Chapter Text
Sparks of doubt. The former templar with the scars on her lip was confused when she saw the desk occupied by former Knight-Captain Rylen—starkly tattooed, a Starkhaven templar—not Commander Cullen as she had been led to believe. Doubts spiraled into fears, mind dovetailing into a wave of bitter loathing in the blink of an eye.
This was the wrong room. This was the wrong man. Or perhaps they didn’t want to even bother with her, new recruit or not—she should have checked before walking through the door; they would think her sloppy, inattentive, no more rations for you lot …
"Ser Madeleine? Commander Cullen is indisposed today," said Rylen in greeting, extending a hand for her to sit. "We’ll get the two of you introduced good and proper later, but for now I’m assuming some of his duties on his behalf."
"Oh." She paused for a long second, and then hesitantly maneuvered into the chair, her heart hammering in her head.
Cole sat outside, pressed against the wall beside the door frame, existing quietly as he tapped his knees. She hadn't seen him on the way in, she would not see him on the way out.
"Indisposed" for Cullen meant the pain. It meant lying awake in sweats, hands shaking, head spinning. It meant an aching longing from deep inside him, memories like a wool he couldn't pull from his face. It meant the guilt and the hatred and the anger with nowhere to go anymore. It meant sleeping.
But the scarred templar did not know that. She faced Rylen with a slow kind of confusion, relief intermingling with the disquiet until she wasn't sure what to feel. "I was told to report here to receive my post."
"So you were. Welcome to the Inquisition," Rylen said with a nod. He was patient. Relaxed, though only on the outside. "I'm told you came to enlist only a few days ago; how are you getting on so far?"
It was a question with a complex answer, and she was not good with complex answers anymore, her fingers tapping anxiously on the outside of her thigh. The scarred templar smiled weakly, and said, "I don't know as I've been here long enough to get on. But it's been… very peaceful in Skyhold, despite everything." She swallowed, then added a bit more brightly, "Captain Ingrid says my sword arm is still of good use."
"Good to hear that, or I'd feel a bit guilty with us throwing you into battle," Rylen smirked. He folded his hands on the desk, adopting a more serious expression before speaking at length. "Glad to see more templars making their way here, myself; least it wasn’t the entire Order that’s gone barmy."
The scarred-up templar wilts, collects this praise like it is something cold and full of pins as she sits before his earnest gaze. Her next words are soft. "The Inquisition has been helping a lot of people. I thought that if I could join, maybe I…" Her gaze drew down. "I have done a lot of things while I was still in the Order that I… that I regret."
Armor sticky with sweat, fresh blood, a glint of gold winks from a silent throat. A black pit solidifies in me as I take it; sinking, slides slimy into my stomach. Cole had a piece of wax which he had cradled in his hands, rolling it between his clammy palms and fingers until it was soft. He fiddled with it now, drawing up tighter as he sat against the wall outside Cullen’s office. His face remained blank while he listened.
To an extent Rylen understood the scarred-up templar’s pain. Though, it made him sad to understand. "You wouldn’t be the first to enlist for reasons like those, serah. Keep your eyes on what’s important here, and you’ll fit right in."
In Cole’s opinion, it didn’t seem like it would be that easy. After all, those eyes of hers would flicker, every so often, mind occasionally enveloped by whatever caught into her line of sight.
Beige parchment paper on the desk, a missive half-written in black ink–but to who? there is no name on it. A desk of dark varnished wood, chipped at the corners—a piece of wadded up fabric underneath one of the legs, so it would wobble just slightly. She wasn’t sure if Rylen noticed; she wasn’t sure if she should point it out. She wasn’t sure who put it there, the line forever blurred between little rebellions or good-natured japes.
Rylen could see her mind wandering, but he was mostly certain it was not the blue fog of lyrium. He snapped her back to his attention with a question. "You weren't at Therinfal, were you ser knight?"
Jerking straight, the scarred templar shuddered. "Maker, no. I’ve heard of what happened there, at least some. I-I confess I meant to make the journey at the time, but I was… unable to."
His eyebrows raised, but he did not inquire further, turning his attention down to the documents on the desk. "You dodged that arrow then, lass. Well. Let's get you squared away. We have a few positions open in the hold, unless you’d rather something out in the field."
"I—anything is fine, anything," she said, nodding.
The eyebrows did not come down, which made her a little more nervous. But Rylen did not judge, did not pry—Leliana and her thousand eyes saw more than he ever did, and saw nearly all of everyone who entered the keep. So there was no point to his prying.
"You might regret being so eager," he only said with a grunting laugh. "But even so, welcome aboard, lass."
***
A lot of things had been a blur, after Lambert. The first few months he’d spent learning, trying to be more like himself. Unfortunately, he’d had to do this from scavenging back the memories that he’d once kept buried deep.
They had lain quiet in his heart for so long with the hope that they would one day rot, and now that he could see them again he realized they hadn’t decayed an inch. They’d always been bleeding there inside him like fresh wounds, the font of oily darkness that filled him up inside, made him so wrong even when he hadn’t known it.
Rhys, there was never anything you could have done to help me, he thought then.
In fear of the unearthed despair inside him, knowing he couldn’t put it back to sleep, he’d run. To the templars, whose personal pains had, in some ways, made them just as twisted as he had been. The kind of soldiers who would not hesitate, for whom sympathy and mercy were rare ideals.
Now here Cole was in the Inquisition, and for the first time since the Spire there were things happening worth letting stick, worth forming into memories; the darkness inside him had grown quiet as he healed the wounded, helped instead of harmed. There were still templars—but they weren't templars anymore.
Skyhold was full of hurts, but happiness too. In The Maiden's Rest, there were many who sat at the bar drinking their troubles to the corners of their heads, or sat with friends to talk and make small the wars outside the fortress walls.
Some sat listening to Maryden's songs. Cole would listen to them too, sitting on the stairs to hear them better. He didn't understand them, but they made people happy. It filled them up, music like the Fade except it didn't burn.
Not all singing made people feel that way.
Lucas Trevelyan came by the bar today. He didn't come as often as he did in Haven, when he would sit and bother Flissa until she gave him a cup full of toffee as payment to him to go away. Cabot didn't keep toffee in stock. Lucas cried behind the tavern when the dwarf told him that. No one saw it.
Now he was talking to Krem on the bottom floor, light and buoyant at the edges. A winged toy lay in his hands, a wooden bird made with parts Blackwall had cut and sanded down over weeks of labor; he gave Lucas that gift to make the pain less sharp, his and the boy's. With just a flicker, a whisper of a song, it went flying into the air on faint winds summoned with magic.
Deep inside it made Krem nervous, spells cast so close to him; he trusted their mages, but the bolts and beams were never right by his head. But he let it happen because they weren’t bolts, and Lucas was happy, and that was rarer than some might think (Cole knew too well how rare it was.)
"Looks like you’ve been getting a good hold on your spells," Krem said as the bird settled back into Lucas’ hands, the trick only lasting for a few seconds. A short enough time not to draw attention.
A nod. Though the boy’s face took on a sudden bitter turn as well, scuffing his shoe against the floorboards. "I want to show the others too but Lavellan packed up and took them somewhere to help Josephine a few days ago. It was Val Royeaux… I think? She said she’d be right back, but…"
"Val Royeaux’s a week’s trip from here unless you’re really pushing it," Krem said, voice husky as he knocked back a swallow of his beer, the last swallow out of the bottle. "Have to wait a while, soldier."
Lucas frowned down at a loose splinter his boot had run up against, but not broken off of the floor, voice growing soft. "I know , I know."
Buoyancy descending rapidly, pride turned to frustration; Lucas was often upset easily. It was usually that way for the young, Cole had realized. So small that little things could pull them to and fro, some more than others but all more than the grownups. By the same token, though, they could be placated in little ways which grownups could not. Cole hadn't known this at first. He made sure to never forget again. A toy, a sweet, a parent’s smile—little things, but they could help, they could ground and pull back and make them light.
But as for what placated Lucas, Cole wasn’t sure. He couldn’t usually hear it.
Cole had spoken with Lavellan about it a few weeks ago, when she came up to the attic looking for him. She’d been upset over old memories in the scent of apple pie fresh out of the kitchens, wandering Skyhold after. She'd gotten even more upset for some reason, when he told her that it wasn’t her fault her father got sick.
"You never made her angry, either," he had said softly, standing before the balustrade picking at his fingers with his fingers. "She was always already angry."
"Do you ever look into Lucas’ mind?" Lavellan cut in then, almost before he’d even finished speaking. "The way that you look into mine."
And so Cole leaned his head back, thinking. "It’s not the same. Lucas is hard to hear, like watching birds in the sun, catching only the edges. He burns too bright, too loud." He pulled his wide-brimmed hat farther down over his face. "If I look closer … some things stick out, but…"
Lavellan had snapped her fingers in front of him, giving him a start. "...I’m not asking you to look right now ."
"I can’t see what you’re afraid of, if it’s there," he’d replied, washed over with her hurts of Envy’s whispers, a waif worshiped in a worse world.
Lavellan had gotten upset again, thanked him and then left.
But Lavellan was gone to Val Royeaux, bearing Josephine’s burdens, with the others. "Others" for Lucas meant the adults that made him happy, that made him less afraid, Dorian and Sera and Cassandra sometimes. Reminded that he was alone, abandoned, now Lucas sat down on a stool beside Krem to sulk and flap the wings of his toy. The hurt was deep and dark, but he was still bright, so that Cole couldn’t listen to the roots.
After a few minutes, though, his heart did calm. He started asking for stories of the Chargers and their past missions, and this time that was enough to distract him. Good.
…If Cole could hear Lucas better, he wouldn't find himself hiding so often. He wouldn’t be so nervous that he would make things worse, when he so easily made things worse.
But as he could not simply squint past the light, he had to be content with what he could do.
There were plenty of other hurts to heal here, in the Maiden's Rest. A proposal that was never heard, a mother that never left the burning village, older Ferelden men who still heard the screeches of darkspawn in their dreams; people who thought that the drink could help them, but it would only hurt, leave them sick and wanting.
The scarred lady templar had come, entering just minutes ago and pausing to quietly listen to Maryden sing before getting herself a drink. The song made her chest ache and her eyes water, but still she listened. Cole sat on the steps, now, watching her gruffly wipe tears from her face before approaching Cabot at the bar.
"Hey, you," she called with a wave of her hand; he had introduced himself before but she did not remember his name. "I'll have an ale, please. Ah–two, actually, please."
Cabot gave a gruff nod and went to pouring; the lady templar did not sit, instead leaning with her elbows on the bar, placing her coin where the bartender could take it so she wouldn’t have to look into his eyes when he took it.
While she did so, she was not unnoticed; Lucas had stopped all of his self-distracting activities, his blazing mind seizing with something Cole could not see, but which alarmed him all the same. His eyes were trained on the lady templar now, no longer even seeming to notice the other patrons of the tavern.
He continued to stare even as Cabot slid two mugs of ale onto the countertop, even as his customer took them both in hand with a shallow whisper of thanks. He clutched at the wood of the nearest support column when she stood with her mugs in hand and guided them to the door—she didn't tend to drink in the tavern, she preferred the darkness, the loneliness and the quiet.
The boy's eyes followed her. His feet followed her too, slowly at first but faster as she passed through the doorway. In his head, there were shouts—his, others’, a discordant beat that pumped blood through his veins too fast. He stumbled over a stool someone had long since pulled to their table, not even so much as looking back when it clattered to the ground.
"Hnh?" Krem sat up straighter in his chair, and from where he sat the Iron Bull shifted.
Cole stood up from the stairs and descended them two at a time, leveraging the stool right side up as he passed by it.
Outside, the sun was still rising in the sky that morning. There were refugees greeting the day with hot meals baked in the kitchens, Inquisition soldiers receiving their orders, and birds come to visit the tops of the castle walls. Lucas went stumbling across the grass after the lady templar, almost tripping over a cat that a little elven girl had brought into the keep with her after her mother’s clan fought red templars.
"Hey–hey!" he shouted, at first weak and then scratching with the violence of his voice. "Stop!"
The lady templar did stop, so suddenly her drinks sloshed in their mugs. She turned as Lucas came to a halt, eyes wide in confusion before she pointed to her own chest. "...Me?"
Lucas stepped closer. The boy didn’t notice Cole when he stood by his side. "I know you. I know your voice."
"Oh?" The lady templar took a quick sip of her drink as her breathing trembled, but when the burning down her throat was finished she only smiled at Lucas. "I… I do not know as we have ever met before. Have I seen you, perhaps, around the hold?"
"No. No." He did not smile back. His words were dull and dark. "You served in Tantervale."
The color drained from the former templar’s face. She tried to hide it in an instant of nudging her hair away from her eyes in the wake of the mountain winds, tried to cover her shaking voice by coughing. "Tantervale? I’m afraid you’re mistaken, child."
But despite the scarred templar’s insistence, those young eyes continued to burn, though he ground his teeth instead of speaking.
Krem was already behind them by then, startling Lucas when he just barely felt his presence at his back. He did not have the same fire that burned within his chest, instead purely puzzled, disquieted. He frowned. "What’s going on here?"
"I… I do not know," said the lady softly. She looked at Lucas, her chest tight like he was her executioner, and murmured, "He says I’m from Tantervale. But I served the Circle in Ghislain before the Order dissolved."
Lucas swallowed. Whatever it was that was going on inside his heart, he fell silent when Krem turned back to him with a worrying look, a look that probed for answers. "What’s this about, soldier? Does she remind you of someone?"
Shrinking away, jaw tight, Lucas suddenly shook his head. "–No. She—she doesn’t."
She took a few steps back, small and tentative, as if to probe whether or not she’d have permission to exit the conversation. But when she did, her eyes traveled up and caught on the emerging form of the Iron Bull, coming to check on Krem and Lucas, and those eyes widened as she froze to a terrified halt. She’d seen the Qunari before, but never saw him move . Her throat closed up.
"Everything okay?" The Iron Bull’s gaze roved over the three of them, trying to assess what context he had missed.
Lucas and the templar held each other to quiet, trading glances, while Krem cleared his throat. "Trevelyan says that he knows this woman."
"--It’s a case of mistaken identity, I assure you messere," the templar squeaked, face gone even paler with that large horned shadow falling over her.
Yet when she said it, Cole could hear her mind racing. Picking through staggered memories, blue-burned, cracked, and distorted. The pearls of her pain shook beyond his reach like berries, making him feel ill. And Lucas, he still couldn’t read at all. But he was quiet now, pressed in close to Krem. "I was wrong. I didn’t mean it," he said.
The lady templar looked from him to the Iron Bull, breathless. "... You see? I would like to have my drink now… if that is alright?"
The Iron Bull lowered his head, his good eye focusing on Lucas. "You sure, kid?"
Lucas gripped the wrist of his marked hand. He blinked, and though his teeth were clenched tightly, he eased them open long enough to say, "Yes. I’m sure."
It was hard to lie to the Iron Bull, even if someone really tried. He couldn’t hear the pain or the help that healed it, but he could see the illusions that were their nest; he crafted them as easily as breathing, even to himself. But knowing the deceit was only part of the process; he grunted and nodded. "Alright. If you say so." He gave his wary eye to the templar, however. "Looks like it was all a misunderstanding. Get out of here, get your drink."
She fled in the direction of the barracks, that lady templar, her armor clanking and drink swishing free until she was gone. With toy and magic trick now utterly forgotten, Lucas escaped as well; he slipped away in the direction of the mage tower before the Iron Bull and Krem could question him further. He would only remember, once he got inside, that Dorian was not going to be there.
As always, the tangle of briar inside his heart only seared Cole when he tried to look deeper. Someone like Lavellan could pick her way through, probably, if only she were here. Even so, Cole felt something... familiar in their touch this time. He did not return to the tavern.