who_is_she | am i handsome dorian

am i handsome dorian

As soon as Cole returns to Skyhold, he hears the pain.

He's been going out on his own more often, partially because the roads are safer now and partially because he likes the silence. He can go deep into a forest and all the mortal pain fades away, leaving the gentle, quiet voices of the trees and the rocks. Though he does prefer to help the pain he hears, he's learned that sometimes it is good to take the time to tend to yourself. Varric hunches over a desk and creates worlds with his fingers, Dorian organizes his books, Cassandra cleans her weapons and armor, and Cole has found he likes to walk. He likes to find old places that were once full of love and pain, they have long forgotten their purpose but they cling to the emotions. Sometimes he finds smaller things, items that still remember their purpose, and sometimes he can bring them back and help them too.

He always hears the pain, whenever he's around people, but the pain he feels when he steps inside the castle is subtly different and unfamiliar. It's not one of his friends, he realizes, because he knows their pains well, nor is it one of the other Skyhold inhabitants whose pain Cole has grown familiar with. There's the woman who sits in the garden and quietly grieves for her husband; or the cook who remembers his dead son every time he makes his favorite dish, and this is none of them.

It's not particularly loud or demanding, but a quiet, insistent despair that carries for all its gentle quiet. Cole follows it curiously from the gates, his purpose forgotten as he winds himself through the castle in search of the pain. He finds himself in the mage's tower, where the whisper and song of magic very nearly drowns it out but he focuses so it's louder.

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Mihril scurried around their workspace frantically, their forehead sweaty and their hair growing frizzy from the stress. They had an enormous requisition of potions to fill and runes to enchant before sundown, when their master would show up to check on their progress, and several of the ingredients needed had mysteriously vanished.

They gather empty potion bottles up in their arms and set them on the table with as much care as they can muster under the pressure, but one of them teeters over the edge, falling to the ground and shattering. They let out a cry of despair and sink to their knees, sweeping the broken pieces up with their hands, slicing their finger on one of the shards as they do. They suck the blood from their finger, and tears begin to well up in their eyes.

"Useless!" she mutters to herself, "What do you think you're doing, Mihril, why did you think you could handle this, that you could handle any sort of responsibility. Stupid!"

Cole tracks the pain up to a particular study and opens the door, seeing the elf inside. He crosses the room quietly and squats down in front of them, letting the pain seep into him as he tries to make sense of it.

"Stupid, useless, pointless, why do I try," Cole starts to recite, "They're hard to understand but you try your best, only your best never seems to be good enough because it all goes wrong anyways. You hurt, but nobody knows because you don't know how to tell them." Cole reaches out, sweeps the broken glass into a pile with careless motions and gathers them into the cup of his hands, all without cutting himself, "You think it's your fault but it's not. The bottle didn't mean to break. The healer took the herbs, the boy broke his leg and she wanted to help, didn't think they'd be missed, but they are."

He stands to dispose of the broken glass and then reaches into his pack, pulling out the bundle of plants he'd picked while he was out.

"Here," he says, placing the herbs on the table, "It's not your fault."

Mihril starts, nearly toppling over when the boy squats down in front of her.

"By the Dread Wolf!" she mumbles, clutching her chest and breathing a sigh. "You startled me!" They reach for the herbs on the table, eyeing him curiously as they hold them to their nose and give them a sniff.

"...You're Cole, aren't you?" they say after a moment, hesitantly, "The Inquisitor's friend. We've never met, but I've heard about you. You're...of the Fade, aren't you? You can read minds? That's how you knew-"

They shake their head, setting the herbs back down on the table.

"I'm so sorry, I'm asking rude questions instead of thanking you. Thank you. I...I don't know what I would have done, and there's still so much to do-"

The pain starts to recede a little and Cole watches her properly, tilting his head a little at the questions.

"It's all right, I like questions," he says, perching on a nearby stool, "I am Cole. I'm a spirit. Or... was a spirit. Varric helped me be more human, so I guess now I'm not quite either one. I can hear pain, it talks to me and calls to me so I try to help," he says, going through the list of questions in the order they'd been asked. He puts his hands on the table and drums a beat against the surface with his fingers.

"It's not your fault," he repeats, keeping his head tilted down, "I can help. I can't do magic but I can get things you need."

Mihril breathes a sigh of relief, lifting their shirt to dab at the sweat on their brow.

"Thank you," she says, "You don't have to do this, but...if you want to, I suppose you could grind some of those herbs for me while I work on these enchantments."

She fishes a mortar and pestle out of one of the cabinets and sets it on the table.

"Here," she says, taking some of the plants from the table and crumpling them into the bowl, demonstrating how to grind them properly before handing the pestle to Cole. "Just like that."

She brings her work to the table and sits beside him, taking a hammer and chisel and picking up where she had left off on carving a rune into a block of stone. She ties her hair back up and sets to work, and she finds herself itching to ask the boy more questions. Spirits of the Fade were of special interest to her, and she had never gotten the chance to further her studies as much as she would have liked, as the Circles were disbanded before she was allowed to enter the Fade during her Harrowing.

"So, you can only feel when someone's hurting?" she asks, shyly breaking the silence, "Does that ever make you sad?"

Cole watches intently as Mihril shows him what to do, taking the pestle and feeling it's weight in his hand before turning his attention on the task, frowning and sticking his tongue out as he concentrates.

"No," he says simply, "If I hear the hurt then I can help it. If I could hear everything else then I wouldn't know what was hurt and what wasn't." He looks up suddenly, sensing more of Mihril's hurt as the immediate stress starts to fade.

"You don't understand people, how they work or why they do what they do or why they treat you different," Cole says, surprised and interested by this information, "I don't understand either. Are you a spirit as well?" He glances them over, frowning a little because they seem mortal.

Mihril pauses a moment, looking up at him and tilting their head slightly before looking around the room, as if they expected him to be speaking to someone else.

"Me? A spirit? No. I don't think so, anyway. I would know if I was one, wouldn't I? Or would I? I don't know." They resume chipping away at the stone, bouncing their leg up and down as they work. They were surprised to find that they didn't much mind having Cole rooting around in their brain.

"You're right, though, I...I don't understand people, most of the time, and they don't really understand me, either. Some have called me funny in the head."

"I didn't know I was a spirit until someone told me," Cole says with a shrug, turning back to grinding the herbs, "You don't look like a spirit, though. People think that about me, too. Sometimes they say things and look at me like I'm supposed to understand, but I don't. I've never met anyone else who felt like that," he tilts his head to look back at Mihril, "I think it's all right, to not understand. Sometimes I get the things that they don't understand, and sometimes when good people don't understand me they ask questions so that they can understand. Sometimes they care, even when they don't understand, so it's all right." He nods a little and then falls silent, and after a moment he sits up and tilts the bowl towards Mihril.

"Is this all right?"

Mihril finds herself deeply comforted by Cole's words, and by the soothing tone of his voice, and she into something of a daze listening to him speak. They had never had anyone tell them that the way they were was all right, and had certainly never had anyone tell them they felt the same, only that their state of being was tolerable, at best. When he asks his question, she doesn't respond right away, snapping herself back to attention with a shake of her head.

"What?" they start, leaning forward, "Oh, yes! That looks perfect. Here, let me just-"

She takes the bowl from his hands, her fingers brushing against his as she does, and dips her fingers in, taking a bit of the herbs and sprinkling a pinch into each of the partially filled potion bottles sitting on the table. The liquid in the bottles turns from dark green to a bright, glowing red with the addition of the final ingredient, and Mihril breathes a small sigh of relief.

"Thank you so much," they say, "If you hadn't come along, I would have been in trouble. I've still got these runes to carve, but I'm not sure you could help with that." They scratch their temple, and frown slightly.

"Is there any way I can repay you?" they ask.

"I don't need any help," he says, watching the potion bottles curiously. The sound of the magic has changed, strengthened, turned from a quiet note into a full song.

"I always would have come along," he says distractedly, bringing one of the potions closer to him and craning his neck down to peer into it, "I heard your hurt, as soon as I stepped inside. I followed it." He sits up again, reaching for one of the unfinished runes on the table to inspect that.

"Magic is very interesting. It gives life and purpose to everything it touches, but sometimes that purpose is to destroy. Sometimes that's all it knows," he holds the rune in front of his face, staring at it intently, as if listening, "This one doesn't know its purpose, but it wants to help, I think. It likes the warmth of a hand cupping it." He does just that, putting the rune in his palm gently and curling his fingers over it.

Mihril has lost track of her work again, watching Cole's hand curl around around the stone with great interest. She rests her elbows on the table, propping her head up as she studies him.

"I didn't know magic gave things feelings like that," they say, "I hope it will help. I'm sure the Inquisitor will put it to good use. You're all very brave, going out there and fighting like you do. Sometimes I wish I could go along with you folk into the city, but it might be too much for me. I'm too used to life locked up in the tower. I can hardly even venture outside without feeling faint."

"It's okay to stay inside," Cole says, setting the rune carefully back down on the table, "I like to stay in Skyhold, too. It's quiet here. But I can help more people out there." He turns his face back towards Mihril, smiling softly, "But you help plenty of people from in here. The Inquisitor wouldn't let anyone go out somewhere dangerous without the right potions or runes." He turns back to the stack of blank runes, laying them out side by side.

"Magic gives life to everything," Cole says, picking back up on his trail of thought, "Or... Life gives magic to everything, maybe, just sometimes it's so small you can't notice. The magic goes into things when you care about them, and they can get strong if you believe." He divides the runes into two piles and covers both with his palms, then uncovers them and arranges them into a line again.

Mihril sets back to work as he talks, chipping at the rune, carving until it's finished. When it's done, they take it into their hand, turning it over once, half listening to see if she could hear any of the magic Cole was talking about. After a moment she stretches her hand out to him, placing the now dimly glowing stone in his palm.

"Does this one say anything?" they ask, shyly but curiously, crossing their arms across the table and leaning over to rest their chin on them. There was still a bit more work to do, but Cole was a welcome distraction to a stressful day, and they hadn't felt so relaxed talking to anyone in a long time, much less a relative stranger.

Cole stares at the small stone and slowly tilts his head, listening intently.

"It likes you. Your hands are soft and gentle," he says, then carefully places the rune back down, "They have more to say if they're older, usually. They have time to grow."

He reaches for his pack, pulling out a parcel of cloth and handling it very carefully. He unwraps it slowly, revealing an ancient dagger, rusted in places and the handle had almost crumbled away. He ran his fingers along the blade of the knife, blunted and nicked so badly it could barely be called a blade at all.

"It had a best friend once," Cole said, holding the dagger out so Mihril could see it properly as he let the item's memories wash over him, "Hands callused and strong, gripping tight to keep close, cleaned and polished every day. It hurt those who hurt others, and was glad for a purpose. Then the hands changed, they were smaller and softer, but still strong and still with purpose. The hand went cold around it, a gasping breath in the dark, kicked aside and forgotten. It yearns for a purpose once again."

Mihril looks at the dagger, curiously extending a hand and lightly touching the hilt.

"This looks elven," they say, eyes wide, and they weigh it in their hands carefully, "This must be very old."

"What are you going to do with it? Could you give it a purpose again?" she asks, quickly growing shy and pulling her hand back into her lap after setting the dagger back in Cole's hand. "You could sharpen it again at the forge. Maybe fix the hilt a little. Do you think it would like that?"

"I think it would," Cole says, nodding, "It has magic in it, too. I don't know anything about fixing things. Maybe you could do it?" He gently wraps the dagger back up in the cloth and sets it down, nudging it towards Mihril.

Mihril smiles, taking the dagger back and looking over it again.

"I think I could fix it," they say, turning it over and over in their hands.

"...You'll have to come back and get it when I'm done, alright?"

"Yes, I'd like that," Cole says, smiling lightly and enjoying the calm happiness coming off of Mihril now. He's always liked the feeling of helping people, though he can't quite remember ever getting such enjoyment out of just talking with someone. Talking had always been kind of a chore, because it was difficult to communicate his thoughts properly into words, but with Mihril it had been easy.

He opens his mouth to say something else, but stops when he realizes Varric, somewhere, is looking for him. Looking for him and worrying about why he hasn't returned yet.

"I have to go," he says, his head turned to the direction of Varric's worry, and he leaves without saying anything more.

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