therookery | A warning

Entry tags:

A warning

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Anders, Oghren
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: People are being warned
WHEN: Current!
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Oghren. Blue is Oghren, bold is Anders.

[There's a heavy sigh before he speaks; the first speaker, Anders, might be having some serious regrets.]

We've a new Warden, or rather an old Warden returned to the group, and I've a warning to issue: if you're challenged to a drinking contest with a particularly smelly dwarf, do not take it. The Wardens are not responsible for what happens if you decide to ignore this advice. Honestly, your best bet is to steer clear altoge--what are you drinking now?

[There's some bottles clinking together followed by a loud belch before Oghren speaks up.]

You need some better alcohol. This tastes worst than actual piss. Funny color to it too.

That's not... Maker's breath, Oghren, that's not for gulping down! Put the remnants of the potions down and stop messing with them! If you puke or you die, you better do it outside this tent. I'm not responsible for that either.

[There's more clinking as Anders gathers up what remnants he can.]

What are you going on about? That wasn't ale? [There's a pause.] My ancestors fat tits, what was that, sparkle fingers?

Who would keep ale in the healing tents? That was twenty doses of emetic. Now step outside, because you are not going to get sick in here.

[There's now a grumble and some rustling.] Never heard of keeping something good around for pain. Got to have those potions instead. Can't just have a good ale or something stronger. Got to be... [The sound trails off as he heads outside.]

[There's another heavy sigh. Anders sounds like he's already exhausted when he continues.]

Don't challenge him. Just don't. And if anyone listening cares to bring additional ghoul's beard to the healing tents, I'm in need of it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He starts separating strips of ghoul's beard into a few different vials before selecting a bottle of blue liquid and carefully dripping it in.]

You're not comfortable with being noticed and remembered by more? Is it because some of them are afraid of you, or something else?

[At least it seems like the shards aren't actually hurting Cole after all.]

And have you seen a common thread between when you can see past it easier and not?

[Cole is quiet at the first couple of questions. He doesn't think about why he feels how he does, that isn't what he's made to do, he thinks and feels for others.

But Anders asks something much easier and Cole responds to that instead.]

Not yet. Iskandar is... simpler. Like a spirit. he says he is a spirit, but Iskandar isn't a spirit name. Maybe it's like Cole? I can see fragments from The Doctor, btu it's really messy and everything gapes, yawns, hollow and loss that I can't-

[He shakes his head.]

Too much. Even for me.

Mm.

[It's a thoughtful noise as he finishes with the blue liquid and starts poking an elfroot leaf in each.]

If Iskandar was a spirit along the lines as the ones in Thedas, I'd think he was a spirit of exuberance. The Doctor... I've only had the one conversation with him thus far. I didn't know he was another spirit type.

He's not. But he's-

[The shard makes it hard to see. The vastness of him makes it easier.]

Too big for one moment.

Anders, you're a spirit healer. So you use spirits of Compassion to heal people, right?

[That's pretty interesting, but it doesn't sound like Cole can explain. He won't press.]

I... A spirit of Compassion was my first helper, yes. For some time, she was my only. Now I'm working with Mercy. Adelaide still works with Compassion, to the best of my knowledge, and Sam with... Fortitude, I believe.

[The name Mercy makes Cole shrink in a little bit, looking to the side guiltily.]

Is that because Compassion is too weak?

No.

[Anders looks down.]

Spirits have to find enough of themselves in the spirit healer they're working with. They have to be drawn to the spirit healer. I... They're not drawn to me. I've not exactly been... compassionate in some of my dealings. Mercy challenges me but believes I can demonstrate their, their virtue.

[A lot of people think of Compassion as weak, the weakest of the spirits, fleeting and fragile. Cole didn't think Anders thought that way, but asking is easier.]

I know. I think I used to do that. Help people with healing.

I didn't as Mercy. But maybe before...

[He nods, giving Cole a small, sad smile.]

You can help out in the tents, if you missed it. I know you can't heal, exactly, but there's other things that can be done for patients.

I have been helping.

[His voice is soft, like he's not sure he should be admitting it, but it's Anders, so he does.]

A skin of water. The poppy juice they were meant to drink. Honey helps it go down, the sugar softens it on the stomach.

The flies like the fruit, so the spiders make lots of webs.

[Sometimes he doesn't fully get what Cole is saying, not with the spider part, but at least the rest is clear.]

Thank you. I didn't realize you were doing that, but I'm glad you're helping them take their medicine. Some can be... recalcitrant.

[To say the least.]

Are you the spider in this illustration?

[Cole stares at Anders with blank incomprehension and then he points at a spider web in the top corner of the healing hut. The spiders are encouraged, because they spin webs and the webs are valuable for the non-magical healing.]

Spiders. Spin webs.

...Oh.

[Sometimes he looks too hard for metaphor in what Cole says and misses the obvious.]

Right. Sorry. I thought you were... Mm.

["Being you."]

The fruit's not being left in the tent, is it?

[Ants aren't really a problem in the cold like this, most bugs aren't, but he still likes keeping things on the cleaner side.]

[Cole shakes his head.]

No. The fruit is outside where the flies can get it easily. The spiders go where they want. Spider are like that.

They are, aren't they.

[Spiders are always free. But they're also small, and very likely to be stepped on or smushed with some object at hand.]

Thank you for helping, Cole. It's appreciated even if few notice it's happening. Though I suppose you still prefer that, the forgetting?

[If the Rifters remembering are making him feel troubled, then it stands to reason Cole wants to be forgotten more. Anders can understand a little; some days he wishes most people would forget him.]

[Cole nods, shifting to hug one of his knees to his chest.]

It's safe. If people don't remember, they don't come after me. Lambert remembered.

[And he had destroyed everything Cole had known, had wanted.]

Lambert?

[By context, someone who came after Cole.]

Lord Seeker Lambert.

He was a bad man. He was a very bad man.

[That's where he's heard the name before.]

The Lord Seeker. Maker. I've heard rumors, stories, but if you're calling him very bad...

[Cole would know.]

The good news is he disappeared during the uproar. Or I should say 'disappeared,' [he corrects himself with air quotes.] No one who likes power that much would simply leave.

I killed him.

[Cole says it without bragging, but also without shame. Lambert was evil, there was nothing redeemable about him. Cole did what he had to, knowing what Lambert was and what he himself was.]

After he declared the Rite of Nullification on the White Spire Circle. He wanted to torture all the mages, everywhere.

[He blinks, but that's all. Cole is a spirit, and Anders is very familiar with how black and white spirits can see things. Lambert had been awful by every account, and Anders has no doubt the killing was justified.]

And the Seekers are supposed to oversee Templars who have gone too far. Though it's little surprise, considering how so many Templars have gotten away with so much.

[Many of the Temlars are corrupt, many of the Seekars are too. It's the only explanation.]

There are some deaths that are deserved. I believe his was.

[Cole hadn't sounded guilty, but it can be nice to be reassured anyway. Meredith had needed to die too. Elthina... he's mostly certain. Alrik, yes. But there's a lot of lives lost due to him that weren't deserved, and that will always sting.]

I have faith in your choice, Cole.

No.

[Cole shakes his head.]

You're not thinking of them as people. Lambert was evil and he encouraged people to be cruel, to be scared, to be fearful and mistrusting. Lambert hurt a lot of people. He wanted to hurt a lot more. He had to be stopped.

Evangeline stood up between him and Rhys. She would have laid down her life to protect him, to protect Pharamond, or Wynne, or even Red Hair and she hated Red Hair. She was a Templar.

[There's an instinctual flinching back from being judged, a reflex born from it happening so many times over. It's hard to think of them as people sometimes, especially the ones in authority. The ones who had ignored everything that had gone wrong.]

There are some good Templars. I don't deny that. But there are many who are corrupt, and most of them simply don't care so long as it's just mages being hurt. That's how the system got as bad as it was; they were bad enough to not see us as people. And plenty still don't.

Until that happens, until the Templar order accepts that we're people who deserve freedom and chances at a life, I can't give them the benefit of the doubt.

[Cole watches, because he understands the anger and resentment, he remembers every time Anders wanted to leave and he will never forget White Spire and the Pit, not so long as he exists.]

It's okay. I know they hurt you. I know how they hurt you. But the ones here aren't bad ones. Sometimes badly hurt, and scarred up from the world, but not bad. Even if they scare me.

[There are times it's a momentarily frightening to talk with Cole. Very few people know the details of what he's been through. Cole doesn't just know all of it, and Anders feels exposed for a second. It's gone just as quickly as it came, though. There's a freedom in someone else understanding.]

I don't know about all of them. There are ones who gladly followed Meredith here.

[And think that somehow they're better than him. That they don't have just as much responsibility and blood on their hands, if not more. That's his issue with them now - that if they continue to think themselves fine and blameless, they can repeat the same actions after Corypheus is dealt with. Anders is fairly certain that none of the Templars here can be counted as blameless.]

Mages are scarred too, but until now we've not had a chance to live and be seen as even possibly not bad. We've been pre-judged.

[But he's (mostly) preaching to the choir.]

I'm sorry. You've likely heard all this before. I'm tired of an entirely different set of standards for Templars, but it's not your doing or your fault.

A warning

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