ACTION! Meeting people!

[killedwithlove]

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.

Comments

[forcemageure]

[ Hawke laughs, a bright bark of sound that bounces off the hyper futuristic kitchen implements like rain on a tin roof. ]

Those, yes. And thanks for saying so, I'm pretty fond of the name. Had it since birth and everything.

[ Pretty fond. What a wild understatement. His name is as much a part of him as ...well, as the hat is part of Cole. For anyone else that would make kind of a tragic metaphor, but it's probably one Cole would understand. The things people choose to make part of themselves, and the things they don't.

Meanwhile, Slay has moved onto the part of the very special episode of Cat Meets Cole where Cole is pretty much entirely obligated to pick him up. Bizarrely for a cat who will, as has been smartly observed, bite anyone near the belly area, he only likes to be held like a baby, which is to say cradled on his back.

Hawke watches this, half-smile like a lemon peel, and tries very hard not to think about spiders. Or slick green rocks. Or impossible upside down waterfalls made of blood. Knowing exactly what he does about Cole, not thinking about the Fade is like not thinking about elephants. ]

[killedwithlove]

[Slay is picked up and cradled like a baby, because so long as he's providing how he likes to be held, Cole can manage it. He stands up, rubbing the chest still, but unlike most people holding an animals like a baby, he doesn't rock or bounce, lacking the basic instinct to soothe a babe in arms.]

I don't like the Fade much either. Since I became Cole, it's never been good when I end up there. But I don't sleep. That helps.

[forcemageure]

[ At this rate, Cole's ship is going to end up with a cat of its own. ...just kidding. Cole is an excellent cuddler, but Hawke dispenses Food. Very important.

Meanwhile, because there is no other possible way he can react to this, Hawke looses another laugh, although this one is more about self-defense than anything else. ]

Any idea how one goes about learning that? Or is it more a special perk of being you.

[killedwithlove]

[Cole visibly withdraws at the question, shoulders up, head down, hat hiding him. Keeps cuddling Slay, because it's feels nice, Slay's warm and soft and his heart doesn't thrum like a rabbit being held.]

You don't learn. I'm not a person. I'm a demon.

[And he takes a step back slightly.]

[forcemageure]

[ He's also purring like a tiny engine! V. useful.

Hawke raises like, one and a half eyebrows. ]

I was given to understand it's a bit more complicated than that. Not to impugn your right to impugn yourself or anything.

[ Unless you're ...Fenris, but Hawke has already had that conversation. ]

[killedwithlove]

[Cole relaxes a little when Hawke doesn't get angry or start yelling. The putting cat probably helps.]

Solas says I'm a spirit, thought spirit and demon are just different names for the same thing. I'm a spirit. Compassion. But now I'm Cole. But I don't live in anyone's body! This is my body. Spirits shouldn't be in mortal bodies. It's bad for everyone.

I don't know what impugn is.

[forcemageure]

To impugn is to take issue with, more or less. What I'm saying is that if you insisted you were a demon I wouldn't stop you, but--well, Compassion does sound less 'hello, hi, I'm here to slowly turn your mind to porridge,' doesn't it? Let's go with that.

[ Uh. He's always like this. At the least there are zero signs of anger or yelling!

The second bit does ...well. He only knows one person it applies to. Or will apply to, as it were. ]

I take it you've met Anders.

[ That is a very dark, dark little joke. It doesn't seem to be aimed at anyone, but. Joking about things takes the sting out of them or so goes the theory.

[killedwithlove]

I couldn't turn anything to porridge, even if I wanted to. And I wouldn't hurt someone like that. I try not to hurt anyone. Even if I have to kill them.

[Another denizen of Thedas is more likely to understand that. Thedas is a brutal world, and killing in common place for a lot of reasons.]

I spoke to him. He seems nice. Varric, the Varric I knew in Skyhold, he called him Blondie and mourned the fact he was so angry that he burned his world down.

He healed people, spirit healer. I'm a spirit. I can help him heal. If he'd like. I don't know if he'd want me near him. A lot of people don't when they know what I am.

[forcemageure]

There's a lot to be angry about where we come from.

[ He says it without much emotion in any direction, although--the phrasing, evocative and sort of painfully beautiful, sends the place right behind his eyes washing back to that impossible-colored explosion, clear and irrevocable against Kirkwall's thick sick sky.

Meanwhile 'we' is of course all three of them. As Hawke understands death by necessity, death that stops pain, so Cole might understand the slow-burning fuse of that anger. He leans back against a Conveniently Placed counter and crosses his arms over his chest, loose rather than defensive. A way of shoring up his own posture without blocking off Cole's presence. The smile that crooks the curve of his mouth is barely a twitch, but warm as sunlight all the same. ]

Trust me, when he figures it out you'll know it.

[ Anders is not shy, thought Hawke, winning every understatement award. He clears his throat a little, wrenching the subject to something uh, less. Less this. ]

Thank the Maker for that, anyway. Can't stand porridge myself. [ ...huh. ] Do you...eat? Not that I'm offering, all we've got are horrifying echoes of croissants past.

[ Hawke loev u Beverly. ]

[killedwithlove]

Yes. Cole was very angry, before the pain was too much.

[Cole closes his eyes and cuddled Slay closer to him, bending to inhale the soft smell of cat and feel warmth and fur on his face.]

The walls hold nothing in except the horror and pain, nothing out but the needed hope that no one ever feels enough of, evil lingers and lurks and leeches through the city like taint from the Blight, a city grown from blood-

I need to go to Kirkwall one day. There's so much hurt there that needs helping.

[He shakes his head, not coming up from cuddling and rubbing kitty.] No. Other people need food more than me. I don't need to eat, so I don't.

[forcemageure]

[ Slay smells, mysteriously, of vanilla. No one knows why.

Where nothing else so far has really gotten much of a rise out of Hawke, the litany of Kirkwall makes take one hand down from the bend of his arm, palm half up, half out. ]

Stop. That's not--you're not seeing it, that's not all that's there.

[ Yes, Kirkwall was ...Kirkwall, but it was home. It was his. He half-shuts his eyes, thinks very hard of Aveline's face, so open and silly she looked ten years younger, eyes following Donnic's solid-brick-build around the barracks when she thought no one was looking. Isabela obliterating Anders at cards on one of the rare nights he'd actually spend with the rest of them. Merrill sticking flowers (from ...the Viscount's private gardens) into the pointless metal foldy thing at the front of his armor. Not just them, not just his friends. People happy beyond reason to have a lost precious something returned (stone toes? whatever, Hawke didn't ask). Hope was a foreign concept in Kirkwall, maybe, but happiness, even in the smallest doses, didn't have to be.

Hawke is pretty sure that that's all anyone can hope for, actually, those handful of blinks where nothing hurts, but--he's probably the wrong person to ask. Champion of the City of Chains and all. ]

[killedwithlove]

But it's what hurts you about it.

[And that's what Cole sees through others. The worst of what people are and can be.

It's not all. He sees nice things, which will help ease the pain, but right now, there's nothing of that in it.]

I don't choose what I know. I don't choose to know. I'd stop it if I knew how. I can try and not say it, I'll keep it inside.

[forcemageure]

[ Hawke pinches the bridge of his nose. He is definitely the last person to be offering uhhhh any meaningful statements on the part of humanity, but. ]

No, I won't be impugning your right to say things either. Maker knows the hypocrisy might suck all the atmosphere out of the room if I did.

[ Impugn is a joke here, meanwhile! Because it's a callback to a previous part of the conversation, you see?

...at least it's not sarcasm. ]

You've never met anyone with a hurt they wanted to keep? [ A little rhetorical, mostly genuine.. ]

[killedwithlove]

I try not to, but my inside gets full and it's hard to keep it from coming out.

[He knows people aren't the same. And he is getting better about blurting things out.]

No. Some people have small aches, but the ache makes them feel good in some way, so it's not a hurt anymore. It was a hurt, but as it stops hurting, it makes other things. Satisfaction, vindication, vilification. Vengeance.

[forcemageure]

[ That takes him a second to process, but when he does he tips his chin up, the layers of Cole's ideas clicking neatly into place like interlocking tiles. ]

This makes...well. Memory, I suppose. I'll hang onto those; some of them were damn hard work to get!

[ On the other hand, the young man isn't actually wrong. If he hadn't loved Kirkwall failure to save it wouldn't throb like a bruise even years later. The sensation is odd; he hasn't talked about the city since.

Vengeance he's just going to leave alone. The immediate association is obvious. ]

[killedwithlove]

[Cole tilts his head, stares blankly for a moment and then nods, turning his attention back to Slay.]

I'm sorry, I was distracted. And I don't think I want to put my finger in your ear.

[forcemageure]

[ That's what you say now, Cole. Your wants are meaningless in the face of a cat's needs. Needs unknown even to them. Hawke tilts his chin down, committing about 3/4 a smile to the scene. ]

He stays with the ship, I'm sorry to say.

[ He's not attached to the cat, you're attached to the cat!! >__> ]

[killedwithlove]

[Cole does use a knuckle to rub his ear. It's a concession.]

I wouldn't try and take him away. It would hurt both of you.

[forcemageure]

I was thinking more he might try to sneak out under your hat.

[ This is happening. ]

[killedwithlove]

If he wanted to leave, he'd tell me and then I'd ask you. I don't think he'd fit under my hat.

[forcemageure]

[ Slay might actually! Under the scraggly fur is a pretty slender cat. ]

He'd tell you. Really. In so many words, or...?

[ In other words, does Cole actually receive the equivalent of language from animals, or just impressions. ]

[killedwithlove]

[Slay is getting a very thorough under the chin scratch now.]

Not with words. But everyone and everything will tell you plenty without words.

[forcemageure]

[ Hawke hehs under his breath. ]

A fair point. What's he telling you now?

[killedwithlove]

That he's comfortable and wants me to keep scratching him under the chin... and down onto the chest?

[He slides his hand down to oblige.]

People are harder, because they can say one thing and say another.

[forcemageure]

You mean ...say one thing but another comes across? Like someone who says they're fine when they're not.

[ Hawke knows no such people like that, naturally. He's leaning a little more forward from the counter now; Cole's thought processes are interesting as long as they're not talking about--well, not Hawke. ]