"I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved."
~ Søren Kierkegaard
Misty, opaque cobwebs crisscrossed the walls and railings in the tavern's attic. Evelyn raked her hands before her, brushing them aside. She hadn't been up there since the early days, when everyone seemed scared and suspicious of Cole. The attic room was his roost: close to daily life and activity, yet quiet and remote enough from constant intrusions. She approached a dim corner of the room where several storage barrels sat and uttered his name a couple of times, but except for drafts agitating dangling wisps of webs, nothing emerged. Most of the time he appeared immediately. On occasion, she'd had to coax him out of hiding. And sometimes she had to remain perfectly still until her awareness shifted, as if she were dreaming while awake, almost in a trancelike state. She minded her breath and allowed her mind to drift over the room's stillness. As the air began to waver and her skin prickle, a dingy, blackened torch burst into brilliant flame, lighting the shadowy attic.
" 'The,' a joke, he laughs to himself, imagining herds of cattle in fields of iron, but now he worries it fits," Cole told her earnestly, materializing before her eyes, wringing his hands. She listened, piecing the words together as best she could.
Is he talking about Bull? she wondered, approaching him with the velvet pouch.
She had crossed the Qunari sitting at one of the tavern's tables with a few of the Chargers earlier, on her way up the creaky stairs. She'd found him watchfully appraising the morning activity unfolding around them: a few patrons lingered over empty cups and half eaten toast, avoiding for as long as possible whatever duties awaited them while the harried staff transported stacks of dishes into the kitchen. The stale odor of burned sausages and bacon hung thickly around the smokey room. She had greeted him and his team and he'd countered with a gruff "Nice to see you, boss."
"I found the amulet that Solas told us about! Would you like to try it on?" she offered Cole the soft pouch.
Boyish and towheaded. Evelyn felt a rush of affection for him overcome her. You and I: we are not what others expect, are we? I need you to be well, Cole.
"Yes!" he told her with contained enthusiasm. For a moment she did not know if he had been responding to her thoughts, as he was wont to do, or if he was reacting to the gift. "But not here," he cautioned, glancing about the room. "I like it here. We need someplace that can go away if it becomes sharp."
Varric was distracted by the brief tap on his shoulder as he was about to conclude a short meeting with a few dwarven traders.
"Cole's package has arrived," Evelyn said in passing, halting expectantly at the doorway Cole had disappeared through.
"I'll be right there," he acknowledged, turning back to the group.
In the tower room, Cole loosened the thin pouch strings, spilling the heavy silver amulet into his palm.
"What do I do with it?"
He approached Solas, who turned halfway from his writing desk and pushed the book he had been reading away.
"You found one of the amulets!" he marveled. "Excellent!"
He walked up to meet them at the center of the stony, quiet tower room. He glanced at the amulet."
"May I?"
Cole slipped it onto his hand wordlessly. Solas examined the amulet thoughtfully, turning it around and running his fingers over its surface.
"It's simple enough," he informed them. "You put it on, I charge it with magic, and you should be protected."
Evelyn studied him.
"Are you ready Cole?"
His face remained concealed beneath his hat, somewhat downcast. She couldn't tell if he was nodding or simply punctuating his thoughts.
"They can't make me a monster."
He peered up again, an obstinate tone in his voice. Solas silently fastened the amulet to Cole's chest, a pale glow emanating from his fingertips. Evelyn could sense the magic ripple through the room, a numbing tingle rushing over her skin like a gust of cool wind, the air around them vibrating with a surge of energy. Solas closed his eyes in rapt concentration while Cole observed, only the lower half of his impassive face visible to her. He removed his hand from the amulet, which appeared to have become embedded in the fabric of Cole's shirt. She remembered how Cole had expressed surprise over Cullen removing his armor during a particularly rowdy game of Wicked Grace. "It comes off!" she remembered him stating, mesmerized by the fact. His shirt, with its frayed sleeves, hem and worn shoulder padding, appeared to be a constant part of the form Cole had conjured. The spell Solas conjured recalled the echoes of a stormy sky, light scattering between patches of darkness emanating from him and flowing in the direction of the amulet. The pulse of light rushed forward steadily until Cole unexpectedly stumbled backwards, shouting out in pain. She started towards him just as Varric wandered into the room.
"What was that?" he asked suspiciously.
One glance in Solas' direction and his brows furrowed crossly.
"Oh, for…What are you doing to the Kid?"
Cole whirled around, readjusting his hat over his head.
"Stopping blood mages from binding me like the demons at Adamant," he explained."But it didn't work."
Solas opened and closed his fist.
"Something is interfering with the enchantment," he concluded.
"Something like…Cole not being a demon?" Varric crossed his arms petulantly.
Evelyn caught the flash of irritability over Solas' serious countenance.
"Cole might look like us, Varric, but he's not human," she attempted to remind him.
Varric balked.
"Neither am I," he reasoned. "Neither is Chuckles here."
She was about to point out that he was being too literal when Solas intervened.
"Regardless of Cole's special circumstances, he remains a spirit," Solas insisted.
"Yes!" Varric interjected. "A spirit who is strangely like a person!,"
Cole turned from them, disappointment and frustration evident in the manner he skulked away.
"I don't matter!" he protested. "Just lock away the parts of me that someone else could knot together to make me follow."
Solas followed him.
I have seldom seen Solas express this much concern, she thought, finding the elf's expression gentler than his usual one.
"Focus on the amulet," he encouraged him. "Tell me what you feel."
Cole stood still and appeared to be listening acutely, his head turning slightly to and fro.
"Warm…Soft blanket covering, but it catches, tears, I'm the wrong shape, there's something…" he voice surged with emotion.
He paused and raised his head, turning his body to one of the tower doors. He raised his arm and pointed.
"There. That way."
They all stood in conflicted silence, staring in the direction he'd indicated.
"We'll find whatever is preventing the amulet from working, and we'll make it right," she announced at last.
Varric nodded.
"Alright, Kid. Get Cullen and work with him on the map to figure out where you're sensing something wrong."
Cole stared back at them.
"Will you come with me? All of you?" he asked with disarming candor.
"Sure," Varric confirmed.
Apparently mollified, Cole surveyed the room one last time before leaving their company. As soon as they could no longer hear his footsteps, Varric turned to Solas. The resentment in his voice was barely contained.
"Alright. I get it. You like spirits." He took a few steps towards him. "But he came into this world to be a person. Let him be one," he entreated him.
"Cole is a demon…" No, that's not it either, she struggled to explain. Demons embodied the worst characteristics of human nature. Cole was nothing but considerate and caring. Hardly a demonic trait. "…Or a spirit," she amended. "He has magical abilities and magical vulnerabilities. We cannot ignore that," she pointed out.
"Fair enough," he conceded. "But that ritual of theirs only works on demons, right?"
Solas contemplated him worriedly.
"This is not some fanciful story, child of the stone! We cannot change our nature by wishing," he noted fervently.
"You don't think?" Varric cocked his head.
Solas appeared to be lost in thought for a moment before replying.
"However we deal with the problem, our next step is to track down whatever is interfering with the enchantment," he stated definitively.
"When do we depart?" Varric asked her.
"As soon as we can." She self-consciously found her fingertips tracing her injury.
A horse ride will be out of the question…but perhaps a carriage ride… That could be wrangled into counting as light activity, she plotted. Cullen would not want her to go without medical approval, Leliana would demand she have a proper security detail, and Josephine would be a wreck if she went off on a mission so close to the royal ball. It was going to take some clever negotiating and perhaps some unflinching arguing.
Well, she surmised, if there's one skill I've been honing since getting here, it's my ability to go against conventional wisdom.