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

[stabsbooks]

Cassandra frowns vaguely, but she does pick up her fork again and turn her attention to the food. Now that she thinks of it, she can't really recall the last time she had more than a quick bite to eat as she hurried from one meeting to the next. Not that she would admit that to Malcolm.

"I know," she says grimly, and gestures to the papers spread over the table. "That is - it is part of what I am trying to account for. It will not do to run out of food before more supply caravans are able to reach us, and we have so many here now." The refugees, the rifters, those eager to join the Inquisition - it is a wonder Skyhold can hold them all.

She shoots a glance at him, needing to make at least a token effort at defending her own health and ability to work. "I am not the only one seeing spirits."

[tactical_alert]

He doesn't envy her paperwork. Even if they are, in technicality, the same rank, she is a head of the Inquisition, and he is not. He'll take some grim, private pleasure in not being inundated with it all. So he'll by pass it. She knows what's at stake; it isn't his place to keep reminding her as if she wasn't there when the Inquisition was formed, as if she wasn't there when the Herald proved to be the Herald.

"You are not the only one determined to work despite seeing spirits." So there. "The spirits can be...distracting, but not enough to keep me from lending a hand." Not even the heavy presence of Despair can hold him back, though it tries in dark moments. To have Hope so nearby helps. And that's just his own spirits to be distracted by, much less all the others, the glimpses and pauses and whispers of conversation.

"The illness will have to make me drop entirely before I back down. Hopefully it will not come to that point." It's been close, but he hasn't gone down yet.

[stabsbooks]

She looks up at him, raising a single eyebrow in a simple gesture that still manages to communicate exactly how unimpressed she is with that declaration. There's a moment of silence while she tries to work out how to express her opinion diplomatically - and then she just gives up.

"You are being stupid." She frowns, and waves a hand as if to fend off any impending protests. "Not about the spirits. About the illness."

[tactical_alert]

Well, he's always known he's the much more diplomatic of the two of them. "I beg your pardon?" he ends up saying with a laugh in his voice. "And what, exactly, are you being, then?"

[stabsbooks]

At least he's laughing, and not taking offense. Cassandra doesn't smile in return, but she's more tired than actually angry or disapproving.

"I am doing what must be done, and no more," she says. Perhaps not entirely accurate, but close enough that she believes it, anyway. "I am working because no one else can do this - because I must provide an example. And when the pain and exhaustion become too much, I will stop." She narrows her eyes at him. "Fighting until you collapse will only put you in greater danger, and create more work for the healers, in the end."

[tactical_alert]

"You speak like I refuse to sleep. I certainly sleep, and eat. And sit at a table and relax with a trusted-" what does he call Cassandra "-advisor. But to be perfectly fair to any and all healers that have ever had to deal with me, I am a poor patient."

And, well, not accident-prone or poor of health, but...still tends to take ill quicker than others, and puts himself in harm's way more often. So. It's a not-insignificant number of people. "I am able to look after myself."

[stabsbooks]

Advisor? She raises an eyebrow at his choice of words, but merely shakes her head. Attempting to define her relationship with Malcolm is a task beyond her capacity, at the moment.

"Take care that you do, then." She won't force him to go to the healers; she would be a terrible hypocrite if she tried. But there's a large gap between capitulating at the first sign of weakness, and stubbornly ignoring even the extremes of one's limits. "I will not hear of you pushing yourself until you drop."

[tactical_alert]

He could point out that hyperbole is a thing, but refrains. And if he's honest with himself, should the need come, he would push himself that hard. That need hasn't come, and he doesn't foresee it happening. "Yes, mother," he murmurs. "So long as you keep up your appetite. Or I will keep making pies until you do."

[stabsbooks]

Even for a Seeker of Truth, Cassandra can be excessively literal - to the point where it actually hinders communication and understanding, rather than making things clear. And so she feels a flare of satisfaction - she had gotten through to him, he would not take foolish risks for no reason - even as she rolls her eyes, shaking her head with a disgusted noise. "Please. I am not that old."