt inside. It's grown in there, lichen-like, drawing tight around her heart and holding the hurt. Cole can hear it, he can feel it, but he doesn't flinch at her touch. This is what he's for. It doesn't harm him. It gives him form and purpose.

His grip is birdlike, bony; he shakes her hand gently, like he's seen other people do when they didn't realize they were being observed.

Once he's finished, he drops the hand away, back to standing awkwardly. "...Ellie. You are...a Rifter."

One could cut the awkwardness with a knife. It's an uncomfortable feeling, being seen, so much so that Ellie's own manifestation of magic rendered her invisible, and she doesn't miss the significance of that.

"What gave it away?" she asks, trying for a half-smile. She's got her hand covered with a glove, hiding the anchor shard, but she supposes that her accent might be part of it -- she doesn't sound like other humans of Thedas, more like a dwarf, and that's a common thread within the Rifter population.

"That something you can see, too?"

"...Yes," he begins, considering his answer. "The song of the Fade feels foreign around Rifters. Like...it's playing on an instrument not meant for it."

He wrings his hands together a little bit, rubbing a smear of dirt across the back of the one Ellie hadn't shaken. He's so grimy, but if most people can't see him...well, perhaps it makes sense to him.

"I...like Rifters, so far," he decides, hoarsely. "Most of you have not been as afraid."

Ellie frowns, following the fidgets of his fingers, watching the way he moves -- it's like her, when she's working through difficult thoughts, nervous or uncomfortable. He's grimy, yes, but it doesn't repulse her. She's seen and worn far, far worse. Been covered in worse for ages at a time.

"I guess I could see how you'd freak people out," she admits. "But most Rifters have seen enough freaky shit to be used to it by now."

She gives him a half-smile, thoughtful.

"You're feeling the Fade? Or hearing it? Does that make you a mage?"

That doesn't seem to bother her either.

Perhaps it's a mercy that Cole is accustomed to frightening people. He never takes it personally, even as often as it happens. But she's right...so many Rifters seem to have so much history hailing from their homes that he must pale in comparison.

Just another reason to like them, really.

At her gentle question, he shakes her head. She seems safe. "No, not a mage. I am...Compassion. A spirit."

... a spirit. Of compassion.

It makes sense. That there would be spirits of pride and wrath and lust and sloth and all sorts of things she'd read in books about what happens in the Fade, and what comes out of the rifts. It should make sense that there would be spirits like this, too.

Ellie searches his eyes, her own flickering back and forth -- she knows why he's here, knows why he's talking to her, and it makes her want to cringe away.

She lets out a laugh, and it sounds cracked at the edges.

"You're gonna have your work cut out for you in Riftwatch."

As it sinks in, the Spirit senses her sadness, her sudden urge to sink away. He blinks slowly at the laugh, not smiling, but not appearing to be upset, either.

"I know."

The answer is simple, of course. The world is full of hurt, that isn't news.

"That's why I'm with Riftwatch now. To help."

"You joined?" Ellie asks with a small jolt. She'd been thinking of him more as a spirit than a boy, an apparition instead of somebody who could put on armor and pick up a book or sword.

"You're fighting against Corypheus? Don't spirits have to be... I dunno, neutral in human junk like that?"

Fuck if she knows how spirits are supposed to work.

"I think so. I want to."

He can tell she is shocked, surprised - but her being stunned doesn't surprise Cole in return. Spirits are an uncertain thing, and likely even more for Rifters.

"...We don't have to be anything," he rasps, giving a little shrug of his thin shoulders. "And I am...different. I shouldn't be solid, stuck, but I am. So I want to help if I am here."

Ellie frowns, concern instantly leaking into her eyes, showing in the curve of her mouth. She knows what it is to be different, to be something else, something you can't change even if you wanted to.

To want to help, from your unique position.

He reminds her of her more optimistic days, back when the hurt was localized, when the weight of the world rested newly on her shoulders. When she thought there was something she could do about it all. It was what she was meant for, too.

"Okay," she says softly.

"Do you need help?"

Oblivious to most of her reverie, he simply nods, pleased with her acceptance of his answer -

And then stops short at her question.

He hasn't been asked that in a very long time.

"...I don't know," he admits, anxiety clear in his dusty little tone. "I...wish more people would help other people. But I don't know if I need anything."

Ellie nods, thinking hard to herself. The question's so broad it's a hard one to answer, anyway. People need so many things -- but what does a spirit need?

"Well-"

Hesitating, she reaches into her pocket. Comes up with a few coins, and holds them out in her palm for him to take.

"Here. If you're gonna give away any more food, you wanna make sure you buy it first. Even if they can't see you, they'll notice their stuff's gone."

OPEN - Follow me home, if you dare to

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you snuck a lot of alliteration into that last tag, wow!

It was accidental at first and then I just kept GOING

Listen sometimes I get stuck after a round of tags

same tho

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bow on this?