faderift | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO: Felix and Adelaide. Then Felix and OPEN.
WHAT: Felix isn't feeling well and collapses. Adelaide tends to him. After, he's up for visitors but is still very weak.
WHEN: Current.
WHERE: The main hall. Then, Felix's private room.
NOTES: Description of illness?

[For Adelaide]

Felix was probably pushing himself too hard, if he was honest. It was becoming more and more clear every day that his time was running out. He didn't have much left and he wanted to try to get as much done as possible before. He had been up all night drafting letters home urging those he had ties with to support the Inquisition.

Then early in the morning he had gone to visit his father. The elder Alexius had fussed more than anything, but Felix still made the effort to try to see his father as much as he could, while he could. Then came arranging the letters to be sent north.

He was exhausted just doing those few things, though the lack of sleep hadn't been helping. He felt the headache coming on. There was a pounding in his head. It was rhythmic. A song. His ears were ringing with it and his head felt like it was swimming.

He made his way up the stairs to the main hall of Skyhold. He was planning to use this path to get to his room while picking up something to drink along the way, but when he bent to pick up the cup he felt his head swarm. His vision blacked.

He heard the gasps and exclamations from those in the hall as his body fell to the ground, but he wasn't aware of much else outside of that.

[OPEN]

Later he's in his room, resting. His body feels clammy. He's sweating but his skin feels so cold. There's very little color left in his cheeks which seem hallow and thin.

Still, he knows rumors are spreading about his health and he's willing to see visitors if anyone wants to see him.

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She'd done her best to mind him. To offer what relief that she could when he called for her- to check in even when he hadn't because if she knew men and their stubborn foolishness at all, she knew he wouldn't call near as often as he truly would require. The more she treated any one patient- so long as she was in their relative vicinity Compassion would stretch out, now and then, to check on them. Today that stretch ends with a trill of concern loud enough to have Adelaide seeking Felix out for herself. Something was worse than usual. She'd told him to mind his health. To take care with how much he did in a day.

They both knew he was fading.

To find him wavering in the main hall, tipping, falling- she ran to his side to spare him a cracked head- stumbling under his weight. Slight as she was she could not hold him upright- kneeling instead to support his head and shoulders in her lap while she called for aid.

"Felix? Felix." Hands steady, voice pointed, she peered into his face for some sign of his waking.

Felix still wasn't entirely aware of what was going on but he was saved severe injury thanks to Adelaide's quick action. His head tilted to the side as he gasped a bit for air.

His face was very pale and around the edges of the collar of his robe one could see brown lines of his veins. The discoloration was noticeable now as the symptoms were getting harder to cover up using his father's treatments.

He responded to her voice, eyes fluttering a bit. "The song," he muttered, his voice low and hard to ear. "It won't stop."

Once word spreads enough that it reaches Ellana's ears, she has to ask around to actually find his room before she turns up, knocking softly on the door. Softly, because she's afraid he might be sleeping and if that's so, she doesn't want to rouse him. But then she worries that he might be too weak to answer if he is awake, so she opens the door a crack and keeps her eyes on the ground to not invade his privacy. As someone who's grown up without much of it, she's learning the value of it now.

"Felix?" she whispers. "It's Ellana."

"We need to move him to his room- I do not care who you get to carry him but get someone." She snapped to the nearest guard, clerk, whoever before resting her hands on his jaw- the lack of color, the way his veins were darkened- the exhaustion.

The ache she could feel in her teeth from here, Compassion's light flaring and flowing from her fingers into him to ease some of that as she has ever since she's met him- he had but weeks, now. Perhaps a month if they were fortunate and he was careful.

"Breathe deeply, ma Douleur, we are going to get you back to your room where you can rest."

Felix finds himself stupidly running a hand over his blankets to straighten them when he hears her voice, as if he's desperately trying to make himself presentable when he knows he looks like death.

"Come in," he calls as much as he can given that his voice is weak and soft.

Felix heard her enough to follow her orders. He focused on breathing and that brought some of the world back to him, at least it was able to break through the song that seemed to be coming from the very blood in his head.

Then there were men around helping Adelaide get him to his quarters. He was able to force his eyes open and saw the shapes that belonged to the faces around him, peering at him.

"Fasta vass," he muttered now. He wasn't usually one for cursing, but it seemed appropriate to do so when he had made such a scene in front of many of the Inqusition's most important guests.

"I can walk." Though, honestly, he probably wouldn't be able to without support.

Ellana enters and looks around the space. Seeing Felix looking even weaker than before is hard, and for an instant she's taken back in time to when the plague hit the clan. She recalls how pale and fragile her parents looked as she tried to make them comfortable. How they weakly protested she had to leave them or she would grow sick too. The thought leaves her rooted to the ground for a moment before it passes and she moves a little closer.

"Hello. Is it all right if I come up to the bed?"

He hesitates only for a moment. He's been reassured that he's safe, even with the symptoms showing at least they can control the spread. It won't save him, but it will protect others.

He'd hate it if something happened to her. "Of course," he says. "Your presence will certainly brighten up the room."

"As I cannot trust you to gauge how much you can do in an hour, let alone in a day, without causing yourself to collapse I am not trusting you to know whether or not you can walk." It probably wasn't all that kind to snap at a dying man- but this. He knew better, and if he did not? She would make certain he knew better for the future.

"Careful with his legs- I have his shoulders. Yes I can manage- do you want to interrupt this spell? No? Good." Walking and working- it wasn't something she'd done often but this was familiar enough for her to manage. "Focus on me, Felix. Deep breaths."

The snapping worked though. Probably because it reminded him of his mother, who had been so powerful and strong. The woman speaking now was much kinder than she had been, but the command still had that same power.

He goes silent then, and lets her have her way. Instead of trying to protest he just breathes.

"Oh, I should have thought to bring flowers," she says, chastising herself, since she thinks they would brighten up the room more than she ever could. But she approaches the bed, giving him a gentle smile. There's worry in her eyes that she can't hide, but she's making sure to smile.

"I heard about what happened. Are you feeling any better?"

"A bit, yes," Felix says. "I imagine I look much worse than I feel." That's not exactly true, but he's trying to cheer her up. He offers her a small smile.

"And you don't have to worry about flowers. It's enough that you came to check on me."

It took some maneuvering- some soft swearing on her part when they were not as gentle as need be- but Adelaide saw Felix to his room. Sent the remainder away as soon as he was set on his bed. No matter how much power she poured into him, how much of the ache she took- that song.

That did not come from just any illness. Nor did those veins.

"...Felix. What is killing you?"

Felix all but melted into his bed. His head was still swimming a bit and the comfort and safety offered by the mattress was undeniable.

He swallowed hard against his dry throat. "You don't have to worry. My father managed to keep it contained and we're careful. It won't spread as long as I don't bleed..."

Then came a bolt of panic. "I fell. I didn't bleed did I?" He doesn't feel like he cracked his head open but his hand still moves to check. "Anyone who touched my blood needs..." But the panic was making him short of breath and weak. It was hard to keep talking when he couldn't catch his breath.

"I hope it's all right that I did," she begins, unsure what his friends will think of an elf coming to see him. If his friends are anything like him, hopefully it doesn't matter.

"Do you need anything? I'm sure the healers have done plenty, but do you need any water? More blankets?" She just wants to do something for him, because she feels so helpless. It isn't right that people grow ill and then just slip away.

"That is not what I asked-" Then the fear of his blood and that?

That narrows it down a great deal. None of the answers were pleasant, they never were when it came to wasting diseases. But this?

"No, you didn't- there was not any blood-" She reaches out, cradling his face in her hand as the other rested against his chest- over his hammering heart and struggling lungs. "Breathe, Douleur. Deep breaths. There was no blood. No one touched it."

He focuses on breathing as she directs and calms down. It helps to know that he hadn't put people in danger by pushing himself too hard.

After he has control again he swallows.

"It... It happened a few years ago. We were travelling home from Orlais. I was meant to be enjoying my time away from university. The darkspawn attacked. They killed my mother and sickened me. My father was convinced that he could have protected us. He blamed himself. That's why letting go of me was so difficult for him. That's why he turned to the Venatori."

He doesn't say it's the Blight, but why else would he be talking about darkspawn?

It's strange because he worries the same about her. How will her friends and family feel knowing she's worried for a dying Tevinter?

He shakes his head, then, after a moment. "Do you sing?" he asks, seemingly out of no where.

"...You're blighted." Tainted.

She knew full well there was no fixing it- but this? She could not even manage to comfort him for what would come at the end. No power would block out the song at it's strongest. Nothing could be done for him then and he already spoke- saying it wouldn't stop.

What more could she do for him?

He looks very sadly at her. "I am," he admits. "I told you there was nothing that could be done."

Her eyes widen because, yes, she does, and no, she doesn't. Not for anyone but Merrick. He's the only one allowed to hear her.

"I-- I do, sort of. But only for someone in my clan, and only because he caught me singing one day when no one was around." She shifts awkwardly on her feet, feeling awful. If he wants to hear her, how can she deny him?

"I don't have a pretty voice," she says softly. "Merrick says I do but-- but I would sing for you, if you're asking." No, being here and looking at Felix, she can't say she won't just because she's self-conscious.

"...I shall simply have to work harder to help you ignore the song until-" She sighs, squeezing his hand. "Until your time."

He shakes his head. "No, Ellana. If that's for your clan, keep it that way." Tevinters had already taken too much from Dalish clans for him to add anything to that number.

"What of a story then? You told me one before, when you were still in the Mire." Honestly, what he wanted most was something to think about when the song in his blood got to be too strong. Something that would help drown out the noise.

He looks down at their hands, a little surprised and very touched.

"It's very rare for someone to learn the truth and still be comfortable touching me."

"If I was going to be tainted by touching you- it would have happened already, Felix." She rolls her thumb across his knuckles.

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