Video 01

[killedwithlove]

Who: Cole and anyone
Broadcast: Fleet-wide
Action: Marvisa
When: Now until the next shuffle?

[Cole doesn't usually sleep, so waking up is very unfamiliar. He doesn't usually feel the cold or heat much, so the deep coldness in his bones is alien.

He jerks upright with a gasp, hands scrabbling at the back of his neck and then he vanishes in a puff of black-green smoke and reappears in the corner of the room, pressing himself back into it, staring around with wide eyes.]

Whispering, watchful, wakeful, wondering, where?

[He then spends a while patting things around him like the floor and wall, whispering under his breath.

In all honesty, he'll stay in that room until someone convinces him to leave and go elsewhere. It's not like he has to leave for any reason.]

Comments

[unconfines]

Ah, but isn't Wicked Grace a kind of magic?

[Yes, this time he's doing it on purpose.]

[killedwithlove]

No.

No. It isn't.

[unconfines]

[He clucks his tongue, shaking his head.]

We have so much to teach you, my friend.

[killedwithlove]

Yes. I have a lot more to learn about this world. I've been in the physical world for a few years, but there's so much to it.

[unconfines]

[A pause, not quite so much hesitation as thoughtfulness. He debates whether he really wants to know, how far down this rabbit hole he's willing to go.]

So it's true, then? You being... [A vague hand gesture.] Not quite of this world.

[killedwithlove]

I'm a spirit. Or I was. Now I'm a spirit but also not a spirit. I was Compassion before I was Cole.

[unconfines]

Is that so? Odd place for a spirit, if you don't mind me saying so. Most spirits I've known are a bit put off by our world.

[By "most spirits" he means... Justice, pretty much, at least to start.]

[killedwithlove]

This world is painful, confusing, enraging, engaging and enamored. Spirits don't belong in this world. They shouldn't be here.

But I can't go back. I have too many people to help.

[unconfines]

[Justice had been coming to adore their world, he remembers. He talked frequently about the beauty of it, the confusion in it, all the injustices that he'd wanted to see righted.

He doesn't want to think about it anymore.]

That would be what Compassion does, I suppose. How are we defining help here, exactly? Help them with their love lives? Their financial struggles? Petty squabbles over which of their sisters really took the last cookie from the cookie jar?

[killedwithlove]

Help is making hurts hurt less. Sometimes, people just need a warm meal, someone to tell them that it wasn't their fault.

I can see hurts. Hear them. Confinement, choking, crushing me from all sides, I need to breathe, I need to be out, I need to not be in this place that's crushing me out of myself.

Sometimes all I can do is feel it and slowly pluck at the knots.

[unconfines]

[Another lapsing silence, uncertainty flickering over his face. It strikes too close to home, that, and in the context of the conversation he's suddenly unsure if Cole is talking about himself.

He shouldn't be having this conversation, he realizes belatedly. With everything else that's been going on with people from their world, talking to a spirit of Compassion is maybe not the wisest choice he's ever made.

But his mouth gets away from him, as it does.]

Some things are bigger than one person is able to fix, you know. Helping, it— doesn't always help.

[killedwithlove]

[Cole stares at the screen, like whatever Anders just said was spoken in gibberish.]

I help people. Sometimes that means getting other people to help too.

[unconfines]

It isn't always that simple, is what I'm saying. [He's speaking a little more earnestly, a little more seriously.] Our world isn't like the Fade. Some things just are and they always will be, no matter how much hurt they cause.

[killedwithlove]

I know this world isn't like the Fade. I've lived in this world for... a while. A few years?

[He's not great with time still. And he has no idea how long he haunted the Pit.]

But I can try. One person at a time, I can try to help people. You can't make hurts vanish, I know that. But you can do something to let it start hurting less.

[unconfines]

[He's quiet for a moment, rubbing his face. Then he shakes his head, seemingly willing to just leave the disagreement there.]

Well. That's... awfully noble of you. [As if spirits could be anything else, constantly chasing a higher virtue mankind doesn't have any hope of achieving.] It was Cole, you said?

[killedwithlove]

No. It's not noble of me. Noble is a title and telling people what to do and looking after them because of it.

I want to help people. I don't have to, not like Compassion did, but I want to more than ever.

Yes. I'm Cole, now.

[unconfines]

[He shakes his head, slightly exasperated.]

You can call me Anders. Remind me later to find you a thesaurus.

[killedwithlove]

Is Justice in there with you?

What's a thesaurus?

[unconfines]

No. [More vehemently than he means, skipping over the question entirely. He clears his throat.] No. Justice is perfectly content to criticize my life choices from outside my head at the moment.

[killedwithlove]

Good.

[Cole relaxes and smiles slightly.]

Don't let him. It's not good for spirits or people, usually.

[unconfines]

You're here. [It comes out defensive, a bizarre urge to stick up for Justice, bound against his will to the rapidly deteriorating remains of Kristoff, and for himself, for no reason at all.] You must have gotten a body from somewhere.

[killedwithlove]

No. This is my body. This is my shape, in and out of the Fade.

[Yes, it is very weird that he's a spirit who takes the shape of a young man. He's been made aware that he's uniquely odd.]

I don't share with anyone else. I'm just me. I came through because I was needed.

[unconfines]

You— what?

["Flabbergasted" is a good word. It almost trumps the frustration he's feeling.]

But that isn't possible. Is it? How could you just... pick up your own body, out of nowhere?

[killedwithlove]

It must be possible, because I did it.

I don't know how I did it. I just did.

[unconfines]

[A stretch of silence.]

It sounds like there's a lot of this you don't understand. If you don't mind me saying so.

[It's not particularly polite. He'd probably say it even if he thought Cole did mind.]