OPEN: Cloudreach Event

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[singularwill]

He finds Zevran on a staircase, curled up against the wall, looking like he had emptied his closet in order to wear it. Solas reached down to touch his shoulder, feeling the strangeness of the Veil around them - not thinner, not exactly, but more transparent and gently shook to wake him.

"This is not an appropriate sick bed," he murmured. "Come, we will find you somewhere better."

[ombranera]

Half awake and hardly willing to move for someone he liked, let alone someone he did not know half so well- Zevran peered at the elf for a long moment before reaching up curiously.

He has no hair.

Zevran has never before seen a bald elf and something in his illness makes reaching past the man's face to his bare scalp not only appropriate, but acceptable. "...it is like an egg."

[singularwill]

It was hardly the first time that someone had reacted to his hair, or lack thereof, but it had been some time since someone had gone so far as to touch his scalp.

He lets out a long suffering sigh, gently taking Zevran's wrist and pulling it back down.

"You are likely to do yourself a harm, staying here. I have tea, if that would make you more comfortable."

[ombranera]

"You do not even have stubble." That is- why is that. He squints through dazed eyes and the fog of fever, trying to place this man. he's seen him before somewhere, or heard of him, or-

"You. You are Chuckles, yes?" Varrick said as much. "With the marvelous thighs and ass."

[singularwill]

He didn't bother to sigh again, the first had done enough, but he certainly felt it.

"Yes, that is often what happens, when one has no hair," He mused, kneeling next to him on the stair case.

"My name is Solas. I do not think I am in a position to speak on either my thighs, or my ass."

[ombranera]

"Blame Varric." For once? It is not his fault, a rare thing indeed. "He is the one that brought it to my attention. Or. Everyone's attention."

Zevran's hand still hung limp in Solas' grip- which is fortunate. Else he'd probably attempt to check the thigh situation. "...You said something about tea?"

[singularwill]

"Don't worry. I do. I am sure Master Tethras will find himself in a difficult position, eventually." He'd heard it. Oh, he'd heard it. He slipped down to slide his shoulders under Zevran's arm, in an attempt to help him to his feet.

"Yes. Down at the bottom of the stairs, in my study. It will not cure it, but it will at least bring down the fever, and perhaps give you a dreamless sleep."

[ombranera]

"He might have been trying to do you a favor. I meant what I said in that talk- so many people trying to save the world and doing so while abstaining? They get cranky. So. So cranky." If Sten had an orgasm or five Zevran was sure he might have smiled.

If Oghren got laid maybe he would have been less terrible.

If Morrigan- well. Morrigan would be cranky forever no matter what. There is no changing that.

[singularwill]

"I am more than capable of taking care of myself, I assure you." There was a little bit of humour, there - it was an interesting thing to hear, from one so young.

"And I am not as I was, in my youth. Age dims that particular mood, I find."

He took a step down the stair, glancing up at Zevran to test his balance.

[ombranera]

"I never thought I would live long enough to understand the sentiment- and when I am better I will be mortified that I have said as such and should you repeat this no one will ever believe you and I will deny it until my last breath-" Here he must stop to breathe, a little lightheaded as he stands and tries to catch said breath.

"But." Maker help him. "I myself could do with less."

[singularwill]

Solas is patient - waiting until Zevran breathes, waiting for him to steady himself. He is not in a rush, especially when rushing could do real harm.

He actually laughs, when Zevran speaks, and something clicks in his mind.

"Ah. Of course. You are Zevran. I've heard tales. Yes, I think you could do with less. But as long as it is always your choice, and no other man or woman makes it for you, I can hardly begrudge you your pastime. However, I am sure I could recommend you a good tea, that might suit just as well."

[ombranera]

"I am glad my reputation has preceded me. Everything they say? Is true. I'll admit bald is not my usual sort but if your thighs are as powerful as Varric says-" The pass is an obligatory one, to be true. If someone has heard of him by reputation they expect it. Best to get it out of the way while he focuses on the stairs.

"I would be happy to share tea with you." Right. Tea. Just tea. "Honestly if you could find a pot that would do for me everything a lover might? My life would change and I would likely sleep far better."

[singularwill]

"I think the stories are enough - I have no need to live them." That is said with some wryness. Because even if he did have any interest, sorry to say Zevran, you are not at your best at the present moment.

"Perhaps not everything, but at least something to help you sleep." They finally reached the bottom of the stairs and Solas carefully angled him to the nearest chair, and had him sit down.

"You sound as if you consider it almost a duty to your fellow soldiers," he mused as he went looking for his tea pot - reaching out to touch its side, fingers glowing red with flame as he instantly heated the water.

[ombranera]

"This is where I would say 'ah, your loss' but I am right now quite undesirable and thus you are a terribly wise man indeed." A good laugh at himself now and then is required, even if the laughing makes his chest ache and his head throb.

But anything that could help him sleep? He would kiss someone for it. Well.

When he was better and no longer 'slimy gross' as Sera called him earlier. Curling in a chair was less a thing of grace and more a quick collapse, bundling himself in another tight huddle as he had on the stairs. "Who am I to deprive them of my normally fine self?"

[singularwill]

"A man with his own mind, one should hope," Solas replied, but it was more amused than chastising, and he fetched a clean mug for Zevran, slipped a few tea leaves into it (his own mixture, he'd long since given up on the horrid stuff granted by the Inquisition), and then poured the hot water into it.

"Let it sit a moment." He poured his own cup and sat down across from him.

"I have heard other stories, beyond your romantic escapades."

[ombranera]

"Just so." Zevran crackled a soft laugh that twisted into a cough- low and rough and truly, was this his fate? To die of fever high in the mountains without so much as a lover at his side?

It could be worse, he supposed.

"Those are all true as well." Whatever they were. Kind, cruel, true, false- many tales and he owned as much as he could.

[singularwill]

"Mm, are they." A flicker of a smile crossed Solas's lips as he leaned back.

"I know something about stories. The Fade is full of them - all truths, in their own way, all false, in another. Stories are never the measure of a man. They only indicate what the world needs him to be."

[ombranera]

"And do you mean to take my measure? We'll have to put it off until I feel slightly less like death boiled over." Not warmed, not with how he is feverish and aching in his chair.

[singularwill]

"I think it is easiest to take the measure of a man at his worst," He said, his head tilting as he watched Zevran.

"I think you would keep your humour to the very last - and keep your friends backs, at the same time. Is that not a fair assessment?"

[ombranera]

"Then you will be waiting awhile longer yet." This was a moment when he was vulnerable to be certain- but this was not him at his worst. That had come and gone, come again and left once more.

"But if you wish to make your assessment now? I will not deny you." Nor will he confirm nor deny what he's chosen to believe.

[singularwill]

"I am sure I will continue to refine it, over time." He says it with a smile, because he doesn't doubt his assessment, at all, but no person is ever fully rendered at any given moment. Not unless you were a Spirit. That was what made Spirits so beautiful. All of their being, on display. They could not lie to you, or themselves, about what they were.

The same could not be said about elves, or men.

"However, you should find a better place to rest than stairs."

[ombranera]

"When I have finished this I shall dutifully return to my chambers and be a miserable lump there instead." He'd meant to make it down to the Valley- but if he cannot make it down the stairs? It will have to wait until the worst of this passes.