"You have to actually drink the stuff, kid, to feel the effects," said Varric.

Cole looked into the glass in his hands. "It's murky," he said. "Water with extras."

The dwarf sighed. "Yes. We talked about this. It's an ale. People drink it instead when they want to enjoy themselves."

"Is the enjoyment at the bottom of the cup?"

He tilted the glass sideways experimentally, but Varric grabbed his arm. "No," he said. "More inside it. In the ale. Just drink it. You said you wanted to understand people more. And this is about as universal as it gets, behavior-wise." He chuckled. "I bet even the Red Templars kick back a few after a long day of being lyrium-possessed lunatics. Of course, their glasses are probably full of demon ichor, but it's the same idea."

"The ale is the same as a demon?"

"No, the relaxation is the same. This is relaxing. Usually," Varric added under his breath, drinking from his own mug.

Cole took a sip and tried to find the enjoyment hidden inside. "It tastes sad," he said. "A child with no home. Is this why Sera likes it?"

"Here's a tip. Comparing your alcohol to a homeless kid kind of takes the fun out of drinking for your companions," said Varric. He gestured to the table where the Chargers sat, half-carousing and half-fighting. "See them? They're using the drinking to grease the evening. Lighten the mood and feel good. That's what it's for. Social lubricant."

"Bull worries what the Tamassran would say of his failure to be what he is meant. He is a butterfly in the wrong direction, crawling out of what's right and into what's safe," said Cole. He focused on the laughing group. This was harder now that he was less spirit than man, and he wondered if he, too, was a backwards butterfly. "Krem keeps a letter from his mother in his pouch. It's a poison letter, full of anger, a negation of daughterness, and that is what he needs."

Cole turned back to Varric. "They don't feel good."

Varric nodded acknowledgment. "But do they feel alive?"

"Yes," said Cole slowly. "Another day without disappearing."

"So there you go."

What Cole didn't say, because he had no words for what it was, was that the liquid in the glasses wasn't what made them alive. It was the others, the knowledge of the knees around the table, that gave them light. He studied their lines, trying to find the thing that made them so bright around their darkness.

Without warning, he punched Varric in the arm.

"Hey!" said the dwarf, glaring at him. "What was that?"

"It's what they do with Bull to be closer," said Cole. "He's theirs, here with the ale. It keeps them shining."

Varric relaxed and rubbed his bicep. "Well, he's a bit sturdier in the musculature," he said. "I just fire a crossbow. How about we stick to words?"

"Okay. I'm glad you're here with me drinking murky enjoyment and shining."

"I'm glad, too, kid," said Varric. He smiled a little. "I think we need all the friends we can get."

Cole stayed in the tavern for the night, on the first floor instead of in the rafters, and he drank several mugs of the brown liquid with Varric. The Inquisitor came in for a time, and Blackwall and Cullen and even Cassandra. The Chargers drifted around the room singing, and when they stood by Cole they included him in the merriment until his face grew sore from the smiling. His face was unused to the expression, but the grin rose to his lips without asking permission.

Nearer to the end of the night he felt a silvery thought sliding through the room, like fish in a river under sunlight. No one else seemed to feel it, because he was still different even when he was merry. He tried to ignore it. If he was going to learn about living, he needed to pretend to be the same.

Still, the thought grew faster and flashier the longer he kept his mind away from it, and eventually it was circling too quickly to be forgotten. Cole tilted his head at the thought. Like him, it was no longer allowed to fade away. Maybe that's why it was so loud.

He stood from the table abruptly and grabbed two full glasses from the table. He'd given the money he'd gotten as Inquisition pay to Varric. The dwarf had laughed at the pile of gold and said he'd make sure it was used well. The way he said it had been a joke, and the rest of the room had laughed, but it hadn't been the kind of laugh that was a door in the face. It was the other sort, the laugh that had space inside of it for him.

He liked that laugh. And it meant he could take more ale and leave, which he did.

Up the stairs, following the silver thread winding its way through the watery air, until there was a real door in his face. He frowned at the knob, mind a little fuzzy as he considered how a man with two full hands and shod feet worked it, when the door opened of its own accord.

"Finally," said Sera. Her eyes narrowed. "Oh. Go away."

But once a door was open, Cole knew it was easy to keep it cracked, and he put his body in the way when she tried to slam it. It hurt, but that was okay. "I brought you ale," he said. "It greases the world."

Sera's face didn't soften, but she did grab the mug from his hand. Her hair was even shaggier than usual, her eyes more wild, and she stalked away from him to sit on her window bench.

Cole watched her as she gulped a drink. "How did you know I was there? Can you see me through doors?" Maybe now that he was real he was even more visible than everyone else. The thought was a little alarming.

She snorted. "Don't be stupid. No one can see through doors. I heard the boards creak, thought it would be the Almighty Glowing Lady. Not you." She glared at him. "Wouldn't have opened the door for you."

"Oh," he said. He looked at the little table full of too many things to fit. A plate of cookies sat on top of a stack of books, a little precariously, but with a care that the rest of the room didn't show. He reached towards them slowly.

"Don't!" yelped Sera, half-rising and grabbing for her bow. "Don't touch things that aren't yours, yeah?"

"They feel happy," he said. He looked at the mug he still held. "They feel like what they say this is."

"Cookies don't feel like anything. They're food. And they're still not yours."

"Okay."

They were silent, Cole looking around the room with interest while Sera glared at him. Eventually she said, "You want something or what?"

"I brought you a drink. Now we can sit around the table and laugh," he said. "It's how we become lighter. Friends."

"I have plenty of friends," she said. "And if I wanted another, I would just find one. I don't need some gross demon thing with a dumb hat."

He frowned at himself. "I'm a person now. But I can take off the hat," he said reluctantly. He reached up and swept it off, ruffling his straw-colored hair. "You asked me to come."

Now it was her turn to frown. "Didn't. I would remember something that daft," she said. Her eyes widened. "Were you reading my brain again? I told you not to do that."

"Your mind came to me," he protested. "We need all the friends we can get, Varric says."

She glowered at him. "No. Go away."

Cole sighed and moved back to the door, then turned when she spoke again. "Leave the other drink. It probably doesn't have too much Fade gunk on it."

He smiled at the nascent light in her words and set his mug on the floor before he left.

A week later, the Inquisitor left for Val Royeaux with Vivienne, Josephine, and Varric. Cole went to see Sera again. This time he brought a drink and two pastry rolls and found the door open. He wandered into her room and stopped when it was empty. He turned in a slow circle, sensing her mind but not seeing her face.

He sniffed. The air smelled like chocolate, and the air was coming from the window.

Cole stepped up to the pane and looked through. Sera sat curled on the eaves of the tavern, watching the gate and chewing. The building cut the sun in half, and the shadow slid across her in a way that made her seem smaller. Sadder. He studied her, trying to see with his eyes what he no longer felt with his mind. The divide of the afternoon split her into two halves that didn't fit back cleanly.

He stepped through the window, and even though she was somehow less than Sera, her eyes were still a purposeful fire when she whirled on him. "Think you own the place, do you?"

"It was open," he said, pausing uncertainly. "I brought you things to help. Because our friends are gone."

Sera looked away. "Yeah. When one goes to Orlais, one does like to present oneself to advantage," she said in a mimicry of Vivienne's crushed velvet voice. "Ambassador Montilyet is quite adored in court, my dear."

She sighed and fell back into her own cadence. "Leave the trash behind." She glanced back at Cole. "Guess that's us."

He handed her the mug as he tilted his head to the side. "You aren't trash," he said. His mind fell into the place of words that was harder to reach for all it was full to bursting. "She likes your hair the most, wild and unpredictable. She wants to touch it, to run fingers through the strands and be surprised with every ending and beginning. The Inquisitor must be smooth and steady, but your hair is freedom."

"Sure could have fooled me," muttered Sera. She bit savagely into another cookie from a nearby plate. Her words were nearly lost around the new mouthful. "Barely even looks at me most of the time."

"The sun is beautiful, blazing, burning. At its height, it hurts to look. It has to be closer," said Cole.

He hesitated, trying to come up with the place that said without revealing, the way that was useful but polite. The Inquisitor and Varric had been very clear that he couldn't go too far with his help anymore. He remembered Ellana's grave eyes, collected and calm as she always had to be, when she told him about the knives that a tongue could wield. Dorian had been across the campfire, and Cole had heard again the shouting voice that claimed the mage was no son of his.

At last he spoke again. "Ellana is Dalish."

Sera sighed. "And I'm not," she said. "Yeah, I get it." She stood and shook herself. "I'm gonna shoot something."

Before Cole could stop her, tell her that wasn't the point, she stepped to the edge of the roof and dropped off, her bow slung over her back. He half-rose in panic, then gaped as her head slowly reappeared wearing a smirk. "Have a cookie, demon thing," she added, then vanished once more.

He sat, puzzled, wondering if she really was the floating sun. At last he scooted to the edge himself and looked over the side. He laughed, a high and clear sound that had passing heads craning up to look for the noise. A stack of crates sat against the inn, piling up in a staircase that led directly to them. After he put the plate in the room and closed the window behind him, he followed the same path out, a happy dessert resting in his pocket.

"Can you still do that invisibility trick?" asked Sera one day. They'd talked more since the day on the roof, small conversations that went longer with each pass. Today was the first time she'd looked for him, so they were talking in the belly of Skyhold, at a place near the kitchens where he could always find a cat. This one was the striped ginger that only liked to be petted on the very top of his head, and Cole patiently worked his fingers against the spot to feel the purr.

He looked up at the question in surprise, just in time to see Sera shiver against the wall. A wisp of emotions floated over to where he knelt. "Do you feel smaller down here?"

Cole was proud of himself for asking the question instead of saying what he knew, a politeness he'd learned without having to be told, but her frown told him he still hadn't found the right way to ask. "I don't like that," she said. "Steal someone else's thoughts."

She never believed him when he said the thoughts were given, so he said nothing. If he stayed quiet, she sometimes forgot to be mad. "The big people always take the tops of things for themselves," she said eventually, shrugging. "When you're underground, it's because you don't matter." The corners of her mouth quirked up. "Varric would say the same thing."

"Elves like to be outside," said Cole. Another cat joined the first, and he reached out to rub her belly.

The irritation returned. "I'm not an elf, though? The ground is a stupid thing to sleep on."

"Ellana has a nice bed."

Sera laughed, a bubbling wave that doubled her over. "Been sneaking off for afternoon fun with Inky, have you?"

Cole frowned. "Josephine told me," he said. Ellana liked beds that were soft and nice, and the ambassador liked the Ellana to be happy. She'd been very proud of her surprise for their leader.

Like a seesaw, the mood shifted back to sour. "Right," said Sera. "Answer my question."

"I'm a person. People aren't invisible."

She didn't say he was a demon, which was good. But she was disappointed with his answer, which was bad. "But you're still sneaky?"

He nodded. "Leliana always sees me. I don't fix her tea. And The Iron Bull has only one eye but he uses it better than two. I can't sneak through them."

Sera waved her hand dismissively. "S'okay. Should work. I think," she said. She tapped a finger against her jaw in a jagged rhythm, and Cole found himself doing the same to the cats. They hissed and squirmed and ran away, leaving him staring after them sadly. Sera didn't notice as she squatted next to him. "You're my friend, yeah?"

Cole blinked. She didn't feel bright and clear like the Chargers, but there was no anger in the air. "I tried to be," he said. "You gave me a cookie that was better than ale. So I think we are friends on the outside. But the inside is wrong."

Sera snapped her fingers. "Of course. We haven't finished yet," she said. When Cole looked puzzled, she smiled. "Didn't Varric tell you?"

"We still had more lessons," he said, thinking back to Varric's words when he left. "He said I was still learning."

"Well, I can help out, yeah? Give the dwarf a break. And friends aren't friends until they have some fun."

He looked at the elf girl solemnly. "It was fun when you jumped off the roof."

"No no, not like that. Fun, like, to other people. Pranks. Jokes. Laughing," she said impatiently.

"I laughed."

Cole shrank back when Sera growled. "Do you want to be friends or not?" Her face broke into a devilish smile. "Her Glowiness and I did it once. It helped us."

"Josephine was very angry," he said, but already he was brightening. If Ellana did it, then it was a good thing. She was the Inquisitor, and she was always right. He stood, then paused. "This won't hurt Ellana, will it?"

"Of course not," said Sera. Her tones were indignant as she rose up as well. "I wouldn't hurt her."

He relaxed. "Okay. I'll finish our friendship. What should I do?"

Sera's expression sharpened. "We'll start tomorrow night."

Ellana slept loudly, rustling and snoring in the cold Frostback air. Cole and Sera perched in the shadows on the Inquisitor's balcony railing and waited for her to settle into something deeper.

He looked at the yawning space below them. Compassion was never afraid, but the man who used to be compassion was starting to understand why he should have been. Sera kept her eyes focused on the dimly lit room. She lived to be in unacknowledged danger.

"Don't forget," she whispered, light as air. "We get caught, you hang around all innocent while I run."

"I'm not innocent."

"You don't have to be it, you just have to look it."

"Okay," he said in a tiny voice. "This is fun."

Her teeth gleamed under the moon's light in reply.

Eventually the sleeping elf calmed into a heavy sleep, and Cole and Sera dropped lightly onto the stone platform. They crept into the chamber and split as agreed. Sera ghosted to the desk while Cole found the trunk he'd been assured was Ellana's shoes.

While he sorted through them carefully and silently, looking for one blue slipper as he'd been told, he saw Sera pick up several shining glass bottles from the place where the Inquisitor did all of the things the Inquisition needed. Cole frowned, but Sera held up a warning finger to her lips, so he said nothing. Once he'd found the shoes, he made his way back to the silently giggling elf.

"Inky's ink," she said quietly, shaking the bottles. They tinkled against each other, loud as thunder in the quiet room, and she stilled instantly.

Ellana didn't even move.

Sera stared at her with an odd expression before motioning Cole back to the balcony with their prizes. "She'll go mad looking for this stuff in the morning," she said as she swung her legs back to the treacherous footholds they'd used to scale the walls. "And she'll never even know we were here."

"Vivienne, are you sure I packed both of my blue slippers when we came back? I can only find one of them."

"Of course, my dear. I supervised the entire endeavor, if you'll recall. I hope you don't intend to begin doubting me at this late hour."

"No, no. I guess I'll look again. And Josephine, I need some ink sent to my room, please. Unless you want me to answer all of that correspondence in blood."

"But I asked them to ensure several bottles were provided to you, Inquisitor!"

Cole looked across the breakfast table at Sera. She didn't look back, but there was a small smile lurking around her mind. Cole kept his own broad smile carefully inside. His mouth couldn't show all the things he was learning. Friends were more fun with secrets.

The next night they were there again, and Cole went to the desk to take the new ink.

Sera grabbed his arm and shook her head. "You mad? She'll definitely know something's up if we take that again," she whispered quickly. She cocked her head at the sleeping form and grinned. "Take all but one of the quills. I'll cut the other one so it breaks. Try writing fancy 'correspondence' then, huh?"

The night after, they put back the blue slipper and took a slim brown boot.

"She wears those to see the horses," whispered Cole. "It's her only pair. That's tomorrow."

"Exactly. Can't wait to see her face." Sera stepped next to the bed and studied the peaceful, snoring face. "Yeah, it'll be good."

The next morning the Inquisitor showed up to the stables with one brown boot, one foot unshod, and a deadly expression that no one dared to comment on at all.

"How much fun must we have before we're friends?" asked Cole as they perched once more. The Inquisitor was very quiet this time, so he kept his voice as delicate as a feather.

"Tired?" asked Sera curiously. "Thought spirits didn't need to sleep."

He noted happily that she said spirit. He was so pleased that he didn't argue that he was also person, even though he was. "I just wanted to know when I should ask Varric for more lessons."

"We'll see," she said. She nodded to the still room and they slipped inside. Cole had been told to to rearrange and hide some books on the shelves, while Sera stepped once again to the shoe heap. For a Dalish elf, Ellana liked shoes.

Cole saw Sera stiffen and look around warily when she was a few steps away. He abandoned his task and moved to her, a little panicked by the fear that suddenly enveloped her. When he got close enough she suddenly gasped and waved him off, looking directly up, but he felt his foot catch on something hidden in the dark room. The world flipped upside down, and he saw Sera vanishing down the staircase as he rose into the air like magic.

When a candle's light flared into the dimness he flinched, but he didn't look away from Ellana's face when it came level to his own, upside down. "I met you this way," he said thoughtfully. "You are stronger when you're on your head."

"Cole?" said Ellana. Her voice and feelings were tinged with disbelief. "Were you the one stealing my shoes?"

He thought for a minute. "Just borrowing and returning. I won't keep them forever."

"Why would you do that?"

She didn't seem mad. Which was good because he was going to lie to her. Friends had secrets, and Sera was a secret friend. He frowned, which to Ellana must look like a smile. "Are you my friend?"

"Yes," said Ellana carefully. "Of course I'm your friend. Did you need my shoes to find that out?"

He tasted another feeling, a strange image that made him laugh. "Why would I put your shoes on my feet? They go with yours. On mine they wouldn't be home."

The elf relaxed a little, but she made no move to let him down. He looked up at his neatly tied ankle. "May I have the world the right way again?" he asked. It was sad to ask, because this was more interesting than the usual way, but his head felt too light.

She muttered something in Elvhen and pulled on the rope tie. Cole lowered more gently than he would have imagined, and he caught himself with his hands on the ceiling that would become a floor. When he stood he wobbled a little, and Ellana grabbed his arm. "You didn't answer my question. Why were you taking my shoes?"

Sera was his friend. But so was Ellana. Which one should he have the secrets with? "For fun," he said evasively. "To make people smile."

The Inquisitor rocked back on her heels, her face set in a grim mask. "I see," she said. She walked down the stairs and threw the door open. The guard stationed outside, obviously asleep, was startled to crooked attention by the bang. "Find Sera and bring her here, please. You should be able to follow the trail directly past you, I believe."

The city elf was struggling and swearing when two guards carried her in. "What is this, the Alienage? A girl can't shoot a few arrows in peace?" They dumped her unceremoniously on the floor at Ellana's signal and left. As soon as the door clicked shut, the swearing stopped.

Cole watched her curiously from his soft chair, focusing hard on the hissing woman. She sounded annoyed but she felt worried. "Did you snitch?" she demanded of him. "Friends don't do that."

"Your friend said nothing of you." Ellana's face was thunderous as in her emphasis, and Sera flinched and looked away. "But I'm not a fool. Did you expect him to take my anger in your place, lethallan?"

Sera recovered her composure and glared. "Don't talk that elfy crap with me. And don't talk noble, either."

"I'll speak as I choose, in the middle of the night in my own rooms," said Ellana. "I can't believe you did this."

"It's just shoes," muttered Sera. "And some writing stuff. You gonna throw me in the dungeon?"

Ellana huffed a breath. "Not that. This," she said, pointing back to Cole. He didn't understand the words or the feelings that were happening now, but they made him want to be smaller. "Cole is a good person, a kind person, and you…" She trailed off. "It was very cruel of you, Sera."

Sera stood in an explosion of anger. "I wanted to see in here, yeah? See you. Not like you come to see me anymore, too high and mighty for the likes of the tavern, or a roof. The Inquisitor can't be eating cookies with some orphan girl who cuts her hair weird. Can't shag a Jenny who'd sooner steal from your new noble friends than bow to them," she said. She spat on the ground. "To the bloody Void with them all."

"Sera," began Ellana, but the other woman cut her off.

"And I had to know if you were alone. Okay? I had to know. But you'd just laugh if you saw, so I brought him. But it was like, Josephine got you such a nice bed, thought she might be using it herself."

To Cole's astonishment Sera began to cry, big, silent drops that rolled down her face unimpeded. She never raised her hands or blinked them away, seeming not to notice them at all, but they were there all the same, and he hadn't felt them coming. I want to help my friend, he thought, but he didn't know how.

Ellana didn't move, stunned and a little afraid. You're no son of mine was all Cole could hear, but it was an Elvhen voice and the words weren't the same. He jumped to his feet and crossed to Ellana, to put his head to hers. "You're Dalish," he said quietly.

"I am," she said.

"They need babies. Squalling, screaming, saving. The People are dying because they never live."

Sera made a sound in her throat, half-questioning and half-revelation, as Ellana nodded. The Inquisitor looked at her bare feet. "Having children with another of my kind is my duty. Anything else is a renunciation of all that I am."

"Sod that," said Sera fiercely, finally swiping away the wetness on her cheeks. "Your duty is you. Even when you're small, just because someone says you have to be something stupid you don't have to listen. And you're the damn Inquisitor."

"The world will be your children," whispered Cole. "You'll raise us all."

A startled feeling crossed the Inquisitor's mind. "Is that something I thought?"

Cole shook his head. "It's something I know." He touched her chest lightly. "Your thoughts are in your heart, now."

Ellana flushed and looked at Sera, who stepped closer. "What's the good of being big if you can't eat cookies and make out, yeah?"

"No good at all, I suppose."

"You can have babies and still not be stupid and locked up in here, you know. It's not like I have the l-word all over me or whatever. I just like the kissing," said Sera, grinning.

"Liar," said Ellana, but her voice was relieved.

This time it was the Inquisitor who moved, and the two women drew into a gentle kiss that was made considerably less gentle by Sera's impish tug at Ellana's hair. Cole watched with interest as they swirled around each other. He'd seen sex before, when he was a ghost, but it was very different to be a person on the outskirts of it. His mind said he should turn away, but he didn't know why. They weren't hurting anymore. He'd helped.

"I'll leave," he said eventually. He made to circle past them to the stairway. "Tomorrow I'll remove the footholds so your shoes will be safe, if you like."

Ellana pulled away from Sera and turned to him. "No. I mean, yes, remove the footholds, but no, don't leave. Sera needs to apologize."

"What?" said the now-unabashed elf. "I'm sorry I took your shoes, okay?"

"I told you, not that," said Ellana, rolling her eyes. "Though I'll get you back for the stables." She gestured to Cole, and Sera's face twisted once more.

Cole waited for the next thing to happen as Sera stepped towards him. She looked at his chest and muttered, "Sorry."

"For what?" said Ellana patiently.

"For tricking you into the pranks and getting you caught in a rope and running away," Sera said in a big rush. "There, you happy?" she added, turning back to their leader.

Ellana nodded, but Cole frowned. "It was a trick?" He focused on her mind and felt the truth of her, and the lies that she'd been hiding before. All the air went out of him as he realized what was real. "We aren't friends. I failed your lesson."

Both women made small noises, but he was already turning away. "I'm sorry I couldn't learn, Sera. I'll try to do better, next time."

Cole and Varric were at the tavern once more, but this time for a different lesson. Cole looked into his mug once more. "Varric, you said that this was for happiness."

"Sometimes. Sometimes it's for when you're feeling down. Does a man good to drown his sorrows every once in awhile. Then he can be happy again."

"People who drown aren't happy."

Varric sighed. "We're going to have to work on idioms later. For now, bottoms up."

"My bottom was up when Ellana caught me at her shoes," said Cole curiously. "Will that happen again here? It didn't last time."

The dwarf put his head in his hands but never got the chance to answer as another body slid beside him. Two full glasses plunked down on the table, and the silver thought was back, strong and anxious. Cole looked up in surprise to see Sera watching him and drumming her fingers on the table in that eternal broken rhythm. She shoved a glass over to him.

"I bought you a drink," she said.

"Where's mine?" said Varric, frowning.

"I only buy drinks for my friends, dwarf."

Cole looked into the mug he held, then the one she'd pushed across the table. Hers didn't have anything happy inside, either, but the place where she'd touched the glass was warm and bright. Like the Chargers when they sang too loudly. He leaned back to study her face and realized she was nervous. He smiled. He'd read that emotion with his eyes instead of his head.

"I have to drink this glass of sadness, first, to learn how to drown. But then I can have your friendship," he said.

Sera groaned. "Ugh. Are you ever going to start making sense, demon thing?"

But she said it with a quick grin and a pull from her own drink that let him inside of the joke. Later they lounged on the roof together, sharing a plate of cookies with Ellana and watching the sun rise. It was beautiful over their fortress home, and close enough to touch without pain, but it was dim compared to the light that friends carried for each other. Cole kept the secret tight to his chest, the hidden brightness around their darkness that made them all real.