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

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 It's what I'm for, the will of the world, whether the withered are willing or withdrawn."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."

Cole watches her as she thinks, still smelling the bloodied water, the air heavy with spores, the dust and grime of places left to decay and overgrow -

But then she is holding out the coins, and he stares at them. Surprised. And then moved.

Gently, oh-so-gently, he takes the coins, looking them over before looking back to her. "...Thank you," he says softly, the tiniest little smile playing at the corners of his lips. "This is kind. This will help me feed a frail family a fraction."

He nods, with conviction.

"Someone will eat tonight because of you, Ellie."

It leaves Ellie self-conscious and unsure. The gratitude doesn't rest easily on her shoulders. It's not something she's used to. It's a few coins, something that won't hurt her to give up, since she's got a roof and food and warmth and safety.

It's not like it was any big sacrifice; just something to ensure that Cole won't inadvertently get into any trouble while trying to help. Inadequate in the face of what she owes.

"They were going to anyway, if you kept up with that," Ellie says uncomfortably, shrugging her shoulders.

"Anyway, um. If you're going to join Riftwatch, I'll probably see you again."

... she realizes, a beat too late, that being able to see Cole will be all the more significant for it.

The Spirit has always thought it...funny, in a way. The way that some people get uncomfortable with the idea of helping. It comes from guilt, he knows, a feeling of failing, of not deserving the credit for a good deed.

But in his eyes, a good deed is still a good deed. He can feel that she is recoiling, though, and she doesn't need to be needled...so he lets it go, tucking the coins in his pocket.

"Yes," he finally answers, his expression difficult to read.

"I am...glad to meet you."

Ellie's grateful that he doesn't press, is gentle enough to realize when she can't stand kindness. It's the one thing that can really break her down, even if some deeply buried part of her desperately needs it.

But then, people reject their vulnerabilities, when they're afraid of being hurt, or putting their faith in things.

She relaxes when he lets it go, her body language slowly opening up again. Her expression softening.

"... you too, Cole."

OPEN - Follow me home, if you dare to

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

bow on this?