001

[openhands]

Who: Cassandra Pentaghast & YOU!!
Broadcast: Fleet-wide
Action: SS Marsiva
When: week of April 12-18

[When Cassandra wakes, she goes from sound asleep to alert in just a matter of a couple of seconds. She's out of bed immediately with a reflexive reach for weapons that aren't there. Naturally, this merits a frustrated growl, but no matter. She doesn't need a sword or shield to do some damage if she must to get out of...wherever this place is.]

[She scans the room with a little more scrutiny with a scowl before she notices the communicator and picks it up. Enjoy your new view of the ceiling, network, while she looks the device over in her hands because she doesn't understand why she has some vague sense of familiarity with it without ever having seen it before in her life. It's at least something to take her mind off the fact she has absolutely no idea how she got here in the first place.]

What is this?

[Answer her before books start getting stabbed, you guys.]

Comments

[killedwithlove]

Oh.

I guess you're not the Cassandra I knew, then...

[He looks worried and then leans in close to the screen.]

You'll still kill me if I'm danger, right?

[openhands]

Of course, [she says, without hesitation.]

[killedwithlove]

[He visibly relaxes, nodding slightly.]

Good. Good. I know you can do it.

[openhands]

[She'd rather have Cole at ease. In a subconscious sort of way, it puts her more at ease. He's difficult to predict on a good day, but even harder when he's agitated about something.]

You mentioned Solas. Where is he exactly?

[killedwithlove]

Here! On the Pathstone.

[He doesn't mention Solas leaving them. No one else seems to know what happened after Corypheus was destroyed, so he presumes she doesn't either.

Cole is good at keeping secrets when he has to.]

He's going to teach me to paint.

[openhands]

[Cassandra knows of his leaving, but she won't broach the topic either. She doesn't want to upset Cole with what he might not already know as she's well aware that Solas and Cole share a very close bond with one another.]

That's...kind of him to teach you. If you speak with him before I do, tell him I would like to talk with him. Privately.

[killedwithlove]

[Cole rocks back and forth briefly, looking elsewhere.]

I can't hear you from here. I don't like it. When I talk to you, I should hear the right things, hear Anthony and Grandmother and you going distant and close...

I'll tell him. You can make the communications talk one to one to people. I think. I don't use it, I don't like it.

[openhands]

[Cassandra is actually not that bothered right now that Cole can't get into her head. True, sometimes he has managed to bring her comfort, but other times? She just doesn't want to chance one of those other times right now with everything else.]

Would you like to stop talking for now then? Until we can speak in person and you can...hear me?

[killedwithlove]

I don't mind. If you want to talk, I want to talk to you. But I know you find me unsettling, even now I'm more like other people.

Would you prefer if I don't come near you? I can do that too.

[openhands]

[Her eyebrows raise slightly at that. More like other people? Then his Inquisitor must have taken Varric's advice perhaps. Or something else went different when Solas offered his guidance to Cole. She supposes that it doesn't change much about Cole as he is, not in any major, fundamental way that she is aware of or can see right now, but still.]

And how would I read to you if you don't come near me? [A beat.] I did read to you where you're from, didn't I?

[killedwithlove]

[Her words bring a hesitant smile to his face, peering from his hat to her.]

Will you still do the voices?

[openhands]

[She laughs a little, quietly.]

Of course.

[killedwithlove]

[He presses closer, like it might close the distance.]

This Varric hasn't written Sword and Shields yet, though.

[openhands]

That's all right. I'm sure we can find something else.

[Maybe not something as equally terrible and magnificent, but you know. It can't be the only bad romance novel out there in the whole world. Worlds.]

[killedwithlove]

So long as you like reading it, I want to listen.

[openhands]

Then I shall do my best to find something.

[killedwithlove]

That would be good.

I'm going to stop talking here. I don't like it. When you're put on a ship, I'll come and see you.

[openhands]

Of course. Stay out of trouble, Cole.

[killedwithlove]

I try. Sometimes it finds me anyway.

[He closes the connection.]