open; and so we burned

[redinside]

WHO: Samson and assorted guests
WHAT: The red general has been put where he belongs; the rest is up to you.
WHEN: Harvestmere 28-30... ish
WHERE: Skyhold Dungeon
NOTES: Warnings for very strong language and substance addiction. Fight and capture, still in progress, is here.

day one;

On a certain night, deep into the coldest hours before dawn, a wagon under heavy guard enters Skyhold and passes through the yard by torchlight. It stops at a certain door, and armed soldiers drag its cargo roughly through and down two flights of stone stairs. One of the men left behind spits after it. By midday next, the word has begun to spread, and quickly: there's another body in the cells. Whether through gossip or a proper announcement by the returning war party, it won't be long before a name surfaces, and even the humblest of the Inquisition's agents will know they've cut off the Elder One's despicable right hand. Samson, the general of the red templars, the blighted traitor. They got him.

Separated now from his armour, without the heavy Kirkwall steel and thick horns of red lyrium fused to it, without the nauseating glow to lend him a towering presence and the power to break a soldier in half, he is simply a long-legged man folded on a bedroll with his back turned to the bars. He's been quiet and still, lying just where they left him. Most of what he's done amounts to slow bleeding—and even that's since stopped.
Don't get too excited, now. He's only unconscious, not dead.

During these first hours, only those who've come down to the dungeon on official business will be admitted.


days two and three and beyond;

A few days' time will see him livelier, though not by much. He's since been stripped of his filthy clothes, allowed a cursory wash with a rag and bucket, and given something different to wear. It seems a kind of uniform, fitted with straps and buckles and other odd bits of metal tackle—to restrain him, he reckons, should an authority figure deem it necessary for whatever arbitrary reason. Maybe they'll drag him up for a proper trial, though he doubts it. The hood even buckles closed—for what? To conceal his identity? As if anyone can keep gossip contained in a barracks. So he won't know where they're taking him, more likely. Or so he won't see the swings coming to dodge them.

He sighs, often. Rubs his eyes, his face, massages his forehead. Doesn't eat much of what they bring, can't get comfortable enough to feel rested. He's taken to moving around the limited space of his cell to keep the strange ache in his joints at bay, and trying—failing—to sleep through the headaches. There's nothing for it. This is his life, or whatever little is left of it, as far as he knows: suffering in this stone box until he dies in a haze of pain and madness.

The dungeon doesn't have visiting hours, exactly. Anyone without a legitimate reason to be down here might get in a bit of trouble—one of the prisoners might even tattle out of spite. There's always a guard on duty, besides. But when has common sense ever stopped anyone doing anything in Thedas?

Comments

beyond.

[liberalum]

Dorian has a legitimate reason to be here.

In fact, Samson may even note him exercising it; he wanders by the former Templar's cell without a glance, any pragmatism earned in his flexible brown leathers negated in metal accoutrements that seem to sparkle with light caught even down here, and saucy necklines. He is a trail of perfume and swagger, the latter tapering off into a wander by the time he reaches Gereon's cell.

Whatever their business, it's quietly muttered, consonants only barely scraping the range of hearing, which is struggle enough for Dorian, who tends to talk to the back rows, even in the library.

It also doesn't take very long. There is a stiffness of posture as Dorian steps back from the bars, and doesn't dither around polite farewells or promises to see him again. He turns, and begins on his way out without hurry, grey eyes scoping then to the other occupied cells, few and far apart they are. It's Samson's, however, that catches his interest, and even the ongoing flow of icy mountain air doesn't usher him out the door. Alexius has retreated into the shadows of his cell, rather than watch his former apprentice's departure.

Dorian switches course, coming close enough to curl one hand around a rough iron bar.

"You probably don't appreciate this," he says, because hellos and straight forward introductions are for peasants, "but I might call your quarters something of an upgrade compared to most. The constant waterfall ambience gives it a certain something."

[redinside]

The general's reply comes easily, as if they've just struck up conversation across a bar and not through them: "It's certainly something, all right."

He sounds like he could use a pint, come to that—but looks like it might kill him, given the clammy pallor of his skin and the way he sweats despite the drafts from that outside door. But at least then he'd be out of his misery, and a lot of other people's, besides. For now he's just sitting between the bedroll and the wall, with his back pressed to the stones and the grubby hood bunched up behind his oily black hair, enduring. His boots—they gave him boots, imagine that—are lined up beside him, each with a glove on top. The bottom of each of his socks is dark with grime roughly in the shape of his footprint.

"You a friend of the Magister?" Not his business, you say? Look at him, he doesn't care.

[liberalum]

"Formerly."

It isn't. Samson's business. This doesn't mean Dorian is unwilling to part with the knowledge anyway. He has a way of dispensing easy truths, especially when he thinks his voice might carry, that it might twinge Gereon's sense of passive remorse. Dorian notices the shoes, too.

Rather optimistic of someone, but he's not sure who. "You two must make such unlikely friends. Nothing like the end of the world for bringing people together.

"Dorian," he adds, "of House Pavus."

day ???

[rowancrowned]

He supposes a good number of people are coming to gawk at the caged man; why should he deprive himself of what's seeming to prove an entertaining time for so many? He takes precautions– waits several days so he's guaranteed the chance to be mostly alone, and then drops a glamour over himself the moment he begins to descend the steps. He doesn't want to handle any extra attention from the leaders of the Inquisition. No one need know he visited this Man beyond Samson himself.

The guards and other prisoners do not react as Thranduil enters the cellblock, stopping a solid ten feet before the bars of Samson's cell. He's wary of Templars for good reason, but there's no need for them to know why.

"Good afternoon," he says, dipping his head in a polite greeting. Samson has probably had enough of this, but he is curious, same as all the others. Voyeuristic, even. At his side, the hand with the shard is in plain sight. He has no context with which to judge Samson's actions beyond what he's heard in the months since he arrived— though he's heard quite a bit.

[redinside]

The silence is unusual, to be sure. Usually there's at least a cursory exchange between the guard and a visitor, but perhaps this one is here on business arranged prior. Samson has no way of knowing until he's told, apart from reading a person as best he can—and already this looks to be one of those elves with alien body language. He might just as well try to guess at the intentions of a tree.

"Afternoon," he answers, gruffly; there's nothing particularly good about it. "You here to interrogate, or to gawk? Just so I know what to expect."

"Who's he talking to now?"
"I don't know."
Someone sighs.

[rowancrowned]

"I have a few questions." More than a few, but he won't impose upon Samson's time. He has so little of it left Doubtlessly he's getting tired of being poked and prodded, and Thranduil isn't without some empathy for the man. But his fate will be decided by the leaders of the Inquisition, and Thranduil will have no voice in it. "Not the sort the advisers will ask. I would not have you give up your comrades-- I am only curious."

He settles down on the floor- none of the rotations come this way, and it would be simple to redirect someone who wandered too close. Thranduil folds himself neatly, sitting cross-legged on the cold stone floor. "You are free to refuse. You are also free to ask for something in return."

after a few days

[onlyhymns]

Being not just a Templar, but a Templar from Kirkwall, word reached Cade pretty quickly that one of his old associates has made it into the dungeons. An associate he... frankly, thought he'd never see again, after his dishonorable discharge from the Order. And now, it seems, he's gone beyond that to actively working with the enemy-- or at least was, until he was here.

It's not often that Cade is able to confront ghosts of the past in person. Meredith is dead, many of his brothers and sisters in arms are dead, Anders is alive and well but kept away from him, with good reason. Commander Cullen is a grounding presence, but has already moved well past his days in the Order.
So Cade comes to visit Samson. Dressed in his most official garb, finely-tailored clothes bearing the Templar insignia: not armor, since his knightly duties have been revoked for the time being, but the uniform of a clerical worker. Still a higher rank, in better graces than the man he now looks in on, his jaw tight and his brow furrowed.
Traitor.

[redinside]

That shrew Meredith thought the very same thing of Samson—that he'd simply disappear once she cut him loose. That he'd cease to be a problem. What a mistake that was. But then, this is not the knight-commander's ghost come to stare him down, only a young man, who nevertheless looks as though he's here to settle a personal vendetta. The Sword of Mercy on his clerk's livery holds Samson's attention, just briefly, before that hooded gaze of his finally lifts to meet the visitor's stare with a dispassionate one of his own.

The two of them simply watch each other for a time, Samson seated on the floor of his cell, barefooted and pale, while Cade looms on the other side of the bars.

"Right." Samson's rasping voice pierces the silence as gently as it can; at the same time, he looks away. "Better get it off your chest now while I'm still alive to hear it."

[onlyhymns]

"...traitor," Cade finally says aloud, his lips curling into a sneer. "I suppose you're pleased with yourself." The Order is all but dissolved, the Chantry in a state of total chaos, all as a result of Certain People aiding apostates and then apparently aiding the biggest threat Thedas has seen since the breach itself.
"You should have just died."

Day 3

[tactical_alert]

Malcolm takes no chances. His armour is polished, his sword sharpened, shield affixed to his back. He may not be Cassandra, but he still makes for an imposing figure in his Seeker gear.

He stands before the cage of the creature, this pathetic shamble of a man, face schooled into stern neutrality rather than fury. Rest assured, there is fury.

"A great many people are going to want to know why you did it," he starts, calm but not in the least bit casual. "Why anyone would align themselves with the likes of something that would destroy the world. You. You thought you could help usher in the end of everything."

The hand that rests on the hilt of his sword clenches, but nothing more happens. "The only reason you remain alive right now is because we believe in bringing people to justice. What do you suppose a fitting form of justice would be for someone who twists and abuses and destroys the men under his command?"

[redinside]

Indeed, he may not be Cassandra, but the two of them are equally likely to inspire this prisoner to cooperate, especially in full official garb. If Samson could spit in that all-seeing eye from here, he might be tempted to do it.

"That's not for me to decide, is it, Seeker?"

He, too, speaks sedately—for now—and with a sardonicism so thick you could spread it on toast. Still, he is standing in the cell, not lounging bonelessly against the stone wall like he'd much rather be doing—he rose to his feet when Malcolm first approached. A professional courtesy, perhaps, between soldiers.

"No, that's where men like you come in."

[tactical_alert]

"If only that were the case," he says coldly with a raise of his head, if only to look down his nose at Samson the traitor. (As much as he can look down at someone several inches taller than him, but listen, he's had a lot of practice.)

"I imagine Seneschal Leliana, Commander Cullen, and Lady Montilyet will have a heavy hand in deciding your fate. Should my opinion be asked, I will give it, and if the choice is given to the Seekers of the Inquisition, I will gladly assist." He lets out a slow breath and spreads his fingers. "For now, however, it is out of my hands. Which is perhaps fortunate for you."

Although that entirely depends on what Samson would consider fortunate. The man looks deathly ill even if he stands tall, and given his failures to his lord, perhaps a quick death would be merciful.

"Congratulations, you have indeed helped change the world and usher in a new era. One where all types of peoples gather together to fight against the darkness. Your darkness."

Day 1

[fleurdesel]

Keeping a prisoner alive for future questioning is somewhat required when said prisoner has been thrashed soundly by Inquisition agents in the field. When the runner comes with the request, Adelaide doesn't ask. Simply rouses herself from her desk, tucks a cloak about her shoulders, and slips down to the dungeons to check in on the newest arrival. The Rumor mill already spinning wildly, The Elder One's right hand, the Red Lyrium Knight, whatever else they call him. For her all he needs to be is a body in pain.

Divorcing herself from what must be in his blood and in his bones, from what she'd seen of Christine's writings, of the monsters in the field- of the red gems glittering in the marrow of a corpse in the Fallow mire not one year past is...difficult. Impossible. But she stands at the bars of his cell, waiting for the guard to finish his deliberately slow wandering with the key. All pale skin and pale wool in the cool air, lips pressed thin with distaste and, as ever, Compassion humming in the back of her mind about work that needs to be done. After the third dithering 'wrong key' ploy to make Samson go that much longer without, she snaps, Orlesian accent honed to a vexed point. "Today Guardsman. I should like to see this done and return to my work before the dawn."

[justice_is_blond]

The delay of the key is enough for him to have been fetched as well, and he raises an eyebrow at Adelaide as he arrives. It serves as a mask for his own mixed feelings; he'd met Samson once before, lifetimes ago when the man had helped Feynriel, and then later when the man had helped Thrask. That he's become this now... Anders doesn't know what he thinks. So he covers it even more by crossing his arms and glaring at the guard.

"The sooner you help us, the sooner you'll have mages out of your hair. What bits you have left. I'm sure you'll appreciate that."

Would Thrask have fallen like this, if he hadn't been murdered in Kirkwall? Anders doesn't know that either. All he knows is that this may prove to be interesting, and his eyes finally focus on the man in the cell as the door finally opens.

[redinside]

The man in the cell, such as he is, is still just as inert as he was before the healers came in here making a fuss. The heavy sound of the lock doesn't rouse him, nor will being prodded, nor even moved—not at first.

Taking stock is easy enough when the subject is so tame. Most of his belongings have—of course—been taken, leaving him in a plain shirt and trousers, both stained with his blood and some days' worth of travel filth. The ill-fitting boots someone grudgingly shoved on his feet to prevent them freezing off, if barely, have rubbed his ankles raw.

A bruise spreads like sick ink across his cheekbone, and above it the brow is swollen, the skin split for half an inch just along his eyebrow; it's since scabbed over and left behind old rivulets of blood dry and dark across his face. A few ribs bruised, maybe cracked. The usual minor battle damage here and there, none of it life-threatening. Curiously, his palms have been scratched and punctured more than a few times, some deeper than others. Only a few are fresh within the week; the majority are scars here to stay.

His heartbeat could be stronger, but it's strong enough, and his breath is shallow, but regular. All things considered, he shouldn't be in such poor shape—and yet, the colour of his skin is remarkably unhealthy, and he's been slipping in and out of consciousness for days.

a few days in

[ancarrow]

Eirlys looks absolutely terrified as she peers around the heavy door of the dungeon. Even with Samson restrained and with bars between them, it's difficult for her to see him as simply a man, one who can do her no harm at the present. It takes her a moment to steel herself, but when she does she enters a little way, a basket full of food and medicines hung over one arm.

"If you please, Ser, I've come to see if you've any lingering wounds that need healing."

[redinside]

Perhaps it will be somewhat easier to see the red general as a man when she catches him sitting on his bedroll, in the middle of a very regular, and not particularly immoral, habit: biting one of his fingernails. He blows the clipping aside, to land wherever, and has a proper frowning look at his finger before finally his attention shifts her way.

"Nothing worth fussing over." Which is to say, yes, but he's a Man, he can tough it out. "Though if there's any elfroot in that basket, I wouldn't say no to it." More or less.

His thumb's still rubbing the nail where he bit it. The edge is probably jagged. That's a pretty regular thing, too. His skin's clammy sheen and the bruised look of his eyelids, on the other hand, not so much.

[ancarrow]

The request is one that's so routine for her that it takes the edge off her nervousness a little, even if she does continue to glance warily up at him as she roots through the basket. "I have some of the raw root and leaves, as well as some that I've ground up to take mixed with water - it lasts longer as it's dried, but it's a little less potent. I'll leave you both of them." She tentatively makes her way toward his cell, pushing them through the bars but staying as far away as is possible, half expecting him to jump out toward the front of the cage like a wild animal.

beyond.

[chainlightning]

The dungeons are, oddly enough, a place Merrill frequents. It's not because of the prisoners -- even a little bit -- but because of the griffons. Most days she's more or less ignored; strange elf women cleaning up after griffons while humming are strange, but it is essentially the duties of a servant. Merrill doesn't speak to them, because she doesn't know them; when she is spoken to, it's usually someone telling her to Please Shut Up, which she proceeds to ignore unless it's a guard asking nicely.

Samson, however, is familiar. She hadn't known he was here, hadn't even really known all the details of him being involved in the Red Templars if she had known at all. But she recognizes his face as she passes through, and it makes her pause. She lingers for a moment, hand instinctively twitching toward her staff -- and then straightens herself and walks over to her cell.

"You were in Kirkwall," she says, brow furrowing. "Samson. You were a good man, once. You helped people, I remember." She does not wrap her hands around the bars, though she wants to; they twist together instead. "What happened to you?"

[redinside]

Merrill's question is met by silence and a long stare. He's watching her across the cell's meagre space, his head tilted, his eyes strange in their colour, but calm. Finally, he rasps, "Paths change."

He leaves his spot against the wall, then, and moves toward the bars. Dark stubble along his jaw. The sharp points of a few damp strands of hair creeping around the side of his neck like veins.

"The Champion—you were with her. And the rest of them. Your little group." The memory itself is a small relief.

[chainlightning]

Paths change. That's true enough, but to change like this? It sounds like he is acknowledging that he is no longer a good man, and her brow furrows all the more, eyes watering suddenly. She blinks the tears back -- she refuses to cry just at the thought of his decision.

"Yes," she agrees instead, moving a little closer to the bars herself. The guards will hear, if she screams. "My name is Merrill." Corypheus wanted her eluvian, sent agents to get it, but that doesn't mean Samson knows her name. Besides, it's polite to offer it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't expect to see you, I didn't realize- you helped people. What happened?"

beyond. with bonus elf.

[byblow]

Alistair wouldn't usually be down here—because he doesn't spend much time in the fortress to begin with, because the Vint who tossed Teagan out of Redcliffe and the Warden Commander who oversaw the slaughter of a lot of people he knew and liked well enough and the other Vint who encouraged her to do it are all neatly lined up along a wall, a parade of people who piss him right the fuck off—but he's trying to impress a girl.

"—remind me of cats," he's saying on the stairs. "Mean ones. I've heard they purr, though, if they like—"

He has an apple, stolen from the kitchens along with Sabine and a grease-soaked bag of unwanted offal, and at this moment he tries to do something coordinated with it: to toss it and hit it with his own elbow, presumably to catch it again, very suave, very stupid, and there's the meet cute. The apple tumbles off hishis arm and across the floor and into Samson's cell.

Alistair looks surprised for a moment. Then he looks at Samson. Smiles. "On the house," he says, like he planned it, "if you still eat. Do you still eat?"

it's me, bonus elf.

[glandival]

She looks stolen from the kitchens, too, her hair half undone from a utilitarian braid both from her fidgety hands and the fact it refuses to be tamed for long. Her skirt is simple, boots practical, sleeves rolled, and expression-- well. It's hard to look an appropriate amount of amused without looking so much so that he gets any ideas about the level of amusement he is wilfully generating vs the kind he is generating on accident. A cynical eyebrow raise, and the evidence of a smile kept pinched and small.

Her eyes track the roll of the apple, a faint abortive laugh as it bounces out of reach, before she sees who is within its reach. Her smile fixes, freezes, not quite in fear so much as a fiercer version of the one Alistair has put on his own face.

"Does he purr?" is a quiet echo, aside to Alistair, in lilting Orlesian.

{ beyond }

[aceso]

She's starting to think she has to write her name on a schedule in order to see Samson when no one is around. A few times she's started down the stairs to the dungeons only to hear raised voices, disappointed voices, oh-so-witty voices -- all to see Skyhold's latest prisoner. And since she doesn't want to fight everyone on getting a chance to talk to him alone, she waits. Finally she heads down the stairs to hear only silence. Good.

Approaching his cell, Christine is dressed the way most simple Orlesians tend to dress: a long sleeved shirt, belted, with pants and boots. She doesn't have her staff or anything else to indicate she's a mage, and certainly no Orlesian mask on her face. In fact the only thing on her person is the utility pouch full of medicinal herbs on her belt and a notebook carried in one hand. Standing about two feet back from the bars, she says, "Hello, my name is Christine. I am one of the healers here. I had a few questions for you regarding your health."

[redinside]

No one is more surprised than Samson that he's had so many visitors in so short a time—not that he'd complain. The other prisoners are not always in a talking mood, and even enduring the insufferable self-righteousness of a Seeker is preferable to sitting there in lonesome silence. That's right: General Samson, the templar turned traitor, the man with so much blood on his hands it cannot be measured, is a people person at heart.

And that is why, when another stranger appears with the apparent intent to conduct a survey, of all common things, he doesn't immediately inform her where exactly she can take that health rubbish and stuff it. Instead, conversationally:

"You're not the first healer's come by since they threw me down here."

He's just finished rubbing at his teeth with a little piece of rough cloth—this he drops onto the edge of the bedroll on his way to the bars. His tongue passes beneath his lips, retreats with a quick sucking sound.

"Almost makes a man feel looked after."