a/n- I am so terribly sorry for how long it has been since I last updated. I'm a terrible person and it shouldn't have taken so long. Life gets in the way sometimes.

Okay, so since I thought the Cole thing was a little too underplayed in the game, I when ham on it and turned it into and enormous chapter. So at least you get this after months of silence. I'm trying very, very, very hard to stay in character so please let me know if I am or not. It's been very difficult for me to pick this up after months of school and feel like I'm doing adequately. Also, you'll notice Cole's dialogue is almost exactly what is in the game. That is because I am trying to learn how he speaks and by writing his dialogue I can get an idea of what happening in his head. Also I really couldn't figure out anything else to make him say other than what happened. Please enjoy.

Cole

A loud knocking pulled Enya from twisted dreams. She blinked the cloudiness from her eyes, uncertain, at first, where she was. Shivering, she realized she'd never made it to her bed the night before. Enya pushed herself up, unsticking her cheek from the parchment pages of the book she'd apparently used for a pillow. Her couch. The wide white silk covered seating that took up enough of room to be considered a secondary bed. That is what she'd slept on.

"Inquisitor."

Cassandra's voice joined the knocking. Enya shook her head in an attempt to forget her night's dreams but they lingered still, like bitter fruit on the tongue. Rising from the couch, she closed the book and made her way to the door of her quarters.

"Inquisi-"

Enya pulled the door open, "Yes, Cassandra?"

The Seeker's expression hovered between surprise and embarrassment, her hand raised to knock again, though the door was no longer there. She dropped her hand to her side. Had she not been half asleep, Enya might have grinned at her friend's expression, but instead she only managed a lazy raised eyebrow and pursed lips.

"It's that boy again," Cassandra was quick to recover, "I was training this morning and he just… appeared. He said he could help me. Said he heard me calling out and he could heal my pain."

The Seeker crossed her arms over her chest, "He was reading my mind Inquisitor."

Enya nodded and stepped through the door, past Cassandra, onto the rough wooden landing that had been constructed at the top of the stairs. It had been promised that the stone would be repaired and this hasty platform replaced but for the moment, it was what they had. At least she could be glad that ensuring the walk to her quarters was pretty was not the top priority of the dwarven masons the Inquisition employed to direct repairs.

Still struggling to wake up fully, Enya walked with Cassandra down the spiraling stair from her tower and into the main castle before she replied.

"He's read mine as well. I really don't think he means harm, Cassandra. From what I've seen, he wants to help."

"That may be, but I won't have some strange mage rummaging about in my brain, offering to make it better when I'm not even sure I know what he wants to fix."

This was getting ridiculous. Everyone was pushing for a decision. Mother Giselle with her comments about the forest, Solas with his reserved opinions on the boy's true nature, the soldiers and pilgrims terrified that he might somehow injure them, though he had brought no harm to anyone yet, but for by accident. Now Cassandra stood before her. She'd known the woman had her own misgivings about him, but for her too to be defensive and unnerved by him. Enya loosed a heavy sigh. She had to make a decision soon.

"I'll speak with him Cassandra." Enya reassured

Cassandra nodded tersely, "Perhaps, he'll listen to you. It seems my refusals fall on deaf ears."

They went their separate ways. The Seeker made her way to the rotunda, presumably to find Leliana in the rookery above. Enya proceeded down the great hall and out the front doors. For once, no one had met her with a missive or a problem, other than Cassandra, that is, and she hoped that perhaps she could escape to the healing tents without anyone asking for her attention. She breathed a sigh of relief when her quick footsteps carried her beyond Skyhold's courtyard to the edge of the path leading into the river valley below.

The bustle of the healing tents dwindled both with death and with recovery. In just over a month, the Inquisition's wounded fell from a hundred and a half, in round numbers, to only thirty and the tents had gone from ten to two. Those who remained were the amputees, those whose wounds refused to heal yet they lingered on, and those whose minds had crumbled like the mountainside.

"If you would, lethallan."

Solas held out a fresh set of linens, but never did his eyes leave the patient before them. Enya took the bandaging with her free hand while her left held firm pressure above the inflamed and bloodied knee of one of their soldiers. The stump of his leg refused to heal. A long groan fell from the soldier's lips as his body jerked roughly on the cot. His other leg wrenched up, knocking her elbow, but she only redoubled the pressure.

Enya's eyes flicked upward to Solas', only to find him deep in concentration. He unwrapped the stump with one hand, slowly, while his other shimmered pale green-blue as the sea, knitting the surface tissue of the wound and debriding away the tissue that had died. Despite his care, the stump wept blood onto the rough brown cot.

When Solas finished unwrapping the limb, she stepped forward and seamlessly, his hand replaced hers on the leg, as though it had not been a fortnight since they had last worked together. From a pouch she wore about her waist, she pulled leaves of embrium coated in a powder of ground spindleweed. The powder would stop the bleeding, while the leaves would help with the infection that had taken root. She cupped the first leaf in her bloodied left hand and winced as a sharp pain shot form her palm into her shoulder. The soldier on the cot thrashed again as she drew close to his leg with the leaf.

Catching Solas' eye, she gestured at their patient, "Could you…"

He nodded and placed a hand on the man's forehead. The soldier fell limp in unconsciousness.

"Ma serannas."

She pressed each leaf into the stump of the leg and followed with the wrap of clean linen as she had so often helped her mother do. Simple, straightforward work, each moment dictated clearly by what happened before. Enya let out a satisfied breath as she finished the final knot and then stepped back.

Looking at her hands, she noticed the soldier had bled a great deal more than she had thought. They were nearly coated. A month and yet he had not healed any better. Solas lay a fresh blanket over the man as she gathered the dirtied bandages from the ground. Together they made their way to the wash basins at the rear of the tent.

Dropping the soiled linens into a barrel of like material, she turned to her companion. Solas' hands were already submerged in the wash basin, gentle agitation drawing swirls of red from his fingertips until the water within was tinged rusty pink. He drew back and she replaced him, rubbing the blood from her fingers and hands as well. As she drew away, he passed her the cloth he'd used to dry his hands. She'd run it over her first finger when his voice broke the silence.

"His leg grows worse with each day. Barely a week ago, I would have said he could leave. Now, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to remove the limb entirely."

"He was healing well?"

Enya finished her left hand, ignoring the prickles of pain in her palm as she pressed on it, and placed the towel in the barrel with the bloodied bandages. Solas stepped outside the tent and she followed. A gentle snow fell around them yet for the first time she could remember, there was no draft to pull at her clothes. They stopped some ways from the healing tents.

"Quite well. Fiona's head healer had just given him leave to begin rehabilitation."

"What about the infection in the leg? Surely that can't have appeared over night."

Solas shook his head, "Alas, it did not. As the wound closed, he developed a pocket of dead tissue that was sealed within. It is not uncommon."

"Have you drained it?" She asked, thinking of a halla who'd been bitten by a bear and developed such a pocket in her shoulder.

"I have," He met her questioning gaze with a pensive one of his own, "But the infection still spreads."

Her shoulders slumped as she let out a sigh, "Then perhaps it would be best."

Enya placed her hand on her hips, drawn into her thoughts. She stared at the ground by his feet, at the impressions they had left, walking from the tents out into the winter afternoon. Drifting on a stray idea, she followed a tendril of back to her earlier conversation with Mother Giselle. Her eyes snapped up to meet Solas.'

"What about Cole? Could he help?"

The elf's lips drew tight, "From what I have seen of Cole's abilities, Lethallan, he seems to only have the ability to effect pain in the abstract."

Enya raised an eyebrow.

"I doubt he can actually heal, just take away the pain."

"Taking away the pain can sometimes be more helpful than any other form of medicine." Enya argued.

"Only insofar as the pain is the only thing still causing irritation of the wound. And too little pain makes the body forget it should heal itself."

"So we'll just let this man suffer then?" Enya huffed, "Do you not trust him either?"

She knew this was a bit of an over-reaction, yet there was something in the way Solas suggested they leave this man in pain that struck a nerve. The body would forget to heal itself. As if the body could forget it had a wound. She bit her lip, frowning at her friend. Solas, as often happened now around her, had forgotten to wear his impassive mask. Instead she squirmed under his searching, considerate gaze.

"On the contrary, Enya, you might find me his greatest advocate," he paused, "But his magic, for want of a better word, has the ability to provide not just analgesia but amnesia."

"Amnesia?" Enya's temper deflated as quickly as it had arisen, "So it is by forgetting the injury that those he helps feel better."

"That is what I have observed," Solas settled into his usual stance, "While I would very much like to give this man that peace, I fear it would lead him to only more pain."

Enya nodded, crossing her arms as a gentle wind picked up, disturbing the stillness of the crusty snow. The distant river, now nearly completely frozen let out guttural creaks as ice calved from its shores to clatter along the narrow, unfrozen center. The gentle clouds that had filled the sky in the morning hung pregnant and dark and low over the peaks. No sooner had she glanced up than a snowflake lighted on her cheek, melting against the warmth of her skin. She brushed the little puddle of water away.

Enya jumped as she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. Solas had pressed his palm to the leather of her tunic and from his fingers she felt warmth flood her body. She hadn't realized she'd been shivering, but the absence of the tiny quakes was a welcome relief. He withdrew his hand only moments later, returning it to a resting position, clasped with the other behind his back.

"He came to me before Cassandra and the others asked me to become Inquisitor."

It was Solas' turn to raise an eyebrow.

"Cole. He thought he should warn me that they had something planned."

The pair moved back toward the healing tents, both warmed by Solas' magic, though the snow had begun to fall in earnest.

"But he got upset and vanished when he couldn't explain better." She cast he friend a sideways glance, "I've met a few mages in my time Solas. And heard many stories. I've never seen nor has anyone mentioned one that could vanish like he did. Perhaps appear to disappear for a period, but they would always appear within seconds a short distance away."

Solas halted just outside the healing tents and drew in a deep breath. Enya watched as he considered her experience, patiently waiting for his thoughts on the matter. She had her own suspicions, that Cole was something else, something no one had seen before. At the very least, he was not a typical mage, but then again, she'd heard him talk of Circles before, so perhaps he was.

"I am not so certain Cole is a mage, Lethallan. Certainly, what you say lends support to this theory."

Enya leaned against the pole of the tent.

"Beyond that, I fear I have little to offer on the matter at present. I wish to be certain of my suspicions before I voice them."

Enya nodded, stung slightly by his unwillingness to share his musings, yet if Cole really were as different as she suspected, perhaps it was better he did confide in her in such a public area. They returned to the man they had been tending to find him awake and moaning in agony. She busied herself mixing a tincture of elfroot and embrium while Solas went to speak with the surgeon who'd leant her services to the Inquisition.

Noon had come and gone by the time Enya extricated herself from the multitude of meetings with Chantry clerks, researchers, and gentry Josephine had arranged. Already her shoulders sagged from weariness and her face drawn. If any had argued it impossible to grow tired from being asked too many questioned, she was living proof that it was.

Upon emerging beyond Skyhold's enormous doors, however, she found the sun's light, weakened as it was by the low angle of winter, had a rejuvenating effect. It was scarcely warm enough to feel yet Enya noticed faint warm in her cheeks and the ache of sitting for hours left her bones. Intent on perhaps speaking with Varric over in the tavern, she made her way down the steps only to be distracted by the stern tones of an argument.

Solas, Cassandra, Mother Giselle stood together in the lower courtyard.

"I understand that you have developed and attachment to him, Solas, but-"

"It is not safe to keep him here, Lady Cassandra. We cannot afford to have him wander about our camps as though he hasn't the abilities he has. He is dangerous and untried and his appearance is all too convenient."

Mother Giselle's habit wobbled as she implored them to see what she felt was reason. Clearly, this was not the beginning of this discussion. Enya approached quietly. Only Cassandra was in any position to notice her, though as she passed the base of the steps, Enya spotted Cole in the grass weaving a flower crown from the white, bell-shaped flowers that grew in the shade at the base of the steps.

"You have said the same of others," Solas commented, his voice harsh.

A silence stretch between the hardened stares of Solas and Mother Giselle. Enya had not expected either to like each other, though Solas had once mentioned that she showed insight in treating not only the refugees but the mages and Templars that fought at the crossroads. There was no doubt in Enya's mind that the credit he had once given the woman had dissipated.

"Inquisitor," Cassandra addressed, her Nevarran accent cutting the thick air, "We were discussing Cole. In all I have encountered as a Seeker, I have never seen anything like him. Though I was only called to a tower if there was trouble. He might yet be a mage."

Enya glanced at Solas, wondering if the days since their discussion had given him any clarity on the matter.

"Certainly he has to be a mage," Mother Giselle commented, "What else could he be?"

"He can walk among us unnoticed, or we might fail entirely to remember him. These are not he abilities of a mage," The apostate released his hands from behind his back and gestured at Cole, "It seems that Cole is a spirit."

"A spirit?" Enya echoed, following her friend gesture to the boy that sat on the ground, "How?"

Her gaze fell back to Solas. He took a breath to reply but Mother Giselle spoke first.

"Demon's walk our world, not spirits."

"Call him a demon if you like, Mother Giselle, but the line between a demon and a spirit is not so easily defined as you suggest."

"This is not the time for cryptic answers, Solas. Speak plainly."

"A spirit pulled into this world against its will appears in its true for, a shape of such complexity most cannot understand. It appears monstrous and becomes a demon. Those who come through of their own free will choose to possess another living being," He gestured at the boy on the ground whose flower chain crown had grown much longer since she'd first noticed it, "Cole has possessed nothing and no one. He looks like a young man and for all intents and purposes he is a young man. It is remarkable."

"But is he dangerous?" Cassandra asked, for this line of reasoning had clearly disturbed her.

Enya tore her focus from the boy back to the three who stood before her, "Do you forget that he came to warn us in Haven? Why would he do that if he meant to cause us harm?"

Cassandra fell silent for a moment and then added, "Many have offered us help, Inquisitor, but not everyone who does so has the best of intentions. He might not work for our enemy, but that does not make him any less dangerous."

"I agree with the Seeker, your Worship. As I have advised before, we should be cautious in our decisions with regard to him."

Enya bit her lip. She already knew what Solas would say. Perhaps that is why he offered her no council, or perhaps he already knew what she would do.

"I can't make a decision without first speaking with him."

She glanced over at the ground where Cole had been sitting, but he was not there. It wasn't as though she wouldn't have noticed him leaving had he risen from his spot for she stood only a metre away.

"Where did he go?"

Cassandra, who'd already turned to return to the castle, shook her head, "I we do not recall him leaving, it is unlikely we will find him."

As her sentence finished, there was a soft crack. Solas stepped back to glance toward the small healing tents in that had been moved to the lower courtyard for the surgeon to work. She followed his gaze to the boy in the patchwork clothes appearing on a wisp of grey smoke. Walking away from the others, she stopped close to Cole. The flower crown he had made hung from his hand. He stood over a soldier who had yet to recover from the injuries he'd sustained in Haven.

"The cuts run deep, slicing into the core. Hot white. Fire inside. Pain. I can't, I don't want to-" Cole fell silent as the man's head fell to the side, "Dead."

Enya drew a sharp breath, "You can hear their thoughts, feel them-"

She drifted off as he moved to another soldier.

"Each breath comes slower, like slipping into a hot bath. I miss her. I wish I could have."

Cole knelt next to her handing her the flower crown. "She danced in the moonlight. White bells in her hair. She knew."

The woman tried to sit but she couldn't move. He laid the flower crown of her chest and rose. There was silence for a moment, but as Enya watched, the woman's body went slack.

"Dead."

He turned to another, "It's getting too hard. I can't breathe. I have to, I have to. I- I'm dying. The smell of my daughter's hair as I kiss her goodnight. Gone."

The light faded from the soldier's bloodshot eyes. A tug on her heart brought, tears to Enya's eyes. She knelt, gathering pebbles from the ground and placed them over the soldier's eyes so they remained closed.

"Should we talk somewhere else, Cole. Would you like to get away from this."

"Yes." He paused, "No. Here I am close. I feel their pain. I can help."

He grasped a water skin from the ground and brought it to a woman who's dry, cracked lips declared her thirst.

"Thank you," the woman's voice scarcely made a sound as it passed through her parched throat.

He rose.

"So, you used your powers as a spirit to help people?" Enya crossed her arms, one gripping her side while the other toyed with the collar of her leather shirt.

"Yes. I used to think I was a ghost. I made mistakes. I had friends," a touched of sadness crept into his voice, "but then a Templar proved I wasn't real and they left."

"I lost everything. But I learned how to me more like myself. It made me different, but stronger. I can feel more. Help more." He looked at her, "I can help."

"The Inquisition would be happy to have your help, Cole." She offered a smile though her eyelashes trapped tears.

He tipped his head, "I hear… It hurts. It hurts. It- Maker, someone please make it stop hurting."

Enya started as she watched the young man draw a knife. He did not look at her, but paced to the side of an unconscious soldier. The man rolled twitched every so often and though he slept his face was contorted in a grimace of pain.

"There is nothing more the healers can do for him." Cole knelt at the man's side and she stood at his shoulder, "It will take him hours to die. Every moment will be agony. He wants mercy."

Cole's voice pleaded with her to allow him to do it. She recognized his request and had she not been present before at such an occasion she might have been surprised, but as the soldier twitch again she nodded her assent.

"Go ahead, Cole."

The small knife made no sound as it slid through the man's ribs into his heart. The soldier's chest rose and fell once more and then stillness too the body. There was no blood, she noticed, only silence. Cole rose and looked at her again.

"I can help."

"Inquisitor!"

Enya blinked and glanced about herself for the source of the voice. A young dwarven woman in a scout's puffed before her, cheeks flushed.

"What is it?"

"Its- Mother Giselle sent- me to- find you. It's that-" the scout drew a deep breath, "boy."

"Cole?" Enya asked. The scout only nodded, huffing as she was to catch her breath, "Did you run all the way from the camps?"

The scout nodded again. Enya placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her to a pile of quarried stone the masons had piled in along the wall. The scout deepened her breathing once she sat.

"My deepest apologies, Your Worship," she sighed, "And many thanks."

Enya nodded, offering a small smile, "What about Cole?"

"Mother Giselle wished to ask you to come down to the camps and formally address the soldiers concerns about him," she paused, "He's been helping heal, but the soldiers fear him, as do the scouts," again she hesitated, "And she claims those who have come to aid but not fight fear he is a demon. Even some of the mages…"

"I see,"

Enya placed her hands on her hips, trying to assuage her own misgivings. He had saved them, given the Inquisition a chance in a fight they could easily have lost, but how he'd even come to be with them she could not understand. What had driven him to them, his motives. If she had had little time to speak with Solas or Varric, she'd had no time to even address the concerns regarding him.

"And why is it that you have come here so quickly? You could have simply come to me at any time today with this concern."

"One of Fiona's mages was speaking to a patient and Cole approached, handed the patient another potion for the pain and then left. He has been working with this patient since the battle and The patient has no memory of him."

Enya pursed her lips, "But cannot pain and herbs have mind altering effects? A hunter in my clan was attack by a bear and had no recollection of my sister treating him for the first four days, yet she never left his side."

"Yes, but he isn't the only one," the scout paused, "It got around camp, and people gathered to talk to demand answers from the Mother today, and she can give them none. They want to know what is to be done with him."

Enya drew a deep breath and nodded, "I'll go at once. Thank you."

When last she'd felt such unrest at her approach, such indirect attention, her hands were bound in rope and her hand burned with fresh fury. Though the Inquisition people no longer bore her any ill will, she could not say for certain that their stares were fully trusting. She sensed more than a small amount of apprehension in their gaze, the kind that bred fear and judgement.

A taught frown peaked out from below Mother Giselle's habit, marring her ever-calm visage. As Enya approached, the Chantry Mother waved off one of the healing Sisters.

"People all over the camps have no memory of speaking to him yet their friends saw them together. And almost all of his patients have less pain than the others. Some of them have legs or arms removed. I even heard from Fiona that the elven hedgemage mused he'd never seen amputees so comfortable with their losses," Mother Giselle, stared into the healing tents, "The Maker works in mysterious ways, Inquisitor, and I have seen many of them in my time, but never have I seen magic of this like."

Enya followed the Mother's gaze to the tattered brim of Cole's hat. He crouched next to a patient face and eyes obscured by this thin layer of salt-stiff fabric, but she spotted a steaming bowl and a spoon clasped in his linen-wrapped hands. His movements were as slow and coaxing as any of her clan's healers had been. Though, at such distance she was unable to hear his words, she saw the lips of the young man's patient answer something he had asked.

"Has Cole given you cause for alarm? It hardly seems that lessening pain and being forgotten is worthy of mistrust."

Her green eyes met the Chantry woman's brown, demanding. A frown deepened the crow's feet at the corners of Giselle's eyes and Enya could swear she heard an exasperated sign slip smoothly between the woman's lips. A twist of irritation knotted her stomach.

"No," Mother Giselle clasped her hands together, "But if you will, Inquisitor, the trees of the forest give you little cause for concern, yet in the darkness you are still afraid. And among those trees, you might come upon a bear."

Enya rested a hand in the crook of her other arm, touched her palm against her cheek and bit her lip in thought.

"I appreciate your counsel, Mother Giselle. I'm just not certain that caution and fear should guide my decision," Enya drew herself up, "You wanted me to speak with the soldiers?"

"Yes, Herald. They've gathered by the mess tent. They are not happy."

Enya nodded and bid the Revered Mother farewell. The tents wound through the valley in such a way that the noise from the mess tent could not be heard from the healing tents by which Mother Giselle and she had spoken. As she rounded a bend past more of the long barracks tents, she heard the roar of heated argument and over it all Cullen's voice calling for order.

It was not often she saw Cullen outside of Skyhold's walls and certainly uncommon for her to watch him struggling to assuage the anxiety of his men. They held him in such high regard and yet now they cared little for his moderating voice. The blonde commander turned at her approach, lowering his outstretched arms his sides. Cullen held up a hand as he met her halfway.

"Cullen," Enya nodded past him, "Is this all about Cole?"

He shook his head, "My men are shaken, Inquisitor. Five weeks was hardly enough time for their wounds to heal and they just need something on which to focus their frustrations. If it were only about Cole, there would not be such animosity."

Enya lowered her gaze tracing the muddy footfalls in the snow. Like with the death of the Divine, these men needed something to blame. Furious eyes cut through her armor into her back. The accusations spat in her direction like poison. Suspicious men and women passing rumor like truth, their glances furtive and poorly hidden. All because of a strange glowing mark on her hand. And again, they needed something to blame. In their anger and grief, they lashed out at what they couldn't understand.

She placed a comforting hand on Cullen's shoulder and stepped past him, moving toward the sea of complaints and indictments of Cole. Before she entered, Enya spotted the boy in question bobbing in and out from behind the corner of a tent across the way. His expression was unchanged, the same, downturned frown he often wore remained, adorned with sunken sound eyes and pale cheeks, all framed by dull straight straw-colored hair and hidden under the brim of a hat.

Angry, Cullen's soldiers towered over her, growing from their agitation. Enya tried once, twice to call them to silence but it was futile. They had to see her. She pushed through them, deafened by their outcries, all at once trying and yet failing to make their case, for each one's words were swallowed by the next, each sentence running together in a cacophony of nonsense.

The Inquisitor wended her way through the crowd to the very center of the tent and then leapt onto a table.

"Enough!"

Like a wave receding from the pebbles of a beach, a hush fell over the soldiers. She spotted Cullen at the entrance of the tent, hands propped on the pommel of his sword as he waited for her to begin. Enya drew a breath, her heart racing. She glanced out at the men and women who surrounded her, faces upturned and angry. The words she'd thought would come easily faltered in her throat and she scrambled to find something, anything to say. Eyes drifting closed, Enya listened to the breathing of these people.

"Soldiers of the Inquisition, I hear you fighting, persecuting, accusing and yet I see fear in your eyes," She held up a hand as one of the soldiers raise his voice in protest. Her palm glimmered, "I do not mean this as an insult or accusation, for it is a brave person who continues to fight for a cause he or she believes in the face of what we have all seen. We fight nightmares, the things from stories our parents told us to make us behave, to keep us from straying too far from camp, or venturing out after the sunset. We have seen things that no one could ever hope to see and lost more than anyone should," Enya turned to those who stood behind her, "I say I see fear in your eyes because it is there. I see grief in your eyes as well. For those you have lost, for the beliefs you have lost, for the home we have all lost."

She drew a deep breath to let her words sink in. Where once there had been a mass of angry faces, some had faded, tension slipping into exhaustion. Others turned away.

"I am sorry for Haven. We were confident after closing the Breach, where we should have proceeded with caution. We forgot to be vigilant, and it cost us not just lives, but friends," facing another section of the tent Enya raised her voice, "But it could have been a great deal worse. I know many of you disagree with my decision to allow Cole to join our Inquisition," there arose a crow of agreement from the soldiers, but again, she hushed them, "You look at him and you see a strange boy with strange powers and you do not understand him. Even good men often fear what they do not understand and too often, in times of great turmoil, that fear is turned to anger. But what you fail to see in Cole is that without him the Inquisition, the cause we fight to uphold would likely have been lost in Haven. Without his interpretations the Inquisition's leaders could never have deciphered Chancellor Roderick's ramblings as he lay dying. All of you would have died, buried in Haven under the snow and there would be no one to oppose Corypheus."

Enya swallowed. Her words had sparked doubt, she noticed, for the men wrung their hands or shifted their weight. Only a few maintained their anger in the face of this revelation and though it stirred irritation in the pit of her stomach, she knew there was little she could do to sooth such distrusting minds.

"He wants to help us. Cole's methods might be strange, he might not speak in a way you understand but there is no reason to fear him. Give him a chance. Take the time to understand him before you pass judgement. Surely, for saving all our lives, he deserves that much."

She jumped down from the table and made her was back out of the tent. Cullen's eyes shown as she approach and he nodded his approval to her as she. Enya's heart still pounded in her chest as she made her way up the hill away from the mess tent.

"Luitenient Maeras, I believe you are supposed to be helping with repairs. Luitenient Doghan-"

Cullen's orders faded as she rounded the corner to pass the healing tents. Enya had only just made it past them when she heard a soft crack to her right. Turning, her gaze fell on Cole tucked away between two tents. His icy blue eyes glowed brightly at her from beneath the wide brim of his hat.

"Their eyes hold anger. But it runs deeper. Crushed in a cage of ice. Crying, crawling, climbing. Like children lost in a storm." He stared at her, "But you made them stop. Made them see."

Enya reached out to him, grasping his arm with her unmarked hand, "You want to help us, Cole. They didn't understand that."

"Now, they see," Expression still blank, he fixed in and endless stare, "Thank you."

And with a vanish of smoke, he disappeared. Enya smiled a broad smile and made her way back to the castle, borne aloft by the small success.