driftfleet | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

The doctor is in...sort of

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