benevolenterrancy:

Okay
so I saw this post (and it’s a super cute blog, 10/10 would recommend
if you like DA and weird modern aus) and it got me thinking

What
if Cole got the Inquisition’s hand-me-downs?  Especially if you
consider how frequently the Inquisitor hoards new, better equipment
for their Inner Circle, there has got to be cast-asides, right?  And
Cole just loves every single awful stitch of those hand-me-downs as
he builds himself outfits out of bits and pieces of all his friends.

The
Inquisitor gives him a sweater that proved to be too impractical for
someone who’s leading the Inquisition and is routinely wading in and
out of chaos.  Or a pair of knit, strangely patterned socks that
their parents sent them but don’t quite match the “I am an
intimidating world power, respect and fear me” look that their
advisors are trying to encourage, and honestly mom there’s only so
many knit socks one person can own.  Or just any of the various coats
and belts and rings and boots that they pick up along the way and
think yeah that’d be just about perfect…

He
gets a pair of Bull’s ridiculous pants that are so big on him that he
could just as easily use them as a tent, but he just cinches them
tight with a belt and runs around with them billowing behind him.

He
gets scarves from Varric when Varric catches him shivering one day,
just wearing his threadbare, patched shirt.  (And if you want to go
further: didn’t Anders mention that he wanted to take up knitting?
Imagine a lumpy, weird-shaped scarf that Anders made him and that despite
everything Varric has held onto it all these years.  But when he sees
Cole, displaced spirit who’s still trying to get use to the real
world and things like cold, he knows that Anders would want it
to do good for someone who needs it)

Cassandra
ruins a tunic training one day and instead of throwing it away she
lets Cole have it and he lovingly stitches it back up.  (Blackwall
teaches him how to improve his sewing, because a man who’s travelled
alone for as long as Blackwall has he definitely knows a few tricks,
and he gets Cole some different, brightly coloured thread to use)

Cole
eagerly uses this thread to patch his clothes with bits and pieces
from all sorts of hand-me-downs that are too battered to be
scavenged.  Just imagine all the plaidweave.  Vivienne gives him some
of her own ruined robes to cut to pieces and use as patches just so
she won’t have to see anymore of that cursed excuse for fashion.

After
Cole takes to doing this, whenever Josephine gets in swatches of
sample fabrics from merchants she always passes them on to Cole when
she’s done with them so that he can have these various patches of
strange, exotic fabrics.

This
is all well and good of course, but Cullen also puts in an effort to
make sure that Cole at least has few pieces of real
armour among all this, or at least protective runes that can be added
to his clothes so that he’s prepared for all the people that tend to
want to kill you when you travel with the Inquisitor.

Cole
even ends up with some of Dorian’s old robes after he decides he
simply cannot be seen in them anymore, and Cole loves wearing them on
rainy days because the water slicks off the tough leather perfectly,
though he never manages to figure out all the buckles.

This
just becomes something that people do without thinking about it,
because old clothes need to go somewhere and Cole always seems
surprised and thrilled when he gets gifts.  Eventually he has enough
that if you were to ever go to his little corner in the Herald’s Rest
and investigate the crates you’d find a couple filled with all these
hand-me-downs, lovingly folded and stored away for later.

By the
end he looks like a positive rag doll but he loves it all with every
bit of his soul because it’s proof that instead of forgetting about
him, his friends think of him at random moments, see something and
think that he would like it, and lets him hold little bits of them
close to his heart.