OPEN

[fadeling]

Who: fadeling & Whoever
When: IC 8/1
Where: Shopping district
What: Cole has been avoiding people, if you want to talk to him now's probably the best time for an ambush
Rating/Warning:G/PG - No warnings so far

---

It isn't hard for him to avoid people--they don't see him if he doesn't want them to. And it was easier for everyone if he did for a while. He couldn't help and if he tried he might have put his hurt on them. Then he would be worse than what they'd already said he was.

And that circular logic ran itself around in his head until he was dizzy. He can't hurt anyone or it wouldn't be him. He's still him so he can't have hurt anyone.

But what if he had? He helped and he left them healed behind him, he thought, but...

But.

But he can't stay to see, there are too many others who need help. And if he hindered instead of healed, that was hurting them too. He was supposed to help people. Was he helping people? He couldn't tell anymore. It was all cluttered, unclear and clouded, cloying and clawing and clutching coy at clinging. It was hard to see through, hard to think through, hard to see, hard to hear. It hurt to look at but he couldn't look anywhere else.

He's not the one who's supposed to hurt, to be conflicted. He was only one thing, how could he do that wrong?

He crouched in the middle of the street, passersby flowing around him, not noticing that they even moved around him, but not seeing him either. That was part of it, too, and he didn't want to be noticed. He could still hear the hurting, but he hesitated, trying not to listen, trying to lose himself in the sounds of it. Maybe if there was too much to listen to, he could forget himself for a moment. Maybe if he couldn't pull it apart, he wouldn't have to try and then he wouldn't hurt anyone.

It really wasn't working.

"Touch and try and hurt or don't touch and don't try and don't hurt. Or touch and don't hurt. Too many threads, tied together tight in tiny tangles."

But they'd caught him in them, too when he was supposed to be clean. He couldn't even tell if he was that anymore.

Comments

[bheidh]

"I need you to." Or some other way of being able to find him. Knowing enough Leliana would be able to find him alone, but Cole didn't - yet - have much for her. She also didn't care that this person didn't like when Cole found them.

[fadeling]

"Why?" He knew better than to ask the question, but he did regardless. She always needed to know so the birds could know too. And yet...he didn't want to leave her alone with the man, either. That wouldn't end well for either of them.

[bheidh]

"To know why he's afraid."

To explain, to question. To make sure he left Cole alone if this was the response from the previous time. She didn't know Cole well but Leliana knew enough. This person didn't know anything, and maybe that brought fear - or maybe he was just rude.

[fadeling]

"Because I make people forget. They don't want to." So he hadn't made them, but then they'd told him that it would hurt people again, later, when the found their way back to what had hurt them before, and they wouldn't know, even if he left the memory but removed the pain.

[bheidh]

"Is it only that?" Could there be more that they hadn't said to Cole, or was it only that? Forgetting something could be frightening, but once you'd forgotten you didn't know. You didn't know what to be afraid of - you couldn't be afraid of it.

[fadeling]

"I don't know. He told me to stop looking." Maybe it was more than that--it almost had to be, didn't it?--but what else could it be? He'd been fairly direct.

It was difficult to say, really.

[bheidh]

"Then it may be something more." Something interesting, or that she could use? Who knows.

"If you do find him I'd like to know." She'll also have her own eyes out.

[fadeling]

Maybe it was. She wouldn't give up, and he knew that well enough. She never did. Not until she had the prey clutched closely in her claws.

"Yes. He's not hard. Maybe you'll find him first."