#broodwolf221

Krem waits for him to elaborate, though after a few moments it becomes clear that he isn’t going to. Instead, he goes on about his business. He puts his pile of plates down, and reaches to fetch another, hidden behind a pair of sun-bleached wooden barrels. As he turns, he reveals a tear in the brim of his hat. Not a small one, either. A great, ragged rip, too wide to just sew back together without warping the fabric.

“Want me to take a look at that?” Krem asks.

Cole stops in his tracks. “Look at what?”

“There’s a hole in your hat.”

He raises pale, slender hands – his fingernails aren’t bitten, but they are only just long enough to show white – and gingerly lifts the aforementioned hat from his head. Turning it over in his grip, he quickly discovers the damage for himself.

“You’ve seen it,” he says, somewhat absently. He goes to put the hat back on.

“Wait a sec,” says Krem, a laugh in his voice. Cole pauses, with his hat half-raised. “I mean, I can fix it for you, if you want.” Most of his materials are back in the house he shares with Stitches, Rocky and Grim, but he has a small kit he carries with him for emergencies – a tear in a waterproof coat can quickly land you in trouble on a cold day. Luckily, the stakes here are about as low as they can get.

Cole blinks. “You can.” It’s not a question.

“I mean, yeah.” Krem jerks his head to the side, towards the tavern door. “My stuff is inside. You can pick a fabric to patch it with.”

He gets up and heads inside, trusting Cole to follow him. The set of footsteps behind his own indicate that he was right to do so. He hikes a knee up onto the seat of his chair, more out of habit than anything, and places his kit on the crate next to it.

“I don’t have a lot of choice here, but there are a couple of options,” he says. “I can patch it with something similar, or if you want, we can add something else.”

He puts out the samples that would be big enough to cover the hole, and turns around to wait for a verdict. Cole…doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Krem initially wonders if he’s embarrassed by seeing someone’s private property, but judging by the Chief’s stories, he has no qualms about being nosy. As he watches, Cole is looks furtively over his shoulder, around at the rest of the tavern.

Krem reaches for his arm, touches his elbow gently. Cole’s head snaps around to the stare at it, and he withdraws it. “You alright, there?” he asks.

“They can all see me,” says Cole, timorously.

Krem frowns. The Chief had told him about Cole going unnoticed. At first, Krem had thought he meant the guy could be stealthy when he wanted to, but no, apparently people would just…not realise he was there. I didn’t realise he was there, he realises, something that both unsettles him and makes him feel horribly guilty.

“They all look at me, now,” Cole goes on. “I’m real to them. I can’t make them forget.”

Krem doesn’t know what comfort he can offer. He has met a few spirits in his time – they’re difficult to avoid in Tevinter – but none like Cole. None with this kind of problem.

“If you pick the fabric you want, we can sit outside while I sew it on for you,” he offers.

Cole nods. “Thank you.”

He chooses a good, thick cotton, the one Krem would have recommended if he’d asked. Krem earmarks it, and true to his word, he packs up the kit and carries it back outside. There really aren’t enough places to sit near the tavern, but he manages to find a crate long enough to sit on and set out his supplies. He should talk to the Inquisitor about getting some benches down here.

Krem sets out his things, and turns expectantly to Cole…who does nothing.

“I need your hat,” he says, holding out his free hand.

“Yes.” Cole takes his hat by the brim, but his hands still before he lifts it. He passes it over, slowly, and even when it’s sitting in Krem’s lap, he hesitates to let go.

“You can leave it with me,” Krem says, but he has a feeling Cole would rather stick around. “Or, you’re welcome to stay. Conversation makes the work go faster.”

“What should I talk about?” asks Cole.

Well, that’s a question. “Uh…how’s your day been so far?” he decides on, eventually.

“The cats don’t swipe at my feet so much any more,” Cole replies.

“They’re getting used to you,” says Krem, as he pins the patch material in place. “There haven’t been people here in a long time. Makes sense that they’d be nervous.”

“Maybe they couldn’t see me either.”

“Maybe.” Krem makes the first stitch. He decides to use a whip stitch – it’ll look very obvious, but it’ll be easier to remove if Cole decides he doesn’t like how it looks. “We had a cat, back home.”

“When your father still had the tailor shop,” Cole adds.

“How did you…?” Krem starts, before he remembers. Spirits know things. “Yeah, when my father was still around. I don’t think she was ever officially our cat, but we fed her. She’d let me comb the knots out of her fur.”

“She trusted you.”

“Yeah, I suppose she did.”

The conversation tapers off soon after. Cole simply watches Krem work with rapt interest, tapping his foot against a stone in the path. The scrutiny is a little off-putting, sure, but Krem has never had someone express this kind of curiosity in the process. His father had a machine cranked by hand to do stitching like this, which was fascinating to a small boy, but he wonders if he would have sat at his father’s elbow and stared at his bare hands working like this. Maybe he would have grown bored, as he expects Cole to do.

He never does. He sits silently for the full hour it takes to mend the hat, foot tapping that same rhythm on the stone.

Finally, it’s done. Krem ties off the final stitch, and snaps the loose end against his teeth. “There,” he says, handing the hat back to its owner. “Good as…well, maybe not good as new, but it should hold up.”

Cole puts the hat back on, which seems to be a great relief. He actually smiles a little – the first time that Krem has seen him smile. “Thank you,” he says.

“You’re welcome.” Krem smiles back, and holds out a hand for Cole to shake. “Good to finally meet you.”

Cole stares at his hand blankly for a second, before starting to lift his hat again.

Krem stifles a laugh. “No, I need your hand, for a second. Other hand.”

Cole finally offers his right hand, so Krem can grip it and shake it. His face turns a little pink. “A greeting,” he says, absently. “It’s how you call me a friend.”

Well, he seems to have grasped the concept pretty quickly, if you’ll excuse the pun. “You got it.”

Krem releases his grip, and Cole pulls his hand back, folding it against his chest like something precious. He keeps his hand like that even as he turns to walk away. He doesn’t say goodbye, but then, that’s pretty typical from what Krem has seen.

“Bye, Cole,” he says.