faderift | open; and so we burned

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open; and so we burned

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?

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"They do, do they?" Or something, indeed. He grunts. His sideways look is now two-eyed again, and surrounded by a mild frown of interest. "Seems more like a waste of talent to me."

Thrask did occasionally include Harimann in his bitching sessions, Samson recalls, but it was the boy's attitude, not his skills, that were the subject of those complaints. if there's one thing the Gallows was good for, it was grinding young men and women into effective tools of war.

Samson's tone makes Cade want to lash out again, but instead he just turns quickly and paces in the opposite direction, still avoiding looking at the man in the cell. His distress is clearly increasing until Samson makes his observation, and then Cade stops, watching the ex-Templar out of the corner of his eye.

"...it is," he agrees, but then quickly pulls back again, his mind racing. Don't be pathetic, lunging for every scrap of positive attention like a hungry dog. What would the higher-ups think? The higher-ups who are already trying so hard to make him useful again?
"It's for the best," he says uncertainly, in a total reversal of his previous statement.

"Maybe so. Not my place to judge that. But just between the two of us," and the rest of the prisoners in the dungeon, who may or may not be listening, and the guard who is almost certainly listening, "I doubt it."

While Cade moves here and there, the general is relatively still. Only his red-rimmed eyes follow the young knight-lieutenant—or clerk, or errand boy, whatever he is now—while he fusses about and wrestles with whatever's stirring him up.

It seems impossible for anyone to be this easily swayed, but Cade is a special case. He eyes Samson warily, but with doubt that wasn't there before. He crosses his arms anxiously, making himself smaller.
"You don't know," he insists, trying to hold onto his anger, his loyalty to the people who took everything from him. But none of them served with him, and saw what he saw. None of them saw Kirkwall fall apart. They don't know what that did to a person.
"I'm a liability," he adds quietly, unsure of who he's trying to convince.

Cade's words invoke something old, and angry, which unfurls across Samson's entire demeanour like a long shadow.

You've become a liability—one we cannot afford to abide in these troubled times.
For the crime of corrupting a templar, you are hereby sentenced—

He blinks slowly; when his eyes open, they've dropped their gaze to the dungeon floor, where they follow the seams between stones without really seeing them. Some time between then and now, he's folded his arms. Muscles moving along his jaw. This silence goes on well past the point of discomfort, until finally he clears his throat—an uncommonly soft sound coming from him—and says, carefully, "Says who?"

Cade can feel the sudden tension, and has to resist the urge to backpedal, because this isn't a person whose respect he wants. ...does he? Either way, there's nothing to backpedal on.
He's reluctant to answer, and isn't entirely sure why he does at all. "The Seekers," he murmurs. "...but... the Knight-Commander thinks, um... he wants me to have a sword when we travel." Considering he hasn't been allowed to even touch one for most of the year, it's a huge deal.

Samson's lip curls like he's just been given a whiff of sewage. The Seekers, bah. It makes sense there's a few of those here, given this is the seat of the Inquisition's fledgling power, but that doesn't make their presence any more appealing, even without taking his very recent encounter with Malcolm into account. What a prick that guy was... anyway.

"Good to know your knight-commander's got half a brain," he grumbles. Giving a sword to a solder, what a revelation. "How'd you lose it in the first place?"

Cade knew this question was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier to answer. He almost wonders if he shouldn't, not to this traitorous wretch, but it's between honesty and letting Samson think what he wants. Cade can't risk one more person thinking he's a dangerous idiot, even if... well... even if he is.
"I, um," he mumbles, looking at his feet, "attacked someone. Who... didn't deserve it."

The confession settles like dust between them as Samson waits for it to continue. He's silent for as long as it takes to breathe three times in and out before he asks, frowning, "Is that all?" Bewildered impatience pinches his face into a sort of wince, little snarls of skin bunched up by his nostrils. Is that really all, or is this boy just too paralyzed by whatever his problem is to speak in more than one full sentence at a time? "You went off on someone, and they stripped you for it? Maker's balls... if that's how this army's being managed, I'm ashamed to be in here."

Not that he wasn't already.

Remembering this incident is, indeed, generally enough to leave Cade speechless with shame. He only barely recalls what actually happened, but he knows of the aftermath.
"I could have killed her," he adds dismally, folding his arms tightly against himself, "I couldn't... stop." He squeezes his eyes closed for a moment and gives his head a quick shake. "I lose... myself. I can't be trusted." Not that he isn't working on it, but he's still probably more afraid of a lapse in control than anyone else is.

Being a mess himself won't stop Samson judging the messes of others. Observe: he's already shaking his head before those last words fall free of Cade's nervous mouth. He sighs through his nose, long and slow.

"That happens when you take the red. Not that you do. But the more a man takes, the more it heats him up till he can't keep it in. You lose track of who you are, where you are, who you're with. One of my men, boy named Wystan, the madness took him when he was sitting by the fire with some of his fellows—took a sword to two of em before I could get him down." Arms still folded, still leaning on the bars, calmly watching Cade through them. "He was there with me when your Inquisition came for us, out in the Dales. One of my best men. I'd trust him with my life."

A weak grin suddenly surfaces, pulling more at one side of Samson's mouth than the other. "Bet this wasn't what you pictured when you came down here."

Seemingly incapable of smiling, Cade is perhaps less angry, but still no happier with Samson than he was before. This story doesn't change his mind.
"Why did you do it," he asks, turning to look at the prisoner, his gaze still wary but more assertive with his indignation. "...why did you feed it to them?" He pauses, struggles with his thoughts for a moment, then darkly adds, "it's painful. And unnatural."

Samson's good humour will be short-lived, then, as this topic sobers him up at once. With just one exception, he's refused to speak of it in detail since he was dragged down into this hole, and only the longing to be understood by his peers—his former peers—compels him to answer instead of rebuff. So he does, quietly.

"So it is. I know it, believe me, I do, but it had to be done. If it weren't me leading them, it would've been someone who wouldn't've bothered to give it any meaning. They'd have died alone and empty. There's nothing worse than that."

Except, perhaps, living through it.

Edited 2016-11-13 01:29 (UTC)

Cade comes closer to the cell to hear him, frowning in on the general with one hand absently gripping one of the bars. "Or it could've been no one at all," he says in a low, tremulous voice, "and they could've died champions of the just, uncorrupted and ever loyal to the Chantry." His sneer has returned, but not as confidently as before.
"Why weren't you affected?" he asks pointedly.

"I was," he says, watching Cade's hand as it settles close by. He's still at the bars, himself, and his usually hoarse voice softens into the nearness. "I am. It'll take me eventually. But it doesn't hit me near as hard as the others. Even back in my Gallows days, I always thought it was weakness made me need more of the stuff, but that might not be it after all. That's what the Elder One was looking for—someone he could trust to keep his wits about him. His magic did the rest."

One of his arms, the one on top, unfolds partway to rub the stubble under his chin with the backs of his fingers, and shortly migrates down the front of his neck. Quiet rasping sounds of stubble and skin. "Like I said, if not me, he'd've found someone else."

"But it was you," Cade concludes, looking down on him with a scowl, "and now the Order's reputation is even worse."
His righteous anger has been reaching a boil, but as he notices the feel of the cool metal in his hand, he remembers sitting on the other side of the bars. It's getting cold down here, and it's lonely, and it's degrading.
Perhaps Samson deserves it. Perhaps Cade did too. He seems torn as he continues to gaze down at the man, his expression pensive.

"That's a start. If what I've done stops even one youngster taking the vow and getting hooked on lyrium, then it's been worth it." Having slouched into the junction between iron and stone, where the bars meet the wall, he rolls his head into a tilt and looks Cade in the eye. Weariness has suffused every line of his face; even his bloody-rimmed eyes are glazed with it. "It's how they keep you, you know. When they've had enough of you, they'll just throw you away, leave you to wither without it. They don't care how much we suffer for them. They never did."

At first Cade looks offended, but then, once again, Samson's logic starts to worm its way into his awareness. When the general meets his eyes, Cade shifts his away, his expression both stubborn and worried.
"That's not true," he insists, but he can't quite put all his resolve behind it. He's seen that this is true. He was nearly executed for his mistakes, and in the guise of a second chance was simply forgotten, left to fall through the cracks and fend for himself. He is unfixable.

"It is true." The sudden energy of that emphasis implies an oncoming rant, but instead of working himself up into a futile state, Samson scrubs his hand across his face, particularly his eyes, then his forehead. "Blighted headaches," he grumbles, and smoothes his dark hair back unnecessarily; it was already lying flat on his skull, sleek with oil and sweat.

"Listen, Harimann—I need a favour from you."

Gross.

Cade is still of completely two minds when it comes to this interaction, but Samson has instilled in him an insecurity even deeper than that which he already feels on a daily basis: what if his leaders... have been wrong?

"What is it," he asks, a bit snippy with anxiety.

Listen, you'd be gross too if you were in a dungeon, cold-sweating basically all the time. Or didn't care how you looked because your shame spiral was commanding most of your energy. Or were more concerned with scoring lyrium than your own hygiene. He has a lot of reasons, ask him some time.

As if nettled by Cade's tone, Samson's rasping voice becomes a bit sharper. "Bring a big pail of water down and set it right here," he gestures with a loose hand, "just outside the bars. And a dipper with a long handle, so I can reach it. Or get someone else to bring it, I don't care. This thirst is unbearable." The water won't be enough to slake it, not by a long shot, but it'll help in other ways.

Indignant though Cade may be, he is a person who invariably responds to commanding tones. He looks a bit stunned at first, then glances over his shoulder toward the guard, who is... likely bored out of his mind and spacing out, not paying them much mind beyond making sure they're not actively attempting a breakout.
Cade casts a furtive glance back into the cell as he moves away from it, leaving the dungeon long enough to do as he's asked. When he returns, he silently sets everything out, just as Samson specified.

Well. He'd meant later, or when you have a minute, something to that effect—but now is good, if a touch surprising. Cade leaves in silence, and while he's gone, Samson paces around the cell a bit, slowly and aimlessly, moving just to move. At one point he lays his palms flat on the stone wall, and stretches against it with his head bowed between his arms, long and slow, while his breath creaks free bit by bit; when he's done, the rest rushes out in a sigh.
Eventually, the sound of footsteps draws him back to the bars.

"There's a good lad." Once Cade's finished fussing with it, Samson stoops by the pail, scoops out a measure of water, and carefully maneuvers it between the bars. "This would've been a good chance to get your wish," he says, and drains the scoop in one big swallow, looking Cade square in the eye while he does it.

Something tells him it didn't even occur to the boy to poison it.

Edited 2016-11-19 23:17 (UTC)

That something is correct, because it takes Cade several moments to even realize what Samson meant. When it finally dawns on him, he looks scandalized, but also a bit guilty.
"I'm-- not like that," he lamely replies, figuring that's as good a rationale as any. He's honorable, like a Templar is supposed to be. The 'but you probably are' goes unspoken, but is fairly clear in his wary glance down at Samson.

"Didn't think so."

He slips the spoon back into the pail and, instead of standing back up, has a seat right there on the floor by the bars. He's not in a hurry to get his legs unfolded; perhaps this makes him look older than he is. Not that he needs the help. He's lived hard the last few years, and it shows.

Once he's comfortable—more or less—again Samson reaches for the pail, this time to dip into it with his bare hand. "That's all," he says, and uses what little water is cupped in his palm to give the skin of his hands a reprieve from the dry air. His are large hands, with long fingers, the calluses of a swordsman and scars on both palms. "You can go now, with my thanks."

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onlyhymns - 2016-11-21 07:33 (UTC) - Expand

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