most of my sweet memories were buried in the sand

[asunders]

Who| cole + OPEN
What| making friends with stray cats + figuring out how food tastes
Where| a random alleyway in the capitol, the tribute center restaurant
When| after the latest arena
Warnings/Notes| none yet



CAPITOL ALLEYWAY.

Everyone can see him. It doesn't matter what he does, because he can feel the weight of their eyes on him. Everyone can see him, and he can't slip away like he used to. Once, the weight of their eyes would have made him panic. But he's a little more used to being seen by now. Varric has been helping him. Instead, he tugs his hat back down over his eyes to obscure his face and makes his way around a city that seems too clean after being in Thedas for so long.

The people here are untouchable. Their thoughts are shrouded from him. He's left with the noise his own mind makes inside of his head, which is different and a little strange. He probably makes a strange sight, crouched at the end of a small alleyway with a loaf of bread in his hands. Murmuring quietly to the stray cats congregated there.

I'm not going to hurt you. You must be hungry.

It's harder to help, without those thoughts at his fingertips. But this is one small way that he can. The cats of Skyhold used to bat their paws at him even when they couldn't see him. These ones approach tentatively, spurred on by his gentle coaxing an the bread in his hands.

He can help the hungry cats. He can help.

TRIBUTE CENTER

He's never had to eat before. Back in the Spire, before he knew what he was, Cole vaguely remembers the feeling of hunger that had appeared only because he'd thought it's what he might feel. He thought he was human, back then. Or -- something else. Something more real, and more substantial than he felt, slipping through the cracks and into the darkness. But he had never actually eaten anything, even back then. He wasn't even really sure that he could.

Now the feeling is back, that odd gnawing sensation. But he doesn't really know what to eat, so he goes to the restaurant at the bottom of the tribute center and orders something at random off the menu. Or, it's more like he closes his eyes and picks at random.

The avoxes make his heart ache. They can't speak, and he can't hear them the way he would have been able to, once. They scurry away from him like scared mice as soon as he tries to speak to them. Leaving him with assorted oddities. Pickles, peanut butter. An apple and fish. Cole bites into a pickle and immediately shudders at the taste.

No, no pickles. No, they're not for him.

Unless he dipped them in peanut butter?

Someone please stop him.

Comments

[carnagecarnival]

The meowbeasts sniff at him and he crouches down low, making himself small as he can. Not the tower he up and is.

Whoever this tribute is, he seems to be enjoying himself. No one hardly had 'pets' on Alternia. Everyone had their lusus natrae guardian or nothing at all. It's both strange and familiar, seeing people get their interact on with beasts. He's seen more pets since coming here, even has a few tribbles his ownself. But there still remains a curious novelty to it.

He calls once more for Cole's attention, with a faint clicking trill. Then, he mouths some words real slow. You sure that's right? He points at the bread what all Cole feeds the meowbeasts with.

[asunders]

He calls for Cole's attention and gets it -- the strange noise is enough to draw his curiosity. The cats seem to be enjoying the bread he gives them, considering the way they nibble at it straight from his hand. He hadn't really thought about what might be good for them to eat, because he's only recently learned how to eat at all. Bread was something he'd seen people eat at Skyhold, so it's what he had picked.

Cole stares at him for a moment, mouthing the words so he can figure out what is being said to him.

I thought it was... is what he mouths back, looking worried. Is it wrong?

[carnagecarnival]

He shrugs sort of helplessly, as all to say, it might be? That cats certainly weren't complaining. At this rate, the bread was almost sure to be no more.

Still he opens his own maw and taps at one of the obscenely long and sharp canines there, the ones what as hang over his bottom lip. He's got rows and rows more of sharpness behind them. He then points at the cats with their own tiny little canines. With his hand, he does a chomping motion, all mouthing out a single word slow.

car-ni-vore