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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That door, there, he'd been directed, and Obi-Wan had followed that direction blindly-- one day, very soon, he'll stop being surprised by forges and uniquitous stables, all the hallmarks of an ancient and strange age. The light is dim, the smokey, wood-fed smell of charcoal fire unavoidable. He hears someone stirring, up above; ah, that must be Cassandra.

He summits the loft an pauses for a moment, looking at nothing very much in particular, reaching out with that particular, meditative openness he'd learned in his youth. Usually, one did this at the divide of an unfamiliar corridor, listening-without-listening for the subtle tug of the Force, the barely perceptible emotional impulse, go this way.

Now he was listening for something else. Something no less subtle, but infinitely less welcome.

He hears it, or at least hears something. Cassandra had not woken at the opening of the door, or at his progress up the stairs. The dreams continue, dark thoughts crowding her mind, and her eyes flit back and forth restlessly behind her eyelids. Haven is burning. The people are running, crying. A voice behind a locked door calls out for help, and she runs forward - but the roof collapses, the pleas for help turn to screams of pain, and someone grabs her arm, drags her away as she watches the flames spread -

She curls in on herself with a small, quiet whimper. Barely audible, to most people.

"Cassandra," he says, attempting to wake her, bending down with a distraction borne of maintaining that listening-but-not-listening half-trance, "Seeker."

She wouldn't thank him, he assumed that much. But it wasn't about gratitude; and certainly she would be at least as displeased to know her private horrors were an all but public display.

"Wake up! It's only a nightmare."

She jerks awake with a gasp, flailing blindly and striking Obi-Wan in the process. Not especially hard, thankfully, but striking him all the same. She pulls her hand back as if she's been scalded, sitting up hastily and backing away as she stares at him in shock.

The rifter. The rifter she had questioned, who had gone on to question and condemn her over the crystal, for everyone to hear -

Her shocked, confused expression narrows into one of suspicion and distrust, even as she reaches for a blanket to cover herself.

"What are you doing here?"

The way she moves is, thankfully, not with any particular force nor good aim. Reflex moves him to intercept, catching her fist in his palm, easy and automatic-- but, if she had put real strength behind the blow, he would have been caught flat-footed. It's the small blessings that we're more grateful for.

And then, of course there's her attire. It's not that he supposed she slept in her armor, really, it's just... Somehow, it's difficult to anticipate her in anything less, in the same way that children are always surprised when they first learn that their teachers have lives outside the four bland walls of the schoolroom.

Its very disorienting.

"You were having a nightmare. Very loudly," He replies, then attempts to school the annoyance out of his expression, with reasonable success, "Given the current circumstances, I assumed you wouldn't want the sleeping half of Skyhold privy to your... To that. Certainly I didn't want to intrude. And now you're awake, so I will leave you to... this."

Some women like awkward, idiotic explanations full of struggling pauses and carefully polite word-choice. He suspects Cassandra is not one of them.

She is not underdressed, thankfully. Sera's dress exposes more on a daily basis than Cassandra's tunic does now. Still, it is rather thin, and sleeveless, her arms bare as she holds the blanket up to her chest and stares, still somewhat dazed and muddled, at Obi-Wan.

"Loudly?" she says, and shakes her head, not understanding. Even if she had cried out, she could not have been that loud. Nothing that could be heard from outside, and three stories below. "I don't..."

And then the full force of his words hits her - the sleeping half of Skyhold - and her eyes widen in something like terror. Her own dreams had been strange lately, full of images and emotions that didn't quite seem to belong to her, but she had never made the connection before now. "...No. No, it cannot be true. They cannot all have heard - " She cuts herself off as the various, very private horrors of her dreams flash once more before her eyes, and covers her mouth, looking, unarmored and rumpled from sleep, with a blanket clutched to her chest, oddly small and vulnerable.

Struck by her vulnerability, Obi-Wan is again caught unawares. For a moment he hesitates; prudence would have him politely wish her goodnight. Cassandra and he have not had a peaceable association, nor are they likely to find a common accord. This was trouble; this was an intrusion, rude, and likely unwelcome.

But she was ill. And she was afraid. And her dreams were a thrumming note of sickly, despair-tinged horror through Fade and Force both, and Obi-Wan...

Despair is a path to the Dark Side, he decided, and knelt down, so as not to loom over her.

"No, no, don't worry; I came to wake you, as soon as I realized. I doubt anyone had time to overhear it," Except for Obi-Wan himself, of course, who had seen everything. He does not touch her, but does his best to project a sense of calm, compassionate competence, one hand held placatingly, an attempt to soothe, "...My apprentice used to have nightmares like that. It can take some time to recover."

She wants to believe him; that is as clear as the doubt in her eyes as she studies him. Normally, the battle between her skepticism and her desire for reassurance would be a silent one. Now, it is not. They are barely audible, but they are there: Trust and Cynicism, Hope and Despair whispering quietly behind and around her, each one trying to draw her to its own side.

Eventually, she lowers her hand, straightening her spine and lifting her chin until the vulnerability is gone, leaving only the strong, closed-off Seeker behind. Her eyes never leave Obi-wan.

"You are the rifter who speaks to the stars," she says, though it is more wary and less caustic than it might have been. She frowns, her eyes narrowing. "You questioned my authority before all of Skyhold. You made a mockery of me and of the entire Inquisition, and you never stopped to consider what you might risk in the process."

Obi-Wan waited, listening first for Cassandra and then with less focus to the gut-instinct sensation of the Force. And then, in the moment just before Cassandra spoke, he heard them too.

This was steadier ground: a mystery, a presentation of strength in the squaring of Cassandra's shoulders, and yet, very sad.

"Not entirely accurate," He replied, quite calm and unoffended, his own voice rough with same illness that had laid her low. It was true, after all, that he'd deliberately stirred the pot; in his mind, it was a risk worth taking. But she was right to chide him, as well, "One of the perils of duty, I'm afraid. If it helps, my intention was not mainly to insult you. But, you're unwell and--"

He hesitated, clearly on the cusp of getting up, leaving her to her nightshirt and bed, and then, "...And hearing voices, if I'm not mistaken. This isn't an ordinary illness. You should be resting."

"I was resting."

The words are sharp and wry, the ironic bitterness behind them not entirely targeted at Obi-Wan. Malcolm, Solas, everyone, or so it feels, telling her that she should rest, that she should stop working and get some sleep, and when she finally does, what happens? Nightmares, and being jerked awake by a stranger to be informed that her worst fears and memories are being broadcast as surely as if she'd announced them over the crystal herself.

Not that that's Obi-Wan's fault. She sighs, raking a hand through her hair.

"I...suppose I should thank you. For waking me, before..."

Before it got worse, before everyone did hear, if they haven't already. And how is she supposed to sleep now, knowing that her private horrors are no longer her own? The thought stops her in her tracks, and she falls silent, staring unseeing at a point somewhere between them.

Obi-Wan shakes his head, when it becomes clear she isn't going to finish that.

"You're a very formidable woman," He said, his mouth curling up to make, not a smirk, but a smile-- half a smile, "It's easy to imagine you pushing through any hardship, even an illness, and going on as if nothing were wrong. Even if it's to your personal detriment."

Compassion lifted his arm, put it on her shoulder, a companionable, almost fraternal grasp. An errant whisper, suggestion from some world beyond said now kiss, and he winced. He did not. He let her go.

"I know I'm not your favorite person, right now, but if you wanted to... talk... A friendly ear? Your secrets are safe with me."

Cassandra doesn't reach for him in return, and she certainly doesn't move to kiss him, or to stroke his beard, soft and enticing as it may be.

But she also doesn't jerk away when he sets his hand on her bare shoulder, or snap his fingers in half for his efforts, and really, that's almost as good.

"There is nothing to say," she says, and scowls at the floor. Her secrets? Her dreams, the one she has suffered for years and shared with no one in all that time? All laid bare before him. "I suppose I should hope that they are. Seeing as you already know them all."

It could have been worse, she knows. It could have been...Varric, perhaps. She does not like to think of the way the dwarf would have teased her, held the knowledge of her deepest pain over her head and tormented her endlessly with it. And she would have deserved it.

"Now that I very much doubt. It can't all be death and sorrow," It wasn't a supposition, the way he says it, but a certainty, punctuated with a nod, "There are good memories, as well."

But those truly were private, for one. He wouldn't push. But he could feel the dark turn of her thoughts, the despair rising around the room like a fine mist, like a smell with no source. It seemed patently unfair that she should have been made so vulnerable, and have no reciprocity; to just leave seems, somehow, impossibly rude. Obi-Wan hesitates yet again, then settles back more comfortably, on the floor rather than the bed itself, leaning.

"Y'know, I... It's not the first time, I've seen something like that. The first time, I was just an apprentice, not even past my Knighthood trials. I lost my teacher."

"Can't it?"

It isn't, of course. But every happy memory she has is corrupted, it seems, shot through with loss and regret. Everyone she's loved, she has lost. Or, Despair tells her, she is going to lose.

Her expression flickers with familiarity and old grief as he shares his own pain. A young apprentice, too young to be prepared to lose a valued mentor - she doesn't even have to imagine what he must have felt.

"I am sorry," she says, and means it, but she frowns. She can tell what he's trying to do, or thinks she can. He is trying to...to connect with her, to make her feel less alone. "But you do not have to do this. It will not change anything."

"As I've been pointing out to an increasing number of people since arriving, whatever reason I was brought here, it wasn't for my protection," The Force moves in mysterious waves, like ocean swells, invisible and powerful, and it's not until you're bouyed along to distant shores that you really understand the magnitude of that power. Obi-Wan is philosophical about his status as a rifter, as in all things, "It's about what's right, not what's easier. And, anyways, if it were that easy with you..."

Well, she'd have a lot more friends, for one thing.

"...It's not wrong to grieve, and fear helps to keep us alive, but too much of it only leads to anger, and even hatred. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We Jedi call it, the Dark Side," His voice, quite calm, fell away. A deep breath, a sigh, "I watched him die-- he was killed by an assassin, a Sith Lord, as we call them. Like Dark Jedi, the Sith are traitors to everything we should stand for. I wasn't fast enough to save him, and when I was able to strike back, I was so consumed by rage and vengeance that I was nearly ensnared by the same Dark Side that the assassin served. It was a harrowing struggle, not unlike your own, I suspect."

It is as if Obi-Wan is describing a strange, alternate version of her own life. The dead mentor. The traitors. The mad drive for vengeance that, for years, had threatened to overtake her entirely - though that had been caused by the death of her brother, and not Seeker Byron. The details hardly matter, though. It is the same.

Not that she's about to tell all of that to Obi-Wan. Not that she's about to tell him about Galyan, or confess to him the most personal details of her own struggle against rage and resentment.

"If you fear I will be lost to anger and hatred, you can stop worrying," she tells him instead. "Take your platitudes to someone else. It is a lesson I have already learned. I do not need to hear it again." Suddenly she aches for Galyan, for Anthony, for everything she has lost, and she turns away, curling in on herself and facing the wall, so that Obi-Wan will not see.

"It's not a lesson, Cassandra," He sighed. And what else had he expected? Time to go, then, "It's life. And revenge isn't the only path to the Dark Side. Try not to let fear and despair get the better of you; I know it's easier said than done, but... you are better than that."

Obi-Wan stands, then, shaking out the dust from his trousers, and turns to go. But he hesitates before descending, looking back, considering. She seems, not small, exactly, but drawn-in. Hiding.

"If you like, if I... notice anything happening that you'd rather keep private?"

Ridiculous. He doesn't even know her - and what he does know of her is nothing complimentary. He's the one, after all, who had thought so little of her as to condemn and undermine her publicly. She had interrogated him at his first arrival, been harsh and hostile and treated him like a threat. He has no reason to think she is better than anything.

She stays where she is, curled on her side and facing the wall, all too aware of him as he stands and looks down at her. Somehow, she knows that it is safe to turn her back on him, just as she knows that he would never tell anyone what she had so unintentionally revealed to him.

She cannot bring herself to thank him for that. Not when loneliness and the great weight of loss press down upon her, threatening to crush her. Not when Despair crowds eagerly over her, moving in to fill the space that Obi-Wan had occupied.

It seems colder, the farther he moves away.

But he's asked her a question, and she must answer. She swallows the lump in her throat, along with her pride, and jerks her head in a nod.

"Please."

Better that Obi-Wan know all her secrets, than all of Skyhold know even half of them.

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OPEN: Cloudreach Event

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