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nirikeehan · 25 days ago

Note

For Meira x Cole: [ HANDS ] : The characters’ hands touch. (anything from grazing past or the hand holding content we all deserve.) and a Quiet Sigh

Yeah, idek. Trying to find Meira a love interest, take one!

For @dadrunkwriting

WC: 2055

After the beating taken at sword training, Meira left the Grand Cathedral and tried to find water. The sea had been calling to her for days, and the longer she delayed it, the stronger the pull became.

The Val Royeaux afternoon was sunny, the temperature tipping from pleasantly warm to sticky and hot in the cobblestone streets. The maze of the city still confounded her, even after several weeks. No boulevard seemed to connect correctly to any other junction; even with street signs she was lost. At least Nevarran urban centers seemed to be built around one thing: in Nevarra City, the Necropolis; in Cumberland, the port. Val Royeaux seemed to thumb its nose at anything sensible, and as beautiful as it was, Meira deeply suspected she hated it.

Nobles in their strange frippery and stranger masks sauntered by, shielding themselves with parasols from the punishing sun. The lower classes, not wanting to be outdone, skulked around in eye makeup and face paint that looked ready to melt off their faces. Before her arrival, Meira had known nothing about Orlais, other than “empire to rival Tevinter” and “beware their well-patrolled waters,” both axioms from her father. Books told her little and less. She knew, mostly, about it through the prism of Thalia Trevelyan, the Herald of Andraste: Thalia’s third cousin, a former Orlesian bard, had advised her in the Inquisition. And the traitor-turned-hero, Thom Rainier, had risen and fallen here, only to rise again as Lady Thalia’s sworn knight. Meira tried to picture either on these self-same streets, their faces covered or clownishly painted, and found it preposterous.

Foreigners stood out here, though, and she did this with a sort of pride. In simple tunic and jerkin and trousers, covered in scratches and purpling bruises, she followed the salt in the air, ignoring what must be judgmental looks behind those soulless masks. She turned down a small alley and found the harbor.

Shining, gorgeous. Meira’s first thought was: home. She’d lived on land for going on seven years now, but nothing felt as inviting as the vast expanses of undulating waves. She reached the balustrade, leaned against it astride some fisher’s crates on this forgotten avenue, and breathed it in. The cooling breeze came off the water and pulled back her hair. She’d noticed many ladies keeping it in the elaborate braided updo of the Herald. She’d tried that years ago but her fine hair fell out of every plait she put it in. These days she braided little bits away from her temple and pinned them out of her eyes and left the rest loose. Her own nod to the Herald, in her own little way.

The smells of the sea beckoned her. Sailboats and pleasure yachts glided by. Meira hoisted herself up on the ledge and sat with her feet dangling, too far above the water line to touch, but close enough. She thought about whether anyone would notice if she stripped down and took a dive in. A swim would feel wonderful right now. But the guards who stood watch on most street corners looked the type not to like errant naked girls in their harbors, and Meira was under strict orders not to have to explain she was actually under the protection of Divine Victoria, if she could help it.

So she hugged one knee and watched, and homesickness overtook her, which was something she had told herself she was not allowed to feel, this being her grand adventure, her chance to finally prove herself in her own right. Her father had been an honored member of the Inquisition, but Meira had been too small to be much of anything, the first time. But she thought of the practice courtyard tucked away in the Grand Cathedral, and the punishing glares of Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast, far harsher than any account in All This Shit is Weird had led her to believe. She wished she could find Varric Tethras again so she could ask him why he would willfully misrepresent Cassandra. Meira was feeling petulant, and wounded because her swordplay was abysmal, and Cassandra had told her so, plainly, in front of everyone — a fellow Nevarran, at that!

A stupid thing, really, to send her fleeing, but Cassandra was Cassandra, and it made Meira wish she was far, far away from this stupid city with its stupid culture and why did they have to call narrow bread baguettes anyway—

Beside her someone let out a quiet sigh, startling Meira so badly she near tumbled straight into the harbor.

Thankfully, she maintained control of her faculties, and only shrieked mildly. She looked over, and there was a boy sitting beside her.

“Andraste’s mitten, you scared me!”

He was her age or slightly older, with shabby flaxen hair reaching his collar, peach fuzz of a beard along his narrow jaw, and haunting blue eyes. He was pale enough he should already be sunburnt, but the heat didn’t seem to bother him. And he was watching her inquisitively.

“Sorry.” His voice was quiet, somehow old and young at once. “I sneak up on people sometimes. I don’t mean it.”

“Right, well. You could have started with hello.” Meira had a strange sense of deja vu, as the Orlesians put it. She narrowed her eyes. “Have we met before?”

The boy looked out over the water. “Not really. But I have seen you.”

Not a terribly comforting response. Cryptic as it was, it did help Meira place him. She’d seen him around the Grand Cathedral, skulking in odd corners, shoulders hunched over a meal in the mess hall, staring at a spoon like it was a new invention. And again, at today’s sword lesson, holding a great sword that seemed like it ought to weigh more than he did. He also hadn’t been very good, if Meira recalled, but Cassandra didn’t single him out.

“You’re in training too,” Meira said softly, because they weren’t supposed to speak about it out in the open. “For Divine Victoria.”

The boy nodded, once.

Meira laughed. “Pentaghast’s a bit of a bitch, ain’t she?”

He said nothing. The boats across the water held him in some sort of thrall. “She’s trying. But she’s worried. About the war to come. About doing it all again. They’re so young. They get younger all the time. Was everyone in the Inquisition like this, and I blinded myself to it?”

Meira blinked. Somehow, he seemed to speak in her voice, despite the cadence and accent remaining his own.

“That’s, um, a neat trick you’ve got there.” Maybe he was some sort of minstrel? She’d met a few mind reader types on the docks of various ports, usually in Rivain. “Are you — sort of like a seer?”

“Close.” The boy smiled thinly. “I’m not as good at it as I used to be, though.”

“No? I’d think that’s something you’d get better at with time.” She tilted her head. Weirdos she could deal with; she’d taken a liking to many of them, called them her aunts and uncles at sea. Something told her this one was mostly harmless. But maybe that was because she’d seen him be just as shit as her in the practice yard. “Like swordplay, supposedly.”

“Better with knives,” the boy murmured.

“Oh, me too. You think maybe next time Pentaghast will let us practice with daggers?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

They lapsed into silence, which was not terribly comfortable. But Meira had not made any friends here yet, not really, because they were mostly sons and daughters of nobles and heroes while she was, well, a half-educated sea rat. Maybe a so-called psychic (almost certainly a con artist) was right up her alley. She needed friends, badly.

“I’m Meira, by the way,” she blurted, and hoped that didn’t sound too needy.

He turned, stared at her with those watery eyes. “Cole.”

She tried a smile. “Nice to meet you, Cole.”

He hesitated. “A courtesy, yes. To be returned. The pleasure is mine, Meira.”

“What brings you to the Grand Cathedral, Cole?” The words were awkward in her mouth, but the operation for which they’d been recruited had not yet been given an official name.

“I traveled. Saw many things. Fell in love. Fell out of love. There was… an emptiness.” His shrug seemed out of place with the sadness in his voice. “Then I was asked back. I want to help. I have always wanted to help. The hurt… it’s getting worse. I can still feel it.”

“I… think I know what you mean,” Meira said, although she wasn’t sure if she did, but the way he spoke, with such an urgent yearning — that she understood. “D’you ever feel like… like you were made for something, something important, but you haven’t sorted out what yet?”

That sounded stupid, so stupid, she knew it as soon as she said it, but the strange seer-boy Cole looked at her and she felt like he really saw her, and for half a second the loneliness receded. “Yes!” he said excitedly. “I was made for that! She made me — she encouraged me, I mean. She said it was better to be a person. I could still help, but I could also live. I wanted to live. I still do. It’s just — harder than I thought it would be.”

He swallowed thickly, cutting himself off, all of a sudden. Meira caught a tinge of red in his sallow cheeks. He looked down, as if ashamed. “I’m sorry. I’m talking too much nonsense again.”

“No, no. It’s all right.” She was confused, but could sense he’d revealed something important to him. Meira reached out, putting her hand next to his on the warm stone balustrade. Her pinky grazed his, just a little, in a way she hoped would be encouraging. He watched her curiously, but didn’t pull away.

Softly, she asked, “Who… who is she?”

“Oh, Thalia,” Cole replied pleasantly, as if it was nothing. “She’ll be here soon.”

Meira reared back, mouth agape. “Wait— you mean—” Maker’s breath, why did this keep happening to her? “You’re that Cole?”

“Is there another?” He cocked his head, confused.

“I-I mean — it’s a pretty common name—” She’d met three Coles from Ferelden alone. One had spent some time moored by the docks of her father’s keep a few summers ago. But that was no matter. “Is it true, then? That you’re a— spirit?”

This had always been one of the most fantastical elements of Varric Tethras’s All This Shit is Weird. Meira had debated it heatedly many times, with her father, his crewmen and again with her tutors, once her father had been given the keep outside Cumberland. Many thought Cole’s presence in the narrative to be metaphorical, or a composite character of some sort, because everyone knew it wasn’t possible for a spirit to inhabit a human body without becoming an abomination. Meira wasn’t sure what she believed, and it was becoming even harder to tell, now that she was staring the real thing in the eye.

Cole grinned a little. “I was, once. Now I’m me. But still a little bit not. It’s… difficult to describe.”

Meira stared, and maybe it was because she never had quite believe Cole to be real in the first place, she blurted the question she hadn’t been able to ask Varric and Hawke. “So — can you tell me? What’s she like? The Herald of Andraste, I mean.”

“Oh, she’s very nice. She’s my friend. She’s soft, but strong.” He paused. “And lonely. She was lonely for a long time, and she is again. You’re like her a little, I think.”

Meira swallowed hard. She’d seen some strange things in her time, but nothing so strange as a half-spirit boy telling her that she resembled her own idol. Should she pinch herself? Maybe she’d gone to drowsing in the afternoon heat.

“But it’s all right,” Cole said happily. “She’ll be back soon. For the next one.”

“The… next one?” Meira felt a creeping anticipation scuttle up her spine. “You mean the war? With the Qunari?”

Cole shook his head vehemently. He leaned close. His voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “The blades are being sharpened. And wolves walk in dreams.” He spoke with fear or reverence — she couldn’t say which. “They’re about to march.”

#meira van morovich #cole #you take the dread wolf au #dragon age drunk writing circle #ugh that line from genitivi dies in the end just haunts me ok #i had to use it #haven't written cole in a hot second but boy he's good as a foreshadowing machine huh #anyway should they kiss???? idk

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