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.

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It is beautiful, ethereal, and- not really like being in the Fade at all, though Merrill logically knows that this has to be a dream. It is otherworldly, the colors almost unnatural in their brightness and in the way the light casts no shadows. It could easily be considered a place of paradise, and Merrill opens a hand to cautiously try to catch one of the falling golden petals.

This is a dream, but it is a beautiful one.

She swallows and carefully tries to continue walking, cautious of the fact that while it may seem like she's going up hill, she's likely actually walking up a set of stairs.

The petals, in the way of dreams, are caught in perpetual falling. The act is all that they can do and, unsurprisingly, they pass through both Merrill's hand and the space around them, vanishing before they can settle on the ground, or touch either the steps or bookcases around them. Where her dreams before had devoured the light, this one held no shade to enhance--it was bright and it was beautiful, but it wasn't real. In the dimmest parts of the dream, where the beech trees became indistinct symbols of themselves, and the distance claimed all detail, the library of Skyhold was visible. It peeked through, like hard shapes in fog, but neither world was wont to interact with the other.

Had either Arda or Thedas known the word mirage, it would have been apt.

As Merrill came up the steps, the trees cleared to a vista. It was a high and precarious view, in more ways than one, unfortunately. The path before the vista rose a step higher than the floor of the library around them, then turned down and fell beneath the floor until the rocky outcropping that edged the fall to the land below. If Merrill stumbled she would pass below the phantom world and see the tops of the tables, the low shelves, and Galadriel's form slumbering in her alcove, lit and glittering like the trees but apart from them for, of the two of her, she was real. Around her real form, wisps danced and darted but found little purchase.

Within the dream, beyond the vista, an unfamiliar world eclipsed the library, Skyhold, even the Frostbacks that penned the fortress in. In the distance that stretched beyond the vista this world had resolved itself more clearly than anywhere else for this memory was a precious one and had not faded, not in all her years. In the valley below, there was a swell of a hill and atop it, two great trees stretched upward into the twilight. They stood taller than any towers of Thedas or Arda, as great and unshakable as the mountains of the mortal world. Though they were apart, their bases separated by a great hill of green and growing things, their branches wound together across the whole of it, silver and golden twined together overhead, their leaves were dark against the sky with dew that shone like starlight. The flowers that bloomed along their branches were radiant and indescribable. Their light far outstripped the sun and moon, and ever would.

The two trees stood tall and strong, their canopy a cradle for the stars and a pillar that upheld the dome of the sky. The stars shone brightly, among their leaves and beyond the trees, alight and close in a way that was more than just dreaming. Here, it seemed one might be able to touch them--well, not here, for this was a dream.

In the the shadow of those trees, the world was alive with motion and song. Elves, crowds of them, indistinct and ageless, wandered and worked and made merry. Cities spread, scattered and half-real, beneath the boughs and the elves that walked the vista path spoke of them in lilting lyrical voices. Each of them held some of that light, as if it had sank into them and taken root, and their words chimed as bells.

At the edge of the Vista, with a sparkling golden glaive braced against her shoulder and her knee, sat a dreamy phantom of Galadriel. She dangled one leg over the edge as she stared and held an apple in her free hand. Her posture was strange and youthful, not half so regal as she had become, but it could not be called a slouch. Her hair was bound and braided, but because of it she was unmistakable--as strange as it was, the gold and silver gleam of her hair, in this light it made sense.

This was the light that kindled her and, as she watched the elves below, it was easy to see that this was the time and place where she belonged best.

This is a place of stories and songs, of myths told from before the world was beset by Blight. She breathes in deeply, revolves in place to try and take in more and more and more. When she finds that she can't see more, she keeps walking -- only to stop, staring at the image of a younger Galadriel.

Oh. So that's whose dream this was.

Merrill dares not approach any of the figures in dreams -- they are part of the Fade, after all. But she does shift to try and find the real Galadriel, if she isn't her younger image.

"Galadriel?"

It seems so rude to shout in this place, which feels like it holds more magic than any waking place in Thedas.

There was a strange sense of self that settled into dreaming, sometimes it was singular and pointed, sometimes it was nearly plural. Galadriel slept, her head couched on her arms, propped against the table. Her body heard the call and she stirred, but she didn't wake.

For just a moment, it was as if a ripple passed through the dream. The faces of the other elves became indistinct and hazy, the light shifted slightly as the time of day--if it could be called that--became something else, and all around them the forest changed as though a season had passed without remark. But despite the strange creep of time, the dream was undisturbed. After a pause, the younger echo of her looked back, glanced over her shoulder at Merrill and smiled.

She had never been called Galadriel in these lands, but dreams were not always sensible things. When she greeted Merrill it wasn't in common or the lilting Sindarin she was wont to use. Quenya tumbled, like the petals around them, through the air. The sound of it was watery and old and, as she spoke, it became more sensible. Whether it was the way of dreams, or that she had fallen into trade tongue as she went, it was impossible to say.

"--you found your way here?" Galadriel asked, or at least that was how her question resolved itself. "Come, sit with me, it will be years until the sunrise."

Years until the sunrise. Truly a land of immortal beings, ageless like her people were said to have once been, and though she is wary -- well, the younger Galadriel knows her. And Merrill is curious, always has been, and she steps closer.

"Um. I went up some stairs?"

Honestly, she has no idea how she got here, because she doesn't know how the illness works. Stairs, at least, may make some sense even in the dream.

Stepping closer, Merrill carefully takes the offered seat and looks around more.

"This place is beautiful. It's not in Thedas -- it's from your world?"

Merrill's explanation makes as much sense as anything and, mercifully, the logic of dreams bends to accommodate it quite easily. Galadriel nods silently and, as she sits, offers her an apple. It looks delicious but, in all likelihood, Merrill probably can't take from her. Fortunately, unlike her elder self, this phantom is much more hurried, more eager, and she doesn't wait for Merrill to take it before she answers her.

The pride in her voice is unabashed; she shines brighter as she speaks.

"Welcome," she announces and motions with her glaive, using the glimmering, wicked blade to gesture at the whole of the valley. That it draws a line across the trees, as though she were aligning an axe, is surely coincidence. "To Aman, to Valimar, city of bells, and heart of the Undying Lands!"

After her gesture is complete, she uses the end of her weapon and levers herself to standing. The motion is elegant and energetic, spry in a way that one would hardly expect an ancient elf to be. As she stands, the world seems to shift with her--all at once, they are at the base of the trees, seated and standing in the delicate light they exude. The city stretches around them, beautiful and alight. The buildings are not entirely there, perhaps because she cannot quite recall them, but what remains is crafted in such impossible ways that they hardly seem like they could stand, yet they all fit together and into this place seamlessly.

It is clearly the type of city that only spirits could truly build and, in that, there are measures of both sadness and joy.

Only the latter reflects in Galadriel's face, as she walks to the trees, as she leans on her glaive, and as she turns to regard Merrill.

"I am glad you made it here. I knew the Dalish would be welcome; it is the Elvenhome, after all."

The sudden shift in scenery makes Merrill's stomach twist slightly, but she has a feeling that's more the illness than anything else. She shifts to stand as Galadriel turns to face her, feeling it may be a better idea to stand in case everything moves again.

Or in case she's actually talking to a demon.

"It's beautiful. I've never seen anything like it..."

The Undying Lands. Elvenhome. She can't help but look at everything with wide eyes, only resisting the urge to touch things because she knows it will ruin the illusion.

"They say we are less than we were. That you believed we could get here... that means a lot to us. You have meant a lot to us, and I hope you know that." Meant and still means. Tenses are hard when you're in a dream, even if it isn't yours.

But they should wake up. Oh, they really should, even if Merrill doesn't want to leave this place.

"It's like nothing I've ever seen, and- everything I've dreamed a place like this could have been. How did you get here?"

"Get here?" she asked and seemed briefly confused. She had absorbed all that Merrill said with a pleased but somewhat blank expression, as though she couldn't fathom why she was being thanked. Merrill's last statement was familiar, but her question was singular enough that it seemed to strain the edges of the dream itself.

The edges of Valimar frayed and, as they did, the crowd of faceless elves was slowly dotted by the shapes of spirits. They moved toward the trees like moths, distracted by the eddies of light and passing shapes, but drawn nonetheless. Galadriel hardly noticed.

"I...did not die," the image of Galadriel answered after a pause and, some of her age seemed to filter back across her then. It was a fleeting change, one her youthful self all but rejected, but it strained the dream further. "I was born here."

"As were my brothers and my cousins," she added and, as if she'd summoned them, several of the elves around them took on clearer faces. Finrod, Aegnor, Angrod, all moved through the space around them, each of them alike enough to her to see resemblance. Her cousins were a little harder matched, their countenances differed from hers significantly, but as the only elves with faces it was not a hard to guess who they were.

The spirits drifted across and through them and, whether unconsciously or by design, the phantom elves started to trail wisps that colored with duty or sorrow or devotion.

"I was born in these years, long before--before," she stalled slightly and frowned. "Before I left, for the east, and found a home that was my own. But we all return here, eventually, though I may be later than most."

Oh. It makes her tense, for a moment -- the spirits more than the elves now with faces. Even when she dealt with Audacity, Merrill made certain to use caution. That, though, is a lot of spirits.

That Galadriel didn't die is a good sign, though. She thinks.

"How do you return here? Just- walk?"

In retrospect, that sounds like an extremely stupid question.

"No," Galadriel answered, and a smile bloomed across her face. A cold wind stirred from the north and, near the edges of the throng several dreary shapes, spirits of sorrow and despair, began to congregate. "That is how I left, but that way was shut ere the first dawn rose."

She sighed and glanced up at the trees, contentment all but pouring off of her, but the dream had already begun to distort. In the shade around her, great hulking forms wreathed in crackling electricity faded in and out of the space. A sense of claustrophobia set in and, almost without Galadriel's notice, a great shadowy shape blotted out the light from above.

The spider was enormous, larger than any creature, than any city in Arda or Thedas, and it loomed black as pitch against the sky. Galadriel looked down, away from Ungoliant and back to Merill. Her expression was almost incongruously calm.

"To return to Valinor we must sail, but it can be difficult to reach," she explained and the shapes behind her resolved themselves. Spirits of Pride and Will rose behind her as a great spider tore into the twin trees above them. The sounds of the city were extinguished and, one by one, as the lights in the trees were snuffed out, the elves that moved around them vanished.

Eventually it was just the two of them stood on that hill, a great primordial spider above, darkness all around, and a sea of spirits in audience.

"Death, perhaps, would be easier."

The dream moves all too quickly from paradise to horror, and Merrill clutches her staff, knowing all too well that it may not be enough. She doesn't know if she can protect herself from all of these spirits, should they decide to converge, much less if she can protect Galadriel as well. The spider looms over them and she tries to swallow down her fear, resolutely not looking at the spirits of Pride that loom.

"No dying. Not today." Not them. "There's something wrong at Skyhold, Galadriel. In Thedas. Will you help me?"

If she can tie her to the present, to what's actually happening, maybe they can get out.

"Skyhold?"

The dream had frayed, had strained beneath the weight of her waking memories. When this time, this place, came into conflict with the present, everything had begun to fray--now, with the weight of that word cast between them, the air was all but caught in flux. The youthful phantom of Galadriel was replaced, overwritten as her expression fell.

The eldar were truly immortal but it was easy to spot the weight of years, even on an immortal face, when they all came crashing in at once. Like the breaking of a wave against the shore, tens of thousands of years swept over Galadriel's face. Her smile fell and, though she was still arrayed as she had been, the change was distinct.

"Of course," she answered and moved, drawing her weight from the glaive at her side. "I would not ask you to die, mellon nin."

Above them, the sky grew dark as pitch and, as she walked toward Merrill, the grass fell away, froze, and was as ice. The spirits lingered, even as Valimar fell away, and there was a strange similarity in the great darkness above them and the grinding sense of metallic laughter. The phantom Galadriel was still just that, a dreamy figment, and her gaze was listless, but the concern that settled on her face was more solid than anything else in this place.

"What do you need of me?"

Close, now. Closer than they were, at least, and Merrill outstretches a hand for Galadriel as she walks closer.

"This will sound strange," she starts, shifting her weight slightly on bare feet before settling, centering herself. "There is strange magic that is pulling people into dreams, making spirits visible from beyond the Veil, even though it isn't any thinner. I'm one of the people who is sick."

This close, maybe Galadriel can see the sheen of sweat, the way her vibrant green eyes look paler, duller.

"I need you to wake up with me."

"Wake up?"

The question was strange and, even as she spoke it, Galadriel's expression twisted. Her gaze drifted over Merrill, careful and forcibly focused, and then slipped away as she turned and looked back, above and behind her. She hadn't seemed to notice the shifts within her own dream, the way the trees vanished or Valimar had faded away, but now she sought them out. They were gone and, as she realized what Merrill was saying, a look of profound longing settled on her face.

"So we did not make it home," she stated with a note of distant finality.

The phantom seemed weaker, less solid, as she turned back and looked down at Merrill's hand. It was outstretched and waiting and, after a few lingering seconds, Galadriel reached out and toward her. Her hand, settled on Merrill's but, as she tried to curl her fingers, it slipped through and the shock of that, of that simple failure, was finally enough to shatter the dream around them.

All at once the darkness lifted, evanesced and curled away, like fog eaten by the morning sun. The library took the place of the void and, in the candlelight, the spirits that had gathered seemed so much farther away.

Awake. Merrill shudders and raises a hand to her forehead, pushing the sweat away. Then she goes to find Galadriel -- which, luckily, doesn't take long as she's more or less right there.

"Galadriel-?"

She isn't certain if the other elf is awake or not yet, but she certainly doesn't feel comfortable reaching out to touch her just yet.

Galadriel stirred with a groggy sort of malaise; she had no skill in waking, not yet, and it showed as she drew herself from dreams and gradually sat upright in her chair. Her eyes were heavy as she blinked them, her pallor was a bit beyond what was normal, she was clearly ill. She spent a moment regarding Merrill--at first a smile crossed her face but it was quickly tempered as the contents of her dream drifted back to her.

"I am uncertain I shall ever become accustomed to dreaming," she said, voice rough, and leaned back in her chair.

"That one was very vivid," Merrill agrees, stepping forward to meet her. She smiles despite Galadriel's discomfort, gently touching the other woman on the arm.

"It was very beautiful."

Up until the giant spider, anyway.

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OPEN: Cloudreach Event

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Describing this feels like ICly describing a clipping error.

"and then merrill fell through skyhold forever and we had to unplug the game"

Why the tower never loads right on Ultra settings, I will never know.

because that would be convenient

At least you get to see the giant pie with the tophat.

merrill's fade rift personal quest tbh

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