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

He shook his head again.

"They're just drifting, feverish, toward the Fade." His head turned a little, his ear turning toward another of the sick that were being held in the tent. "I reached for her hand, though I would have touched her lips — wouldn't you want to do so much more?"

Pursing her lips, Ariadne turned fully to Cole. "Cole," she said, very, very gently, in a certain way she had, "will you let me feel your forehead?"

She reached out slowly, holding out her fingertips toward him, uncertain how he would react.

He paused, turned his face toward her — confused, but complying all the same.

His forehead would be warm. Perhaps a little warmer than might be expected, but not to the level of those that were bedridden.

Unsurprisingly, Ariadne had a light touch. She didn't need much more and she wanted to be gentle. Humanoids--even peculiar ones like Cole--could be awfully funny when it came to physical contact.

It was a relief to find that he wasn't feverish, but there were no guarantees.

"You should rest," she told him, fully anticipating a fight. "You're no good to anyone if you're sick too."

His response could only be called a 'fight' in the mildest sense. He turned away, intent on moving toward the next patient, his voice all quiet assurance.

"But I'm not real. I can't be wracked like them."

"It's obviously taking some kind of toll on you," she said, following after him. "And that's real enough, whether it's in your body or your mind."

She couldn't blame him though. If their roles were reversed, she'd be making her own excuses.

"It's loud in here — but the healers need hands." Even then, he didn't want to be too dismissive. He could feel the well-intentioned place her concern was springing from. It would be best to acknowledge it.

So he forced himself to pause, if only for a moment, and look toward her.

"Thank you, Airy. I'm all right, right now."

Given her own innate desire to help, she supposed that she couldn't argue with him too much. Not when he was trying to do good.

She could only hope he wouldn't hurt himself.

"Can I get you something?" she asked uncertainly. "Maybe a cup of wine? Something to eat?"

He considered the patient next to them. The bundle that she had carried in with her.

"You brought blankets," he noted, and took the first one off the pile. "That's enough." Then he was kneeling down, getting back to work.

"I meant for you," she said stubbornly. "There must be something that'll refresh you. Some kind of...sustenance."

Some kind of comfort, really.

She was determined not to leave him as he was. Any small thing she could do to help him would be enough, but she couldn't do nothing.

"I don't eat." A simple fact, simply stated. And now he could feel her attention like a weight, too heavy, misplaced. "It's all right. I can help them, still."

He was capable. So long as she was, it would be better for her to focus on them instead.

She frowned a little bit, tossing her braid over her shoulder and moving near to him as she distributed the linens in her arms. "You don't eat or you can't eat?" she asked.

There were dozens of species out there that didn't need food. But plenty of them ate even so. It was a way of...refreshing. Renewing.

Connecting.

The patient shivered as Cole switched out their blanket. He ran his thumb across their forehead.

"Light from the window illuminated her face. So dark, and all I could see was her," he murmured.

...she'd asked him a question.

"I — don't know if I could." No one had ever asked him that before. "I don't need it."

"Maybe you should try," she suggested carefully. "I know that a cool drink, a swallow of juice that invigorate someone. It might help you feel a little bit better."

Which would in turn, she hoped, help him to make others feel a little more comfortable.

The way he was muttering to himself...it was a little frightening.

And that got his attention. Not the offer, but what was underneath. His attention turned toward her again.

"I'm frightening you." It was nothing new in general, but from her, it was surprising. "Strange boy, says things he shouldn't know about... I told you, it's loud in here. They're all hurting, all seeing each other. I can't help hearing it."

"I know!" she said, very quickly and very emphatically. The last thing she wanted was for Cole to think she was afraid of him. She knew what that felt like and it was awful.

Being frightened for him wasn't the same.

"But it sounds like it's hurting you..."

Maybe he wouldn't have gone as far as hurt, but the point got across. He was getting distracted, confused, somewhat scattered. So many snatches of memory and shards of green light glinting at the edges of his eyes.

He couldn't stop when he was still capable of helping. But... he had been feeling tired. More so than he was used to.

"Yes," he admitted, after a pause: more to himself than to her. A concession spoken almost under his breath. "I'm — it's tiring. I will have to rest."

Later. Once they were finished in this tent, at least.

Ariadne took her victories where she could. And this was good enough for her.

"All right," she said diplomatically. "How about this? Finish off this tent and show me what it is you're doing. Then go take a little rest. Just half an hour. And while you're resting, I'll do the next tent for you?"

"Yes." It was an agreement, and one that held a note of finality. Someone else worrying about him made him uncomfortable enough — perhaps they could move past it now, continue with what needed to be done.

"Great," Ariadne said.

She stood up on her tiptoes and gave him a sudden kiss on the cheek, before settling back down again.

"All right. Show me what to do."

OPEN: Cloudreach Event

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