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

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne nodded slightly. In truth, she'd mostly gone unnoticed, aside from a few terse questions here and there. Which was just as well. She didn't need any attention. Especially not when she was sure, deep in her heart, that somehow, her Alastrian background had spared her the disease. Even if she was forced into a Human body, for now.

And, really, the attention needed to be on the patients, anyway. At least, that's what she'd decided.

"I only wish there were more I could do," she sighed. Which was true enough, at least.

[judgemewhole]

He looked over at her, his gaze musing on her. It was admirable, this stranger in a strange place. Why couldn't the elf woman be like this? Willing to help out while she could, do what she can for the innocent people here.

"I understand. I wish I knew how to help more. We can only do what we can."

[demonicbeauty]

His gaze made her feel a little self-conscious, although she couldn't say why. She just wondered what, exactly, he was seeing.

That was always the way it was for her. She liked to imagine, though, that this new body of hers somehow matched the illusion that she used to exude. Because, in that way, she was still herself.

At least a little bit.

She shrugged. "Just don't forget to take care of yourself," she said. "You're no good to anyone if you get sick or exhausted or both."

[judgemewhole]

He wasn't trying to discomfort her, rather, trying to piece through his own attitudes over what was happening then, and now. There was the difference between coming apart and coming together. This was coming together, in the best way possible.

Whomever was here. From whereever.

"I am eating ... and drinking, and resting, when I can." He sighed softly. "Right now I am simply trying to cover the holes."

[demonicbeauty]

She wasn't entirely sure she believed him. But at least he didn't look as ragged as Cole. Who seemed to be coming apart at the very seams over everything that was happening.

Not that she could blame him. Or anyone. She was entirely hypocritical and she knew it.

"Good," she said gently, giving him a nod.

[judgemewhole]

Well, it would happen when what you prefer to drink these days was two glasses of wine and rainwater when you could catch it in your mouth. He was too busy to do anything else, much less a bath in the last day.

He gave her a wry smile, "Thank you for your worry. I know it comes from a good place."

[demonicbeauty]

"Well, of course," she replied, blinking her big, gray eyes. "Where else would it come from?"

It seemed nonsensical that anyone should worry in vengeance or malice. But then again, she still wasn't used to the way things were done in Thedas.

...what a disheartening thought.

[judgemewhole]

James opens his mouth, closes it, and states gallantly, "I have no idea."

There had to be some innocence left in the world. He'd preserve it even if it meant not explanations about manipulations and how people could use people - even by fake concern.

[demonicbeauty]

She smiled slightly. It wasn't very often that Ariadne found herself capable of robbing a man of his words. Not with her own.

It was a little fun.

With a tiny bob of her head, she took her basket of herbs back from him. Unceremoniously, she stood up on her tip-toes, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek. "Be well, Lord Norrington," she said.

[judgemewhole]

Well, she had gotten him into a place where he feared to tread. As women often did with him.

Sigh. He was hopeless.

He gave her a surprised look at the kiss, before one corner of his mouth lifted up. "And you as well, Lady Everdeen. Good luck with your herbs."

[demonicbeauty]

With a graceful curtsy--hiding a grin--she turned around and hurried away, her braid thumping softly against her back.