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

[arsebiscuit]

She tilts her head slightly and gives an exaggerated once over of Cass.

"Well. Not what I was thinking of, but sure. You can tuck us in. I'll think of the rest."

There is an eyebrow waggle. A sickly, sweaty eyebrow waggle. Please don't kill her.

[stabsbooks]

Cassandra doesn't kill her, but she does shake her head, refusing to rise to the bait. "You know full well that is not what I meant. You are ill, and you need rest." She wraps a hand around Sera's arm and pulls her gently but firmly in the direction of the door. "Do not argue."

[arsebiscuit]

"And you ain't? Just cause I didn't get my hardass training don't mean I'm worse than you. Just better at showing it, yeah?"

Just like how Cassandra having thicker armor didn't mean the woman herself is more sword proof than Sera in her leathers. Same underneath it all, no matter how much better Cass is at hiding it.

[stabsbooks]

"I did not say I was not ill. But I am not the one proposing trips to the tavern while in such a state." To say nothing of...other things. She glances at Sera as she pushes the door open and marches them both into the hall. "And I never said you were worse than anyone. You are fine as you are, Sera."

More annoying than she has to be, naturally. But as much as Cassandra wishes the elf would grow up sometimes, she wouldn't want her to change who she is.

[arsebiscuit]

"Seeker-"

There was going to be a love-dovey, slightly teasing bit of a reply there. But suddenly Sera went tense, moving to shove herself more or less against the also sick Seeker's side. She could see another one. Another damn Fade stupid shit jerk.

"I hate the Fade."

[stabsbooks]

Cassandra tenses in turn, automatically moving to brace herself and hold Sera up. She follows her gaze, but by the time she looks, the spirit - or whatever it had been - is gone. She shakes her head, not without sympathy, as she takes Sera's arm in hers and urges her on.

"You must learn to ignore them. They are always there, you know. The fact that we can see them now should change nothing."

[arsebiscuit]

"Maker's saggy balls- how's that helping!"

The monsters were always there. Sera gave a shudder, going closer to Cass's side. Nope, nope, nope. Demon shit and she hated it.

"How big's your bed?"

[stabsbooks]

All right, perhaps that wasn't the most uplifting thing she could have offered. Cassandra frowns. She can see exactly where Sera is going with this, and she knows just as well that she isn't going to like the answer.

"I do not have one." She braces herself for Sera's inevitable expressions of incredulity and disappointment. "I sleep on my bedroll, above the forge."

[arsebiscuit]

Sera paused at that. Literally, as much as she could with Cass still ushering her along. Just stopped and looked at the other woman. A totally charming snort followed, half disbelieving and half serving the purpose of pulling her snot back up into her nose.

"You're the worst at noble-ing, Ladybits." Blame the sickness or the fact there's demons everywhere, but she's dripping with fondness. And the aforementioned snot. The latter gets wiped on her sleeve. "The friggin floor 'bove the nosiest place? Ha! Even Cullen got a bed with a hole over it."

[stabsbooks]

"You are not the first to tell me so," Cassandra replies dryly, rolling her eyes. Of course, the useless nobles littering the Orlesian and Nevarran courts had never described her lack of poise and elegance quite the way Sera does it, and neither had her uncle, but the underlying sentiment remains.

She gives Sera's arm a tug, trying to urge her along. "It suits well enough. It is warm and dry, and visitors rarely venture to the third floor. I have become used to the noise." Belatedly, she realizes her mistake in letting Sera knows where she sleeps, and she sighs inwardly. Time to start seeking out a new place to lay her bedroll, just in case.

[arsebiscuit]

"Bet you've got all your pointy bits for fighting demony shit there too, yeah?"

A nice squishy bed would've been better, but Sera's not one to turn her nose up. She and million other people had slept in worse. So so wraps her arms around one of Cassandra's, using the woman a bit to hold herself up.

"Take me."

[stabsbooks]

"There is no need to fight the spirits. You must face them, unafraid. The closer you look at them, the more difficult they are to perceive."

She looks at Sera in bafflement. "Take you - Sera, you must have your own bed somewhere, and I am certain that wherever it is, it would be more comfortable for you than mine."

[arsebiscuit]

"Demons and shit!"

Cass, how are you not understanding this?

"You need to stand vigil. Or whatever virgin shite knights do for ladies, yeah? I'm in...whatever women get into. For saving, yeah? You've got oaths."

[stabsbooks]

"You are hardly a damsel in distress, Sera," Cassandra says, unable to mask the laughter in her tone. "I have seen you fight worse than this."

She sighs. The ridiculousness of the situation aside, she knows perfectly well that Sera's fear of demons and magic is very real. She has not yet forgotten her childhood, or the fear of the Necropolis that had often stolen sleep from her until dawn. "Perhaps just for a while."

[arsebiscuit]

Give Sera an inch and she'll take the whole damn nation. She predicted this day ending with her and Cass both sleeping the demons off, safe in company and not alone over tables or whatever. But for now there's just a grin.

"Good enough."