faderift | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It would be irresponsible for me to not take responsibility where I must. Merrick is my friend, and he acted because of that relationship." It's similar to what they talked about at the dance, and Beleth feels that frustration again. Let her take blame, Cade!! Gosh!!!

"No one has tried to...blame you, right?" She asked slowly, "They haven't tried to say that it was, ah. You attacking him?" She has to walk delicately here, because she can already feel the urge to say something particularly biting. But peace is her goal, not sniping. "If anyone has, I can approach them, and explain the situation. I think that everyone involved would agree that it would be preferable to lay the matter to rest."

He may be as socially awkward as the Frostbacks are cold, but Cade isn't an idiot and he can tell when someone needs to be at fault. Like knows like, after all. He doesn't question Beleth again, if for no other reason than he doesn't want to invoke further wrath from Merrick by talking about him.

"...I don't think so," he replies, but her question provokes a sudden gnawing fear. He doesn't talk to enough people to know whether they blame him or not. Maybe they do. "..um," he falters, gives a nervous, unhappy smile, and sighs. "I don't think it... matters, really." Who attacked whom. It doesn't change anything, it doesn't change his status in the Keep. If nothing else, he has a suspicion that people would side with Merrick regardless of who instigated.

It's strange, feeling guilt cut into her like this. Knowing that what happened between them turned Cade into a pariah, treated akin to a leper. He deserves it, doesn't he? He hurt her, he deserves to suffer, he deserves to be treated like he is. He deserves it, and she deserves to be happy about it. She still feels a cold chill of fear whenever people sneak up on her, she still can't have anyone in close quarters combat with her without her panicking. He hurt her, he made her more broken than she was before, and having to deal with people shooting him nasty looks is the least that could happen.

But it's impossible to look at this muddy, nervous, despairing (if the demons are any indication) man in front of her and feel the wrath that she knows is her due.

She presses her lips together for a moment, then turns to him, and gives him a wry smile.

"It matters to me."

Cade looks at her for a long moment, his expression weary, his bearing tense. The demons continue to hang over him, paying such rapt attention to his every movement that one might think he's their only source of sustenance.

"People might get angry," he says quietly, glancing around them, his brow fretfully pinched. "...if they see me talking to you." As far as he knows, that's what happened with Merrick. He had made a mistake in interacting with her for that long, touching her, showing any interest in her at all.

Beleth frowns at that, lips pressing into a thin line, fingers digging into her legs. She's not mad at him, she's not even mad--She's frustrated, endlessly frustrated. "I am tired," She began, slowly, eyes glued to her lap. "Of people treating me like--like a victim. Like I am incapable. I have my vallaslin. I am an adult woman, I am a Hunter, and I will decide whom I will speak to."

Not that she blames them. Not that she blames anyone, when she has proven herself to be...not nearly as adept at protecting herself as all her bluster makes her sound.

Her gaze turns back to Cade, still firm. "I came to you. If they're mad, then they're mad at me, because of what I did of my own will."

Although Beleth is confident, and Cade can't help but admire her for her resolve, it's not... entirely her he's concerned about. There are a lot of people who are protective of her, and any one of them could be watching at any moment, and take it the wrong way.

He nods to her, with a strained smile. It seems wrong to tell the person he brutalized that he fears violence from others, especially when she's making such a concentrated effort.
Unless she's doing it on purpose.
He holds his silence, afraid to say anything.

She stares at him for a few moments, apparently expecting--she doesn't know. Something. But she is given nothing but that strained smile--though it suits him better than that constant nervous look that he wore far more often. She decides that the smile will have to do, and nods in turn, standing up.

"Please be careful to dry off and change into clean clothes when you can, or you'll catch what's going around." Beleth warns him, wiping her hands on her already rather muddy scarf. She'd offer it to him, but she recalls just how much he recoiled when she tried to do that for him in the snow. It felt--wrong, to offer something with good intentions that she had done previously with ulterior motives.

"Have a nice day, Cade. And remember, please talk to me if anyone gives you trouble. I've made my decisions, and I will have them respected." And with that, she nods to him again, and takes off, sneezing into her arm. Ugh. As neat as the ability to see spirits were? This cold sucked.

Cade's brow knits slightly when she appears to lecture him on hygiene, but at the same time... it hits a part of him that has gone long neglected until recently. Someone looking out for him, expressing concern, however bossy, for his wellbeing. It happens so rarely now that he notices it every time.

"..you too," he offers as she walks away. Have a nice day, that is. He's starting to believe that she might mean it.

OPEN: Cloudreach Event

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