When We're Rollin Through the Wild Wild West

[geonomy]

Who: Everyone! EVERYONE!
Broadcast: IF YOU WANNA
Action: Everywhere! EVERYWHERE!
When: Mid-September - Mid-October

[How's your ship doing, pardners? Is it still pretty damaged? Is it glitching out hardcore? Well, there is one place to land to take care of all that, and that's on a dusty old moon in front of a planet that no one wants to go to. On this moon, you'll find a civilization that looks a lot like one's stepped into a wild west movie, hardened cowpolk and mutant horses and all. Will you become a vigilante, hunting bounties and stopping gangs from doing their dirty work? Will you go exploring planetside, with a cowboy hat and a stalk of wheat in your mouth to complete the look? Good luck with that; there is no wheat. This town ain't big enough for all you flooters, but make it so! For the ratings!

In other words, it's a planet mingle! Get 'er done!]

[September Planet info here]

Comments

[unconfines]

So you've mentioned.

[Both, really, though he means the comparison with Justice. He reaches to scratch the cat-fox behind her scruff while he still has the opportunity.]

I'm certainly not going to turn down a helping hand if you have it to offer! Maker knows they could use it, around here. I'm pretty good, but I'm only one man.

[killedwithlove]

I can bring people and animals here. I need to go find Rhys soon, but I can stay and help you for a while. Healing's easier with me here. I know that.

[And his new friend seems quite happy to doze in his arms.]

[unconfines]

[It keeps getting mentioned, that name. It's not familiar, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.]

Tell you what, you help me here for a bit, and then afterwards I'll help you find your friend. For the time saved in making the healing easier. Yes?

[killedwithlove]

[Cole considers this, looks at his new friend in his arms and then back to Anders.]

Yes. She can sleep with us and I'll help you. Then, we can take her out and then go looking for Rhys.

[unconfines]

Sounds like a fair plan to me! Here, sit.

[He gestures to an overturned barrel, which is his substitute for a chair.]

Don't mind the smell. You don't get used to it, but— it could be worse?

[killedwithlove]

I don't really mind smells. They're just... there.

[He sits down, still cradling the now slightly snoring fox-cat.]

It doesn't smell like pain or death.

[unconfines]

No? Perhaps that means we're making progress!

[He doesn't really think that. He hums, considering.]

Or maybe that they don't make noses in the Fade the way they do here.

[A woman approaches them, young but with an old injury, and he compliments her hair at the same time his hands begin to swirl with new magic. He can do this, smile and heal, something to keep both his mind and his hands occupied.]

[killedwithlove]

My nose wasn't made in the Fade. I didn't have a nose in the Fade. I got one here. Evangeline thought my nose was unfortunate, but it works fine.

[Someone in pain and Cole curls in slightly, but then he feels that familiar tug and he relaxes, a pale, peach yellow glow lighting from somewhere inside him, boosting Anders' own magical abilities.

The power is there for Anders to draw on, offering itself into his own.]

[unconfines]

We need to teach you about jokes, my friend.

[But the healing goes well, at least. Better than it would if he was on his own, and easier on his mana reserves, too. He hadn't noticed the difference, earlier, but now he's reminded of just how much it makes, help from the Fade.]

Maker, this is going better already. Thought you being— solid and all may have been an issue, but.

[killedwithlove]

Varric tried to teach me about jokes, but I don't think I understand them.

[Cole hums softly as Anders works and it's not any tune that was made in the real world, but some kind of weak mirror of something impossibly spirit like that that he's heard.]

I can't help as much as I used to. Solas thinks I was quiet an old spirit, or at least had gathered a lot of power. Or will. It's not the same. But I can still help healers heal. If I couldn't, I wouldn't be much use.

[unconfines]

Suppose you would have to be, if you managed... well. That. [A vague hand gesture. The body-creating-thing, he means.] Don't suppose there's any age old lessons you've got tucked away somewhere? Justice loved those.

[killedwithlove]

[Cole thinks about it.]

Don't be a dick.

[unconfines]

[Anders laughs because he can't help it, startled and amused.]

Well! You've learned some new words since I saw you last, haven't you? Still, can't say it's bad advice. Short, sweet, and to the point. I'll be sure to keep it in mind, yes?

[killedwithlove]

[Cole doesn't smile, but something about him lightens and seems pleased that he made Anders laugh.]

I think most people should live by it.

[unconfines]

Couldn't hurt, I suppose.

[He takes a moment to heal another patient, this one just a messy scrape on a child's elbow from a fall.]

Still, easier said than done, isn't it? Everyone's got their own idea of what being a dick is. "Be as little a dick as possible," how about that?

[He snickers at his own joke. Little dicks!]

[killedwithlove]

[The child's injury is small enough not to pull on Cole, but he crouches down to let a little hand pet the fox before the child runs off again.]

Be as kind as you can to the world and beings in it. But maybe that's a Compassion way of living, not a mortal one.

[Little dick joke goes straight over Cole's head. Sorry.]

[unconfines]

[It's okay, he's used to it by now. He mostly tells them for his own amusement.]

Yes, well. That counts on the world being kind back, doesn't it? [The line of his mouth thins.] There isn't much of that, outside the Fade.

[Justice had been that way, trying to get the mortal world to fit into the confines of his being and his expectations. Anders is used to that by now, too.]

[killedwithlove]

No.

[That's the thing about Compassion. About Cole.]

People hurt me sometimes. But that doesn't stop me being as kind as I can. They're scared, or hurting. They think being cruel will make them feel better.

How they act doesn't change how I act. My kindness is not dependent on theirs.

[unconfines]

[True to form, and perhaps demonstrating Cole's point, Anders' reply has an edge of bitterness to it:]

That must be convenient. [It sounds like the exact opposite, actually.] Until you start counting the ones who hurt just because they can. My heart isn't quite that big, and I'm perfectly fine with that, I think. It's gotten me this far.

["This far" is, at least, not the Circle. Whether that's real freedom or not is... complex.]

[killedwithlove]

Convenient? No. But I'm not mortal. I'm meant to be Compassion.

But I tried to kill the Templar who killed me. I wasn't Compassion then. I was angry.

[unconfines]

Now there's something a man can relate to.

[He picks at the fabric of his cuffs, staring very determinedly between his feet. He did not kill those templars. But he also didn't try to stop the darkspawn who slit their throats. He and anger are old friends.]

You aren't mortal now, but you were mortal then? How is that supposed to work?

[killedwithlove]

I don't know what I am now. Or was then. I'm just me.

Ever since I came through the Veil, I've just been me.

[He rocks on his barrel.]

I don't know how I work. I don't know if I do work.

[unconfines]

Well, you have to at least work a little. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation at all, I don't think. Literally!

[It's easier to be blase about it, when he understands so little about what Cole is and how he works. It's just in a mage's nature to be wary of anything across the Veil, even if Cole's on the wrong side of it for now.]

But, really, in the end— how much does it matter? You'd be you if you were mortal or not, presumably. [a beat] You'd just be you longer in one case, I suppose.

[killedwithlove]

I have a body. And I can use it. I even know how to eat, if I ever have to, but I don't have to.

[He had eaten before. He didn't really fancy doing it again, though.]

I suppose it doesn't matter. I am. That has to be enough.

[unconfines]

That's the spirit. [Puns! He still doesn't expect Cole to get them, but he likes making them.] Besides, if you weren't so— both ways, I suppose, we wouldn't be able to team up like this, would we?

[... That's not actually true. Revising:]

Well, we wouldn't be able to do it and chat so much in the process, anyway.