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

[girlinthebox]

Is that where it's from? Yes. He must be right. He's found the end of the thread she was tugging on. What an unusual display it had been, a contrast to the usually dour stone streets, overlooked by statues of the long dead, heroes of the city. Here had been this little man and his dog, colorful and bright, and what intelligent eyes the beast had.

Her parents had been far less impressed, clutching her hand tight to keep her from running up to them, though she'd eventually slipped free.

The corner of her mouth twitches upwards. Slowly her hands untangle from her hair, slipping lower. Better memories, something the worst of the spirits can't feed off of. Maybe they'll find someone else to bother, for the time being.

[colecomfort]

It was more of a happy accident that he managed to hit upon that memory — still, Cole knows when he's found something that will help. Remembering good times, better ones. Something to think of while she waits for the fever to break, to maybe sweeten her dreams when she sleeps.

"Rain didn't always bring bad things," he reminds her, slipping sideways to another memory. "Rhythm on the windowpanes, books and games in the drawing room. The way Simon frowns when I win, it feels like a smile."

[girlinthebox]

"It's under the skin. They cut too deep and tried to take it away."

It's hard to stay focused on one memory. They scatter like droplets of quicksilver, impossible to catch, and she curls towards Cole with a huffed breath. "The rain's trying to wash it all away. Should be clear and cold, clarity. Fire isn't the only way to come through clean."

[colecomfort]

Both of his hands cup around hers.

"Should I go and find him?" Simon. Only an offer; he won't move until she says so. "I could send him without remembering me."

[girlinthebox]

She thinks on that for a moment before her brow furrows. "Let him remember," she finally manages. "He'd understand. He helps people too. Maybe..."

Maybe he'd finally see her fascination for spirits for what it was. He could learn to be less afraid of at least one, with a body of his own and no desire to posses anyone.

[colecomfort]

Whether or not Simon remembers, Cole doesn't plan to say much. Not this time. And he can't say whether it would be better to let him forget, to let him think it was instinct that led him to his sister.

Her suggestion makes him think — but they'll have to see. It's more important that she didn't tell him not to go.

"Wait here." Cool, dry stones, spirits that would follow her even if she tried to run. He knows she'll stay put, but he knows it'll be hard. So he says it anyway.

[girlinthebox]

She wants to follow, but the will won't pull her body along. Instead she lingers where he leaves her, eyes following after. "...quiet, still, and secret. Deep down, and I will not make a sound."

Which is as good as saying she'll try not to pay them any mind. Difficult as that might be. Hopefully, Cole isn't gone for long.