driftfleet | ACTION! Meeting people!

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ACTION! Meeting people!

Who: Cole and anyone who stands still long enough to be talked to
Broadcast: No.
Action: One ALL fleet ships except The Tourist and The Three Twins
When: During the week.

Cole doesn't like the communicators. He finds it too disorientating to talk to people and have that vast distance between them.

Instead, he's setting out to visit each of the ships and meet the people on board. He likes people and he likes meeting and talking with people and he'd far rather do that face to face.

Don't worry. He doesn't take up much space and he takes up no supplies. He just wants to meet people.

But... he gives The Tourist and The Three Twins a wide berth. Fenris had been very clear that he was not to see Cole again and Cole will respect that by avoiding the places he seems to be.

Anyone from those ships will have to be visitors somewhere else to run into Cole.

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If you don't think they need to apologize you could say... 'you don't need to apologize, but thank you'. Because sometimes even if you don't think someone needs to apologize, they think they do, so it's important to them to say it.

Well that's very good of you. Though sometimes... people do things that hurt so badly it's hard to forgive them.

[ She hasn't entirely forgiven Jowan for what he did to escape the Circle (for what he convinced her to do, for lying to her), and she definitely hasn't forgiven Alistair for abandoning her at the landsmeet for making the best choice she could.

Maybe one day she'll manage it, but she's not sure. ]

You're... you haven't been around people very much, have you? You seem very sheltered.

Okay.

You don't need to apologise, but thank you.

[That simple. She's forgiven. She didn't mean to hurt him, so his forgiveness is unreserved.]

I'm around people, but I don't interact with them a lot. Most people couldn't see me and didn't remember me, so I didn't interact with them except to help them.

In White Spire, people couldn't see me, even if I tried to make them see me. Once I found out what I was, I got better at letting people see me, but it was only after Varric helped me that people started to actually see me and remember me.

It was frightening, but... good.

[ ....That is oddly endearing, that he needed to know just the right thing to say to her. True, he'll be able to use that information in other situations, but... still. ]

Come on, let's go sit instead of standing about in the hallway.

[ If he'll let her, she'll take his hand and lead him to the library. There are chairs there at least. ]

What do you mean once you found out what you were? Do you mean a mage?

[He lets her, following after her, quiet and calm and with no signs of objecting to holding hands with a strange lady.]

No. Cole was a mage. An apostate. I'm not. I'm a spirit.

[ Steffa starts a little, and pauses with her hand on the door to the library, though to her credit she doesn't drop his hand. ]

A spirit? That...

[ she pauses, thinking about Justice. Cole is nothing like Justice, but then again... he's clearly not a spirit of Justice. She shakes her head a little and pushes the door open. It makes her nervous, but he seems to be doing all right, not showing any signs of wanting to kill people or anything. ]

Well, that explains a lot of things.

I'm Compassion, not Justice.

[He also reads minds. Which can be incredibly frustrating, embarrassing and painful. Or outright hilarious.]

And I'm not in a borrowed body. This body is mine. Spirits shouldn't get in bodies, it's not good for them. Too many emotions, histories, feelings.

[ Well, that's... unsettling.

She's sure she'll get used to it eventually, but gosh. ]

Well, then we can avoid the difficulties Justice ran into, can't we?

[ She drops his hand and sits, tucking her legs up under her ]

So, you're a spirit of Compassion, who... somehow has managed to get your own body? How does that work?

Probably. I've been in the world for a few years now, I think. And I'm in my own body.

I don't know how it happened.

[He curled up, hugging his knees to his chest in a gesture that could seem defensive, but was just habit.] When Cole died, he rushed out and it made me real. Like him.

[ He shouldn't exist. By everything they know about spirits and the fade, he should not exist. And yet... here he is. Against all odds.

It's kind of a miracle. ]

He sounds like an amazing man. And a skilled mage on top of that. Do you remember how you met him?

[ Curiosity almost always wins out over tact when it comes to things like this. ]

He wasn't a man. He was a boy. He was a boy, and when they found him, they put a sack on his head and cuffs on his wrists and ankles and hit him when he protested.

[He doesn't look at her as he says it.]

I met him when he was dying. Pain, pinching, pulling, pressing up, hollow and hurting. They put him in a cell and they forgot him. He died slowly, over many weeks. I tried to comfort him when he slept, stayed with him and kept Despair from wriggling into him.

He wasn't a skilled mage. He was a young apostate. He died alone and scared and starving because the Templars forgot they had put him down in the Pit.

[For the horror of his words, there's little emotion in his voice. He stays quiet and calm, though he hugs his knees a bit harder.]

[ Steffa shifts, hugging her legs to her chest much like Cole, her chin resting on her knees. It's times like this, Steffa can almost agree that the Circle should be disbanded. She doesn't understand why people are so quick to fear and despise something they don't understand. Why they would do that to a child.

They could've done it to her, if it hadn't been for Duncan. Oh, she probably wouldn't have starved, the templars in Ferelden weren't generally that cruel, but...

She's silent for a long time, and when she speaks, her voice is a little wobbly. ]

I'm glad you were there for him, then.

[And Cole knows that his story isn't unique. Cole wasn't starved through cruelty. He was forgotten. And Cole still considers that nearly better, better than his inevitable fate.]

If they'd remembered, they would've made him not a person. Or killed him. Better dead than not a person. Pharamond said so. Begged, bargained, bared himself to the knife rather than be cut out again.

[ Steffa shudders. ]

I'd rather die than become Tranquil. Being forgotten like that is... awful, but it could've been so much worse.

Yes. Tranquil. Pharamond was Tranquil, then he wasn't and he asked me to kill him before they made him Tranquil again.

[He never had to make that decision. Red Hair killed him first.]

He starved to death. It was still pretty awful.

No doubt about that.

[ She lets out a long breath, then laughs suddenly ]

We just have the most cheerful of conversations, don't we?

[Sarcasm is still lost on him.]

No. This isn't a cheerful conversation at all.

Oh, we need to sit you down with Garrett and teach you about sarcasm.

[ new subject, new subject... ]

Do you like the people on your ship?

I like Jove! She's an Inquisitor, but not my Inquisitor, but she's very nice. She reminds me of Solas, thought she's very different from him. But they were both very gentle when I got scared.

Crowley says he's a demon, but I don't think he really is.

Jove is very nice. I really should try to get to know her more.

I don't think I've met Solas yet. Is he from Thedas?

[ She's not even going to touch the demon guy, as she's pretty sure no one on the fleet is an actual demon as far as she's concerned. ]

[Well done, Cole's two favourite people (at the moment) in a single conversation.]

Solas is a rift mage. He studies the Fade and spirits and I don't think anyone has ever known as much about it as him. When I was scared of what I was, he made it seem less frightening. He didn't like that Varric helped me learn to be more human, but he still says I'm his friend.

He studies the Fade?

[ Note to self: corner this Solas fellow and make him tell you everything, omm* ]

Well, whatever his feelings on what Varric helped you do, I'm glad he stayed your friend. How did he even study the Fade? That seems like it would be... difficult, to say the least.

[ Clearly, Steffa has priorities. ]

*oh my maker

Yes. A lot. He's not a spirit medium, I don't think, but he's better with spirits than even Rhys was.

He's a mage. He sleeps a lot, and lucidly dreams.

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ACTION! Meeting people!

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