#colemance

[t333th]

Playing through the entirety of Veilguard screaming "WHERE IS COLE"

[monkiinart]

got a lot of sweet comments on them recently and i got nostalgic... more arne cole sweetness for the soul

[calcium-draws]

"...think i like you best when you're just with me, and no one else..."

inquisitors and their love interests

lorelai trevelyan & the iron bull

ellana lavellan & solas

imekari adaar & blackwall

freya cadash & vivienne

mahanon lavellan & dorian

evelyn trevelyan & krem

mercy adaar & cole

[bucketsofmonsters]

Where the Light Enters - Part 1

cw: unreliable narrator, hurt/comfort, slow burn, eventual sex, enemies to lovers, past childhood sexual assault, past sex trafficking, referenced noncon, offscreen dubcon, happy ending, the tags look scary but this is mainly a story about recovery

Cole/Female Inquisitor

word count: 4k

ao3 link

Masterlist

She’d chosen the templars.

It seemed the better option. Or at least the less vulnerable one. 

Frankly, she'd barely understood what a templar was a few weeks ago. The mages seemed upset about them, but surely there were more important things than that in a war. Besides, she'd rather hide herself behind a trained militant force than these rogue witches. 

She still didn’t really understand them if she was being honest. She knew enough to see that people were afraid. No matter how evil the templars may be, at least they were stable. Maybe that was enough. 

She had hoped, assumed even, that Cullen would be doing this part. That she’d point at the templars on the map and he’d set off with his less than stellar army to collect them. That the man who’d been advocating to bring his old comrades into the fold would do the legwork and return with the mage killers and she’d be just that much safer. 

But no. She’d pointed at the map and then been sent off. They hadn’t even given her time to complain. 

Not that she would’ve. It would have ruined her perfectly crafted image of the sweet doe-eyed girl that ensured they wouldn’t throw her to the wolves. The one that changed her from a tool to a manipulable, scared girl. 

She was fine with being manipulated. So long as they thought she was weak-willed, there was no reason to hurt her. She just had to ensure that whatever was best for her was the path of least resistance for them. 

Besides, it wasn’t like she wasn’t returning the favor. The little notebook buried deep under her floorboards ran through the easiest way to get to all of them. Not to endear her to them, just to make her safe. She’d foster pity, camaraderie, desire, whatever would keep her in their good graces for the longest. 

She was always harmless. That was the one thing she had to be. Harmless above all else. Any sign of competency turned to threat under anything but the softest light. 

And yet they’d sent her fragile, bumbling self off to the templars to secure themselves some allies. Josephine had insisted she wouldn’t have to do anything, that she just had to show up while the actual soldiers being sent alongside her would do the heavy lifting. 

Iron Bull had promised much the same, posturing as he normally did. She almost always took him with her these days. He was a beast of a man who threw his weight around like it was nothing, more than happy to take blows for her. And even more importantly, he was growing incredibly fond of her, the kind of ally she needed. 

Their actual leader, the one who made the real decisions, was Cassandra. Cassandra was disinterested in coddling her, more focused on gathering troops than on the strange girl who’d inexplicably been shoved towards leadership because of an ability she’d been given by some higher power. 

Solas, the mage she’d been forced to take with her, was too busy huffing and puffing about prioritizing templars over mages. She thought about snapping at the elf, at insisting that maybe the mages should have been an organized militaristic force if they wanted to be prioritized in this fight. 

Instead, she rolled over like she always did, playing afraid until he stormed off, clearly uncomfortable with the tremor in her voice as she swore she was just trying to get the strongest possible troops so no one else would get hurt. 

Good. Let him be uncomfortable. She had never liked him much anyways. 

But even so, when they arrived at the templar camp she kept herself wedged firmly between Solas and Iron Bull, as far away from the leader of the templars, the Lord Seeker she was pretty sure he was called, as she could. 

She still didn’t fully understand who he was, couldn’t make sense of what he was doing here or why she was meant to care about him. In her defense, she hadn’t expected to be forced to come along. 

Despite her disinterest in him, despite her safe position, despite the way Bull attempted to lead the conflict, when something snapped in the Lord Seeker and he lunged forwards, he lunged at her. 

The world lurched under her feet and it felt like it had the last time, when she'd been pulled through the fade to this awful place and given the strange power that stuck her heading an army. It made her reel in her skin, her muscles and sinews feeling like they were being tugged along faster than she could keep up with, her mind stretching impossibly thin as it did.

And then she was alone. Her warriors and mages were gone, no Bull or Cassandra or Solas to keep her safe. 

Then this Lord Seeker appeared once more, and she suspected that even if she had listened when they’d told her all about the templars and their plight, she would have no better of an idea who this Lord Seeker was. 

This idea was only reinforced when the Lord Seeker began to morph, turning into eerie, hollow puppets of her now absent companions, cycling through her advisors as well. 

She allowed herself the freedom to not perform innocence for these poor mockeries of her cohorts. It seemed probable that this ‘Lord Seeker’ was a demon and as such, unlikely to respond to her usual fawning. 

So instead she got on with things, turning away from the creature that had just decided to morph itself into the face that she tried to avoid seeing in the mirror, and began moving forwards in this strange new space. 

The exploration was slow, the terrain littered with traps. The demon seemed frustrated with her persistent refusal to listen to it menace her. 

The rooms revealed little. Some had puppetted versions of the members of the Inquisition, acting out some situation or another. She decided not to devote her attention to it. It seemed to be intended to display what might happen should she die here and to be frank, she couldn’t care less. She would be dead after all. If Cullen ended up in a jail cell after she died, so be it. It would serve him right for forcing her to come here anyway. 

She explored another room, empty and strange, not sure what she was looking for. It wasn’t like she could just find a way out, she knew she was somewhere incorporeal and beyond things like exit doors. Maybe it was the fade, maybe she was in her own mind, maybe it was this demon’s territory. She didn’t much care, unless figuring it out led her to an exit any faster. 

And then, as she drowned herself in hopelessness and melancholy, a voice sounded from behind her. 

“You.”

The voice didn’t sound harsh nor antagonistic, a far cry from what she’d heard from the demon’s many faces. It was soft, almost curious in its tone. 

She turned around with wide eyes, forcing her face back into the soft façade she’d been free of whilst only under the scrutiny of the demon. 

“Thank god I found someone,” she gasped out, hoping she wasn’t laying it on too thick. “I thought I was all alone in here.”

A young man stood before her. She tried to take him in but it was difficult to due to the frankly absurd hat he was wearing. It covered most of his face, obscuring him from her, the shaggy ends of blonde hair and a stern looking mouth barely peeking out from under it. 

He also, fairly notably, was hanging from the ceiling, which did not help with the matter of the oversized brim of his well-worn hat blocking her view. 

He spoke once more, in that same gentle, inquisitive tone. It was off putting in a way it shouldn’t have been, its softness not quite managing to shield it from that. “It's not the same. Soft words, hard thoughts. You hate me. People do that but you think I’m human and you hate me anyway. Besides it, because of it. It’s hard to see, hard to understand, covered more and more, shying away from the light. The light brings eyes and the eyes bring hurt.”

“Are you inside my head?” Her tone was laced with a spite she rarely allowed to see the light of day.

He looked around. “We’re both inside your head. You’ve guessed that already.”

She shook her head. “Not here, not this place. You, what you’re saying, those are my thoughts. You’re stealing them from me.”

“Not stealing. Just seeing. Hearing.” He paused for a moment, and then said with a decisiveness she’d yet to hear from him. “You’re a bad person.”

“What are you doing in here?” she asked, brushing right past his statements, desperately searching for a way out of this. As much as she hated it, this weird creature that she’d found lingering in her mind was probably her best chance of escape. At least he didn’t seem intent on killing her.

“I grabbed onto you, when you were pulled through the fade. I wanted to go help, but getting out is hard. You made it easy but part of me is stuck up here now. You could help. If you go back I can follow you then too.”

Great, so she’d picked up some sort of mind-reading monster in the fade. She was tempted for a second to take her chances with the demon but she wasn’t stupid. She couldn’t get out on her own, and he clearly knew something. 

“What are you?” she asked, at least wanting to know what she was dealing with before she threw her life into his hands. 

“I’m Cole. What are you?”

That earned a ghost of a laugh from her, the short huff of air barely noticeable. Not that it mattered, Cole could probably feel it as she did. “I’m Rosemary.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, suddenly behind her, standing on the same floor she was on.

“About what? My name?”

“Wandering, alone, unnamed, searching for something soft on the tongue. Rosemary made people see the ghost, not the person. Rosemary earned gentle hands. What are you?” 

This was spiraling out of control faster than she could figure out how to manage it. “Can we focus on getting out of here?” she asked. “Can’t you interrogate me when there’s no imminent threat on our lives?”

Then he breathed a word out like he couldn’t decide if it was a prayer or a curse, like it was a horrible truth that had just occurred to him. “Britches.”

Her head snapped towards him, a tension she’d long since trained out of herself rearing its ugly head. “Where did you hear that?”

“You told me. It echoes in your head, the closest thing to you that there is. It’s so far, fleeting, fading. But it’s almost you.”

“We need to leave,” she practically pleaded with him. “Can we please just get out of here?”

“I’ve never heard someone who wasn’t a who before. Where did it go?”

“I promise I’ll answer all your questions when we get out. Please, we need to go.” She wasn’t above begging. There was very little she was above, in all honesty. 

His head tilted once more, as if considering asking about that thought, before deciding the promise of honesty in the future was worth more. 

“It wants your face,” he declared. “It would hurt more than you ever could, claw the people apart instead of just holding. You want to leave. I can help.”

“You can get me out of here?”

He didn’t even bother to nod, just continued speaking in his strange little riddles. “You need to make it more. Right now it’s just a few. The further you go, the further it stretches.”

“Why would I want to make it bigger?”

“The smaller it is, the closer together the power. You have to stretch it thin.”

Right, so she just needed to keep moving and eventually something in this seemingly endless demon would snap. 

She didn’t need him for that, she could travel on her own. 

His head tilted as the thought passed through her head. “We’re in you already. If you leave me behind, I stay. You want me to go so you can’t leave me.”

He was right. As much as she didn’t want to travel with this weird creature, leaving him festering inside her head seemed infinitely worse. 

“Alright then Cole, we’d better start walking.”

He nodded but did not move. “We will need to fight.”

“You will need to fight. There’s not much I can do.”

“No. You don’t fight, you move softer. Sneaking, slipping, stealing. You only have to roll over if you get caught.”

“I wish you’d stop doing that,” she said, and her voice was instinctually softer. He paid her no regard. 

“I can be quiet. We can move softly together.”

She hoped the creature actually understood what it was saying, that it could be as stealthy as it promised. Or at least hoped that it could fight. 

He still didn’t move and she wondered if he was waiting for her to go first. 

She turned and took a few steps out the door, hearing no footsteps sound behind her. 

When she turned, Cole was nowhere to be found.

A voice came from right behind her, outside of the doorway. “Should we not leave?”

She whipped around and glared at him. He didn’t seem to react to the look at all. 

To be fair, she wasn’t very intimidating. She had little practice at being menacing and she most certainly was not a natural. 

Emboldened by the fact that he did not seem to need to move to follow her, she set out, walking out the door, blowing right past him.

A scream sounded from her left and Cole said, “Keep going straight. It wants you to wind around and around and around so it doesn’t have to stretch.”

His voice echoed and she wasn’t sure if it was an audible noise or not. She turned to where it felt like it had come from and there he was, walking alongside her. 

The sound of her footsteps remained the only ones in the hall as the two of them walked. 

“We should move quietly,” she said. 

He looked around as he moved. “Envy can’t hear me. It doesn't know I’m here. You wouldn’t have either.”

“If not for safety then maybe you should be quiet for my own sanity.”

“You’re not going insane,” he declared. “You are frustrated.”

“You don’t seem to mind.”

“No,” he said. “You can be frustrated if you’d like.”

“No,” she informed him, although she imagined he knew already. “I would not like.”

She turned to look at him and saw a glimpse of his eyes under his hat, a little wrinkle formed between them. “Then you should stop.”

“You first,” she huffed. 

“The Iron Bull is out there,” he said, undeterred by her clear irritation. “He isn’t bad but he brings hurt anyway.”

She decided to try a more direct approach. “Can you shut up?”

“If you let them bite, then it doesn’t count. It only hurts if they take it, if you allow it it's still yours.”

She stopped with a jolt, whipping around to scold him. “If you can see everything in my head, why do you keep talking? You know what’s up there and I know what's up there so what exactly are we achieving?”

“I have thoughts too,” he said, almost wistfully.

“Really? I have yet to hear them. You instead seem intent on airing every thought I’ve ever had as obtusely as you can.”

“It’s hard. Your thoughts are so loud. You’re very angry.”

She huffed as she stormed onwards. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“I don’t know. I think the hurt would make me help. It just makes you want to dig your claws in and hold.”

“Fucking irritating little creature, that’s what you are. I’ll be glad when I get out of this and I never have to see you again. Then you can stew on my rotten thoughts as long as you’d like.”

His head cocked to the side. “You’re not convinced we’re inside you. You still hope this could be the fade. You think I may belong here, that I might stay.”

“Frankly, I don’t care where you go. I know you’re not staying with me though.”

“We’re tethered.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You can see in my head, right? Do you really think they’re going to believe a demon over me? You’ll be killed in a heartbeat. Which is fine by me, no skin off my back.”

“A bad person,” he muttered to himself, hands flexing and unflexing slowly, rhythmically as he spoke. She wasn’t sure if he even knew he was doing it. 

He went silent as they heard the shouting of troops. Cole faded away and she took to the shadows. 

If this really was her mind, which she was not ready to wholeheartedly believe on the word of some creature, then she had no idea how stealth worked here. Was it really as simple as being quiet and hiding away? Surely in this space that the demon allegedly created, it could sense where she was. 

And yet she watched soldiers run in front of her, looking desperately for someone to fight as she slunk further into the artificial landscape. 

Cole made himself scarce from there on out, occasionally warning her with that strange, disembodied voice to turn now or to avoid the room ahead, although never in such clear terms. 

Eventually, she realized where she’d ended up. She was where she’d begun, where the Lord Seeker, or perhaps the envy demon, had lunged at her past her several bodyguards, most of which were standing protectively in front of her.

It wanted her. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe because of her perceived position of power. Maybe because of whatever this ability was that the fade had given her seemingly at random when she’d been pulled here.

It didn’t really matter, at the end of the day. She just needed to get out. 

And at the top of all those staircases was a dead end where she had been attacked. 

She looked around as the sound of battle-ready troops got louder. 

“Cole,” she hissed. “Where do I go?”

His voice sounded from above and she looked up to find him in the palm of a massive statue. 

“You remember it wrong. The statues don’t have faces here. You didn’t care to look.”

“I still don’t. We have more important things to be worrying about than what some weird statues look like.”

“It should end where it began. You must escape in the center.”

She made the mistake of turning her head, of looking nervously towards the false templars that resided down the stairs. 

When she looked back up, she was alone again. 

Or at least she hoped she was, looking around nervously, checking for any signs of an aggressor. 

But demons didn’t play fair. 

Before she could so much as catch sight of it, the faux Lord Seeker was slamming her back into the wall, hands tight around her throat. 

The face looking back at hers was the half-familiar one from the mirror once more, one she tried to avoid looking at at all costs. 

It was typically unfair, she supposed. To be forced to look at an imitation of herself as she died. 

She kicked and flailed, trying to break from his grasp, to get away by any means possible, but she knew it was a losing fight. She could feel the strength in its hands that far exceeded hers. 

Cole’s voice sounded from right beside her. “He is afraid of you.”

She could see no sign of him out of the corner of her eye as she thrashed in the demon's hold, but she could hear him perfectly. 

The fight began to drain out of her, sinking into herself as her kicks lost all their power. 

And then the hands around her throat went stiff and the world folded in on itself. 

She collapsed to the ground the second she saw Iron Bull in front of her, pulling the Lord Seeker away from her. She heaved in air where she sat, clutching her chest as she did, eyes beginning to water. 

It wasn’t her best performance, a bit overdone. She honestly could have just reacted as she would naturally but the sudden appearance of her companions had thrown her. In her defense, it was a sudden shift and she’d been preoccupied with other things. 

The strange creature with the stupid hat was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t sure if she hoped he was still trapped back wherever they had been or not. She certainly didn’t want him lingering in her head but having a mind-reading creature roaming around would prove an ever greater problem. 

Bull carried her inside as the other two talked about a demon and some transformation she hadn’t been privy to, instead caught up in her own dramatics. 

He tucked her away on a chair in the corner as Solas said something, probably whining about her. Cassandra gave her a firm order to stay put and they left her inside, amidst the templars.

She stayed tucked in her corner, choking down any panic that might want to arise. 

She didn’t like being alone with groups of men, let alone groups of men that she didn’t know and hadn’t built any repertoire with.  

The fight was over fast. She stayed dutifully in her corner, not one to disobey orders. When it was over, Cassandra and Bull returned for her, Solas presumably off worrying about more important things than her. 

Cassandra did not let Bull carry her any longer, insisting she was fine without giving her the chance to speak. She rose to her feet, despite her plan to feign weakness a little longer. She didn’t want to upset Cassandra.

Cassandra dragged her back to their control room to debrief about the mission, where she would inevitably try to pull something approximating leadership out of her once more. 

It wouldn’t work. She knew any attempt to lead would upset more people than it would please.

It was safer to be weak. 

Cullen was upset about something, which didn’t make sense to her considering she’d helped his precious templars first. Josephine was upset too, not that she’d ever admit it. But a liar recognizes a liar and that calm voice was as put on as it could be. Leliana was endlessly practical, so presumably she was telling her something important. She barely listened to any of it, instead focusing on clutching her uninjured stomach in faux pain, hoping that the hands that had been around her neck left bruises, despite having been in that world between worlds. 

And then their typical, predictable chatter turned to something more panicked and she looked up to find Cole sitting on their table.

Her eyes shifted from an impression of someone trying to be brave about their pain to a very real panic, lurching away from him before she could think. 

Swords were being drawn in the blink of an eye and she did her best to position herself behind Cullen. He was already the fastest to the draw and Cole was too dangerous to her. Hopefully, if he felt he had something to protect he would be even more likely to end this creature now, before Cole could become a problem. 

“You left,” Cole said, looking straight at her, the weapons pointing at him not seeming to concern him at all.

All heads turned to her. “Rosemary?” asked Josephine hesitantly, waiting for an explanation. 

“He helped me against the demon,” she said reluctantly. “But I don’t think we can trust him.”

Cole’s head cocked to the side. “Fleeting, fearful, frantic. You need me to be gone, they can’t see what I know. We both will stay.”

She prayed the others didn’t understand that as the threat it was. 

Leliana glanced between the two of them and asked, “A spirit helped you?”

A spirit. It made sense, she’d apparently picked him up in the fade and he hadn’t done anything truly menacing so it was unlikely he was a demon. At least not yet. She wasn’t sure how Leliana had deduced this but she stored the information away. 

She nodded. “He did. And maybe I was unfair. He was nothing but kind to me, and he saved my life. We could give him a chance.”

Cullen scoffed. “Trust him? He’s a demon and you just said we shouldn’t trust him! Now you want to set him free in the camp?”

“Wasn’t it you who said I could stand to be a little braver, Commander Cullen?” she said, sitting up a little straighter. She needed to do this, if Cole was inside her head he could get her killed. “He saved me, and I say we give him a chance.”

Cole was gone before she finished defending him, disappearing with hints of fade green in the air where he’d sat. 

Josephine looked nervous but she seemed the most content with their situation, saying, “He could be a useful resource-” 

Before she could so much as finish her sentence, Rosemary bolted out the door to go find the ticking bomb that had invited itself into her army.

[spicedrobot]

Seven Sentences Sunday

Tagged by @space-blue

Though I'm a day late, here's a little excerpt from my nearly done colemance-cole-gets-with-every-companion fic:

The Iron Bull’s hand twitched. Cole felt the strength in that grip, the control. Holding his axe, holding someone down. Deaths, large and little. He had done both countless times. The answer came in a rush. “You want me. Not like you want Cassandra or Dorian… but you’re captivated, curious.”

Tagging @withercrown @kanskje-kaffe @aevallare @kevystel @caspercryptid and any other mooties/followers that want to post their own work... you want to do it soooooo bad 🌀🌀🌀

[elfcollector]

have you heard the rumors?  inquisitor dove trevelyan, cavorting with demons?  should have left her tranquil, i say.

[katari-adaari]

Varric set them up like this

[ghost-chance]

Chapter 2:

Simeon…and Somebody Else?

Read “Plugging the Sky-Hole” Rubbish on FFnet and AO3 today.

[timeladyjamie]

Yes, I made an Inquisitor OC that romances Cole.

No, I don’t have any regrets about it. I love them.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

It's my 9 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

[elliotts-personal-property]

ABSOLUTELY HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT THEM???

@joes-sha-la-la-la-girl @ephyjeva @chlalydia @make-me-your-animal @steveinscarlet @stevesfuzzypinkslippers You’re gonna wanna see this😍❤️

[monkiinart]

a comic about cold hands

[lostoneshq]

Agora, avisos sobre a semana.

Amanhã eu vou fazer o primeiro AC. Haverá uma player que me ajudará no AC normalmente porque ela tem mais experiência que eu, mas o primeiro será feito por mim mesma. Lembrando que o limite de inatividade é 10 dias, então só entrarão no AC personagens que não postaram nada até agora (e não pediram hiatus por terem tido problemas externos).

Eu ia fazer hoje a página de lugares, mas só sendo sincera mesmo: tive muita moleza o dia todo (tô de TPM, deem um desconto, ok! akjdks). Deixarei pros próximos dias. Aproveitem e copiem as descrições dos lugares de vocês e colem pra mim no chat, vai me ajudar um montão porque é muita ficha pra abrir de novo.

Por último, desculpem se agi na defensiva pelo pedido de explicação ao plot drop geral, eu só fiquei nervosa porque não sei o que fazer para deixar ainda mais explícito! Se for problema com a minha escrita, peço desculpas porque eu não estou num dia bom para escrever grandes coisas mesmo. Mas se baseiem pelos diálogos. Se não entendeu algo específico, me manda na ask! Eu sempre estou disposta a explicar, mas algumas coisas acabam se tornando pedidos que me chateiam também porque eu me dediquei pra escrever, aí ter que fazer um resumo, e o resultado disso sendo ninguém lendo porque estaria ali o resumo, me deixaria triste KKKKK

É isso, boa noite! Durmam bem. #RIPPrideLands

[bucketsofmonsters]

Where the Light Enters - Part 19

Cole/Female Inquisitor

cw: unreliable narrator, hurt/comfort, slow burn, enemies to lovers, referenced noncon, happy ending, fingering, penetrative sex, loss of virginity, masturbation

word count: 4k

ao3 link

Masterlist

Defeating high dragons did not seem to have any meaningful effect on this war at all. Cassandra and Bull insisted it was vital if what she said about the elven voices in her head was true, but she suspected by the excitement in their eyes that they’d both simply wanted to fight a dragon.

Everyone had returned home from their dragon hunting missions and no one had lost a limb so at least she could count that as a success. 

Things had calmed down, at least for them. It was the scouts who were out doing the real work now, as Sera kept loudly announcing to people. They were looking for any dragons, she supposed. Solas was convinced they were the key to winning this. He said there were legends about dragons being tied to the veil, that perhaps one had been corrupted by someone and that was what was tearing holes in the fade. 

She didn’t really know. Cassandra had already informed her she would not be going anywhere near this final battle. She had done it after Cullen had attempted to inform her of this and then had run off after getting shouted at. 

Despite it being calm, no one was settled. They could all tell the end was near and they were on edge, incredibly jumpy. She wasn’t, of course, but Cole had informed her that perhaps this was because she was always on edge. 

Cole seemed relatively relaxed as well. He wasn’t one to worry about things like his potential demise at the hands of a corrupted dragon. He kept trying to help everyone else, force them out of their perpetual stress, but was having very little luck with it. Most could not be so easily distracted from such things.

Varric, however, was more than happy to be distracted. She found them sitting off in a corner somewhere, playing a game of wicked grace. 

“I’m helping,” Cole declared to her. “Mind won’t wander but it’s restless, has to do something. Teach him how to move his hands, hold his eyes. Spirits don’t have tells, just have to not get thrown out into the cold, chased down for playing the game.”

“Oye,” she said, pointing accusationally at Varric. “You’re trying to get him to help you cheat! I’ll have you know, if anyone is exploiting him for profit, it will be me.”

“Noted,” Varric said with a chuckle, rounding up the small pile of coins in the middle of the table. “I won this round.”

Cole nodded. “The ace in his sleeve won it for him.”

“I’m telling you, kid,” Varric said, like he was teaching a life lesson and not scamming someone. “You’ve got to call people when they’re doing that. Or work against it.”

“But winning cheered you up. You’re not thinking about the dragon anymore, bent and wrong, turned against its home. Untethered.”

Varric groaned. “And you ruined it. Better luck next time, kid, I’m going to go practice my shooting. There’s always room for another if you want it,” he said, giving Britches a pointed look.

“I’m good,” she said. “Not like I’ll be shooting at anything anytime soon anyways.”

“So you’re really not going?” he said, not sounding surprised at all. More sad than anything.

“What, to see the most dangerous creature alive right now?” She scoffed. “Why would I?”

“To help.”

“No thank you,” she said, shooting him a deeply insincere grin. “I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own. And if you’re not, I’ll be glad I wasn’t there to get caught up in it.”

“Whatever you say. You two have fun.”

With that, he left the pair of them alone. 

“Any luck helping people?” she asked, hopping up to sit on the edge of the table.

“No. Varric humors me. Sometimes he humors me so much he forgets to be scared for a moment.”

“Hey, that’s something,” she said with a smile. “Who’s your next target?”

“I don’t think I want to help them," he said, fidgeting with his hands. “I think I’m tired and I miss you and they’re all so scared it makes my head hurt.”

“Take a break then,” she said, grabbing his hand as she hopped off the table. 

He seemed concerned about the whole ordeal but let her lead him along, tugging him back to their room in the attic of the tavern. 

She tugged him down onto the mattress before he had time to worry. He fell on top of her, almost knocking the air out of her, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind. 

She pushed him up off of her, partially so she could breathe again and partially so she could look at him. 

When faced with his disheveled hair and a flushed face revealed from under a tipped off hat, she almost instantly drew him back in for a kiss, rolling her hips up into his. 

She pulled back, pressing her hands into his shoulders to keep him from following her and kissing her once more and blurted out, “Do you want to have sex?”

His eyes darted down to her lips and then back up to her eyes. “We’ve had sex.”

She rolled her eyes. “Not like that, real sex.” She grinded her hips up into his as if in demonstration. 

His eyes widened, excitement filling his face. “Really?”

He waited, clearly demanding an actual repose from her. When she nodded, he dove back into a kiss, hand snaking down into her pants, pushing one gently inside her and crooking it up. 

A soft moan was pulled from her and alongside it, she asked, “What are you doing?” as she pulled away from his kiss with a laugh. 

“Prepping you,” he said, his fingers crooking up in practiced motions. “That’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s what everyone else does.”

“I appreciate the enthusiasm but I promise I can take you”

He frowned, a little wrinkle forming between his brows. “I want to.”

She sighed a long-suffering sigh, hiding a smile. “If you insist.”

He moved, carefully and slowly, maybe too slowly. She could feel herself start to become impatient but shoved the feeling down. It was clearly important to Cole and she could allow it. 

And people were so rarely this gentle with her. When they were it was always done with an air of condescension, like she was some fragile thing that couldn’t take it. 

That wasn’t how it was now. There was no condescension in Cole's actions. They were simply laced with an excess of care. Everything he did was. 

He slipped a second finger in, steady and sure. Her body welcomed it, more than prepared. 

He scissored her open, carefully watching her face for any sign of discomfort now that he couldn’t read it out of her mind. She was pliant and soft underneath him, trying to quell any impatient squirming and allow him this. 

She decided she could allow the bit of impatience that was unbuttoning his pants and shoving his underwear down to release his dick. He barely seemed to notice, absolutely focused on what he was doing, brow furrowed with his lower lip trapped between his teeth. 

She gave his cock a steady stroke and he glared down at her. “You’re rushing,” he said with a huff. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, batting her eyes innocently up at him. 

He gave into her a little, removing his fingers and shifting down so his length ran through her folds, gasping as he did. 

“You’re so wet,” he said, voice verging on delight.

“A brilliant deduction.”

He didn’t even bother looking annoyed, barely tamping down his grin enough to kiss her, deep and messy. It was frankly a bad kiss, too much too quickly, the desperation in it leaving it frantic and sloppy. She loved every second of it.  

The head of his cock teased her entrance, not intentionally but simply sliding along her as he moved, thrusting beside her.

She stamped down her dignity and gave him a quiet, “Please.”

His eyes lit up at the word and he shifted, ever so slightly, to position himself above her with intention. 

He stared down at her face, searching for something in it.

“Are you sure?” he asked, the air from his words tickling her face. 

She nodded, arms lifting to wrap around him, urging him closer. 

He pushed just the tip of his cock inside of her before freezing.

“You can move more than that, I promise,” she goaded him, trying to roll her hips to meet his.

He reached down and pinned her to the mattress, keeping her from moving as he shook his head. “If I do, I'm going to come.”

She laughed, the sound echoing through the room without a hint of malice to be found within it. “You’re so sweet.”

He nodded, distracted as he focused on keeping himself together. 

Eventually, he seemed to decide he was composed enough to move, pushing inside her steadily. He paused once more when he was hilted inside her, a loud moan escaping him. 

She giggled, shifting underneath him and earning another moan from his mouth. “One of these days you’ll learn to be quiet.”

He shook his head. “I feel good, why would I lock it inside?”

She smiled. It was a sweet idea, a declaration of happiness and pleasure, to him untainted by anything. 

She supposed it was alright. She didn’t mind the idea of everyone hearing him anyway. 

Finally he began to move, slowly and carefully, and she suspected it was as much for his sake as hers. Every movement was punctuated by a loud cry, his hands reaching down to grab the sheets below them. 

His thrusts sped up, movements stuttering and quick, inexperienced in the motions, lost in his pleasure. 

Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair, pulling his face down for messy kisses between gasps and moans.  

And then a knot began to tangle up inside of her, unbidden and unwelcome, pulling soft emotions taught. 

“We should stop,” she said, and he stilled instantly, pulling out of her and moving to the other end of the mattress. 

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“You can keep going by yourself,” she said cautiously. “I just think I don’t want your cum on me.”

He nodded, a wide smile plastering itself across his face. “I’m very proud of you.”

“Alright,” she said with a laugh. “Save it for when you’re done jerking off, alright?

He was still beaming at her when he moved to take himself in hand and she had to fight to keep another laugh from bubbling out of her. 

He came quickly, as he always did, staring at her longingly the whole time. 

“You’re such an idiot,” she said with a laugh, moving to kiss him as he whimpered and moaned through an orgasm, staring at her with nothing but adoration.

He looked up at her, breathless, as she pressed kisses into his face. “I love you so much,” she whispered to him between kisses, barely loud enough for him to hear. “Do you know that?”

“I do. It’s one of the only things I can read from you anymore. Sometimes, barely, fleetingly”

She smiled at the thought. “What, it’s that strong?”

He nodded, leaning into each kiss as it was laid on his skin. 

They fell asleep before long. Cole seemed like he really needed the rest and she was never one to pass up a nap. 

When she woke up, Cole was gone and there was some kind of scuffle going on downstairs. She quickly dressed and rushed down to see patrons of the tavern trying to shoo Cole outside as he held up what was a frankly massive cat by the scruff of its neck. It was covered in brown and gray stripes that only stopped for its white underbelly. 

“Look what I found,” Cole said, holding the cat aloft slightly away from him. 

Under normal circumstances, she could probably be convinced to let him keep the creature. However, given his big tomcat cheeks that indicated he was probably feral and the hissing and attempted mauling that indicated he was definitely feral, it seemed an ill advised venture. “Cole,” she said, tone deeply exasperated. “Please put the cat down before it tears you to shreds.”

“It doesn’t have a name,” he said, functionally ignoring her. “Would it be rude to give it one?”

“He doesn’t need a name in the wild, where you are going to return him to,” she said, with an amount of patience she didn’t even know she was capable of mustering. 

“Its name is Clover,” he announced, seeming proud of himself.

“Did he tell you that?” she asked.

“No, I decided.”

“Great, fascinating stuff. Would Clover like to stop clawing at you?”

“It would. It just doesn't know if it is safe. I will show it that it is.”

“You know this is a bad idea, right?” she demanded of him.

“I know you think that,” he said, his voice petulant. 

She rolled her eyes. “Back in my head again?”

“No. I can just tell.”

“Groundbreaking stuff. Alright, have fun with your new cat. Keep it away from me and probably keep it away from the tavern.”

She didn’t even notice Solas in the corner until he cleared his throat. “Yes,” he added, staring at the cat. “You should probably find some place less crowded to keep it.”

Cole nodded and made his way out the door, feral cat in tow, just leaving her and Solas. 

Her instincts told her to just leave, to run up the stairs so she wouldn’t have to talk to him. But she could feel goosebumps rise on her neck and knew he was staring at her.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked, turning to him. “I didn’t take you for a big drinker.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I was waiting for you. We need to talk.”

“Can we do it later?” she asked, already regretting not brushing him off and running back up the stairs. 

“No, it is quite urgent.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, backing out the tavern door as they spoke, Solas following behind her. The voices in her head were raising, echoing, shouting warnings at her that she could not hear, making it hard to focus on anything. She stumbled as she walked backwards, everything getting so overwhelming. 

And then everything around her faded away, an impenetrable blackness coming up around her. 

The only reason she knew she hadn’t gone blind was that Solas was standing in the void with her, looking just as disoriented as she felt, though she imagined there were probably fewer voices screaming in his head. 

And then there was an old woman in front of them, with hair done up like horns and the look of a mage about her. 

She was frozen in place, unable to move her arms, though Solas seemed to have no issue moving and shifted away from her easily.  

The woman chuckled as Britches struggled against invisible bindings and then, with a flick of the woman’s wrist, she could move again.

“What was that?” Britches demanded, 

“Just a bit of control over you. The pool must have a price, mustn’t it?”

She wanted to insist that surely the screaming voices were enough of a deterrent for most but she figured it was unwise to anger the woman who could seemingly control her without even extending any major effort. “What do you want from me?” she asked instead, trying not to sound too confrontational. 

“I’ve come to help, since you can’t seem to parse the voices on your own. I didn’t mean to grab him,” she said, gesturing at Solas. “But he seems to have tagged along so I suppose he can stay. Odd, he always seems to be in the right place at the right time, doesn’t he?” Her voice had a knowing lilt to it that she could not parse. “What the voices you took on and can’t understand are trying to say is that there is not just a dragon to be defeated, but a price to be paid. You must be given for the Inquisition to survive.”

“Given?” she asked, reeling back, having a bad feeling she knew exactly what this prophecy wanted to take. 

“That’s what you need to know, you can figure the rest out, I’m sure. Especially with such a capable mage at your side.” She shot Solas a look that meant something, something Solas understood. What it meant, she had no idea. She was too busy being filled with panic. 

With that, the world faded back in and the voices quieted to their typical wave of chaos. 

Solas grabbed her and pulled her to the side, speaking in hushed tones. “She’s right, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The dragon can be stopped but I was looking through the fade and the two of you are tethered. It can only be killed in conjunction with the anchor in your hand. Without that, the dragon is unkillable. While one remains so must the other.”

“Right,” she said, already trying to find an out from this conversation. “I’ll think about that.”

“You should,” he insisted, “a lot of people’s lives are riding on this.”

“Whatever,” she hissed, storming off to go find Cole. 

The thought kept swirling through her head, that Cole was going to fight that dragon the second they found it. She knew her telling him it was unkillable wouldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t run, it didn’t matter what she said. He would try because that’s who he was. 

So it was her or him, at the end of the day. Well, her or thousands upon thousands of people, but that didn’t really matter to her. She’d let them die in a heartbeat, wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. She found it impossibly and frustratingly difficult to say the same when she imagined Cole there, killed by something she could have prevented. 

But she couldn’t die, couldn’t give up now, not after everything she’d done. It wasn’t an option. 

And yet she found herself turning around to go talk to Solas again. 

When she found Cole, she knew he could tell that she was exhausted and panicked. Whether or not he could see into her head anymore, that much was abundantly clear. She was tense, jaw clenched and breaths coming too slowly, clearly intentionally slowed for others benefit. 

And, more than that, he took one look at her and knew if he tried to speak to her about it, she would freak out, spiral and push him away, so instead he just looked her up and down and said, “I lost the cat.”

That much was evident from the long scratch up his face alongside his empty arms. 

“Looks like it,” she responded, giving him a halfhearted smile. 

Before they got a chance to talk any longer, shouts started to rise and she saw that Sera’s scout had returned. 

Even from a distance she looked solemn. Sera practically tackled her to the ground when she got back, having clearly been worried about her, though she’d never admit it. 

“I found it,” she said to the crowd that was slowly gathering, sensing that she had important news. “It’s a few days' ride away.”

Everything got incredibly frantic after that. People were bustling around, grabbing every weapon they could find, stocking resources. This was going to be it, they all whispered. Take everything, after this it will be done, one way or another. 

She barely helped. She felt queasy as she watched them. 

People kept offering her things to do. Blackwall came up to her and asked if she could help lead the horses to their wagons, Varric asking if she could help carry supplies. Even Vivienne seemed to have something for her, asking if she wanted to abscond for a few moments and drink some wine together. That was the only offer she almost took them up on. But she had to be sober, it didn’t seem right not to be, not now. 

The offers never really seemed to end. It seemed to be out of some need to see her involved, to make it look like she was helping. She truly did not understand it. 

Josephine came to her with an authoritative air about her, seemingly actually needing real aid with something, and Britches looked up, nonplussed. “Yes?”

“We are doing one last plea to nobles with resources near the fight. I believe you are in good standing with some of them, your presence could be of great help.”

She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “I think I’m good here, thank you.”

“I assure you it will not be dangerous,” Josephine said, seeming confused by her refusal. “We just need to do our best to support them from the sidelines. A well supported army is a successful army.”

“I know. I’d rather not though.”

Britches got up and wandered off without waiting for a response, where to she wasn’t sure. She was getting antsy but she focused everything she had into staying put. 

Less people came up to ask for help after that. It wasn’t even that they knew she’d refuse. Public opinion was simply starting to turn. She wasn’t the poor defenseless girl anymore, she was someone refusing to help. They’d invested time and care into her and what had she done other than abandon them at every opportunity. 

They were right, of course. There was no other reaction she could have expected from them. It needed to happen, she needed to be exactly as terrible as she always was, needed to turn them all down without recompense.

There were a few stragglers, ones who still had some modicum of belief in her or a hope that couldn’t be snuffed out so quickly. She wasn’t sure which and she didn’t much care. 

Is 

“If you want to come,” Cullen said, offering her an olive branch, “you could go and stay back. I’ve heard you do that in the field, it wouldn't be any different than that. Just so we don’t have to leave you here and you don’t have to just sit around and worry.”

She shook her head resolutely. “I’m just fine here. And don’t get too concerned, I promise I won’t waste away worrying. In fact, I’ll try not to worry at all.”

Cassandra scoffed. “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

And then they began to head out. 

She watched them all pass her by, seemingly having successfully worked to piss off every single person there. Cullen was fuming at the head of the army, refusing to give her so much as a look. Blackwall and Sera gossipped about her as she walked by, with little regard for her presence. Bull shot her an incredulous look and she couldn’t help but try to figure out what he was wondering. Maybe what he’d ever seen in her, maybe how someone so vile had tricked him so effectively, maybe something entirely different. It was a mystery to her, probably would always be. She caught a few more nasty looks aimed at her as they left, some from people she didn’t even know.

Vivienne was the only one who didn’t seem angry, giving her a regal nod as she passed. She’d always respected the way Britches played the game, was one of the few who recognized it was a game at all. 

Cole sat by her side the whole time, reluctant to leave. She wanted to grab his hand and beg him to stay but she knew she couldn’t. He was too selfless to ever consider it, and besides, she needed them gone. 

Cole leaned over and whispered, “They’ll miss you. Right now they can see themselves, drowning, devoured, dying. It’s hard to see anything else. And you just sit, safe, secure. Alone.”

She just nodded. She knew that, knew it incredibly well. She’d been them many times and could not fault them for it. No one hated the safe more than frightened people did. 

She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever actually felt safe before. 

Varric did come to see her as the last of the troops filed out, sidling up beside her. “They don’t mean it,” he said, giving her a pat on the back. “They’re just worried. People get mean when they’re worried. You’ll patch it right up when we get back.”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me, they can think what they want.”

He gave her a knowing look but didn’t fight her on the matter. “Whatever you say, kid. See you on the other side.”

Cole stood up, running out of time to stall through. He turned and stared at her, like he was trying to figure something out.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, focused on keeping her voice level. “You always are.”

He nodded. “And then it will be fixed. And we can be us.”

“Yeah, it will be. Now go,” she said, shooing him off. “Go help people, don’t let me stop you.”

He stumbled off, turning to look back at her over and over again until he’d passed the gates and left her sight completely. She imagined even past the walls, he kept looking back, until Skyhold was far in the distance. 

She watched to chase him, to give him the biggest kiss she's ever given him, but that would give her away, would show what the voices roaring her her head so conveniently hid from him. 

So she didn't do what she wanted, didn't take one last look at any of their faces, let them believe what they wanted. She just let them leave.

The second the last troop had left Skyhold, she was off, racing to the garden where Solas had returned to, sneaking out of their ranks. 

He looked over at her as he arranged the ritual circle on the ground. “I was worried you might not come.”

She shrugged. “Thought about it. Are you sure we need to do this? There’s no way they could win on their own?”

He shook his head. “It has to be the mark, it can’t be done without it.”

“And there’s no chance I survive this?”

He looked almost exasperated, which seemed a bit unfair considering the circumstances. “I told you before, I haven’t exactly done this previously so it’s impossible to know for sure. It certainly seems unlikely. The spell will rip you apart. I think it would take a stronger person than you to survive this.”

“Whatever,” she said, staring down at the mark on her palm. “Couldn’t we cut my hand off or something? Does it need to be attached to me?”

“I meant it when I said I considered every option. I would not be doing it this way if I thought there was something else to be done,” he said, voice softening slightly. “Despite our differences, I do not want you dead.”

It meant more to her than it should have. She was probably just overemotional. 

“You aren't who you say you are,” she leveled at him as she forced the emotions down. There was no reason to keep leverage anymore, she could say whatever she wanted to him. 

“I am not.” At least now, at the end, he graced her with the truth.

“I know you don't like me and I know you don’t think I was good for him," she said, fighting back a sob. She managed it. She'd gotten very good at not crying. “But please tell Cole I love him.”

Solas nodded. “Of course”

And with her last breath, she laughed.

[spicedrobot]

my favorite cole ships

[katari-adaari]