"I still do not understand. One can stand above an angel's grace, ignoring swords and wings, but falters to the bottom with a felled hand by the serpent's bite. Varric explains it better."
"Look, if Varric were here, he could hold your hand and walk you through every round, but he's not," Blackwall grunted, his frustration with the spirit visibly coming to a boil as he glared at his cards. "Just play the damned game, without telling us the suits' life stories."
"Oh. I will try." Cole meekly hid behind his own hand of cards, trying to figure out the discreet machinations of Wicked Grace. Every time he played, he forgot the rules. It took a long time for Varric to patiently explain that reading the minds of other players would, by most peoples' accounts, be considered cheating and deeply frowned upon. Though Blackwall had considerably less patience than Varric, he understood Cole's difficulties; his infuriation at that moment mostly stemmed from how utterly unhelpful the Inquisitor and Solas were being.
They seemed more than content to silently observe their own hands with twinkling eyes and smirks hidden behind their cards.
Two days had passed since the dawn they left Skyhold for Val Firmin, and they were already partway through the third. They only stopped briefly every night for a few hours rest and to tend to the horses and supplies. Slight tensions pulsed between the Templars and the mages, but no real conflict came to a head at any point. The fact that they all served under the Inquisition banner managed to keep things relatively civil, at the very least.
Cole stared at the cards uncertainly; a pair of songs, lettered twilight and mercy. Three knights: wisdom, roses, sacrifice. He reached for the deck set in the center of the wagon, drawing a card and gazing blankly at what it depicted. The Angel of Death. He laid it down before him, the others exhaling at the sight of it.
"Well, that is the end of this round. Inquisitor, would you be so kind as to start the reveal?" Solas smiled at her affably, gesturing to her hand. She wrinkled her nose slightly, laying down her cards; two daggers and three unmatched spares. Blackwall revealed his next, a slightly better hand of two serpents of lust and deceit and two songs of temerity and fortune, along with a knight. Cole laid his cards down, earning a laugh from the bearded man to his right.
"A full house. Not bad, Cole." His annoyance from earlier dissolving, Blackwall clapped him on the back jovially. "Got some good luck this round."
"Indeed he has," Solas hummed, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "However, I seem to have even better luck." Blackwall gawked at the five angels the mage revealed; truth, charity, fortitude, dignity, and faith.
"No shit. Five of a kind." Blackwall shook his head in disbelief. "Glad we're not playing for keeps here. I'll say, I've never played against someone who cheats as well as you do, Solas."
Solas laughed cheerily. "Whatever could give you the impression that I am cheating?"
"No one's luck is that good," the Inquisitor chimed in. "And me? I've just got the absolute worst luck. Can't you rub some of yours off on me?" She jokingly bumped her shoulder against his, nearly unseating the significantly smaller elf. He retained his balanced with a slight smile.
"I'm afraid I can't change your luck. The world seems determined to throw nothing but adversity in your path."
"Eh, it hasn't been all that bad," she shrugged nonchalantly, winking humorously across the wagon at Cole. "We've been able to get a lot done for the greater good, have we not?"
"Fair enough, Inquisitor," Solas mused, taking the deck and shuffling it for the next round of Wicked Grace. Blackwall scowled at that.
"How come you get to shuffle? I bet that's where your 'luck' is coming from," he accused, reaching for the cards. "Allow me."
The deck remained in the elf's hands. "That's absolutely preposterous. And how do we know you are not going to cheat? Perhaps we should let Cole shuffle instead. He clearly has no intention of gaining an unfair advantage, unlike some." Blackwall didn't appear entirely convinced, but he begrudgingly gave a grunt of accord. The Inquisitor carelessly shrugged, seemingly fine with the solution. Pleased with the agreement, Solas carefully handed the deck of cards over to Cole for shuffling.
The cards promptly slipped from his fingers and scattered to the wind.
"I said I was sorry..."
Blackwall still had not spoken a word to Cole since the tragic loss of his Wicked Grace deck. The spirit fidgeted worrisomely, casting feverish glances to the man at his side and apologizing profusely every minute or so. Once or twice, the Inquisitor caught a tiny smirk behind Blackwall's tangled mess of facial hair. Part of her found his little joke on Cole absolutely hilarious, while the rest of her could not bear the distraught look of utter bewilderment and shame on Cole's face. Finding she could take no more of his sad-puppy look, she leaned towards him.
"Cole," she hummed gently. He looked up at her quickly with huge, pale eyes and an anxious frown, begging for some answer to his problem. She smiled reassuringly, amazed that such a creature could maintain such an air of adorable naïveté. "He's joking."
Immediately Cole perked up, whirling about to face Blackwall excitedly. Clinging to the Warden's arm, he breathed, "Really? You're not angry?"
Blackwall rolled his eyes. "Of course not. You are far too easy to trick, Cole."
"Or perhaps you are far too good at tricking." Cole caught Blackwall's sharp stare with his steady gaze, before relinquishing Blackwall's arm. Relieved, Cole exclaimed, "I am glad you are not mad. I was worried."
"You know, for someone who kills hundreds of bloody things every other day, you've got some real thin skin," Blackwall grunted, his voice shaking slightly. He cleared his throat and glanced at the other two passengers in the wagon; they seemed to have not noticed anything odd about his and Cole's exchange, thankfully. Cole frowned at his comment, poking at his own pale arm.
"My skin seems normal to me..." Blackwall's sarcastic retort was cut short by an abrupt lurch of the wagon. The scrawny driver murmured to the horses, and they settled to a complete stop. He turned apologetically to the passengers, not looking them in their faces.
"Val Firmin, your Worship." He quickly turned away from them, making a grand show of busying himself with the reins.
"Thank you, Markus," the Inquisitor said kindly. The boy didn't turn around or respond in more than a grunt of acknowledgment, though Cole could see his ears turn red at the simple words of gratitude. He could sense fleeting feelings of embarrassment and shyness flurrying together with utmost delight, 'The Inquisitor has noticed me! She knows my name!' Cole wondered idly how she knew the boy's name. The Inquisitor stood, climbing down from the wagon, followed by her three companions. She glanced around; vast plains surrounding the dusty road, tinged by far off forests and a looming keep on the horizon. Night was almost upon the Inquisition travelers, and the Inquisitor could make out blazing dots of fire in the distance, the signs of Inquisition camps. "The agents we are looking for should be nearby. They said they'd be closer to the forests, I believe."
"Ah, the Inquisitor, no doubt. Charmed to finally meet you." A pleasantly silky voiced greeted the party, one that made Cole nearly jump out of his skin. Turning to face the source of the voice, two figures came out of the darkness towards them. It was clear that, though these two were very close to forty years of age, they both possessed very attractive features. The robed male's dark hair and beard were streaked with distinguished accents of grey and his eyes held a friendly warmth. The woman, dressed in very sensible heavy armor, had a face seemingly carved out of fine porcelain, framed by shining black hair tucked back out of the way. Though stunningly beautiful, she lacked the inherent sense of charisma the mage beside her held. Despite the handsome features of the pair, they were both obviously weighted down by an overwhelming weariness. "The two of us owe you our lives, so we thought we might be able to repay you with fixing this mess. I suppose it would be best if we got things underway-"
The man froze, his eyes lingering, past the Inquisitor, onto the slight, paled young man with the bewildered expression of a startled doe. A moment of silence stretched on for years, until the mage spoke with a strained tone.
"Cole? Is that you?"