driftfleet | Your regularly scheduled creepy visitor

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Your regularly scheduled creepy visitor

Who: Cole and anyone who needs him... or wants to chat to him
Broadcast: No
Action: On any ship except Marsiva, Tourist or Red Fish because he avoids visiting two and can't visit the third.
When: While the fleet is moving and probably a bit after

[There is this thing Cole does.

He visits other ships. Sometimes he put the Pathstone alongside to visit and sometimes he takes a shuttle, but he's constantly wandering all over the fleet, being with people, circulating.

He hasn't done it in a while. He got a nasty fright and went into hiding for a while.

But the creepy psychic being is back! Sticking his large nose into all the business.]

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Frustrating, isn't it.

[Hawke folds his arms, not angry at Cole but more angry at the situation, angry that Anders has been blamed for it entirely, that he's been both blamed for it and looked to to fix it when changing minds is the single hardest thing to do. He sighs a great sigh and breathes in and out like his father taught him so long ago now. In through the nose, out through pursed lips, let the frustration and anger out with it and away from himself so he can think clearly.]

I'm not angry at you, Cole. I'm frustrated with people, with all of it. And very tired. I thought perhaps being here in the Fleet that all of that would fade into the background. There's nothing to be done here about Thedas when it's so far away, but the issues don't stay there.

[Hawke runs a hand down his face, his age showing at the corners of his eyes and in the slope of his shoulders. The mantle of Champion he'd taken up not just for Kirkwall, but for all of Thedas. All of its Mages anyway, until Corypheus had returned. That was his responsibility too.]

I'm not disagreeing with you.

Edited 2016-06-14 04:35 (UTC)

The issues aren't in Thedas. Thedas doesn't care either way.

The issues are in people, and the people are here. So the issues are here with them.

[He walks over and sits up on a panel, feet swinging. His shoes are in terrible condition, more hole than shoe these days.]

People do that.

[Varric never mentioned anything about Cole pointing out the obvious and somehow making you feel an idiot in doing it as a side effect.]

You need new shoes.

[Petulant maybe, and abrupt, but there's nothing new to say on the matter of Mages and Templars.]

[It is a thing he does, sorry about that.]

Do I?

[He looks at his feet. They're surprisingly clean for once, by a side effect of not having had anything dirty to wander through recently.]

How do you know?

There's barely anything of them left.

[This is easier, talking about something simple and present than something all encompassing and complicated.]

Shoes are suppose to protect your feet. They're hardly doing that in the shape they're in.

[And Cole goes with the subject change quite happily.]

Are they? I just wore them because that's what people do.

[How can someone with so much insight be so... dim about the simplest of things? Honestly it reminds him of Merrill just a little and for a moment he wonders if Cole is putting him on.]

Well, yes, people do wear shoes, but it's for covering your feet, as I said. Wouldn't want to step on a rusty nail or a stray thorn. And before you ask, I have no idea how Elves go about barefoot all the time. They must have feet like Mabari.

I wasn't going to ask?

[Why would he ask you about that?]

My shoes wouldn't stop a nail or thorn. I don't think they would have when I first took them, either.

[Probably not. They're basically just thin leather.]

[He's just gonna breeze right past that one...]

Hence needing new ones. Come along, I think there's a locker somewhere on board with sturdy shoes.

[If not he has a spare pair. He doesn't mind wearing the ones he came in with, after all. If they fit, Cole can have the ones provided.

Out Hawke goes, leaving the wires hanging for now. Nothing's disconnected, just exposed, so it should be fine as long as no one touches it.]

But I don't need them! I only take what I need, because someone else might need it more.

[He still trots along after Hawke, because he sort of just follows people.]

These ones didn't mind going in the ocean. I minded. I nearly drowned, but Cullen pulled me out and hit my back until I stopped coughing out water. Sturdier ones might have wanted to stay in there.

Shoes can't want anything, they're shoes. And these are extra so either you take them or they go to waste.

[Just let him feel like he's accomplished something positive in the last week, alright? They might not fit anyway.

Honestly with his luck they probably won't...]

You just don't hear them. That doesn't mean they don't have opinions.

[Cole does have big hands and feet. Like he never quite finished growing into them.]

You're joking. I didn't know spirits could joke.

[Adalwolfe opens the door to his quarters and retrieves a pair of shiny new ankle boots. Mostly that's why he can't stand them. They offer no protection for his shins at all.]

Here, try these.

...

[He's not. Hawke doesn't... seem to get it.

Cole looks at the boots, slightly suspicious.]

How do I bend my ankles in them?

The leather's supple enough to bend with you I think. If it's leather, who knows with these space age things, but it should bend with you.

Go ahead, try them on.

[Cole still look suspicious, but he takes them, holding them and trying to see what they had to say.

Not much. They were very new. Made without emotion. It was strange.

He sat down, pulling off his shoes and pulling on one of the boots. He didn't tie up the laces, just moved his foot around, testing how it felt.]

A bit like armour boots.

Do they fit alright?

[He watches Cole flex his ankle, trying to see if the shoes are the spirit's size.]

Do they pinch anywhere?

[Or can Cole just... make them fit by changing shape a bit through general spiritiness? Hawke has no idea. The only spirit he'd spent any long amount of time with was Justice and it's not as if they had heart to heart conversations. It's only now that he's starting to get a sense that Justice changed Anders when the mage had let the spirit inhabit him, and whether that's good or bad is something he hasn't settled on yet.

The thought makes him frown.]

I don't know.

[Nothing he had fitted him right. He wasn't sure how to tell if they fit.

He looks at his feet, tapping them together and then doing up the laces, sort of. He pulled them tighter, but didn't knot them.]

Spirits shouldn't live in people. It's bad for us.

[Does he know how to tie shoes?

...

Why would a spirit know how to tie shoes?

Adalwolfe kneels down to have a go at the laces for Cole but he doesn't get that far, instead snapping his head up to look at the gangly youth.]

What do you mean, bad for you?

[He knows how to tie knots, but he still forgets he needs to tie laces most of the time.]

Mortals shape spirits. You know that. Being in a mortal, even when both of you agree to it, it's not good for us. We're changed by it.

[He does know that. Maker's balls, Anders had practically told him as much. Hawke had thought the other mage was being melodramatic at the time but after what happened in Kirkwall, after what Justice had almost done to that girl, what they'd done together to the Chantry...]

Was it... really his fault, then? That Justice...

[Hawke trails off but he's sure Cole knows.

That Justice was corrupted?

Hawke shakes his head and stands, knotting done.]

No, even if that is what happens, laying blame is pointless. From what I understand they merged mutually, for good reason. Even if the result wasn't what they'd hoped, neither one can be at fault for a mistake. They likely didn't know.

[That has to be it.]

It wasn't anyone's fault. Justice was trapped and Anders wanted to help his friend. It's not about fault or blame, just understanding. You need to understand.

They probably didn't think about it and it did take a long time. Longer than usual for the mutual problems to start. But Anders was angry. Rightly angry, but angry. And Justice could feel the righteousness of it. Echoed it.

Lots of things led to that moment. Cullen blames himself still for not standing against her sooner. Marian blamed herself for not stepping in and getting aggressively involved. Varric always carried a spark of guilt for the red lyrium statue.

Everyone thought they were doing the right thing.

[He has to walk away for a moment. It's only a few steps, but he puts his back to Cole and brings a hand to his head. He'd thought they'd been over this enough, that it had been put behind them for all the good it had turned out to do for the mages thanks in no small part to the Inquisitor for allowing the mages to freely aid the Inquisition and diffusing further hostilities between them and the Templars. Inquisitor Lavellen had done what Hawke could not and Adalwolfe felt nothing but gratitude for that.

But Anders... Adalwolfe worries for his love. He'd always been wary over Justice, the way he would take over Anders entirely when in the Fade, causing the blond to forgo sleep as often as he could spare. Or the way he could take over Anders even in the waking world, if something he deemed unjust happened in front of him. He'd erupt suddenly and not relinquish hold of Anders without a battle of wills, one that always left the healer ragged and shuddering.

And yet Anders always maintained Justice was his friend, that he had done wrong by the Spirit with his anger. Adalwolfe took that with a grain of salt, but after hearing Anders speak of Justice now, here when he came from before Kirkwall, before he'd merged with Justice, he now thinks that corruption could potentially go both ways. No, not... not corruption. Contamination, bleeding into one another until the edges are blurred between soul and Spirit. Anders had said, so eerily calm after the explosion, "I took a spirit into my soul and changed myself forever..."

Did that spirit tell you to do this? Hawke had asked with anger, but it was a plea too, an askance to give him someone to blame other than the man to whom he'd given his heart.

"No. When we merged, he ceased to be. We are one now."

But that can't be true, can it? With Justice as a separate consciousness in the Fade? He'd seen it. It had been years before, but he'd seen it. There had to be a way to separate them again, to save both of them from the influence of the other...

Yet it was Justice that caused Anders to act. Like this, here in the fleet, he's a coward to the point of hiding, only cowed into helping the injured when it became too difficult to ignore. Adalwolfe prefers his Anders, the one he fell in love with in Kirkwall. Older, perhaps more hurt, but more earnest too. None of these silly deflections and off-color jokes to hide behind. When Anders joked in Kirkwall, it was because he wanted to, not to hide anything else.

He let himself care, then. And perhaps that's partially with Justice to thank.

But it's not how it's supposed to be, is it?]

Is there a way to separate them?

[Cole listens in.

He's not trying to pry, he's trying to understand so he can help. Understanding is the only way to help, so he wants to understand this.

And he does, in a way. Justice (Vengeance) and Anders affected each other. Anders made Justice angry. Justice drove Anders to actions a spirit could never make alone.]

Yes. Faith left Wynne, for Evangeline. A spirit bound in this world cannot get back to the Fade, not that I know of, but I'm not Wisdom. There's lots I don't know.

Faith left Wynne, but Wynne died. Evangeline was dying and Faith sustains her. I don't know how to separate Anders and Vengeance. They both need to want it, though and I don't think they do. It's them against the world. Like no one else can ever understand.

You're right. They're not one. They share a mind and body, but the soul and spirit aren't the same. But... A spirit leaving usually kills the mortal, from what I've seen.

He gives a small shrug, not standing up off the floor.

I'm not wise, or clever, or educated. I know about how people feel, but not about abominations, really. I'm not in a person. I never have been. Never wanted to be. So I don't entirely get it.

[It's not what he wanted to hear, but it's expected. There's a glimmer of hope in saying usually, in saying he doesn't entirely understand, but if there's a risk that Anders could die if they separated, Adalwolfe isn't willing to take it.

Though that may not be his decision, if he tells Anders about this conversation.]

I know abominations. Anders isn't one, not with Justice. I would know.

[He breathes out, turning back around to face Cole with a tenuous smile.]

Thank you for telling me. I think, if that's something that Justice and Anders would want, we'd need more information before presenting it to him.

Them. [He corrects himself.]

Why don't we just keep this to ourselves for now, alright? Justice isn't even here anyway, so it's all a moot point.

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