There’s a lot of good “what ifs” for a Rook. What if Rook is the child of HoF, of Hawke, bonded to this or that spirit, etc, but I'd like to make just one more suggestion for who Rook could be:
He’s real now, all the way through, with a beating heart and a face that needs shaving every now and then. Varric never knew much about children, and Cole didn’t know much about parents, but everyone needs help to become a person. Things just fell into place. Cole has Varric’s shaving mirror now. The dwarf said “You should hang onto this,” and it took a few years for Cole to understand that actually meant, “It’s yours now.”
There was a hole in Varric after losing Hawke. Cole didn't need to be a spirit to understand that. "Rook" was a chess piece, but it was also a bird, and Varric loved to tell stories about heroes like that. Even in Thedas, this place of immovable fact and reality, Varric could change the world with his stories. He said that Rook was a hero, and like a spirit answering its own nature, Cole became one. Stories were lies, in their own way, but Varric used them to tell the truth.
Solas was the opposite. Solas preferred using the truth to tell lies.
Solas has never seen "Rook," and they hope it will take him off guard when the time comes. Varric's job is to "stop the Dread Wolf," but it edges close to "save the Dread Wolf." Cole prefers that. Solas was his friend, too, even after so much change. Cole hopes Solas will still recognize him with a human heart.
But that human heart can no longer sense blood magic.
Solas wants to be angry when the ritual fails. He wants to accuse. He wants deride. He wants Rook to be unworthy of his grace, but it all breaks to pieces when Cole stands before him. He used to know that spirit, just as he used to know Mythal. Like her, like Solas, like every broken spirit pulled into mortal flesh and forced to decay, Cole has the weight of years on his body. Cole is older. Cole is aging. Cole will die unless Solas brings down the Veil, but Cole wants to stop him. This world is going to kill him one way or another, and yet Cole fights as if this is something to be protected.
They understood each other once. Neither one is sure how much of that remains.
Cole approaches leadership with gentleness, the way he approaches everything. He cannot hear pain anymore, so he tends to his companions with words and hands like a gardener, with the spiritual tenderness only Compassion could muster. Most spirits are confused when the world refuses to shape itself at their command, but Cole has learned Varric's tricks. He knows that if he treats his companions like heroes, they will eventually become so. It's easy to follow a leader like that. It's easy to love a leader like that.
Solas does not know whether he pities the fallen spirit, or envies him. Cole is Compassion. Cole is damaged beyond repair. Cole is happy. Cole doesn't regret a second of it. All things in this world are temporary, and that only makes Cole love them more. Why does Cole think this is worth saving?
It nearly ruins Solas to leave Cole in that prison. The entire Lighthouse wouldn't have enough space to paint this regret. But he was once Wisdom, and Cole was merely Compassion, and Compassion is not a spirit built for these wicked choices. Better for Pride to carry the burden, because Solas has so many scars on his soul that one more won't make a difference.
Compassion would never have been able to escape that prison. But a human being? A human being knows how to change.
Solas is relieved, dismayed, astonished to see what the spirit has become. To know that change is the very reason Cole bested him.
(Was Varric right? Lavellan? Felassan? Mythal? Is this all for nothing?)
All those mistakes speak together in the end. Cole opens his mouth, and Varric speaks through him. Mythal beside them, Lavellan with forgiveness already on her tongue. Solas is free. This world can be more than his mistakes. There is space for flowers in between the bones. He cannot undo his wrongs, but he can soften them.
And it begins with, "I'm sorry."
Cole smiles. Of course he does. There was never any doubt that he would redeem Solas in the end. He touches the copper chain around his neck, and one of Bianca's broken arrows in his pocket.
"I know," he says, and there is an echo to it.
Cole is glad Solas turned toward redemption. He is glad Solas believed Varric after all this time. He knows what happened was an accident.
But Varric is gone. The dwarves are tranquil. The number of deaths it took to turn Solas' pride is higher than Cole could count. Compared to the Blight, Cole's friendship should seem like hardly any price at all. But losing this is perhaps the sharpest wound.
Cole understands him, in the way of Compassion spirits. But Cole is no longer Compassion. Cole is no longer Solas' friend. As they part ways, as the Fade-tear closes and Solas looks over his shoulder, they both know: Cole understands. But he will never forgive.
ellievsbear
izzy806
annaxmalina
andulkaphoto
snowghoul
2087
pixelskylines
titsay
