faderift | OPEN: Cloudreach Event

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

Zevran truly had assumed that being feverish and aching was the worst of his issues. Peering about and seeing things that are not there? Apparently was worse still. Trying to find somewhere no one would squint at him too hard for downing brandy like water (the only cure for a body that burned), hiding in the Tavern seemed safest.

Seeing people that weren't there would never be comfortable; but seen flickers of a place he has been, of men he knew by reputation if nothing else?

Zevran stared for a long moment into the middle distance at- Maric.

At Fiona.

At Duncan.

The first words out of his mouth when he was able to claw the little snippets into something coherent probably shouldn't have been "Thank the Maker that bitch is not actually his sister."

There was no real substance to the dream, no words, just people one would typically not know having a conversation that seemed to take place around a child. Then again if one knew these figures that might give the dream a feeling that was less surreal and confusing, one that told a story that could be pieced together.

Realizing that something was amiss, that this was neither right nor safe, that there was something else at work here. Something quite possibly to do with spirits, the fade, even demons which she could not risk, Fiona jolted awake. Realizing she wasn't entirely alone, or that she hadn't been alone in her dream.

She stared at Zevran for a long moment, vaguely aware of his voice in her head, before pinching the bridge of her nose, knowing full well she had work to be getting back to, "you've been taken ill as well, have you not? Shell I see to you?"

"I have, and no." He waves off the concern, squinting at Fiona for a long moment. These things he sees- the things others see of him- dreams. And dreams may be many and strange but the talk they had at the Soiree lingers.

The faces were familiar.

The child, now thirty one, possibly familiar.

"So. Duncan?"

"If...you are certain," Fiona tipped her head at Zevran, not entirely convinced that this was the best thing for Zevran, but she could force him to do nothing that he did not wish to do. She only hoped he'd visit the healing tents before too long.

"Pardon?" The mention of Duncan gave Fiona pause, and she commanded he eyes to focus on Zevran as she tried to riddle out what he meant.

"You were dreaming of him." A beat. "And the King. And a child."

Please let Duncan be the father, please let Duncan be the father, please let that be the point of contention and the sorrow, please.

Fiona immediately stood up from where she sat looking startled, so the dreams really were being projected to others? And she had dreamt that, so vividly, and in his presence? She wrung her hands furiously and paced back and forth a few times.

"It was a dream and nothing more than that."

"And a dream can mean many things. The child is- what? Hope for a better future for yourself? There is much promise in an infant." A kind thought, truly. "Duncan truly seemed to dote on it so perhaps it is a better future for the Wardens?"

"I am not an interpreter of dreams," Fiona said carefully, slowly, eyeing Zevran now with something sharper and more calculating than she had before, "but if this is how you wish to interpret it, then perhaps it is so."

"I am attempting to give you an out." He propped his cheek in his hand. "And you are being quite terrible at taking it. You know, for an Orleisan? You are shit at the game. Or at least at lying."

He let this hang for a long moment, eyes narrowed.

"You are Alistair's mother, yes?"

"Being born in Orlais is not a prerequisite for being a master at the game," Fiona said calmly, she'd never been one to take part in the machinations of the ruling class, "and there is no point in taking an out, you will either use the information or you will not."

And therefore it could be interpreted however one wished.

"It was a dream."

"It was a memory." He waves a hand vaguely. "If it matters so little to you, it means nothing. If it has weight? It means something. He may not have skinned knees or battles that need be fought on his behalf- but to know he was cared for, to know he was loved? That you did not give him up without having no other choice? That he needs."

"And he needs all of the additional weight on his shoulders as well?...He's already had to carry around the burden of being the son of Maric Theirin, king of Ferelden. I wanted a normal, human, life for him...not one that would always be attached to being the son of an Orlesian, a mage, and an elf," naturally it meant something to her and the weight of her own grief was something she had carried around for years, but she carried it, "I imagine Loghain would have redoubled his efforts to have Alistair killed if he knew as well."

"You might have left better instructions with Eamon, then, for there was little I might find about his life that could be called 'normal'." And that's if Eamon ever gave any sort of damn about the boy in the first place. Of those he'd met in Redcliffe the only person that seemed to care? Was Teagan. "As the only one here that was in the room when Loghain made the order, and it was but the one order, to have the remaining Grey Wardens killed- it came more from Howe's mouth than his. Loghain had many weights upon his shoulders and deferred to whatever Howe deemed necessary."

"I gave him a better life than I had, if you choose to believe it. No I did not approve of much of what Eamon did and I had to watch him grow up in letters, but his situation...could have been much different. The alternative would be letting him smother under Cailan's shadow as a rival and usurper, slandered everywhere he went...I'm aware he dealt with it enough as the truth came out. As a child?," Fiona didn't want that for Alistair either, there was no situation that would have been perfect, but Alistair was whole and healthy now. A good man. A success as a person as far as she was concerned, and that was enough, "You speak of Loghain as if he were a puppet? The man I remember, if looks could kill I would not be here for your appraisal. Loghain had Maric on a leash and he had a loathing for the Grey Wardens simply because we were from Orlais. In his eyes we'd come to Ferelden to kills Maric and make the way for Orlais, if he could have had us killed then I sincerely think he might have. It was safer for Alistair not to have any ties to Orlais."

"I saw what I saw." He shrugs, beyond caring about the blunt nature of his observation. "And I saw a man fighting a war on all fronts and delegating what he could to someone he thought trustworthy. It is not so foreign a thing I mistake it for puppetry."

"I am not blaming you for what you saw," as long as they weren't talking about Alistair, Zevran could be a blunt as he liked, "he's truly a cunning tactician in his own right. I cannot imagine a man finding himself in the position that he did without maneuvering the pieces in a way that suited him...and without being able to sidestep situations that he found disadvantageous."

"Reasons his daughter is powerful and terrifying." But still, his eyes narrow at Fiona for a moment more. "You should tell him yourself, you know."

"Without the same hatred clouding her vision, it probably makes her a better leader," Though if she had her choice Fiona would much rather have Maric back, things might have ended very differently, "and if I do not tell him does that mean you will? An ultimatum?"

"Yes." He feels nothing about this scrap of information, truly, other than relief that Goldanna is not related to Alistair. "I am not in the habit of keeping such things from him."

"And if you had not been in the right place at the right time you never would have had to," Fiona looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "so now I must break a promise...but beyond that you really do not care."

"Is the promise to someone living or dead?" Knowing the life of Grey Wardens as he does- and the sorry state of Thedas as it often is- he should not be surprised were it the latter.

"Unconfirmed," for as far as things were concerned only proof confirmed whether someone was dead or alive. If it be a Grey Warden or not, as her Commander's brother had officially proven. The Calling wasn't the end, it simply ought to be.

"Thirty years is long enough to keep one's word, is it not? I do not expect this to change things for either of you in truth; but he might like to know that you had no choice. Not being under the impression he killed his mother, as well, might be worth something." It is a guilt he would rather not share with Alistair.

"Fine, but I have a few of my own conditions for doing so..." she wasn't going to submit to emotional blackmail without making a few demands of her own in this matter. This was a promise that she was going to take to the grave and now she was being emotionally blackmailed into breaking it...was this man a serpent or a mongoose? "...the first condition is that it will have to wait until the present crisis in Skyhold has been dealt with, as you can see I am under enough strain. The second condition is that you will see a healer."

"What- that? That I thought went without saying. 'Alistair I have a very important thing to tell you- once I am done passing out and sweating like a prostitute singing the chant.' No, no. That is a given." This, whatever it is, must pass before he can even consider a serious conversation of any sort. "The second...if I must. But I am fine."

A beat.

"Mostly."

DREAMS

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