faderift | OPEN: Cloudreach Event

WHO: Anyone at Skyhold
WHAT: Cloudreach showers bring weird shit.
WHEN: Cloudreach 15 onward
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: For information about the illness, its effects, and its cure, please make sure to also read the OOC Post.

This high in the mountains, snowstorms are to be expected. But this one is large and lingering, hanging over the valley and the fortress for days. In Skyhold, with its eternal spring, the snow becomes rain before it hits the ground, leaving inhabitants and visitors to wade through puddles and mud in the courtyards. In the valley, snow and ice accumulate under cloud cover—and worse, when the clouds finally thin, a whole winter's accumulation of snow begins to melt in the sunlight.

Within a day, the ground is sodden and mucky enough to give the survivors of the Fallow Mire (or Ferelden in general) unpleasant flashbacks, and those who live in tents are issued additional hastily-constructed wooden pallets to raise their floors above the mud. It is worse outside the fortress: streams and rivers have overflowed their banks, rapids run twice as fast as normal, and flash flooding has made even road travel treacherous.

On Cloudreach 17 a mudslide buries the pass into Skyhold from the west, and on the 19th a sheet of snow loosened from a mountainside collapses into the shadowed passage from the east. An Inquisition supply caravan is caught in the latter, scattering wagons and goods across the hillside and leaving a dozen people and horses in need of rescue and medical care.

Healers may find themselves stretched thin, as in addition to the usual rash of blisters and sniffles that come from days of rain and flooding, an illness begins to sweep through Skyhold's ranks from around the 16th onward. It's marked first by climbing fever, then by flashes at the edges of vision—green light and jagged formations that aren't there, beings of light and shadow gathering around people or clustering in corners—and distant voices, coherent for brief moments if you're quiet and still and not trying too hard to listen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If she'd come down with something, then Sina--still recovering--almost certainly had. Nobody at the healing tents had seen her though, so she made her escape from the healers during the general confusion of so many patients. Someone else could better use the cot she'd been in anyway.

After asking around--no few replies heavily implying that she should return to the healing tents herself--someone finally said they'd seen a white-haired Qunari woman carrying her.

After some blurred travel, the hunter found herself at Korrin and Araceli's tent, rapping lightly (or what she thought was lightly) on the tent post.

"Korrin? ...Sina?"

Korrin, not really resting much at all due to that fever and the nearby spirit chatter, turns to look in the direction of the knocking. She barely lifts her head before deciding that's a bad idea, settling back with a weary groan. There's no strength in her voice but she raises it enough to be heard. "We're here, come in..."

It was Korrin's voice, but she'd said 'we're here', so then that meant Sina. Or Araceli. But she'd said...

Nari's logical thinking was becoming muzzy. Irritated with herself for stopping to parse the simple phrase, she ducked inside the tent and was rewarded with the piteous shape of her clansister curled under blankets.

"Ah, no," the hunter sighed sorrowfully, "it did catch her. I'd hoped--" she turned to look at the qunari, who also looked compromised. "--and you too, Korrin? Fen'harel take this weather. And the mud." She crossed her arms and sniffed angrily, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "It's a scene at the healer's tents, but if there's anything I can bring for you two..."

From the back of the tent, Araceli jerks awake at the sound of a new voice, just about catching herself before pitching forward entirely. Inquisition life has seen her become accustomed to living differently but people might be forgiven for thinking she's afflicted from how tired she looks herself after worrying for Korrin, snatching sleep when she's sure she won't be needed. Still, she rises easily enough, setting her book down.

"Please, you're a guest," she offers, and because it's Araceli, because she's used to planning ahead she holds out a blanket to Nari with what's not even a ghost of her usual smile. It might just be a tent but well she has manners and she could use even a moment's distraction from the knot of worry in her stomach. "Even for me, it's making it more difficult to get around on the rooftops the state parts of them are in, the healers don't need a broken arm."

Ordinarily, not a worry. But when she's distracted and exhausted.

"Maybe you being here..." She trails off, looking towards the blankets, but she can't make herself finish because Korrin is enough when she feels so out of her depth.

Sina knows that voice. She opens her eyes blearily, just long enough to see her clansister, standing right here in the Fade, flanked by curious spirits. She has no names for them, but knows by looking that they are intrigued by Nari's resolve and loyalty, both of which seem to pulse toward her in a way that's almost tactile.
"Nari," she says with a little smile, "they like you." She takes a long, deep breath and heaves out a sigh, adding, "I'm so glad you're here."

Here, on the beach. With her. Finally she's not alone anymore.

Nari is always welcome, but more spirits has her inwardly groaning. Korrin closes her eyes, not really intent on resting so much as just tired of seeing them and Fade-ish things in her vision. It's a little too much for someone who never took that much of an interest in spirits to begin with. If anything, it underscores her sentiment that being a Spirit Healer is not a path for her.

"Yeah, Araceli's right. Just being here is what she needs. And I don't need anything, except for spirits to shut up...." But the Spirit Healers are taxed enough, and she's reluctant to call them over when they have to deal with so many.

Korrin's words, Araceli's exhausted hospitality, Sina's quiet breathy welcome, and the soft sound of the wind picking up outside added up to overcome Nahariel's fretful energy. She sniffed again, sighed heavily, and reached for the offered blanket with a grateful smile and murmur of thanks, wrapping it around her shoulders and sitting in the crook of Sina's knees. She reached out to rub her clansister's back absently, turning to look at the other two women.

"Are you both down with it then?" She asked, then rubbed her face briefly with both hands, frowning at the clamminess of her skin. "And... what is it. I heard someone say fever hallucinations before I--" she paused. Saying 'snuck out of the healers tents without being seen' sounded irresponsible, now that she thought about it. "--left to find Sina," she finished instead.

"Whatever this is, it hasn't struck me," she replies, because something in this world or her own is merciful though she doesn't have the energy to really think too much about it, what it might be down to, why them and not her. For all the moments of weakness where she wishes she could see and hear what they do so that she might understand it better, someone has to be able to help them and that's what she'll keep doing.

At least she's used to sleeping in bursts rather than all at once.

"I grew up by the docks at home, I've seen fever hallucinations and this looks very strange, Korrin said things to me about spirits, and demons too, that she could hear them? Forgive me, I am not a mage, trying to even understand how the shard in my hand connects to the Veil and the Fade gets complicated and I was fetching her," she jerks her head at Korrin, "from an escape to the tavern because 'she liked the noise. I am glad there are those who are at least sensible and noble in their escape attempts." But at least she does try to sound teasing, and offers Korrin a small smile when she says it.

"It's not fever hallucinations. I've had those before, this is different. It's like suddenly being a medium, except that spirits are being passive-aggressive shits and only loud when you're not focusing on them. Annoying." All that's said as distinctly as Korrin can manage, though she still mumbles a little. Her lips twitch a little at that teasing and she manages a slight shrug. "It seemed like a good idea at the time...in, my mind. Somehow. But this is better."

Nari's hand stilled where it had returned to continue the slow rub of Sina's back, her bleary gaze snapping to look at the prostrate Qunari.

"Wait. You're telling me that sound is... spirits?"

She'd heard things at the edges of her hearing. A quiet susurrus she'd ascribed to... she didn't know what. Something else. Wind. Walking. General bustle. People whispering, maybe, but spirits?

"Is... is the Veil weakening?"

OPEN: Cloudreach Event

[K&A tent!]

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