(Blackwall’s comments about companions)
Étiquette : cole
Iron Bull: So Cole, you’re polite, you’re good in a fight, and your heart’s in the right place.
Cole: It is? Good.
Iron Bull: I’ve got a plan. I think this could get you sorted out, get both feet on the ground.
Cole: I have to lift my feet, or the rocks make noise when I walk.
Iron Bull: Yes…. When we get back, you’re going to spend an evening with a nice lady named Candy.
Cole: Can I lift my feet?
Iron Bull: She’s gonna lift a lot more than that.
(Later:)
Iron Bull: So how was Candy? You two have a good time?
Cole: Yes. She danced. Then I untangled the hurt that made her angry at her mother. I helped her write a letter to send back home. She said I could call her Marguerite, the name didn’t hurt anymore.
Iron Bull: Well, that was five royals well-spent.
Cole: I understand. Making the Templar forget what he did to me is like making you forget Rainier.
Blackwall: I … Yes. Perhaps.
Cole: My pain was his pain. It made the amulet not work. We both had to let it go.
Blackwall: But now he doesn’t remember what he did.
Cole: Isn’t me not hurting more important than him being punished?
Blackwall: *Sighs* We are a pair, you and I. The victim and the murderer. If it helps you, lad, then I am glad you forgave him.
Cole: You think that if you forget, you will become like that again. But you’re not him. You have other things to carry. You can put the bodies down.
Blackwall: Thank you.
Cole: How do you get the hair on your face?
Blackwall: Look, ask Varric, he seems to have adopted you.
Cole: He doesn’t have hair on his face. Is it a mask?
Blackwall: No it’s a beard. Look, if you were any other lad your age I’d tell that one day you’ll probably grow one too, except I don’t know if spirits that become boys get beards.
Cole: I could try.
Blackwall: Right. You go do that then. Good luck. Have fun!
Blackwall: This Templar who hurt you… you made him forget?
Cole: Yes. He knows he left the Templars, but I’m not there. He just knows they made him someone he didn’t want to be.
Blackwall: Why did you do that? You shouldn’t have taken that from him.
Cole: Why?
Blackwall: Taking away a bad memory is one thing. Taking away guilt is another. Without that guilt, it’s as though he never killed you.
Cole: Isn’t the world better that way?
Blackwall: I… I don’t know.
– Cole, talking to Sera
Blackwall: I hear you found the Templar that killed you.
Cole: Yes. His hurt is healed. So is mine.
Blackwall: Just like that? How do you forgive someone who does that to you?
Cole: He was frightened. The other Templars were older. He didn’t know what to do. Afraid of them, afraid of me, can’t face it, lock it away and pretend it wasn’t real. He fled far away, tried to forget, to be someone new.
Blackwall: He deserved to be punished.
Cole: He was.
“I like the part with the rabbit. There should be more rabbits in stories.”
– Cole
Blackwall: Cole, if you knew what I am, what I’d done, why didn’t you tell the others?
Cole: Everyone hides dead things. Everyone pretends. You wanted to fix it.
Blackwall: I’m a murderer.
Cole: You don’t want to be. You made a new you. You are Blackwall. You killed Rainier.
Blackwall: If only that were possible.
Cole: You would stand between Rainier and the carriage. But you can’t. It doesn’t work like that. So you carry the bodies to remember.
Blackwall: I suppose I do.
Eniv Trevelyan 