Here's to you, you old wreck (iron bull)

06 January 2016

It's been days, weeks, maybe months with how time slides together like mud at the bottom of a rock slide and the sound of it still rings in echo in his head. The fighting, sure: the sour clash of blades on blades, armor scraping against itself as people move, the thin patter of rain on the stone like a constant roll of drums pushing forward, forward. Voices raised over the storm. But that stays in its own little corner for the most part, the square of his mind marked Storm Coast -- do not open. What echoes is after.

What echoes has the smell of wet grass and wildflowers, that weird almost-electric buzz that Cole carries, his steps too light even when he's distracted talking: "Words break in small, secret spaces. He got away. He got away."

And Bull had asked, how could you know? And Cole had said, your hurt touches hers. His eyes had been wide like he was a kid explaining something that should have been so obvious.

And now the words hang off him heavy. A pair of weights strung up on his horns. What a wreck -- he didn't have to know. But he does, now, and now he thinks about it. He thinks about it when he's out on the field and he thinks about it when he's in the tavern drinking with the boys, who still live and whose chests still rise with breath when he watches them when they won't notice, and he thinks about it when he's walking through the library tower because he was on the walls and it's quicker this way getting to the main hall, at least if you're not inclined to risk too-long falls like the boss. The thoughts don't move through him so much as sit heavily, sink in, like his head's full of wet sand opening up to take them in. Sand wet from rain and sea water and blood.

It's cyclical, and all that bullshit.

The only one who doesn't flinch in some way when he goes through the library is Helisma, and she has being tranquil going for her. Not a big deal, honestly; once the librarian realizes his eyebrows have climbed up to his hairline, he sort of laughs at himself and shakes his head and looks back to where he was working, no harm done. The woman at one of the tables touches her daughter's shoulder to return her focus to the book they're sharing. It's only early afternoon, after all, so there's no point wasting too much time being surprised at a familiar Qunari. Tal-Vashoth. Not that it matters to these folks.

It comes as an impulse, which should have been a reason for him to ignore it in and of itself. Impulses never lead anywhere good. Instincts, maybe, but going off a whim without a second thought leads to dead men. Still. Bull feels the quiet in the library and thinks of swept-back horns and goes, "Cole."

He didn't know if it'd work, but it does. Cole comes into existence like he'd always been there, not so much as a puff of dust to make a show of it, and he has his head tipped a little back and a little to one side so Bull can catch the edges of his face under the wide brim of his hat. He's got a look on his face like he was waiting, and like he's resigned to this.

"The Iron Bull," he says, each word tasted fully. He angles his face a little more so that the grey of his eyes pull in a little light. "Yes," he says in answer to a question that hadn't been asked yet.

Bull's a little glad for that, really. He hadn't really processed till just now that he'd be asking with an audience. Out of practice, after just a couple weeks that came together as sludgy, messy months.

Bull steps into an unclaimed nook between two bookshelves, just for the illusion of privacy, and Cole doesn't follow him. That's half to be expected, since the kid doesn't know how to give people genuine privacy, let alone pretend just for the appearance of it. He just kind of turns his head like an owl in full daylight, confused and out of place. Bull takes a breath. "I just want to know," he says, as though Cole needs to be told why he's here. "Just to be sure that she's safe, that's all. Since you brought it up the one time."

It's not too much, he figures. He's not asking if she's still with the Qun. He's not even asking if she's still a Tamassran -- he knew a woman in the Ben-Hassrath who used to be a Tamassran until she got too bitter for it. Turned out her personality made folks trust her real easy. She got a good couple of rebels in for reeducation before they could even make the decision to turn Tal-Vashoth, and Bull used to respect that --

"The Iron Bull," Cole says again. Bull's thoughts grind to a halt. Yeah. He's here. After all this, he's still here.

Cole's head tips to the other side and his eyes go distant, get lost behind the fringe of his hair, and his breath eases out of him. Bull's all ready for the half-poetry of Cole's special kind of mind reading: a little bit embellishment, a little bit emotion, a little bit pushed-down nervous thoughts. Let her be ok, he hopes. And realizes he's hoping. It makes the rhythm of his heartbeat skid uneven.

Cole opens his mouth and sings.

Not well, by any means. It's the sound of someone who's never sung before, never even considered singing, someone who's singing a song they know in their heart but have kind of forgotten the words to. And it's halfway in someone else's voice, fuller and lower, with a kind of lilt to it that's foreign to Cole's speech. The song isn't familiar. Or, rather, it is, but only in the vaguest way, something caught by the fingernails at the end of your reach.

The words of it skip just out of Bull's understanding, but he can hear the sound of them. "Lath sulevin," Cole sings, "lath araval ena..." Nonsense, but definitely Elven nonsense. Bull frowns. It's just at the edge of his memory, but he can't reach it. Cole's voice sticks a little flat on the words, as though he doesn't want to sing it but it's all that's left to sing. As though all the same, it's a chore getting his mouth to make the words.

From downstairs, Solas calls, "Cole, enough." Cole blinks and falters halfway through a note, mouth closing belatedly, and when his eyes focus on Bull again they well up with panic.

"Oh," he says, "oh, I'm sorry, the Iron Bull, that wasn't who you wanted at all. It's just he was singing as loudly as he could manage, mind is clouded, weighed down in the murk of lost will, I am dim after the brightness of it, if anyone can hear then hear me, I -- did I make this worse? I should go --"

He is gone, then, as abruptly as he showed, and Bull blinks at the empty air in hollow confusion. No one says anything of it; for all he knows, Cole's wiped the whole thing from everyone's memories but Bull's and his own. But when Bull finally comes down the last flight of stairs, Solas is leaning against his desk with his arms folded in front of him. His eyebrows are tipped up with interest and suspicion.

"An Elven song," he says abruptly. "I cannot imagine what you asked of Cole that prompted him to sing it." Solas gestures with one hand, making no move to hide the question in his words. He never was one to really beat around the bush.

"Yeah, me neither," Bull agrees. He'd mean it, too, if he could get the almost-familiarity of it out of his head.

Solas turns, then, feigning interest in a pile of papers spread across his desk. "Let alone a rendition peppered with Tevene such as that. I've never encountered that interpretation of the lyrics, before."

Tevene, as in the syllables that hadn't fit in the song. Tevene as in the wet coast just off which humans tried to protect their 'property' from the Qunari savages, up till their spines crunched under Bull's boots and left just the patter of rain that crowded in his ears. That, and the singing: a handful of voices with melody in their words. Lath sulevin lath aravel ena...

The ship had rocked on the unkind waters and the realization rocks in Bull's head. He'd heard that song last freeing a wide-eyed young elf. Now it comes from Cole, who knows it only because Bull's hurt touches it, because if anyone can hear, then please hear. The brightness leaves him dim. Bull almost knows how qamek tastes: thick and coppery like the taste of your own blood. It lingered in his mouth for ages after he was in reeducation.

"I have," he murmurs to Solas, and leaves before Solas can so much as quirk an eyebrow. He came here with the intention of seeing the boss, anyway.

In his room that night, he says a few words with a candle burnt low. Ataash varin kata. Gatt used to look away when they left bodies because he could never quite separate the bodies and the souls like born Qunari could. He was too soft, that way, too attached. Bull had called him Gatt both for his temper and as a tactic: look at his anger, it said to the others, not at the way he hopes too much and searches for change and sees heroes in regular men. Viddathari got some leniency, but not so much that they could get away with talking about making changes in the Qun. Look at the bursts of his rage and not the warmth of his heart.

Ataash varin kata. Somewhere tomorrow, he thinks, Gatt will reach into trees to pluck fruit, and will think nothing, and that song might beat weakly at the very edges of his mind. Ataash varin kata. It's been a long time coming, he guesses.

Ataash varin kata. Asit tal-eb.