A Dozen Little Injuries

The goal of this series is just to explore the Inner Circle, the Inquisitor, and the many little hurts and successes that make the lot of them so damn compelling. Will focus on many characters in the story...not sure just what who all that might mean. Reviews and suggestions are most welcome! Your wish is...something something ;)

Cole - Learning

He heard it in their voices, to the last, when he'd first met them. The hesitation, the doubt...the fear. Ugly, raw feelings that clawed at him, made his edges blur, made him want to sink back into the shadows and stay there, invisible until the pain of a passerby pulled him from his personal prison. Fixing the hurts made him happy; fading afterwards made him safe. As Haven (and Skyhold after) get more and more full, he finds no shortage of work to do and yet...

He started off in the shadows most of the time, keeping to himself and his calling, fading and forgetting so that he doesn't fall. He heard their thoughts on him, the staff, the soldiers, when the fear touched their hurts, laced and languished in their thoughts. He heard their whispers about him, too, hidden sometimes, blantant sometimes, much simpler to come across as they were sent to him without his wanting. It was hard not to shrink back, those days.

He heard it in the Inner Circle, from each companion in turn, one way or another, this ring of people he wasn't allowed to hide from. He heard it in the Seeker, faithful and fiery, righteous and resolute, when she assured him she'd cut him down, though he felt her flutter of confusion when he agreed. He heard it in Solas's academic questioning, his kindness that does not quite reach the heavy history lurking in the elf's head. He heard it in Sera's appalled squawking, heard it when he asked Dorian a question he shouldn't have the first, second...tenth time. (The "shouldn't have" was an understanding that came later, much later, a result of his learning and growing more human.) He felt the wounds pull wider in the man's mind when he asked, not understanding, not remembering.

As he learns, he thinks he hurts Dorian the worst. They dance, he and the mage, but Cole always missteps, does something wrong but never fully grasps what. He just wants to understand. Varric helps, is patient with him; Dorian stops him more often than not, says he's sorry. Bull shudders, a mountain of muscle set aquiver by him, or others like him...it is hard to tell, some days. He always tries again, though, and The Bull does, too, a little at a time. Learning isn't easy for any of them.

He doesn't remember well enough to know when it starts to shift, but it does. Cole sees it in her first: the Inquisitor. Trevelyan, always questioning if he is OK, flipping his role back on him, a mirror against a mirror against something less brutal than the Fade. Cole doesn't understand, not fully, but he feels the trepidation for him in little whispers among many others, tangled and twisted around her heart. He tries to fix it for her, once, but she just smiles and gives him a hug. "No need to worry for me, Cole. I have you, and the others. You just keep helping those that need it. Keep being you." She hadn't called him a demon, or even a spirit. To her he was just Cole, and he knewat that moment that, for her, being himself was enough.

There is a flood of some hot, tingling, joyous emotion he is not used to, the day Sera yelps that she'll shaft an arrow-ok, three-into his creepy little eyes. His eyes. It is everything he can do to not seize her hands and dance, but he remembers she is very bad at it. Her scowl is ferocious, eyebrows drawn down in a point beneath her jagged bangs, but there is no fire behind it.

Varric calls him kid. He has a nickname, just like the others, the same and yet not the same. To Cole it sounds of siblings, of friends and family, a moniker and a meaning he doesn't miss. He likes it. He wonders if he should tell Varric so. Ultimately, he decides not to, but the dwarf already knows.

There is a more solid personal memory, one he gains by accident while he is out on a mission with the Inquisitor. None of them had seen the Red Templars battened down in the heavy underbrush in the Graves, not in the multicolored fading light of the sunset. They were heading back to the camp, close but not close enough, when their assailants launched as one out of the shadows, a dozen or more hulking, twisted abominations of steel and bloody red. He dances in darkness, fading into shadow, a glimmering knifepoint slicing an archer from ear to ear as he draws back to lodge an arrow in the Inquisitor. The man gurgles, topples lifeless, and Cole is gone again, billow of soft smoke shielding as his daggers pick their next target. He comes out of the haze feet first, slamming between a Defender's heavily armored shoulders and burying both knives in the small gap at the nape of his throat. Veridium and iron slide between muscle and bone, kissing the vital breath below the clavicle.

He misses the second Defender on his left, feels the mistake as a double-bladed broadsword strikes at him. His mind is fast enough to move him from death, but not completely; he feels himself start to bleed.

He didn't used to scar. A Seeker's sword, swift and striking, slicing his shoulder, impaling him in the dank shadow of a sewer. Slipping, slammed down, once, twice, again, hearing the whimper of a friend and knowing he had to get up. That hurt had been worse, he knew it had been, and yet right now it doesn't seem so. His breath hitches in his chest and he stumbles, falling back from a second strike from the Defender. Someone far off screams his name but they are too slow. Cole sees the enemy advance, vision oddly tunneled, and learns he is too slow, too.

Fortunately, The Iron Bull is not. He roars like a wild thing, catching the Red Templar's blade on the shaft of his warhammer and kicking the man away so hard Cole is sure he hears the breastplate creak as it buckles inward. It may be that he hears it in the Templar's hurts but The Bull crushes the man's helmet, head and all, a moment later, and he can't be sure.

Movement on his right; three more archers and he still can't move. He is afraid, he knows, and laments a little that he is real enough to be scared. Tries to move, to fade, but can't, his own hurts too real to be ignored just then. Shafts notch to bowstrings, two of them trained on him and the third The Bull, striking at a new opponent behind a thicket. Cole wants to cry out and can't.

A whisper of silk and the sigh of a staff in motion, the sweeping spread of his arms and the flare of fire as Dorian's clear voice raises a Wall of Fire directly beneath the three archers. Cole is close enough to see the sweat on the mage's forehead, to hear the song as the fire leaps higher. The Veil swirls around the Tevinter mage like a shroud, beckoned by his boasting and enthralled by the energy he directs with precision. Some mages toil, dragging magic to them, forcing it, tolerating it. Dorian commands it, caresses it, all flare and elegance and whispers and roars. Normally he smirks, confident in casting, proud of his power. Cole is worried to see no such smile as the mage kneels by him, slamming his staff earthward both to hold it there and to solidify the Barrier he's just cast around the two of them.

"Cole, can you hear me?" He can, but the song is loud, and it's not Dorian's this time. Grey eyes find his own as dark hands press a wad of cloth against his side.

"Bleeding but not broken, awake but not aware." It isn't easy to speak, but he knows he is not dying. He needs to tell the mage that. "I am OK, Dorian. My side hurts." The man lets out a laugh that is more of surprise than mirth; either way the sound doesn't reach his eyes. Warm green light is pouring over them both, now, and Cole can feel the Inquisitor's worry for him as she advances. She is there, very suddenly, bright and lovely and worn and worried. He sees her like this often, but she is not usually looking at him.

"How is he, Dorian?" The healing aura is hers, then. The Tevinter nods.

"Well enough, all things considered. I think. Not always easy to tell." Dorian grimaces and bows markedly to the side as one of The Iron Bull's massive hands whomps down onto his shoulder, a friendly gesture, albeit a tense one.

"It'll take more than some Templar asshole to put him down for good," he boasts loudly, ignoring the scowling glare Dorian fires up at him. "Isn't that right, kid?" The three of them look at him and Cole, for all that his side still hurts, smiles and nods.

Learning isn't easy, but the memories of moments like this one-of belonging, of friends-are definitely worth it.

There's the first one! Please review if you enjoyed, I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts and comments. Criticism welcome (constructive, preferably, but if you have a bad day and need to flame me, go for it!) I'll aso entertain prompts, never know what will strike and be fun to write. :) Thanks for your time!

-K-