My version of Cole’s final cutscene, because Thalia’s bleeding heart always has way more to say.
Cole was waiting for her.
The restless thumping of boots against stone hurried Thalia up the steps. Her eyes were as poor in the dark as they were in the light, but the flash of his pale hair was easy to catch in the married glow of starlight and torchfire.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” She sang cheerfully, stumbling only once. “I’m sorry I’m late!"
She said this as though she was ever on time in the past, but her appearance, though miraculous, could always be trusted. This was not a thing to be brushed aside like the petty favors of the court. Her friends always came first, and as much as she would forever vehemently deny its truth to their faces, Cole was a very…special priority.
They would always sit up here together during the nights of a new moon, a single blanket draped around their shoulders as their hands traced pictures in the constellations. Thalia would bring a stolen, squashed cake that he never touched and she would inevitably drop before she finished it, and they would talk until the fingers of dawn stretched over the mountains and stained them a glorious mix of gold and rose.
They would talk of spirits, the Fade, their friends, their missions, the many people that lived within Skyhold and made it a living, breathing thing.
They would talk of her life before the Inquisition, of her clan, her regrets, her grandmother. They talked of her fears and her loneliness. The great black force that clung to her like tar since the day she realized everyone was right about her all along.
The would talk about the many things they did not understand. The strange, sticky, subtle things that everyone around them seemed well versed in.
It was safe to talk about those things with him. They were not to be solved like a puzzle, like everyone expected her to. They were what they were, and Cole understood that.
It was safe. He was safe.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said again, breathless as she smoothed her hair back. “I looked everywhere for this silly blanket and I found it in the oddest…place…” Her words died into silence.
Cole was not sitting on the far wall as he usually did. He sat at the top of the stairs, his feet pulled up to make himself very small. His fingers were bloodless claws digging into his legs.
Something was wrong.
“Cole?”
Placing the blanket and its hidden contents carefully on a swell of cracked stone, Thalia approached him slowly, her steps like those of a ghost. She always moved towards people like they were frightened animals. Perhaps it was because they often frightened her back.
But Cole was not a person to be frightened of. He was her friend. Her friend who hated the noise of everything just as much as she did. For him she would be quiet and careful, just as she wished others would do for her. Just as he did for her.
When he spoke, she jumped. “Corypheus died. And then he didn’t. That’s why he always felt wrong, like he didn’t fit inside himself. He wears another man’s life.” He whispered against the wind, a note of distress making his voice splinter. “I thought dying was forever.”
To touch him now would be unwise. She crawled up to sit beside him instead, curling into a ball to match him.
He liked it when she matched him. It meant she was paying attention. That she wouldn’t forget.
She tilted her head against her knee and looked at him through a part in her hair, blinking owlishly. “Corypheus seems to have made a habit out of doing impossible things. Being impossible things. I don’t understand any more than you do, Cole.”
In a sudden movement that had Thalia straightening, he rose to walk along the line of stone before stopping to stare into a wall choked in ivy. He seemed to be shrinking away; his shoulders narrowed and his arms closed around him in a bruising hug. “But is it him? Is he real? If a man can be dead and then not… Could I have saved the real Cole?”
“Cole…” Thalia whispered, carried into nothing.
Even the wind had left them now. The stars watched coldly, impassively. The night was no longer a creature writhing with life, but a frozen picture they stood inside.
What could she say? What could she say to a being that was impossible? And certainly, how could she explain the impossible to that impossible being when she was just another impossible thing in this terrible, terrible, impossible world?
But then, she supposed, none of that really mattered. The impossible things were simply what they were. They were what they were.
And it didn’t change how real they were together.
“Cole, what happened to him was not your fault. You did everything you could do. Perhaps even more. You were there when everyone else forgot. You gave him peace so he wouldn’t die afraid. What’s more, you found the man that locked him away and made him understand the hurt he caused. You were everything. You are everything. You. Are. Cole.”
Her words settled over him in a blanket of promise. He sat down after some time, the silence at last filled with the return of the wind. She almost wished it would go away again.
“His hands were bruised from beating on the wall. It was dark like the cabinet where he hid to escape his father. His belly hurt like knives, throat cracked dry. He was alone. I pushed through and held his hand. It was all I could do… He said…’thank you.’”
She was beside him again, soundless and soft, small and pale and fragile as the smile taking shape on her lips. Her hand lifted for him to see, giving him the chance to watch as it lowered to cover his own. He flipped his palm up and his fingers swallowed it immediately.
He smiled at her, and they matched.
It was safe. He was safe.
“Thank you.”
