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

Wherever you'd like Cole to find him

[colecomfort]

(OOC: occurs directly after this.)

Skyhold was terribly noisy. It had never really been quiet, but just now the pain was up close, fresh and raw, soaking into everything, through everyone. It took effort, focusing hard enough to find Simon, to follow the thread of worry that connected him with River, but Cole made it.

He would be there, suddenly, after Simon had turned his face away for a moment. Something not quite right about the cant of his head, the way he held his arms.

"Simon — River's sick. Lying on the stones. I found her." He gestured with his head, taking one step away in the proper direction. "This way."

[noleechesneeded]

He hadn't been away from the tents for long, just enough for a quick meal from the tavern, the mage now hurrying back to work in the rain when Cole found him.

Simon was trying to get used to figures popping up out of nowhere since the fever had set in, but Cole still managed to get a start out of him. Only a small one, a huff of breath and eyes wider than they had been seconds ago. There were a lot of questions in that pause, who was this boy, how or why did he sneak up on him like that, and...had he seen him somewhere before?

Apparently he had if the boy knew him by name. Or at least, he knew him through River...and at the mention of his sister, specifically that she was sick, brushed all those other questions out of Simon's mind. There was a pang of something in Simon's chest, mostly guilt and a little frustration, but that was swept aside too. He should have been keeping a better eye on her. Feeling bad about it wouldn't help her any more quickly, however.

"...right," was all he said, voice rough as he followed Cole away from the tents.

[colecomfort]

Cole spoke little as he led Simon back to the hall where he'd found River. He moved through the crowd with a smooth purposefulness, as if following a trail that was clear to him, but invisible to everyone else. The people they passed — those who were upright and on the move — stepped past or around Cole without looking. It might have seemed like he wasn't part of the real world at all, if not for the raindrops spattering and rolling down the brim of his hat, or the mud on his shoes.

"She won't let them in," he said, after a time. It was a reminder to himself as much as promise to Simon. "They see her, and she sees them, but she'll sing them away. She always does."

[noleechesneeded]

People didn't notice Cole but they certainly could with Simon. The mage didn't have the luxury of being forgotten, but no one gave him more than a single glance. The set of his jaw and purpose in his tired steps told those quick glances all they needed to know, and so they left Simon alone.

River was out of the rain when they reached her, but that wasn't much of a comfort. The spirits reminded Simon of carrion birds the way they hovered around her, making the mage's stomach drop.

"She shouldn't have to," Simon answered. He'd like for the assurance to be enough. She'd gone this long without letting them in, it ought to make him feel better, but all Simon could think was that it shouldn't be her burden to begin with. She should have been sent to a proper Circle where she could have learned the proper way of dealing with demons and spirits...

Simon couldn't change any of that now, she was miles away from being a 'normal' mage and nothing he tried would change that. With a frown he moved closer, kneeling down to ease her off the cold floor.

[colecomfort]

And when Simon moved around him to go to his sister, Cole stepped back — not leaving, not just yet, but allowing them space. He'd done what he said he would do. Simon could take care of her now.