I love Cole, and I find it an interesting challenge to write from his first-person POV. Hence this little drabble of Cole hanging out with Elia Lavellan and Solas, based on a Fictober prompt: “If you cannot see it, is it really there?”

Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition
Pairing: Solas/Lavellan, through Cole’s eyes
Rating: Gen

Read on AO3 instead.

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Crumbs crumbling in her fingers. She offers the scone to me. “Would you like some?”

I shake my head. “Thank you. But I don’t eat.”

Elia rubs her forehead, face twisting in a smile. “Right, of course. Sorry, Cole.” She breaks off a bite, chews, smiles again. “So what’s been going on lately? Anything that I should know about?”

I look out at the courtyard. It’s harder to hear here on the ramparts. The hurts hang low, hovering over heads as they move around the hold, but it’s quieter up here.

I answer her question. “I heard some people talking about me. ‘Just a story,’ they said. ‘The Inquisitor’s ghost makes her sound more scary than she is, but the boy doesn’t exist.’” I look at Elia. “They don’t think I’m real.”

Concern creases her brow. “Yes, I’d heard something about that too,” she says softly. “Cole… do you ever really worry that you don’t exist?”

I look at the courtyard again, thoughtful, thinking. “The dungeon in the Circle was dank and dark and deep with despair. I wasn’t sure then, not until Rhys saw me. But before that…” I close my eyes, memories moving close. “Alone, afraid, eyes slide past me like raindrops on the rafters. The only ones who see me are the ones whose eyes I close forever. If you cannot see it, is it really there?”

I blink and look at Elia. She shifts a little closer, eyes serious and sad. “There are lots of things that are there even though you can’t see them,” she says.

“I know,” I reassure her. “I didn’t know it then, but I know now. Spirits hide away, shrouded and shy. They’re invisible, intangible, but alive.”

She smiles. “You’re right. Spirits are the best example. But other things too. Like… smells! The smell of this delicious scone.” She takes another bite, sugar-sweet smile as it melts across her tongue. “Or memories,” she says. “Just because we can’t see memories doesn’t mean they aren’t real.”

“But Solas can see memories,” I say. I give her an example, lifted from his lips this morning. “‘I saw a mural made of stone, with graven glyphs from ancient times. A dwarf stood there, his chisel raised, but regrets were ringing in his mind. One can strike the name from stone, but it cannot be struck from the heart.” I tilt my head.

She bites her lip, tries to hide her smile, but it curls at the corners of her mouth. Rosy pink like a sunrise across her cheeks, a burst of warmth in her belly, his name like a bell in her mind: Solas.

“Yes, well.” She speaks softly, smiles softly, softness in her eyes as they drop to her lap. “Solas is special. He has a talent for seeing things in the Fade. Most people can’t see memories in that way, so… so memories are a good example. What else…” She straightens up and snaps her fingers. “Feelings! Of course. We can’t see them, but they’re obviously there.” She blinks at me, eyes bright and blue and open, echoing like the sky. “That’s how you know who needs help, right?”

I nod slowly. “Feelings. Yes. That’s how I know.” Worry, hurt, fear, anger, resentment – I don’t see them: I feel them. I follow them, and I soften the edges, sand the roughness away, erase what can’t be eased. She is right.

But I don’t feel any of those things right now. The courtyard is where those hurts exist, but here on the ramparts, there’s only Elia. And what she feels is love.

Solas. His name is still there, chiming in her mind. I wonder if he can hear it too? Maybe he does, because suddenly he’s here.

“Good afternoon, Inquisitor.” Solas joins us, standing next to Elia, his smile soft and sweet as the scone in her fingers. “Hello, Cole. Taking in the view?”

“Yes,” I say. “It’s quiet and calm. There’s agony in the undercroft, but it’s lighter here, lifted free. It’s nice.”

His eyebrows lift slightly: a smile tinted with regret, so faint I almost can’t feel it above the brightness of Elia’s joy. She beams at him, chin lifted high to meet his eyes, a tickling shiver down her spine as his hand traces the length of her back.

She is happy. And so is he. But there’s something else there: sadness in his spirit, a taint of tragedy, anchored to ancient obligations. If she dug deeper, picked and pushed, she would find it.

But then she wouldn’t be happy. And neither would he.

I don’t say anything. It would only hurt, and I don’t want anyone to hurt.

I sit a little bit longer. We talk about the kitchen staff and the cats and the spiders on the sill. I ask why Dorian dislikes the Iron Bull, and Elia laughs and says he doesn’t really, which is confusing.

I watch them as they talk: her laughter reflected on his lips, his words writing warmth beneath her ribs. His thumb strokes her cheek, and she presses her hands to his chest, and I wonder if maybe Elia is wrong.

Maybe I can see feelings after all.