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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She glances up at the intrusion, covering her mouth and looking almost guilty, as if she's been caught at something. It's not a common expression for Cassandra, and it doesn't last long, shifting quickly to one of annoyance that may be more feigned than it seems.

"Sera, what are you doing in here?" She frowns, taking in the elf's tousled hair and the blanket wrapped around her. "You look as if you should be in bed."

"Ha, that's what she said. And she really did! It's funny."

The laugh comes with a cough, not at all dignified or nice as Sera doesn't bother lifting her arm to cover her mouth. Just wanders up until she can sit on the edge of the great table.

"Want to know the plan. For all this sicky shit."

Cassandra stares blankly for a moment before the joke (such as it is) clicks. Once it does, she merely rolls her eyes, shaking her head with a quiet ugh.

"Hilarious," she replies dryly. She wrinkles her nose at Sera's cough, and shifts her papers and herself a fraction of an inch further down the table and away.

"The plan?" She raises an eyebrow, frowning as Sera hops up onto the table. "The plan is to determine the source of the sickness, and eliminate it, if we can. To tend the ill and pray to the Maker to preserve us all."

"Do we get to pick the tenders? There's a few sweets I wouldn't say no to tucking me in..."

She tilts her head, watching the Seeker.

"Picked yours yet?"

Cassandra scowls, predictably unamused.

"That is not what this is about. And that cough is hardly one to attract suitors." She turns back to her papers, determined to concentrate on her work with or without Sera present.

"You should not be on the table."

"If coughing gets us kicked out, you'll be coming with me."

Choosing her own meaning for things people say? Never. Not Sera. But Cass's annoyance brightens her mood just enough that she sits up a little straighter on the table.

Her brow wrinkles in confusion as she attempts to follow the thread of conversation. "Why would I be with...never mind." Not a road she wants to go down. "The only person kicked out from anywhere will be you from this room, if you do not get down."

But there's no real threat behind the words. She's too tired, and too worried, to really make a fuss about where Sera chooses to sit.

Cass doesn't look much in a state to drag her out, so she stays put. Worse, she turns to look at all the the little figures, leaning in fact closer.

"Been seeing things?"

Cassandra frowns, stilling for a moment and staring unseeing down at the paper before dipping her quill in ink and starting to write. She does not meet Sera's eyes.

"We have all been seeing things."

Ugh, don't I know. But figure the demony things got bones to pick with you, yeah? I just mess with human types."

Her legs may be swinging now as she picks up one of the markers on the table and taps it across the frostbacks.

"No more than anyone else, I am sure."

She frowns at her papers. Is that true? Are the demons more attracted to her than they are to others? She's been so busy trying to ignore them, she hadn't ever thought to stop and, well, count.

She glances up in time to see Sera tripping the marker over the map, and sighs.

"Sera, please put that back. You will lose it, and then our operation in Ferelden will not be marked properly, and Cullen will be upset. He gets very anxious when the markers are moved."

Edited 2016-05-04 02:40 (UTC)

The grin she flashes probably means Cass hasn't done Cullen any favors today. Ideas are forming.

"Likes it all nice and ordered, don't he? Poof fluffykins." The marker does go back- upside down. Even if it takes a minute to get it balanced jusssst right.

"This room's boring. Just high brow plots and spirits."

She cannot say exactly why that grin makes her stomach sink, but it does, all the same. There's a certain sense of foreboding associated with Sera's grins that is like no other.

Cassandra watches as Sera carefully balances the marker upside-down on the map, and sighs. She will simply have to right it later, after she leaves, and hope that is it still in the right place.

"Skyhold has many rooms. You are free to leave in search of a more entertaining one." Even so, she's not trying to push Sera out the door. Company for its own sake is lacking these days, and Sera is not as unwelcome as the annoyed wrinkle in Cassandra's brow might suggest.

Her lips twitch upward in something that's almost a smile.

"Solas' room is always open to visitors."

"Pfft, he'd like it too much. Weird fade shite's the only type that talk his language."

Solas wasn't an elfy elf, he just wasn't anything. Didn't know whether to shake or hug him most days, so just leaving him to his weird without the help of this magic-cough seemed best. Or the least annoying for her, anyways.

"We should get...what is it they give sick kids, eh? Wine?"

"Medicine, Sera."

Cassandra looks up quickly, trying to determine whether Sera is joking or not. With her, it's hard to ever tell.

"We give sick children medicine. Potions. Not wine."

"Nah, don't think that's right. Wine. Maybe sleeping on the roof."

Even she's not sure she's joking at this point. She'd had an interesting childhood, and while she knows that fact it meant these normal things like 'potions' and 'not starving a little' seemed like the weird ones.

"But not hunching over boring tables. Know that one's off."

"No, it - "

She sighs. It is hopeless, and she knows it. She rolls her eyes, shaking her head slightly as she attempts - likely in vain - to get back to her work.

"Then it is good that I am not a child, isn't it? If you would like to be of help, Sera, to administer potions" - not wine - "to the sick, I am sure the healers would welcome your assistance."

"Look at that- you've got something there, Ladybits. No point fussing over what kids do, yeah?"

The good news in she finally slides off the table. The bad news is she does it to wander over into Cassandra's personal space. Way, way into it.

"Time for wine!"

"What - "

Before she knows what's happening, Sera is practically in her lap, all but dragging her out of her seat and, presumably, to wherever the wine is stored. Cassandra resists, trying (with markedly less strength than she would normally have) to push her away.

"I did not mean me!"

"I do, so...yeah?"

Sera makes a vague shooing motion. C'mon, Cass, move along. They're both sick and in need of the healing power of drunk.

Cassandra resists a moment more, automatically, and then pauses as something occurs to her. If she refuses to move, Sera will only remain here, distracting and bothering her - perhaps for hours - in an attempt to get Cassandra to go along with her. If she agrees, however, Sera will leave the room. Her attention will no doubt be caught by something or someone more interesting than Cassandra, and then she can slip away, back to work.

"All right," she agrees, with a heavy sigh, trying to sound resigned. It isn't difficult. "One drink."

Sera almost stumbles in shock at Cass just...giving in. Ladybits must be sicker than even she'd been thinking. All the big and mighty Seeker stuff, maybe. Let her hide it a bit more. But she won, and a win is a win and this one comes with booze.

As soon as she's done coughing for a long moment. All over the table.

"Oh...Sera."

Cassandra sighs, getting to her feet and going over to the elf. She hesitates for a moment before patting Sera awkwardly on the back.

"Perhaps a drink is not such a good idea."

Sera blinks for a minute, then turns enough so she can (through slightly watery eyes) look at Cassandra.

"Aw, Seeker. Knew you cared."

"Ugh."

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head as she pulls her hand back.

"Come along. It is past time you were in bed."

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rl is a jerk

yeah it is

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