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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Healing Tents

Hermione isn't a healer, and if not for the fact that she happens to be friendly with a few of the people that are, she likely wouldn't have emerged from the library during all this nasty weather. As it is, though, she can see how overworked they are, and so she's taken it upon herself to do what she can to help, whether it's conjuring up clean water or starting one of her waterproof blue fires to keep people warm. It isn't much, not nearly what she'd like to do when she sees so many people feeling so miserable, but it's a start.

Garden

When she isn't doing that, she's trying her hand at making healing and restorative potions, searching around in the dankness for salvageable elfroot and other such herbs. They're more effective if they're fresh, she reasons, which explains why she's rummaging through plants in a makeshift shawl, hiding small sneezes in the crook of her elbow. It wouldn't do to spread germs, even if she isn't sick, regardless of the headache brewing or the ache in her bones or the other classic signs of fever. Being out in the rain should keep her body temperature down, right? That makes sense, doesn't it?

Even if it doesn't, what matters right now is getting these herbs somewhere where she can make something useful out of them. Which requires getting up. Which is hard to do when your head feels like treacle pudding. A slip here and a stumble there, and she'll be lucky to get the plants inside without crashing into someone and scattering her findings all about the garden.

Library

Normally, the pattering of rain against the windows is a comforting sound, but after having slogged through the mess that had been reminiscent of an unpleasant yearlong camping trip she'd undertaken, Hermione will be ecstatic to see the sun streaming through the windows again. She's staggered into the small alcove she's claimed for herself, though for some reason she decides to forego a chair and huddles up on the floor, knees drawn up to her chest keep back the shivering. Maybe curling up on the floor hadn't been a decision at all, really. Despite her strong assertions that she's fine, really, she can be heard babbling lowly to herself, words that can be either spells or proper names, for all the sense they're making.

"Shut it, Malfoy."

"Poor Winky's at the butterbeer again."

"How many Horcruxes do you suppose Voldemort made before his nose fell off?"

Sleeping it off isn't really much of an option, since her dreams are riddled with flashes of green light that she'd come to think of as the Fade but some deep, instinctual part of her will always associate with the Killing Curse, with the Battle of Hogwarts, with friends dying and families being torn apart. But even all those horrific images eventually give way to that of a woman with wild hair and even wilder eyes, snarling in her face, demanding answers, doling out pain too excruciating to be anything less than a traumatizing memory rather than an outright fabrication.

During her occasional bouts of clarity in between dozing off and babbling incoherently, Hermione wishes she had the ingredients for a Dreamless Sleep potion. But even as she tries recalling what goes into it, her head would throb and she would simply shift a little against the unforgiving stone of her small nook, falling into another round of fitful sleep.

The day has been long and he's tired, but he isn't looking for sleep just yet, putting it off just a bit longer. Normally getting off he would go to the tavern and get something to drink, but there so many being found outside of a room or tent even at this hour that Sam makes a point in doing a quick sweep in some of the areas.

It had occurred to him that someone might be trying to take refuge in the small altar for Andraste near the garden, which brings him to the area this particular night. He doesn't even get to the room when he hears noises out among the flowers and herbs.

"Hello? Who's out there?" he calls out, hopefully loud enough to be heard, but not to disturb anyone in the rooms. Raising a hand, Sam sets to bringing a small fire to life in his palm to help him see, thankful that the rain isn't pouring too heavily at the moment.

She has to use a nearby bench to help herself up to her feet, and for a few moments, she looks over at the nearby gazebo and seriously debates the merits of simply sitting there and building a small fire until this uncomfortable feeling passes. But even as Hermione once again tries to convince herself that she certainly isn't sick, no matter what her body tries to tell her, she hears someone calling out to her. Or, at least, it has to be her, since no one else seems to be foolish enough to actually be out in this weather. Except for whoever that is that seems to have some sort of torch some ways away from her.

The flames and her lightheadedness don't do much to help her see who it is, and she doesn't recognize the voice right away. But she doesn't imagine anyone in Skyhold means her harm, and so she very carefully starts to move towards the figure, not quite managing to walk in a straight line.

"Sam?" she asks after getting close enough to be reasonably sure she recognizes him. "Is that you?"

The voice is familiar, but for a bit he cannot place exactly who it is, not when he still cannot see them. Finally seeing someone staggering to him he moves with a fast gait to meet them, eyes widening when he sees the Rifter mage/witch. "Hermione," he says in surprise, reaching out for her arm when he notices her start to head off sideways.

"What are you doing out here?" She looked decently wet even with the low light of the fire which meant she had been out here for a bit, and just in general didn't look well. Glancing down there seems to be dirt smeared on bits of her clothes and her hands. "It's dark, raining, and cold out here." He knows it is obvious, but clearly not obvious enough that she was out here in the garden.

"Elfroot," she replies simply, though even she seems puzzled by her own response. She doesn't quite let herself fall against Sam so much as she walks a little too close before managing to stop herself, glancing down at the bag filled with damp plants that may or may not actually be elfroot.

"We could use more healing potions," she adds after a moment. "I thought I'd... go look for some herbs. Like elfroot. Or one of those other ones. Prophet's something. But I think elfroot is more common."

Elfroot. She was out here collecting elfroot? Sure they needed more healing potions, but not at this moment - this could have waited for the morning. By how she practically walks into him the collection should have been done by someone else as well.

"Elfroot is more common, and we could use more potions, but we don't need them right now. You would need more people to help brew the amount we need anyways, and everyone has retired. You don't even have a light source or anything..." He reaches out to grab her then, to help support her since it seemed Hermione was just a bit unstable on her feet. "You'll make yourself sick staying out here."

Hermione generally isn't one for close physical contact except for close friends, but when Sam grabs her, she finds herself leaning against him, though she can't entirely say how that's happened. "I've been learning to make them myself," she mumbles, just barely coherent. "I can do without sleep for a while yet. Though I should have put up a Bluebell Flame; my hands are a little numb."

Even taking all that into account, though, Hermione shakes her head as she wraps her arms around herself. "I'll be fine, Harry. I just lost track of time." Something about that doesn't sound right to her, and she frowns for a few moments before correcting herself. "Sam. Sorry. You felt like Harry for a second there."

Sam is usually pretty good in respecting people's space, but by nature he's a contact friendly guy. Not only that but recently with everyone being sick he's gotten used to having to grab people before they started falling down. Seeing Hermione lean into him at the small amount of contact has him becoming more aware that perhaps she was already sick.

He would say it was good that she had learned, but at hearing an unfamiliar name being said and directed at him, he raises a brow. Harry? "A friend or... someone from your world?" he asks, making sure to keep an arm out to help support her if she started leaning again. "Let's get out of the rain," he offers, lightly touching Hermione's back to coax her to move.

Hermione would argue that she's very much not sick. She's just a little dazed from the cold. Or the heat. Is it possible to be both too cold and too warm? Because she's beginning to feel that way, though she simply attributes it to being out in the cold rain and experiencing more physical contact than she's usually used to.

"My best friend," she murmurs, trying to stand on her own without relying on Sam to hold her up. "Closest to a brother I-... but he's much shorter and slimmer than you, and has glasses, so I don't know why...." As she begins to move in whatever direction Sam decides to guide her in, Hermione finds herself chuckling softly. "If I marry Ron and Harry marries Ginny, he really will be my brother. I never thought of that."

Maybe it was him bossing her around like a brother? He isn't quite sure why she would suddenly think of her best friend/brother besides maybe something like that. Whatever the reason, Sam smiles as she rambles with her logic about marriage and brothers.

"I take it this Ron is someone you fancy then? Plan on marrying him?" She did say 'if, but by the way she's talking about it, it certainly seemed like she was actually considering it. He allows for Hermione to walk on her own, though he makes sure to keep an arm out just in case. Slowly but surely he gets them to the great hall, directing her towards one of the fireplaces so that she could warm up.

It could just have been something as simple as Hermione being used to only one dark-haired boy helping her out, and the idea of there being another one out there is a bit unfathomable. Whatever the case, she looks up at him with no small amount of surprise when he asks if she fancies Ron; considering making herself a Weasley to become Harry's sister is one thing, but actually fancying someone....

"What? No! I mean-... it just makes sense, because Harry is involved with Ginny, and Ron and I are so close. But we're not-... I wouldn't say we're-...." This sort of thing hurts her head when she isn't sick, and so all she can do at the moment is huff sheepishly. "We have too many other things going on in our lives right now to think about anything like that."

Despite how Hermione was looking, and probably feeling, it was amusing to see how lively she got at the subject. If it weren't like that it would have been easy to just say it wasn't, but Hermione seemed to be getting a little defensive? Usually that meant that something was going on. It was rather cute to see her huff as she did.

What Hermione says next has Sam letting out a long sigh, understanding what she means. It sounded like things in her world were no better than here, but here people were both seeking and looking away from such things. For Hermione though it had to be much more rough seeing as she was separated from her friends and family, being tossed into a war.

"Alright, alright. You don't fancy him," he chuckles lightly, edging her closer to the fire and to grab a seat. "Well you must like him a lot regardless if you're willing to marry him fooor... Harry and Ginny?"

If Hermione weren't already flushed from whatever it is that's whittling away at her immune system, she might have been blushing. She's generally very private when it comes to romance and such; it's one of the few things she generally doesn't even discuss with Harry. So to just blurt something like that out in front of someone that she doesn't know very well....

"I only said if we married, not-... it's not like that with us." She's not quite sure what it's like, really, and she chews at her lower lip a bit as she tries to figure out the best way to explain it, and whether she should explain it at all.

Carefully setting herself in front of the fire so she wouldn't fall face-first into it, she eventually tells Sam, "He's my dearest friend and - ... we did kiss, just the once, but it hadn't been the best time. So now that the war is over, I've gone back to school, he's training to be an Auror, and if we still feel like more than just friends after graduation, well... we'll see how it goes." Of course, neither of them had figured a detour to another world into their very logical plan, so now she has no idea what to make of things.

no subject

Garden

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Library

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject