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

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."

[redinside]

Without delay: "It may be our darkness, but your Chantry pushed us into it."

After a pause for thought, while he folds his arms across his chest and gains a deeper crease between his eyebrows—a memory surfacing, perhaps—Samson snorts quietly. What passes across his face is like the ghost of a sneer or a smile, indistinct, a glint of one crookedly fang-like tooth. There is defiance in his heavy-lidded stare, and weariness, too.

"I served in Kirkwall, Seeker—I'm no stranger to a heavy hand. So you lot can do your worst."

[tactical_alert]

"The Chantry we both served. Our Chantry makes mistakes. Our Chantry is fallible." These are not accusations to take lightly from a Seeker of all people, he knows. "But Divine Justinia was trying to change things for the better. She had a chance to help end this madness, and your deranged creature from another era sought to destroy it. He saw hope and thus made to snuff it out."

The defiance is almost welcomed. This wouldn't be as satisfying, on some feral level, if he was simply sneering back at a worthless lump on the floor. Malcolm's stubbornness has a chance to rear its head, now.

"I'm sorry that whatever good man was inside of you was allowed to wither away into this puppet. And now that your strings are cut, you have no defense for what you've done."

[redinside]

"I'm not offering any defense, least of all to the likes of you." There it is—that growl creeping into his voice. This is a wound still raw, always ready to bleed again, and he can't help but get his hackles up when someone dares get near it. "The Divine couldn't've changed anything, alive or dead. The Chantry's a monster, poisoning its own children without a care for the damage it does—cut off its head, another just grows in its place. The only way to stop it is to burn the whole blighted thing down to ashes."

[tactical_alert]

"Like the mage Anders in Kirkwall? And how did that work out for everyone?" For as strangely as they've gotten along, at the very least out of the necessity of a mission done, he hasn't forgotten what Anders did.

"Do you realize how many refugees we've taken in because nobody else will? Mages, Templars, and frightened civilians alike? Destroying the Chantry is not the answer. Reformation is. Unless you refute the Chant and spit in the face of the Maker. And given the company you keep, I suppose that is exactly what you've done."

cw: very strong language

[redinside]

"How many children has the Chantry locked away, Seeker? How many's it killed or made Tranquil? How many of its own templars has it ground down and then thrown away when there's nothing left? It's been this way since the damned Divine age. This war is nothing in comparison."

Samson is at the bars now, though he doesn't quite remember getting there—nor exactly when his voice began to raise. But it's up there now, hoarse with anger, and his red-rimmed eyes are ablaze.

"You think you can come down here and corner me in this cell, pronounce judgement on me when you've no right, just to make yourself feel better? You don't know the first thing about who I am or what I've been made to endure!" His finger stabs the air, aimed right at the Seeker, for emphasis. "So fuck off back to wherever you came from, you pious cunt. If I've spat in the Maker's face that's between me and the Maker, it's no bloody business of yours."

[tactical_alert]

"Don't you dare lecture me about what the Chantry does to its own people. Don't lecture me on the mistakes it makes. Don't lecture me when I've seen Seekers and Templars march into a town, into a circle, and murder people that weren't hurting anyone just because someone decided that if they weren't following the strictest of rules based on a religion most of them didn't even follow, then that meant it had to get burnt to the ground."

He has to pause, to breathe, to realize how tight the grip on his sword is, feel the tremor in his body. The memories of Dairsmuid had come unbidden, and now he has to set them back in their little locked box. Must make himself ice to fight the unholy fire of the prisoner.

"I think I can come down here to your worthless little corner and pronounce judgement when that's my job. The Lord Seeker may have turned his back and swanned off wherever he may be, but I'm still here." He hopes Cullen sees reason and gives Samson over to the Seeker trio. They'll make it quick, but they'll make it painful. "What sort of world did you envision would rise from razing it all? Because so far, everywhere Corypheus has touched, it has been nothing but pain, and anguish, and misery, every blighted step of the way."

[redinside]

Good. Samson takes no pleasure from the invocation of the Annulment's horror—but if the Seeker knows that much, perhaps he can be made to see the rest. It'll be a footnote he keeps on his memory of this exchange when he broods over it later. For now, his temper seems to have cauterized itself shut again with that one flare-up, leaving him smouldering wearily where he stands.

"That's what a war does, and this one's been a long time coming. It'll get worse before it gets better... though I don't imagine I'll live to see the end of it. None of them will." But at least his men will die fighting for something they believe in, not wasting away in agony, wondering how the institution to which they pledged their lives could abandon them.

[tactical_alert]

"And if I don't live to see the end of Corypheus's terror, then I would die knowing I did what I could to stop the likes of him, and the likes of your monsters. Because that's what you've turned them into. Mindless beasts with unholy powers. I'm glad to see your job as animal handler eliminated."

He shakes his head with a sigh. Arguing with a zealot usually doesn't end well, but it feels good, in a frustrating way. "And you will die knowing that all you did, you did in vain."

[redinside]

This could go on, maybe for hours, around in circles again and again, but there's no point in it. Samson's anger is sinking down through him to settle deep until it cools, like iron freshly quenched. His guts squeeze around it like a fist.

After the Seeker's final assumption, Samson swipes an open hand at him in rebuttal and deliberately turns from him, grimacing in broad annoyance. It's not a concession, but a dismissal. And to drive the point home, to communicate just what he thinks of this conversation, he moves toward the relief bucket in one back corner of the cell and knocks the lid aside with the side of his boot. After briefly settling into a shoulder-width stance, and bringing both of his hands around front in a way every gentleman should recognize, he looks back over his shoulder, heavy-lidded, lip curled.

"D'you mind?"

Piss off. As it were.