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Who: Cole to everyone
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Pathstone
When: Now

[Cole is actually looking at the camera, which is a minor miracle for those familiar with his habit of leaving his communicator next to him and pointing at the ceiling.]

How do mortals know what you're feeling? Varric used to tell me what it was, or Jove, or Solas, but they're gone and now I don't know what these feelings are. I can tell how to help other people and how to navigate their hurts but I can't do it with my own.

[He gives a small sigh and looks off somewhere. A fluff slug climbs over the communicator screen.]

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Talk to me, Cole. I'm still here.

[Tyrion's voice is quiet, and calm, and absolutely warm. Cole has always been his friend, after all.]

[Cole hums softly, peering into the communicator.]

It's... like the mages. All together, but the words are empty, echoing, echoed by the Templars. They're all angry at Justice, but not Anders. They keep talking about 'fixing' Justice, 'stopping him' as though he's something evil and irredeemable, and he's not. I was like him. And Rhys helped me.

[He's actually upset about it, not his usual quiet want to help but actual upset.]

Mortals blame us, but we reflect them! We can't make any mortal do something that isn't in them already. We... enhance. But we always get the blame and no here understands!

... he wouldn't be Vengeance if other mortals hadn't done so many terrible things to Anders. Mortals! Not us!

[The last bit is whispered, gasped. There's a soft sound of multiple slugs starting to try and soothe.]

[Tyrion listened carefully, before he spoke softly.] It sounds like there was a beginning to all this - somewhere. Where spirits were just spirits and humans were just humans. Humans always hate what they fear, though, especially when it is something that can change them without their will or their permission. I imagine spirits are rather powerful that way. It is not ... as much mortals, as it is fear of what can happen, not what has happened.

But they change us! All the time! Things change, that's what they do.

[There was before, but he doesn't remember it. He probably hadn't spun into existence then, but he's seen it, in dreams, in memories, in words that sit too close.

There may yet be an after, but he can't see the future. He doesn't know if there will be, just what the dreams of it are like.

Don't tell.]

We shouldn't live in people, but Justice didn't have a choice and Anders couldn't let him suffer. But now... everyone talks about getting rid of Vengeance, but it's not his fault. They did awful things, but they did them together and they did because no one would help them.

They were wrong and went too far, but- But there's lots of things involved, not just a spirit in a mortal doing bad.

Lots of people do awful things without spirits and without despair.

I want to help them. I don't know how, I can't help them.

I- I miss home, sometimes.

[Not Thedas. Yes, Thedas. He misses the Fade. Sometimes, he even misses the simplicity of being Compassion.]

Why is being mortal so hard?

That is quite true ... so you must give time to change with you. You are one of the few spirits that has come out of the Fade to be like this, yes? Perhaps the very first? Justice is also the first of one. So here we go ... the first of first.

[He breathed softly.]

Now ... how can we really help this Justice person, and where are they?

... the first.

The only.

But others come across. Mortals make them come across and into bodies and then it goes badly for everyone.

Justice and Anders are an abomination, but neither of them wanted it, it was just the best outcome. Justice was trapped over here in a decaying body and Anders didn't want him to suffer.

[He wriggled on the spot, looking off in the distance and then back, uncomfortable.]

I don't know. He's in Anders still but I don't know how to separate them without destroying one or both of them. They've been together a long time.

No one knows. I don't think even Solas knew.

Well, if they came together ... there must be some way they can come apart again. You made yourself a body, could Justice do the same?

[Tyrion lifted both eyebrows.]

You were, you are, the first. Which means you could teach others the way, if you wanted to. If you knew how.

I don't know.

If Justice were removed, he would dissipate back to the Fade, or into nothing, probably. I don't know how I made myself real. I don't know if Cole dying made me more real.

I was Compassion. Simpler. Maybe powerful for Compassion. But I didn't really... understand. I still don't.

Cole dying... gave me... context for the world. Spirits need that. So I understood things like gravity, and walls and object permanence.

I see ... and would Justice need the same sort of context? Would he be able to transfer into something like his former self - or perhaps a copy of .. a person who passed on?

No!

Spirits shouldn't live in other people or things.

This body is mine. Justice would need to want to manifest, to have the strength to manifest himself here. Or try and let go back to the Fade.

All right, two questions that I must ask, so we can take the sting of blame away from you.

Since spirits cannot - or should not - live in other people or things, is there a Fade here? And does he have the strength to manifest?

I don't know. Salos says there isn't.

And I don't know if he does. I don't know how to tell if a spirit does.

Who is Salos?

[Another pause.]

Then there is literally nothing you can do to help him, Cole, and it is not your fault. You might want to educate those whom want to kill Justice why there might not be any other choices, that does not mean they should choose this one.

[Salos is Jemi's inability to type Solas after staying up until 1 am watching Snakes of a Plane.]

I told them. But... I don't know what they'll do yet.

[LOL I thought Solas's player had him going with his name backwards.]

Then you have to give them time to think about what they will do, Cole. It is too easy to despair when one does not have enough information.

[Nope, just Jemi's sleep deprivation.]

I don't like Despair.

[It sounds a lot like "Despair frightens me".]

Neither do I -- despite my affinity for it. One day, one step at a time, all right?

Compassion becomes Mercy, becomes Despair.

I don't want to be Despair.

I told you I would never let you become Despair, Cole, and I mean it. Can we save justice at all?

You did.

I don't know. I really don't. I don't know much about sprits in this world.

Well, before we lose hope, or whatever other spirits we might have - then let us see what we can do for Justice first.

Yes. I want to help Justice AND Anders.

Well I assumed we would be able to help them together without any issues.

They don't need the same things, I don't think.

All right, what things would they require?

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