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

Entry tags:

OPEN - Follow me home, if you dare to

WHO: Cole and YOU!
WHAT: Catch-all for Cole's first month!
WHEN: September
WHERE: Various - the Gallows, Kirkwall, possibly TBD
NOTES: Astarion thread: CW - Mentions of abuse, torture, murder, and starving

If you want something special, let me know and I will write us a starter! And a reminder, you can fill out Cole's permissions HERE if you would like him to read your character's pain/past!

Starters in comments.

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Cole gazes at the shard, leaning in a little closer, the light reflecting in his icy eyes. He considers it for a moment, then slides his stare past and back to Abby's face. His thin shoulders lift in a little shrug.

"It might be," he muses, voice full of cobwebs. "But...I think Rifters also just...need help more than others. That's what I'm for. I am not sure."

He shuts his eyes for a moment, letting a shrill, mounting mechanical wail drift through his subconscious. She's certainly been through a lot. She definitely needs kindness. When he opens his eyes again, he awkwardly lifts one hand in a vague wave.

"...My name is Cole."

The way he moves is... slightly unnerving. There's a delay of some kind, perhaps. He thinks of it, his body prepares to move, and then he does. Abby watches him, equal parts fascinated and uneasy, a strange combination.

"You're for... helping Rifters?" What a thing to say. She's putting two and two together as he shuts his eyes, and she bends to pick up the book from where it skidded to after he smacked it away. "Was this you?"

She indicates the page marker. Such a small kindness, but thoughtful nevertheless. "... Thank you, Cole."

Cole has that effect on a lot of people - the scrutiny, if it's noticed at all, doesn't much seem to bother him. He nods when she questions him, ready for that to be all...but then she thanks him, and he blinks.

He's...still getting used to that. Being thanked for things.

"...You are...welcome," he stammers, the corners of his mouth twitching. He's not very good at smiling. Humans initially learn to smile for approval. He's used to being disapproved of.

"You would have lost your place. You needed something to mark it. Sometimes help is small."

"I would have got in trouble for creasing pages." She doesn't quite smile, but her mouth does twitch at the corner, her gaze back on the book in her hands. This one hasn't quite gripped her yet. It's a story, a fantasy book. Abby wanted to read it because she wants a taste of the local culture, but it's a little overwhelming, and difficult to get into. Maybe it's because her life feels too much like a fantasy right now.

"How many people have you helped today?" She's curious about this design of his.

"I know." Said simply, with conviction. Of course he had known. That's why she needed it.

Because the book wasn't affording the distraction she also needs.

"A few," he answers, hands fidgeting at his sides as if he doesn't know what to do with them. "I bought someone a sandwich, and another a book...gave a dog a bone, helped someone up, let someone talk to get things off their mind before they forgot me." A little shrug.

"I don't know how many today. I haven't counted."

"You do this every day?"

To Abby it sounds... exhausting, but that's because she isn't the kind of person who buys another person a sandwich if they don't have one of their own. She's the kind of person who throws books at people who startle her.

"And what do you mean by 'before they forgot me'?"

Because she didn't miss that odd wording, either.

"Yes." No hesitation there, either. There is something childlike about him, a simplicity that doesn't match the rasp of his voice and the sorrow in his eyes.

But her other question twists in his stomach a little more, and he frowns, gaze gliding downward to the floor.

"I don't stay, stick - I slip like a sieve through memories," Cole mumbles, hoping the idea will not frighten her. "Most people - many people - just...forget about me. They can't help it."

"... Why?"

He is not at all forgettable. On the contrary, Abby hasn't seen anybody like him up until this point. That white gleam of his eyes... that's going to stick with her, at the very least, "Will it happen to me?"

Oh. That question, too. It twists, twinges, tears him up inside, even now, and he bites his chapped lip a moment before he replies.

"...I don't know. I can't...I can never be sure," he stumbles in that small rasp of his. "I've never really known why. I think it's...because I'm not meant to be here. Faded by the fade." A beat.

"I'm a Spirit. I'm not all person."

The question appears to upset him, but Abby doesn't understand. She wonders why he cares, if she forgets him. He doesn't even know her.

His explanation doesn't really clear anything up, either. It only serves to make her more confused. "But- you look like a person."

Aside from those eyes of his. "How did you get here?"

The upset doesn't linger for long, languishing away to leave the longer-lived weariness that seems to permeate the Spirit's soul. Feeling flinchy still standing in the corner, he instead moves over towards the desk, hopping up to sit atop it and crossing his legs under him.

He hesitates before answering.

"...Here?"

To be fair, that is a distinctly unhumanlike move, the way that he perches like a bird on top of the desk. Abby is briefly reminded of Lev. It seems like something that he would do: a weird, fish-out-of-water type thing. She misses him.

"Yeah, to... the land of the living. If you're a spirit."

It is, and he knows it - but Cole is completely comfortable with the creature-like contours of his movements. He watches Abby from his perch, head tilted just a little bit to one side.

It's a...difficult question to answer. His shoulders sink, head lowering to obscure his eyes beyond the over-wide brim of his hat.

"...I...tried to save someone. I couldn't. And now I am...him."

Abby digests that with no small amount of confusion. There are more questions that she would like to ask about it, but what stops her is Cole's hesitance, the slump of his shoulders, how he curls over his crossed legs like he's trying to shield himself from something.

Instead, "I'm sorry you lost him."

Because she understands loss, if nothing else.

It's a strange situation to try and understand, especially when put so shortly - and it's not something that Cole talks about very often, because it hurts. It hurts HIM, and his own hurts are still so strange, stilted, stinging-

Her words pull him from his reverie, head raising just a little, at least enough that his whole face is no longer hidden.

"...I don't want it to happen again. That's why I'm here."

Abby digests this in silence, thinking of her own hurts, and the tangle of grief that still sits like a weighted stone in her stomach. She doesn't want anything like that to happen again to her, either. Privately, she doesn't know if she could bear it.

"I'm glad," she says, shortly. Holds up her book, "Otherwise I wouldn't have a bookmark."

Disarming a moment with humour is a bad habit, perhaps, but it's how she makes it through.

For a long, long moment, Cole says nothing, watching her, lips pursing just a little at the humor as he struggles to understand it...but finally, he seems to sense that it's a joke, and he relaxes a little, picking his head back up. She doesn't need to harbor his hurts. She has enough of her own.

"I'm just glad to help. However I can. Even bookmarks."

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OPEN - Follow me home, if you dare to

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