Open Action: Fleet Wide

[killedwithlove]

Who: Cole and EVERYONE
Broadcast: No
Action: EVERY ship in the Fleet, bar Marsiva, Three Twins and Tourist (Though you can easily find him on another ship if you're from one of those)
When: First week of the month?

[This is a thing Cole does.

He travels the Fleet a lot, from ship to ship, meeting people, talking to people, hanging out. He sees people he knows and meets new ones, or ones he just didn't encounter before

He wants to help everyone. Which means meeting them first. Or finding them. Doing that might involve poking through the ships, even if he really shouldn't. Or going through personal belongings. Sorry about that. He's curious.

And armed. It is worth mentioning he's got a pair of wickedly sharp fighting knives on his back. Sorry about that as well.]

Comments

[arcanepower]

[... This person is odd. Maybe he got a brick to the head as a baby.]

There are jumpsuits to wear in the meantime. [He wrinkles his nose.] I'm surprised you don't smell absolutely wretched.

Visiting. [He says the word with outright suspicion this time, and continues trying to stare Cole down. He's about as threatening as a wet kitten.] Visiting while armed, too. Well-- rogue, or whatever you are-- you'd better behave yourself.

[Or he'll set you on fire.

He's only not telling him to lay down his weapons because he's seen adventurers and they never go anywhere unarmed.]

[killedwithlove]

[Yet he doesn't. He should. He mostly smells of old fabric and old leather and the ships. Nothing really... human.]

Yes. Visiting. I'll see Stephanie while I'm here, and meet other people.

Of course I'm armed. What if I need my knife and I don't have it with me?

[arcanepower]

[Yeah, that's odd. He's not possessed of a superhuman sense of smell, so he doesn't think much of it. He's just glad the guy apparently bathes? Maybe?

Whatever.]

I suppose she'd know everyone. [He's not entirely super close with anyone, Steffa especially, but she's... nice. He's never quite sure what to do with people who are nice.]

Why would you need your knife if you're coming peacefully? It's not as if weapons are standard for every ship. [He huffs.] But I am a mage, so I do not need one.

[killedwithlove]

I don't think she knows everyone.

Why would I leave my knives behind? I might need them.

Even mages should have a knife. Cole did, but they took it away, and that was why it took so long. Knives are mercy.

[arcanepower]

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if she had many friends.

[That's... what. Who's Cole? What took so long? He squints, his eyes turning into bright green glowy slits, and he is... just more and more confused.]

How are knives merciful? They are tools for murder. At least magic can be used to help people.

[How wrong you are, child.]

[killedwithlove]

Death can be a mercy.

[Cole's voice is soft, not gleeful at the idea, but very familiar with it.]

And a knife can be used for more than death. It cuts animals free from brambles, cuts ropes on chafed legs and arms, carves food for the hungry, shapes wood and leather, lances wounds and cleans the poison.

How do you cut up your food?

[arcanepower]

[Belthazar just got schooled, and that last statement clinches it. His long ears lower and pin against his dark hair.]

... well.

[There are times he felt that death was a mercy. And that hurts, because... it's the truth, and he has to look away. He did some awful things to survive. Sometimes he had wished he was dead. But then he'd think of his sister and her smile, and how hard she had worked to keep them both fed after their parents were killed, and then he'd have to get up and keep going.

How many years had he eaten rats?]

Y-you can keep your knives, [he mutters.]

[killedwithlove]

[Cole has no look of satisfaction for what he's just taught. Maybe Belthazar will jump to conclusions a little slower, maybe not, but he will reconsider the use of every day tools and weapons.]

I was going to. I would've resisted any attempt to disarm me.

[arcanepower]

[He's still a bit cowed, enough that he tugs his sleeves down and looks aside.]

Mm.

[He's prickly around new people. But Cole has won this, and now Belthazar is growing rapidly uncomfortable for reasons he can't explain.]

There's... food in the kitchen. I made dinner not too long ago.

[killedwithlove]

I... don't eat. Or drink. Or sleep. [Because one usually follows the other in questions.]

I'm not upset. You don't need to be either.

How do you make your ears move?

[arcanepower]

[Belth's ears perk up again.]

You-- what? You don't-- ... what?

[He squints again, trying to make sense of what he's talking to.]

They just move on their own. It's an instinctual thing. But why don't you... you aren't human?

[killedwithlove]

[Cole looks away. He's learning that most people aren't threatened by the fact he's a spirit. It's people from Thedas who react badly.

He's not sure how to feel about that, yet.]

No. I'm learning to be more like a human. I can eat and drink. I just don't.

The other elves I know don't move their ears. But your ears are much longer.

[arcanepower]

[He's reacting more with curiosity than distress. He's not human himself, though he still has to eat and drink and sleep.]

The Forsaken-- undead with free will-- work closely with my people, and they do not need nourishment either.

[HAHAHAHAHAHA... YEAH UH ON THEDAS THAt'S CALLED SOMETHING ELSE.]

I do appear to be in the minority. It's a decent bet that any elves with very long ears are from Azeroth, like I am.

... 'Learning to be more like a human.' Are you some kind of magical creature?

[killedwithlove]

I'm not dead. I'm a spirit.

[Darkspawn eat. Anyone in Thedas knows that.]

I'm still learning how to be a person.

[arcanepower]

Spirits are dead people, too. [Now he is intensely interested, to the point where he is brave enough to ... try and touch Cole's forearm. Just. A tiny poke. Not even a hard one.]

Unless you're an elemental? But you're not on fire, dripping wet, or transparent...

[killedwithlove]

We are not!

[Cole flinches back from the touch, shifting in a coil of black green smoke.]

We were never people. Souls aren't spirits. And I don't know what an elemental is.

[arcanepower]

[Belth yelps and hides under his hood like he's about to be hit.

When nothing happens, he peeks out from under it, from behind his sleeves.]

S--

[Here comes rambly mode.]

Sorry. I'm sorry. I wanted to see if you were solid because spirits are ghosts and -- and I was very wrong, and I-I apologize, please don't stab me.

[killedwithlove]

[Cole is still standing back a bit, looking slightly wary, but his hands have gone nowhere near his knives.]

When people touch me... I hear too much.

[But he also feels bad for scaring him. He seats himself down on the ground, making himself smaller than Belthazar.]

I won't hurt you. I don't hurt people. I'm a spirit of Compassion. I'm sorry I scared you. I didn't mean to.

[arcanepower]

I'm not sc--!!

[He tries again, quieter and with less of the frightened indignation.]

I was just surprised, that's all.

[Belth is cautious, but still curious, like a skittish animal. He sits down, but he gives Cole plenty of space when he does it. In fact, he's out of arm's reach. He gathers his robes around himself.

He could point out the irony of carrying weapons when he doesn't hurt people, but he won't. They already had that conversation.]

I've never spoken to a spirit before. I'm not a shaman.

[He's afraid they'll tell him his sister is dead, namely.]

Do you have a name? Or are you just 'Compassion'?

[killedwithlove]

[Cole watches, starting to listen closer to the echoes and shivers in the world, the shapes it takes around the young elf.]

I don't know about your sister, I'm sorry. We're too far from your world for me to be able to find the answer to that hurt.

[And in fairness... those knives are made for killing. He doesn't hurt people. He makes it quick.]

Cole. I'm Cole now.

[arcanepower]

[The mention of his sister devastates him but it makes him believe all at once. He might've lashed out before, a year ago, when he was still raw and had no idea about anything. This time... he knows better.

It still hurts though, the knife lancing the wound so it can heal.]

S... she... she's alive. [A single thought that has driven him for almost ten years.] She has to be alive. [They never found a body and, as Adra said, all their people were scattered to the four winds. It's still possible.

His fingers betray him by shaking, and he balls them into fists and shoves them into his lap.]

Cole. [Was there ever a different Cole? He mentioned him before. He's still freaked out about the sister thing but he's trying, he's trying really hard, so he breathes in and out slowly.] ... I'm Belthazar.

[killedwithlove]

[It's not knowing that's so painful. If she were dead, he could grieve, if she were alive, he could rejoice but she's simply gone and that's a far more terribly fate for him to live with.]

I'm sorry. I don't know how to help that. I would if I could.

[He's caused hurt. Or at least, dug up an old hurt. He looks down more.]

Yes. Belthazar.

[arcanepower]

[It's a hurt he's carried with him for a long time, but such is the life of an elf. He's lived sixty years already, and he'll live three times more.]

How... how do you know about Caspa? That isn't something I've told anyone. [Adra is different, he's practically Belth's father at this point, and even he doesn't know the whole story.] I don't want to be pitied or held or hugged. That is why I don't speak of it.

[killedwithlove]

You scream her absence so loud that it's nearly blinding. The hole still echoes, bleeding at the edges where she should be.

I'm not going to hug you. I don't really like being touched by most people. And I never pity. I don't think I know what pity is.

[arcanepower]

[He bites his bottom lip again, and looks down at his lap. He's never spoken about her so plainly with anyone before. Even with Hiro he only admitted he was hallucinating her and wanting her to be there, and that there might be some question of where the body was. Never an acknowledgment of much else.]

Thank you.

[It seems the most appropriate thing to say. He doesn't say it often enough, being the recalcitrant young man that he is. He's too proud, too scared, too... everything. But this time, he's grateful, really grateful, that Cole isn't the type to make fun of him or-- even worse-- place some misguided sympathy in his direction for pity points with friends later.

Nobility is a particularly awful sort.]

I don't remember my parents very well. They died when I was only a few years old, and Caspa raised me... alone, after that. [Belth tends to pretend his older brother doesn't exist, since he ran off just a year or so before his parents were slain.] There was a painting in the main room so I knew what they looked like.

[Mother. Hair like softly spun white-gold, falling down past her shoulders in gentle waves to match her soft smile. Father. Tall, stately and stern despite his middling status, with thick black hair he always kept in a braid, and a neatly-cropped goatee.

Caspa's face is much more organic in his mind since it doesn't come from a painting. Mother's curls and smile, and the same dark hair all the siblings had. Belthazar had smiled then, too, right up until the day Caspa was killed. Eight-- no, nine years ago, now.]

Caspa was a priestess. A healer. I never had the talent for it.