AN: I've known for a while now that I'd be rolling a mage Inquisitor, but it wasn't until I learned about Cole that I found myself intrigued by the different sort of relationships that could be built between party members. Enter Maternal! Inquisitor. This is but a small glimpse into what could be an interesting dynamic in-game, but likely more a machination of my own imaginings than anything else :)

Enjoy! ~Voi

It is a quiet evening at the keep, a rare moment of peace smuggled between the greater lengths of chaos and danger. Seated by the fire, watching the light of it play upon the pale skin of his hand, Cole looks up to where the Inquisitor sits reading. Had this sort of evening happened often Cole might have found it suited him, warmed him, in a way that even his chilled (not) dead flesh understood.

The Keep was his home.

And the Inquisitor?

She might not have birthed him (or boy who's form he wore) but she was his mother, had protected him as fiercely as any lioness and claimed him as her child. But for all of her gentle guidance, there was one thing that worried him. And though he had tried his very best to be brave, to watch and not act without reason, Cole found himself on the cusp of what seemed a terrible chasm.

"Mother, do you love him?"

The question seemed to electrify the silence, and Cole watched as his mother pause before slowly setting her reading aside. Turning to look across the room to where he sat huddled she seemed to almost hold her breath before exhaling aloud in a slow steady stream. Hundreds of expressions seemed to dance upon her features then, and Cole could read them all, saw the understanding that came on the heels of only the briefest moment of confusion.

"You're talking about Ser Cullen?"

She spoke softly when she said his name, and Cole could not deny that it affected him. The spirit isn't quite sure why, but the idea that she did it out of love made his chest ache, his stomach twist until he was sure he would be ill. Curling his legs into his chest, Cole closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead into the cradle of his arms. It was a steadier position, but the nausea remained, threatened to grow worse with each moment.

He struggled to take deeper breaths.

"Cole?"

Her voice was a balm to his nerves, and her hand was on his back a moment later. Soothing in its warmth, he took a great shuddering sigh when she made small circles at the nape of his neck. Together they waited for his anxiety to pass.

But this was not the sort of thing that merely went away without closure, and Cole's whispered accusation, pierced the silence with stark efficiency.

"He's a Templar."

His words had been muffled by his arms, but there was no missing the worry, the very real concern in his voice. The man named Cullen was first and foremost a Templar, and she, the woman who cared for him, was very much a mage.

Templars and Mages, a conflict that raged even now.

Cole was not sure if the images he saw at night were dreams or memories, but they frightened him more deeply than any creature that had ever emerged from the fade. For the pictures that were painted in his sleep are full of Templars and their victims, and every one of them looked like his mother.

"Shhh…"

He felt the warmth of her embrace settle over him like a blanket, soothing the anxious tremble of his body. The smell of lemon soap and lighting, he smiled faintly as he inhaled the scent that clung to her like a second skin.

There was comfort in that smell, in the feeling of her arms and touch of her lips to the top of his head. The darkness, the suffocating loneliness was gone. She was there to keep him in the light.

But the fear remained, and he does not know how to react when she finally confesses her feelings.

"Do you love him, mother?"

The question he asks frightens him, but he knows her answer will be more terrifying for its trth. It is one of the things he loves most about her, but in this moment he almost wishes she will lie.

"I think I may…actually, I'm quite certain I do."

Her quiet admission is enough to freeze the heart in his chest, or it would have if his heart did such a thing. Fear, sharp and cutting, threatened to undo him once more and Cole wished in that moment that he was his ghostly self, if just to vanish and take those feelings with him.

Instead his body seemed to fill with emotion, like a chalice poured full until overflowing. Trapped in this physical form, the sensations overcome him, until he can do little more than burrow closer and cling to her, a refuge in the storm.

"Mother, please."

They are a strange pair, the two of them. Him a spirit of a lonely boy long gone and she a mage who seems bent on loving the one man sure to hurt her worst of all.

And it is not, Cole knows, that Cullen is a bad man. Rather the opposite, for he had proven himself time and again to be a moderate rather than fanatic. But the threat remains, because even now the Inquisitor is a mage, and the man who regularly shares her bed has every talent designed to target her kind in particular.

It would only take one moment of anger, of uncontrolled fury and Cole would be set adrift again, lonely and without a family. But this time he would know loss, one so deep that even he could not guarantee that he would remain 'Cole.' Spirits were sensitive beings, and the damage of that loss had the potential for something darker…more sinister.

"I promise I will be careful."

She promises him, speaks those words into the silky strands of his hair, answering the question he had never formally asked.

"And if you ever feel Cullen is putting me in danger, you can always tell me."

She lifts his head up so that she can look in his eyes, "You know I truth you, Cole. I will listen if you come to me with your worries, even if they are about Cullen."

"The Advisor is a decent man." The words cost him, but Cole is determined to continue on.

"Ser Cullen is a decent man…" He said quietly, "But he is also a Templar, and that cannot be overlooked."

"No, and it should not be overlooked." She smoothed the hair from his face, "But I cannot stop caring for him just because of who he is. Just as I do not love you any less for being what you are."

"We do not know what I am." Cole said miserably.

"No, we do not." She looked him in the eye, "But I do not love you any less for not knowing.

Her words filled him with more warmth, more pleasure than she can possibly know. But for Cole it is a precious gift, one that makes him love her all the more fiercely.

"I cannot always be there to protect you." Cole spoke after a time, "What if something happens?"

Her smile was warm, the kiss she bestowed on his brow warmer still.

"It is alright, love." She sighed as he settled against her and together they leaned against the warm stones by the fireplace, "I can look after myself too."

She waited until he was fast asleep before she gently moved him to the little couch he preferred to sleep on. He may have looked older, but he was still so much a child that her heart ached whenever he revealed such tender feelings.

He had been worried about her, had seen the shade of the Templars and believed her in danger.

She suspected the blame lay with the nightmares he had been having, but with Cole being such a special case she couldn't say if they were just stray thoughts or actual memories that drove him to such terrible fear.

Settling a blanket around his shoulders, she took the seat beside him and reopened her book. But her mind remained fixed on her son, the memory of his cries in the dark and her evening vigils by his bed.

Cole feared Templars, but not all of them. She would be there to deal with the ones who wished to do him harm, but he was brave enough, strong enough, to face down those that meant to enter their lives for a different reason entirely.

"You aren't alone." She promised his sleeping form, "Not anymore, brave boy."