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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"Pants it is," he agreed. Not his favorite mode of sleep attire but not his bed.

He stripped off the tunic he'd been wearing, exposing his lean runner's frame and the dark black tattoo down his ribs. Carefully he folded it and set it down on the floor at the foot of the bed. He loosened the laces of his trousers for comfort but nothing more, shifting to lay on the side of the bed that looked the least used.

"I appreciate this, Sam," he said quietly as he stretched out. "I think I might actually get some quality sleep for once." A flash of a grin, a shadow of its normal self though it gave its best effort hampered as it was by exhaustion.

It's the second time he's seen the ink, head tilting some to try and get a better look of it this time before Kirk starts making himself comfortable in the furs and blankets. He isn't quick to join, working on getting his shirts off in a lazy manner with how tired he is, and then tossing them on the dresser once he's done. With his broad shoulders and muscular frame it was easy to see why he was rarely identified as a mage right off the bat based on looks.

Sitting down on the bed, stretching a bit with a yawn, he glances over to Kirk, noting how Kirk seems like he's ready to pass out, and yet still staying awake. "You're welcome - seems like you need it." Before he even starts to lay down and settle in himself, Sam turns to regard Fortitude and mutters softly to the spirit that it should just keep watch from over by the window.

Normally Kirk would have watched the other man undress, admired the way his body moved as each inch of skin was revealed. But for once he kept his eyes closed and savored the feel of a mattress instead, crude though it was. He didn't have the energy to keep himself interested in much else, though he did glance up as Sam came to the bed and sat.

"You see him too?" Kirk asked him, hoping he didn't sound entirely crazy as he twisted on his side to look at Sam, faintly noting the play of muscle, a thought in the back of his mind saying how much he would very like to run his hands across his back and shoulders.

"Hm?" Sam twists in his spot, leaning back on a hand to help hold him up as he did so. 'Him'? His eyes glance over towards where Fortitude is, which was silently watching from where it was, before turning amber eyes back to Kirk. "You've caught that weird illness going around Skyhold," he muses out loud.

Sighing a bit, Sam shifts to sit sideways on the bed, lifting a leg up and folding it in front of him as the other stayed on the floor to support him. "Yes, I can see it, though normally I cannot, nor should others. That is Fortitude - my spirit partner. It helps me with my healing and spells."

"I thought I was hallucinating from sleep deprivation," he sighed, rubbing at his eyes, not liking the idea of having caught something instead, though he had been suspecting that too. But he hardly thought he was bad enough to bother the healers about it, so he had put it off. Then again, he put off most trips to the doctors regardless.

"Fortitude," he repeated, as if that was the strangest part of the whole thing. He twisted more, leg stretching out, brushing against Sam's (and entirely debatable if it was intentional or not). "He's not very clear, to be honest. Like, a fuzzy smudge," he yawned. He had many questions about it, but it was so hard to formulate them, to make his tongue push them out past his lips.

He twisted himself, pushing up to drag the furs and blankets down so he could wriggle himself beneath. "Come on, you getting in?"

The brushing of a leg against his like this is hardly noticed, taking it simply as Kirk sleepily rolling around and stretching. "I suppose he is not. It seems all the beings of the Fade are appearing as fuzzy shadows to those affected." This was probably very strange for Kirk. It was strange enough for those of this world, more so for people without magic, but someone from a world without magic at all...

Sam finds himself yawning again and then watching sleepily as Kirk rummaged around his bed as to get under the covers. "Hm," he hums softly in reply, feeling his ability to talk slowly shutting down now that he was in his bed. Standing up for a moment he pushes some of the furs more towards Kirk then slips under the blanket, letting a foot peek out at the bottom.

Very strange indeed. Worrying to say the last, but he wasn't alone and he didn't think he was dying, so it was something that could be addressed another day. Who knew? Maybe a good night's sleep would finally fix that, and he hoped it was that easy of a fix. He did not wish to be a burden.

Kirk tossed the blankets back over Sam when he settled, watching him for a moment through his eyelashes, sleep tugging at him heavily now. There was no use fighting it, not when he was warm and there was someone else beside him - someone adorable with their foot peeking out the bottom of the blanket. It made him smile as he let sleep claim him, breathing evening out...

And he dreamed.

Flashes of his life, this dream. Another of the jagged ones, like his brain couldn't settle on a place to rest. Flashing red lights. Heavy panting. Cries of panic. Running through silver-red halls that sparked, sometimes past wounded men and women in their primary colored uniforms. A bright, glowing light. The shock of being thrown back. Glass, someone beyond, two hands trying to reach other and not quite reaching. Pain, everywhere. The shadowed memory of it. Darkness...

Kirk woke with a sharp intake of breath, not quite jerking away from Sam's chest, which he had somehow shifted onto during the night, arm tossed across his stomach. He licked his lips, closing his eyes, listening to the beat of Sam's heart to calm his own (and also trying to not wake Sam).

Damn it, why did he have to dream of that?

When there were no more questions about Fortitude, the Fade, or anything else about the sickness following , Sam sighs, shifting to move under the blankets a bit more. He's only aware of Kirk moving around himself to toss blankets and get more comfortable, though barely, his eyes already starting to shut. It isn't long before he finds himself drifting off, the dreams and Fade taking over.

His own dreams are simple, perhaps boring, just remembering the simple cot he had in the Circle. A tower of stone, stairs, shelves of books. Flashes of different colors of the different spells being practiced. It's during these flashes that he sees flashes from something else, not from magic. Faces and things he does not recognize. A register of pain. It isn't a dream he has-

Sam feels himself suddenly dragged out of his sleep when the scene had went dark, and hearing, feeling, a noise in front of him. He doesn't jerk awake, and it takes a little time, but eventually he takes a deep breath, a small stretch, before he tiredly opens his eyes. Raising a hand to rub at his head, he blinks, feeling a lot heavier than normal. His breathing and heart rate return to that of someone awake when he raises his head, eyes narrowed as he registers that he wasn't alone in his space.

"Kirk?" He asks quietly, just in case the man was still sleeping. The dream left him confused and honestly a bit edgy with its unfamiliarity.

Somehow he keeps the wince from being to pronounced when the other calls his name so quickly after he himself wakes. He licks his lips, pushing up and away from Sam's warmth and the comfort of his heart beat. He could not quite make himself look at Sam, though it was not from having been snuggled up to him. That particular dream always left him shaken, a memory he wished he could forget and yet it haunted him still, lingering so close beneath the surface when he wasn't looking to actively keep it pushed down.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" he asked, rubbing at his eyes as he flopped back down next to Sam in the bed, groaning in protest of being awake - or so he hoped it sounded like anyways. "Ugh, what time is it? Doesn't anyone know how to sleep in around here?"

"Hm," he mutters tiredly, waking up a bit more as Kirk gets up enough to move. His skin feels a far bit cooler with the shift, which only helps wake him up a bit more. "Don't know." It honestly feels like he's only been out a few hours, and he's not about to get up to look out the window. From here there isn't any light though, so it must still be the evening, or at least early day.

"No... not really. I was having an unusual dream. It was a bit of a shock."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, turning to look up at him. He was glad the other did not actually get up out of the bed, happy to remain beneath the furs and blankets and soak up the other's presence.

It would keep him from having to talk about his own dream, or think about it. The further he could pull away from that the happier he would be. At least he was feeling somewhat better, which meant that his nap had managed to do some of the trick. Even so his head still felt fuzzy and his body tired. He was sure he could do with a few more hours, but he doubted he would return to sleep any time soon.

The bit of sleep wasn't enough, but at the same time he couldn't just fall back to sleep, not when Kirk was just as active as he was. Sam doesn't get out of bed, but he does shift so that he's sitting up against the headboard, letting the blankets pool in his lap so that he could cool off a bit.

"I've never had it before... it was no where I recognized. Foreign. There was screaming, explosions..." He trails off for a moment, rubbing at his eyes, before he continues, explaining about the pain but nothing from a wound, and being behind glass. Then darkness closing in.

Kirk went very still as Sam explained the dream. Of course he knew what dream he was talking about, because it was his own. He was not sure how Sam had seen it or experienced it, and he did not think Sam had done it on purpose. But it made his skin go cold for a second, a trickle of cold water splash down his spine.

It was not a subject he had wanted to broach with anyone here if he could help it. Given their view of certain things, the fact he had died and come back to life did not seem like a thing anyone would take well. He could very well be killed for it if the person who discovered that little fact was less than understanding or tolerant. He would hate for Sam to be that person, the first person whom he thought he could call a good friend here and been kind to him.

"That..." he started, wondering what to say, trying to gather his thoughts through the morning fugue. "That was my dream," he said at last.

The admittance has Sam stiffening, eyes becoming a bit wider as he turns to regard the man laying next to him. "Your dream?" Well that made sense of things a bit better, why he had seen people in similar outfits as Kirk's when they first met now that he thinks about it. It's still surprising though, he didn't have the ability to walk through dreams like he's heard some mages are capable of - very rare.

There's a long bout of silence before he hears Fortitude say something from where it is standing. It doesn't come closer and doesn't say much, but does remind Sam that Cole and others had mentioned about seeing dreams of others who were affected. "I suppose it's another side effect of the illness." He hadn't experienced it before now though considering he generally slept alone.

The illness caused others to see his dreams? He wasn't so sure that he liked that, but that was hardly anyone's fault either. Just another side-effect, but it didn't stop him from feeling slightly guilty that Sam had to see that. Experience it, even if the sensations were mere shadows of the reality.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he said at last, looking away from him again. "I don't dream about it often, but I guess I've been so stressed lately..." He shrugged, letting out a long sigh as he pushed back his hair with one hand, bracing himself for something, though he couldn't say what.

"Don't be sorry. It's not like you can control it, and normally I wouldn't be able to. I'm sorry you experience that from time to time. It's..." He stops not really having the word for it with him mind still waking up a bit. "No one is without their nightmares."

He can only imagine how this feels for Kirk. For him this was strange, but not terribly so considering magic and just about everything else. Looking over to the other man, Sam can see how stiff Kirk has gotten about talking about it, how much more stressed he's become now that someone has seen his nightmare. Reaching over he gently puts a hand to Kirk's shoulder and gives it a comforting squeeze. "I'm well accustomed to dreams and nightmares. Mages don't get the relief to forget what they see."

"It's horrible," he said for him, looking back up at him once more.

With a sigh he heaved himself up so he was leaning back against the head board too, close enough to Sam that their thighs touched. He was grateful for Sam's touch and his understanding, though his brows crinkled in concern at Sam's words. His lips turned down at the corners, fingers moving to brush across his forearm.

"What do you mean?" he asked him.

Seems he had managed to change the subject just a bit, drawing Kirk's thoughts away from the dream even for a moment. Kirk's lips turn down, but Sam's turn up just a bit, closing his eyes as he tries to relax a bit in their sitting positions.

"Here in Thedas when we sleep our spirits connect to the Fade, where our dreams and nightmares come from. For those who do not have magic, they dream, and once they wake up they forget most, if not all, of what they've seen during that time. Mages are always connected to the Fade, so when we sleep we see don't dream quite the same. We are more aware - whatever happens there we remember upon waking."

Ah, the Fade again. He still wasn't sure if he really believed in it, or if it was like with Hermoine - a concept of energy they simply had different names for. In some sense, it sounded like a collective consciousness, except people obviously dreamed separate dreams and in a more heightened awareness of it if what Sam said was true. And he has no reason to doubt Sam. Frankly it was more than his mind wanted to ponder so early and on such poor sleep. No headaches this morning thank you.

"That must make the dirty ones more fun, huh?" He grinned and teased the other man, waggling his brows as he bit his lip coquettishly. Maybe even a suggestive rub of naked shoulders.

There's a pause of silence after the question, Sam's brows furrowing a bit as he doesn't quite catch it right away, but after turning his head a bit it and seeing the look Kirk is giving him it suddenly seems to click. He's rather thankful that it's decently dark in the room, even with the fires in the forges below, since he knows his face is heating up. The rub of his shoulder against him has Sam clearing his throat behind a hand and taking a long inhale. "Yeah... I guess so." Course desire demons didn't quite make them always enjoyable, but he's not about to bring that up.

"You guess so?" Kirk repeated with a chortle, reaching up to brush a flushed cheek with the back of his hand.

"Come on, Sam. I'm not a priest - you can tell me," he nudged him again with a warm laugh. "Maybe if you do it'll help us both have good dreams when we get back to sleep, hmm?" His blue eyes glinted in the dark, head turned so that his lips could almost brush Sam's ear as he spoke.

The hand against his cheek has Sam blinking, more so the mention of a 'priest'. Clearly that must be something else in Kirk's world considering here they were always women and Kirk was certainly not a woman. He's just about to give the other man an amused shove at his pestering, though his hand doesn't get much farther than touching his forearm when he feels Kirk lean in.

He certainly catches onto that suggestion, his eyes widening a bit more and feeling his face heat up even more. The breath on his ear certainly has a shiver running down his spine. "How do you plan on 'helping'?" He... has some idea on what Kirk is suggesting, but just to be clear.

Well, that would be news to Kirk - the priest thing. Amusing since religion in his world had spent a very long time keep women out of those particular positions of power.

He could feel the other shiver with the way he was leaning into him, lips turning up in a seductive little smile. A low hum escaped him, making his chest vibrate as he took his time considering his next words. All the signals suggested Sam was interested, but there were times he wasn't sure. Well, no harm in the asking, and Sam hadn't pulled away from him yet. Frankly, a good roll in the hay might be just what he (and Sam) needed.

"Well, it would involve needing to take our pants off," he murmured. "Underwear too. I don't think those particular dreams had a lot of clothing involved, did they?" Or maybe they did and Sam had a kink, which would be good to know. Either way he turned his hand, brushing his fingers down the defined curve of Sam's arm. His head dipped, lips brushing Sam's shoulder, waiting now to see what he would do - pull back or ask for more?

All of a sudden he felt a bit hypersensitive, noting each of Kirk's movements and exactly where he was leaning or pressing. The press of lips, a slide of fingers - the hair on his arms stand on end at the unexpected touches. It isn't something he's had a lot of, and when he did it was very little and fleeting.

"Perhaps at the beginning..." he admits, thinking more along the lines of when things were just kisses and brushes of fingers. There was certainly a lack of any later on, but... his mind really there, more on Kirk's touches at the moment. There is a moment he's quiet, considering, wetting his lips.

"I'm not very... experienced with that," he admits again, quietly this time as he tilts his head a little towards Kirk.

He waits in the dark, feeling the way Sam moves against his touches, the catches of breath. He's not sure if he's pressed to far, though he suspected Sam didn't mind such attention from males. When he did not move away his suspicions were confirmed and he felt his heart speed up in excitement.

"That's okay," he murmured, brushing his fingers across his chest and up so he could cup his jaw. His thumb slid across the coarse hairs, tilting him up ever so gently.

"It actually makes you sexier," he purred before pressing his lips to Sam's, gentle but firm. He wanted Sam to want this, but he didn't want to scare him off even still. Cautiously he brushed his tongue over Sam's lip, leaning in just a fraction more.

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el_tybs - 2016-04-30 18:58 (UTC) - Expand

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