Cole

It has been a long time since the rebellion at White Spire.

Cole doesn't know how long; he's not very good at working out how days translate into other periods of time. He knows there's been two winters, or was it three?

Now he helps people with the Inquisitor. Right now, helping people is finding his way through the dungeons while the fighting between the mages and templars rages outside. There's prisoners, captured mages, and Cole is to go in, sense the ones who don't want to hurt people and let them out of their cells and lead them back out again.

He crouches down at the next cell door, resting his brow on the wood and listening to the hum of emotions and memories, regrets for the last time he was in a cell like this, and not being able to help his strange spirit boy rescuer-

"Rhys?" He forgets about opening the door and instead warps the Fade to step through the solid wall. "Rhys?!"

Cole had said he would go to Val Royeaux when they next went there.

It happened sooner than anticipated. Cadash returned from her expedition in Valammar and, as Cole had predicted, Varric was heart broken, the betrayal a step beyond what he could take, even from his beloved, elusive Bianca.

Cadash promptly announced they were going as a group to Val Royeaux. Not just her and Varric, but anyone and everyone who wanted to come and sort out business. Uniforms needed making for this ridiculous ball, Varric needed a cheer up which meant new bow components, Solas was complaining about a lack of the pigments he wanted, and in the end Cadash had just yelled a lot and bundled up everyone who might want to go or be needed.

They made a long, straggling caravan trail of horses, nugalopes, dracolisks and foot soldiers. Cole, still unable to ride on his own, had hopped up onto Dorian's horse for most of the trip, wandering away and back as he was called to help.

But as they drew closer, he went quiet, cuddling into Dorian's back and watching the great, White Spire with an apprehensive gaze. He wanted to make new, better memories to wipe away the fear of his last trip to this place, but that didn't make facing it now any easier.