I wish you could have "romanced" Cole somehow. Either as a legit romance option if you've had decided to make him more human, or as a platonic relationship with its own special route. He was the only character I was interested in and discovering you could not romance him ruined half of the fun.
So like you know how he can sorta read minds. Imagine you’re thinking dirty thoughts about Cole and his whole “I can read it when they need me” thing clicks on and he gets all red and than the Inquisitor notices that Cole notices and she/he gets all red!
Here are three of my idle-mind drabbles about Cole and my Herald of Andraste, Astyth Cadash. Enjoy!
(Directly after Subjected to His Will)
Astyth pushes the door open just wide enough to slide past it. She closes it as softly as she can and glances around the room. Cole sits cross-legged on the bed, hunched over into a near semicircle, and his hat had been knocked onto the pillow beside him. His body twitches occasionally – caused by a hiccup or a muted gasp – and her expression twists into pity. She nearly tumbles over a carelessly tossed boot in her haste to reach his side.
Cole spins to look at her, hurriedly rubbing his eyes, but new tears begin to fall at the sight of her and before she even sits down, his arms are wound around her shoulders. He pulls her onto the bed, wrapped around her like a coat, and buries his face in her hair.
“It hurts, Astyth, it hurts.”
“Oh, pumpkin, I know. Let me help you, please.” She reaches her arm around him and rubs his shoulder. “You don’t have to just help and help and never get anything in return.”
He shudders harshly, brought on by a painful sob, and he tightens his hold on her shoulders. She feels tears beginning to dampen her sleeve, but she only hugs him more. Slowly, she begins to rock back and forth, gently pulling him with her while humming one of the songs Maryden had been singing earlier.
His tears slow after a few minutes, though he still suffers the occasional hiccup, and he draws in a trembling breath before letting it out in a long sigh. “Thank you.”
Astyth smiles and gently squeezes his arm. “It’s alright. I’ll stay as long as you want me to. Nobody has to change on their own.”
(Before the Arbor Wilds)
“I pushed through and held his hand. It was all I could do.” Cole looks down at his feet, swinging, swaying off the edge. “He said thank you.”
Astyth grips her arm. A rush of cold sends her spine into shivers and she trembles for a heartbeat before settling again. He looks at her and she looks back, eyes reflecting bright light from the stars. They almost mock how dark she feels.
“Thank you,” he whispers. He knows it could only be her who makes him this way, only her who tells him he matters. Varric and Solas say it too, but Astyth says it louder. Or maybe Cole just wants to hear her more.
She looks away. Her eyes close, then open, and her cheeks become slick and streaked with tears.
His hand grips her shoulder, heart hammering—it’s my fault, I said something, she’s upset—“What did I say?” he asks, voice trembling. “You’re hurt now.”
His hands get waved away and she shakes her head. “It isn’t you.” She takes a breath, slow and shuddering, like wind rattling shutters on a drafty cabin. “I’m just… I’m scared, Cole.”
“I will protect you,” he insists. “I can kill anything that would hurt you.”
She smiles, but not happily. Glad to hear the words, but afraid they can’t be true. “You can try,” she responds. “What if we never come back, and this is the last time I ever sit with you? There are so many things I still haven’t done, so many places I wanted to visit. And Antiva… I haven’t been home in so long, now… I miss Seleny, and the river, and the statues, and…”
As she worries, cold fingers grip hers and remain until they warm. He holds her hand gently, squeezing every so often so she remembers he’s there, and she cries. She leans over, shifts on the ramparts, and curls up with her head and shoulders on his lap.
Everyone fears. Everyone worries and cries, even the brightest, happiest, kindest person he knows. But that’s when Cole can help. Fears and worries become hurt, and he knows he can heal hurt. Astyth’s is the worst to feel, even after he helps, because it hurts him, too, but he still tries. He’ll always try. He holds her hand, like he held the real—the other Cole’s hand, and it forces her fears further away.
He knows she would say thank you.
(Before Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts)
Cole sits on the balcony outside the Herald’s room, kicking his legs back and forth as he watches the people below. They do so many different things, but one makes others possible. A messenger delivers a letter, the recipient sits down on a stump, the messenger’s horse runs wild through the courtyard right where the sitting man was before, the horse steps in a puddle and splashes a squire, and the water from the puddle rinses the mud from the squire’s face.
The Herald finds him, then, and he hears her louder than the rest. She’s too bright to look at, but he’s afraid she may not still be there if he doesn’t. Would she go away even if he didn’t want her to, like Rhys?
“They look so small from up here,” he says to her, voice low as if it would be dangerous were it any louder. “Some of them feel small inside—small and selfish and solitary. They don’t know.”
Cole listens as Astyth’s thoughts turn over like wheels on a wagon, thinking of things he says, but she doesn’t ask everything anymore. She is used to him now. “What don’t they know?”
“They’re important. Big. They matter.” He points at one, a kindly-looking man with bandages on his hands. “He reached into fire at Haven. The beam was hot and heavy, but he hoisted it up and helped her anyway. She lived because of him.”
Astyth smiles. “He sounds very important indeed.”
“There are others,” Cole says. “Like her.” He points at an elven woman carrying a basket full of wildflowers. “She carries things all day and she feels like it isn’t enough. Cleaning can’t kill, serving won’t save. But she does help. She makes the other servants happy when she does things for them. She’s going to put flowers in vases on the table tonight. That makes Josephine smile.”
“And when Josephine smiles, it makes everyone smile.”
He looks at Astyth. Bright, but bearable. “Yes.” She understands. She always has, even when he threw bread onto the battlements and dumped turnips into the fire.
She stands on her toes and peers over the edge of the balcony before looking curiously at him again. “How did you get up here, Cole?”
“I tried to climb, like you do. I watch and try to learn, but you’re still better than me. I slipped. I used the door instead. I picked the lock—I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. I’ll leave it unlocked for you next time.”
The sun shines warm on his legs, but Astyth’s the one who makes him flush red. She’ll leave it unlocked. She’ll do that for me, only ever for me. But as he listens to her now, studies her face, she looks sadder than before. He tilts his head and the shadow cast by the brim of his hat shifts across her face. “You’re so loud now. Don’t be worried. It didn’t hurt when I fell.”
“I’m glad you’re alright.”
“Wait. It isn’t that. Still weighted with worry. Why?”
She sighs quietly. “I’m just nervous, that’s all. We’re leaving for the Winter Palace tomorrow. I’ve never been there before, and I’m going to meet the Empress. And speak to her! I’ve never even seen her before.”
“So many masks. You want to wear one.”
She smiles again. “I do! Vivienne had one made for me, but I haven’t seen it yet.”
“It matches your dress. But it’s a different face, not yours. I’ll miss yours.”
She hoists herself up and sets herself down on the edge of the balcony with him. “Do you still want to come too? You can, if you like. There’s more than enough room for you.”
He stays quiet for a while, still focusing on the tiny movements of the people far below. “Dorian tried to teach me to dance, but there are too many steps. Will they see me?”
“They might, now that you’re more… now that you’ve worked things out. But I wouldn’t worry; I imagine they’ll be too busy with everyone else.” She leans toward him as if confessing a secret. “And to be honest… I don’t really know how to dance, either. Maybe we can learn on the way?”
“I hope so.”
“Well, it’t either that, or we attempt to learn in public and get into such a silly-looking tangle that everybody forgets about the war anyway.”
He frowns and thinks about that. Would they really get tangled together? He thinks of the steps Dorian demonstrated for him. He thinks of his hands on Astyth’s hips and their fingers fitted together and the shimmer in her eyes of late-evening moonlight, and suddenly the sun feels even warmer.
“Or,” Astyth softly continues, “we could just dance somewhere away from everybody else, where it won’t matter what steps we miss.”
He smiles now, and that makes her smile too. “I like that better. Can we?”
She finds Cole’s hand on the stony edge of her balcony and grasps it gently. “Of course we can.”
Bioware: *doesn’t make Cole a romance option even if you make him more human*
Bioware: *gives Cole a girlfriend in the Trespasser DLC*
Me: why are you so mean?
Ace Colemance? Any pairing, another character or a custom inquisitor.
I’m happy to write this, thank you for the prompt. Hope you like it!
Early on, the Inquisitor discovered Cole was happiest being held. Sometimes, after a particularly grueling fight, Cole would come to the Inquisitor, shy, hands fidgeting, eyes down. He looked like he was trying to hide in their shadow and was nervous about being caught (or was it nervous about not being understood?). Wordlessly, the Inquisitor reached out for him and brought him to their chest.
“Warm, warming, heart beat strong, solid, sound. You are safe.”
“You’re a bit of a weirdo, you know that?”
Cole smiled as the Inquisitor pet his hair. Cole seemed to like that as much as being held.
Not everyone was so supportive.
“I’ve seen how you dote on him,” Vivienne said one afternoon. She set her teacup aside, eyes sharp, hawk-like. The Inquisitor felt pinned by her gaze, cold and angry. “You must not forget he is a danger. Even the Wardens knew their griffins were still beasts to be wary of.”
“Cole is not an animal,” the Inquisitor snarled. Vivienne’s eyes darkened with disapproval. They knew she despised that sort of inelegant tone but they couldn’t help it.
“No, he is a demon.”
Even Solas was wary.
“I can’t believe you’re agreeing with Vivienne!”
“In this matter, in the least, yes.” His expression was stern, fingers stained red as he worked on the mural. “Cole is at a crossroads. He is spirit and he is man. I am not telling you not to have a relationship with him, I am simply telling you that you must be cautious.”
The Inquisitor shook their head. “No, this is Cole we’re talking about. Have you seen him? Sweet little thing, burned turnips so a dying soldier could dream of home.”
When the Inquisitor least exspected it, Cole would share his generosity and compassion with them, singing long forgotten lullabies as the Inquisitor held him in their lap or found exactly the right place to hang a shard of glass so it made a rainbow across their desk at Skyhold. Cole was kindness from the bottom of his heart.
Solas looked up from his work and said, “He is also a killer, an executioner to those who have given up.”
That night the Inquisitor retired to their room, staring at the shard of glass as it spun on it’s string. At last Cole came.
“Do you want to stop?” he asked. Of course he did. Cole never had a thought that wasn’t for another.
“Not unless you want to.”
He shifted, standing straighter.
“I don’t want to.”
The Inquisitor reached for him, holding his hand first, then beckoned Cole to the bed. He never hesitated, sinking into the warmth they offered.
“Tight, bound by love, loved, accepted.” He snug close, cold nose against the Inquisitor’s throat as they laughed. “This is good.”
“Yeah it is.” They kissed the crown of his hair and closed their eyes for the Fade. Cole would protect them, because he loved to hold as much as he loved being held.
cole is so cute. and honestly reminds me of a better me. trying to help without being seen.
but really he is so loveable. wanting to have a romance with him isn’t wanting to have sex with him. it’s wanting to be able to have a mutual loving conversation with him. both of us testing riddles and learning. being able to convey that he isn’t alone.
