driftfleet | The doctor is in...sort of

Entry tags:

The doctor is in...sort of

Who: Anders
Broadcast: Video, Fleetwide
Action: Three Twins
When: Now

|Video|
[This time, the feed starts with Anders' face and not the edge of his robes. He's got a smile on and a view of his ship's med bay behind him.]

So, first I had to find it and then I had to dust it off, as it were.

[Which had less to do with dust and more to do with familiarizing himself with this stuff he was apparently supposed to be using. Because. What did this place do without magic? Also rearranging some things because he could.]

But the Three Twins medical wing is officially open, should anyone need it.

|Action|
Should anyone drop by, they'll find the place pristine and shiny-new. They'll also find the new 'doctor' at a desk, but instead of working, he's simply leaning back in his chair, boots on the desk itself as he reclines.

Why work if he didn't have to?

At first, he'd scoffed at the equipment he'd found, it seemed crude to use tools on people when he had his healer's magic. But as he familiarized himself with his new 'station' (knowledge he was a little alarmed to simply have but it was easier, at least) it occurred to him that having tools that did what he could do just as well meant less of a strain on him and, ultimately, less work.

So, he was perfectly content to literally kickback and relax.

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[Cole doesn't bother announcing or asking to come over. He just turns up, winding down to the medical bay and watching for a moment from the shadows.

It's not the same Anders. That's okay. It's still a spirit healer and still a man who loves animals.]
Hello, Anders. I'm Compassion.

[He made the invitation, he shouldn't have been surprised by the kid's sudden appearance...but he was and it was obvious in the way he jolted. Still, he had the sense to put on his most charming smile.

He wasn't going to get used to people knowing his name like that.]

Hello! Welcome, erm...Compassion, you said?

[That wasn't a normal name, but it wasn't the first he'd heard like it...and, well, there were a lot of beings from Thedas here, it wouldn't sound too silly to ask.]

I'm sorry, but...are you a spirit?

[He sways on the spot and plucks at his fingerless wraps, pulling threads loose.]

Yes. I usually go by Cole now, but I was Compassion before I was Cole. I can help your healing magic. Make it stronger. I've worked with spirit healers before.

[Well, that was something. Anders stands and moves to lean against one of the beds in the room, but he doesn't try to close the distance between them any more. Sometimes, the nice spirits were skittish.]

Thanks, but I think I'll stick with what they've given me here for now. Plus, don't take it personally, but dealing with spirits is something I've learned to be careful about.

[That said, careful didn't preclude curiosity.]

Now I have to ask, are you possessing a dead body? I had a friend like that back home, Justice. He got thrown into possessing a dead body and walked around like that.

[It was the only reason he could think of that a spirit could walk around like a person. But Cole or Compassion didn't look like Justice had in Kristoff's body.]

[A spirit healer who... didn't use spirits to heal...

This is so not the Anders from before.

He rocks on his feet, shaking his head.]

No. This is my... natural manifestation in the material world. Most Compassions don't want to come through. And if they did, they wouldn't look like this. Probably couldn't survive the transition. But I'm not like most of them. I'm Cole.

[He nods rapidly.]

Justice. Vengeance. He didn't want to be there. Most spirits don't. Even demons don't really want to be trapped in a dead body, just use them for a while.

[Natural manifestation? He'd never heard of that sort of thing happening, if it had couldn't Justice have simply gotten his own body instead of possessing Kristoff's? Surely, that would have been easier. But, maybe he wasn't capable of it. If Anders had never heard of it happening before, it meant Cole was something special, an exception.

But his thoughts cut off from anything else as he catches what Cole says about his friend. No, it doesn't surprise him Justice didn't want to be there, he made that abundantly clear when they'd first discovered what had happened, but he'd adjusted when he'd taken on avenging Kristoff's death as his justice and goal.

But Vengeance? He shook his head.]

Sorry, Cole, but I think you're a little confused. Justice isn't Vengeance. I mean, he's got a temper and wouldn't know a sense of humor if it smack him in the face, but I wouldn't call him vengeful.

[But then again, there were people who knew him in the future and there'd been the 'other' Anders, maybe something happened to his friend to change him. Anders certainly hoped not.]

[Cole is unique. Crazy powerful for a spirit of Compassion, born out of circumstances that should never have happened and hopefully will never happen again.

Cole moves in a flicker of smoke to sit up on a bench instead, not looking at Anders.]

Justice. Vengeance. Rage.

Compassion. Mercy. Despair.

We're not meant to live in people. It changes us. Changes you, too.

[Anders blinks and tries not to start. It's like seeing a spirit move in the fade, but made weird by the fact that wasn't where they were. Definitely not like Justice.

But what Cole said set off a little warning in his head. This was making him uncomfortable and he couldn't quite put his finger on why.]

Rage? Are you saying Justice is going to turn into a demon? That's impossible, he'd never let himself, that's his biggest fear!

[No, it wasn't just that, it was the 'you.' It was unnecessary if the spirit meant a figurative 'you,' but he couldn't figure out why else Cole would say it.]

Spirits don't get to choose if they turn into demons.

Mortals shape us. I'm lucky. I have... memories. Easing the translation of this world. Solas, my Solas, said that I was a Compassion of tremendous will and power to manifest and that becoming Cole gave me a... buffer?

[He swings his legs.]

I don't know what will happen to your Justice. We can't see the future, even if mortals think we can. We can only see what there is.

[He can't really argue with that. What he knew about spirits was only what the Circle and Chantry had taught him and what Justice had told him. Maybe he should fix that, talk to Cole more and talk to Justice more once he's back home.

As soon as Cole stopped giving him the creeps.]

Ah...well, I'm sure he'll be fine, if he's shaped by our other friends, he'll turn out fine. Except Oghren but no one listens to him.

[New train of thought, he didn't want to linger on that one anymore.]

So, do you get hurt like a normal person, Cole, or is it not the same? Can you be healed like normal?

[Cole swings his legs, rocking back and forth slowly, listening to the ship and Anders himself, but looking far more like a young man than a spirit in the moment.]

Yes. If you cut me, I bleed. If you hit me in the head, I pass out. But I don't sleep. Or eat.

Interesting...

[He never would have guessed the truth about Cole, not if the young man (Spirit? Both.) hadn't said anything. It was too strange.]

Well, try to avoid those first two, I hear they're bad for your health.

[Cole seems incredibly human, physically.

Socially is another matter entirely.]

Yes. But sometimes the red templars don't die on the first strike. I feel bad when that happens, I want it to be fast. A relief from the burning and screaming.

[Anders smile goes tighter and his humor a little more strained under the confusion and uncertainty that one sentence causes.]

Red templars? I wasn't aware they came in any other color aside from silver and unpleasant.

[And what was wrong with a little templar suffering? They probably deserved it.]

It hasn't happened for you yet. But it has for me.

Red lyrium is bad. Very bad. Like Darkspawn are bad.

[Darkspawn and Templars, there's a thought he didn't like.

Well, there was a templar Grey Warden that had just recently joined back home, that wasn't a good thought either, the man gave Anders every kind of bad feeling. Templars drank lyrium, what happened if they drank 'red' lyrium? Made Red Templars. Joy. He hoped he never found out first hand.]

I'll count my lucky stars for missing out on that one.

Cole...in case I ever need to find you for anything, where do you usually...haunt? [Maybe not the best choice of words, but he doesn't change them.]

... I don't haunt anywhere. I'm not a ghost.

[He flickers across the room in another curl of smoke.]

I'm on the Pathstone. I've always lived there, since I came here.

I can help. If you let me.

[Anders gave him an incredulous look, but it was tempered with a measure of familiar affection. Suddenly Cole reminded him of Velenna and how she definitely didn't always understand Anders' figures of speech.]

Well, you're not doing a very good job proving that if you insist on flickering around the room in a very non-human way.

But, aside from that, I don't know how much you know about mages in Thedas, but sometimes they're not very liked or very well treated and I'm not too keen on putting my magic out there for other people to know about until I know this place better.

So, as much as I appreciate the offer, I don't intend to use my healing abilities if I can avoid it, just in case something unfortunate were to happen just in case.

[He did not relish the thought of potentially being captured for being strange or 'dangerous.' In fact, the idea terrified him.]

I'm a spirit, not a ghost.

[Cole gives Anders a long look. A LONG look.]

There was a mage called Cole. An apostate. They murdered him. Me. They hurt me and used me and murdered me. I know about being a mage in Thedas. I know about what some Templars do.

I know what some mages do. I know all the worst that people can be, because their worst is what hurts, so it's what I know.

[He looks down and away, hugging himself].

It's not like that here. The other Anders helped people with his magic. Elly used to cast her magic all the time when she got strong enough. There are beings made of dreams and magic and immersed in the Force.

Here is different.

Yes, I got that part.

[Anders waves him off. It was a figure of speech weird spirit-kid, gosh. It's the next part that holds his attention.

Even without true details, the way Cole described the apostate, Anders knew he'd actually found someone who understood. Not that it mattered, it didn't change anything. It didn't change that things were still terrible in Thedas and Anders wouldn't miss it, nor that Anders still didn't trust this place enough to be open with what he could do.

But it did make him think and consider. Maybe things were different here. Safe enough.

It was certainly something he'd rather think over than the continuous confusion this 'other anders' caused him. Every time he heard something knew about this other him, the more uncertain he became. Why did most of what he hear make it sound like he'd lost his mind and changed who he was? Why did this man who was supposedly him sound like an utter stranger? Anders didn't like it.]

Perhaps you're right, but I'm still not keen on skipping through the hallways with magic glowing in my hands. Not right now.

[Cole doesn't really get angry on the whole, but there was a spark of something like anger at the implication that he doesn't know how awful it can be for mages.

He settles again fairly quickly, but he knows the horror of so much of the world. What some templars have suffered at the hands of mages. Mages at the hands of templars. Sons and daughters to fathers and elderly parents with angry, over worked children supporting them.

He looks back to Anders face.]

That seems like a really strange thing to do. Even to me.

[Anders shakes his head and decides simply retreating back to his chair is the best option for now.]

I should have known better, Justice isn't very good with language either. I'd say I'm so hungry I could eat a horse and he'd ask me why I would do such a thing.

Forget it, Cole, I was joking.

I simply mean I intend to be careful for a while longer.

We're fine with language.

It's culture we don't understand very well.

Jon pokes his head in, looking strangely tired, more bone-weary than a boy of seventeen should rightly be. He also looks curious--Anders he's seen once or twice, but he's only given him a customary greeting before, never an actual conversation.

"This looks much cleaner than the last time I was in here," is the first thing he says to Anders that isn't good morning.

Anders, for all his lounging, at least has the decency to sit up when someone actually shows up. And it was even a someone he'd been 'talking' to when he made his broadcast. He's seen Jon, but other than a friendly smile and maybe a clever retort or two, they hadn't talked. Anders hadn't bothered to poke his head up and look around at who was with him here on the ship.

Despite his easy nature and his desire to simply kick back and never work, he was still a spirit healer and that didn't just go away. He saw the exhaustion in his shipmate and let the fact sit in his head for the moment while he greeted the kid.

"I would hope so, I actually worked hard on this place." Which was actually saying something, despite it being buried in a joke. "Can't expect people to get healthy when they're laying around in muck."

He moved from behind the desk to sit on the edge of it instead, arms crossing loosely in front of him. "You look tired. Something keeping you up at night? Or someone?" It wasn't his business, but that just made it even more tempting to ask. That and maybe, if it wasn't true, embarrassment would shake the truth out instead.

Jon holds himself, as ever, at a distance from Anders--a habit by now, one done almost unthinkingly--and watches as the man stands, just a little bit wary and suspicious. Some habits you can't shake, once you've picked them up.

He steps inside fully, glancing around the newly-cleaned clinic. "Thank you, then," he says, and the sincerity of it is buried somewhere in his bone-dry tone. "I'm glad I won't start sneezing anymore the second I walk in here from all the dust." That's a lie, he hasn't actually been here very often even before Anders came by.

At the question, he tenses a little. (Red hair, crooked teeth, you know nothing, Jon Snow--) "No," he says, bluntly. Maybe just a little too bluntly. "I just don't sleep very well." Which is true, but lately it's been worse for--family reasons, let's just say.

Jon's tone, sincere or otherwise, goes by without response. He'd faced plenty of times when his actions received appreciation, both deserved and undeserved and twice as many instances when his actions were simply dismissed or looked on with scorn, both large and small.

Jokes and smiles and smirks aside, Anders knew better than to expect anything from these people, one way or another. So he'd help them, as his Healer's status implied, and hope maybe his usefulness meant they wouldn't turn on or dismiss him before he could find a footing here. Or, preferably, a way home.

But, as a healer and (even more so) as a runaway, he'd learned how to read people decently well and that blunt response tells him his joke came a little too close to home for his 'patient's comfort. Something to file away for later. He puts on a light smile, a hand coming to his chin to rub at the growing scruff there. He really needed to shave.

"Ah, insomnia is a common problem where I'm from, lots of the people I knew back home didn't sleep much. I don't sleep much. We could make a club!" His tone turns a touch more serious. "I could help with that, if you'd like, just something to help you fall and stay asleep at night."

[Vash decides to poke his head in and see how the newest crew member was doing. He grins when he sees how comfortable Anders seemed to be in. It's a good start.]

Good to see you're getting settled in.

[Anders glanced over and smiled wide at his new visitor. He'd seen Vash around a few times, but Anders hadn't done much to interact with his crewmates except the courtesy of a 'hello.' It was time he fixed that if he was to be spending any significant amount of time with these people.

He didn't know how they might react to his magic, but maybe they'd be accepting enough of him as a person first and the rest could follow.]

Well, they gave me this nice new place to do...whatever it is I'll be doing, I figured it would be a waste not to use it.

Edited 2016-05-23 19:54 (UTC)

[Luckily Vash has his own secrets and if it comes up he won't bat an eye at magic use.]

Well, I'm not exactly sure either what they expect from this room either but, it's always nice to have more people on the ship. Keeps it from getting too quiet.

[Oh yes, space could be quiet...it wasn't something he was thrilled about, but as long as the ship kept running with it's background din, he'd be fine.

Not too dark, not too quiet]

Well, healing, I'm sure. I'm not sure about the rest. It's not it's sole purpose.

[He shrugs.]

I like not-quiet! Not-quiet is more fun and more interesting.

Anyway, I'm not overly familiar with what everyone does around here, sort of been keeping to myself. Sorry. What've they got you doing?

I'm the pilot of the ship actually. So if you ever need to get anywhere ask. I'm always happy to take people in the shuttle anywhere they want to go.

Well, except home unfortunately. I'm not that good of a pilot I'm afraid.

Edited 2016-05-27 02:54 (UTC)

Darn and here I was about to ask.

[His smirk is teasing. If it were that easy, he doubted there'd be very many people left here.]

I'll remember that, however! There's someone I talked to shortly after getting here who I said I'd meet.

Yeah? Making friends already? That's great! Just tell me when and where and I'll be happy to take you there! Or teach you the controls yourself one day. They're not too hard to learn. Especially if you've done any space flying before.

I'm a very charming person.

But...yeah, no I've never been in space before now. Being in space isn't something anyone back home even considered, I don't think. Not without being laughed at.

To be perfectly honest, I've never traveled through any means apart from my own two feet, not even a horse! It...would probably be best if I simply left it to those who won't crash the thing into the other ships.

Well then, don't worry about travel because I'm your man! And don't worry about the lack of space travel under your belt. Most of us from my understanding haven't been in space before this. [Although having never used a car or even a horse before may be different.]

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The doctor is in...sort of

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