open; left to the wind and rain

[redinside]

WHO: Raleigh Samson + a star-studded cast
WHAT: a prisoner is brought from Skyhold to Kirkwall
WHEN: first half of Harvestmere, some early evening
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: General warnings TBD, if any.
Inquisition authority figures: I am a slave to your whims; summon this character to meetings etc as you see fit.
Everyone: got an idea not hinted at in this post? Hit me up.

Right, then. Here he is. The one place he was sure he'd never see again, except maybe on its way to ruin, smouldering, the Reds marching through. But that's Kirkwall for you: the rest of the world could be in flames and through the smoke you'd still see the shape of the Gallows. That horrible, wonderful silhouette, getting bigger as the boat bears you across the bay. Your heart thumping you from the inside to remind you, as if you need any reminding, that this is where you belong.

This is where I'll die, Samson thinks, as his feet finally alight on the wood of the dock. It's where I was always meant to die.

While he's being hauled along under a serious guard of five armed templar soldiers, for once it's done without the hood of his prison togs buckled around his head, nor with a heavy hand pushing forward the back of his neck to alter his silhouette. Propelled by giddy dread, he keeps up with them easily despite the chains. He's not smiling or anything so foolish, nor does he particularly feel like smiling, but all the same, he probably doesn't look as penitent as he should...
Oh well.

The group travels up the docks to the stronghold entrance, through forbidding gates and guarded archways to the cobbled yard of Templar Hall, up those long stairs, and inside, no doubt on some official business. From there the prisoner—still under heavy guard—is escorted to the Mage Tower, through the common areas of the lower floor, up to the main residences above, and beyond them.

The group moves efficiently, but not at a hurried pace. Should they pass anyone who wishes to address the prisoner, the retinue will tolerate verbal exchanges—get too close, however, and gloves will reach for sword-belts in warning. These particular templars are not fooling around.

The ultimate destination is a floor occupied by no one else: there Samson will be allowed to dwell, in a room of his own, without black bars, without vermin, where he may easily walk to a window and look through it and see the sky. There, with both fists clutching at the bedding—of modest quality, but immeasurably more comfortable than where he was—he cries himself to sleep like a child.

Comments

[limier]

The door shuts behind her.

A rarity, without an escort. If she's gone to him, it's not born of respect but a reminder: One of them may leave the room unwatched. After so long buried in Skyhold's bowels, it must be a startling amount of space — of privacy, or what passes for it —

She has her own opinions of Cullen's recommendation, and where it might shoved; she knows better than to waste her capital on arguing it. Her hands fold behind her back to survey him, hasn't come armed. (Guards at the door, and too little trust he'd not go for a blade.)

"You might have removed the hand."

Hello. It's been a while.

[redinside]

Guards are always at the door, that's an old fact by now, but this is the first time that door has been and stayed closed after a guest has come in—and just look who it is, too, paying the first confidential visit. The prisoner is standing by his bed, his hair still damp from a bath, barefoot and half-dressed and quick in the process of correcting it on short notice. He greets Coupe with a pinched smile, like he's fondly revisiting the memory of an old injury.

"I might've," he answers, the momentary flash of his pale belly gone as he finishes pulling the buckled garment down over his waist. It's the usual prison garb; he dare not press for anything more civilian. "The thought never crossed my mind. As it is, I've been fortunate to've kept all my pieces intact. Anyone else tried it with theirs?"

Like this is just another common visit, like they do this all the time. Only, his back's straighter than she'll have ever seen it, and his feet square up as he faces her properly—evidence of the Commander's discipline, no doubt.

[limier]

She doesn't look away: they're feeding him more, he looks less a corpse.

"Talk only," Her chin tips, expression stays. There's no flask in her pocket today, no sad little story, and gone is any trace of the country in her speech. "Thus far. Maker knows when one will get the balls."

It's a matter of time until selfishness and a torniquet align. But none among the Inquisition's rank have been so thoroughly fucked by their decision to stay as Samson must be (would be, if not for Rutherford). Claim what they might, the guards had lost him, and any dog in a trap will go for its paws.

Unless the trap is a lesser chance. He must have some expectation of how the Venatori would receive him — of how his own troops might. There's no story today; not yet.

"Have the terms been made clear?"

[redinside]

Coupe's choice of words gets a token grunt of amusement out of him, and that's all. No smirking, no sidelong leering glances. There is, though, a faint impression of—maybe not fondness, but something adjacent to it. He's not unhappy to see her, anyway.

Ah, yes. The terms.

"They have. More or less." To complete the formality, to make sure they're all reading from the same script, he recites, "I'm to be put to work as the Inquisition's officers here in Kirkwall deem fit—or to any other official use, scientific or for research or what-else. Within reason." No pieces removed, thank you very much. "I'm not to leave the Gallows, except on official duty and under guard. If I fail to cooperate, I'm to be punished as the officers deem fit. And," he adds, with a certain glint in his eye, "my ration's not to be adjusted without the Commander's approval."

Standing there firm-backed, arms still by his sides, no shuffling his weight around, like he's become used to it again. His left hand rests in a relaxed fist; occasionally it squeezes.

thran will be taggin in

[aestivation]

The packet of pages beneath an arm is routine; if they'd usually be voluntary too, well. Casimir doesn't make those decisions, and he certainly isn't concerned by them. Research sustains itself only upon information.

He arrives with Thranduil — rendered dwarfish for his height, in dull robes that can't differ much from those Samson knows better. Hasn't troubled with a smile, or anything in the way of expression, just waits at the end of the room and regards him as though from dark glass.

"Raleigh Samson," It's distant. Of course it is. "The Provost will see you."

[rowancrowned]

And look, here comes decisions, certainly improved in station since the last time he creeped on Samson. He waits behind Casimir until the man catches Samson's attention, and then he steps forward, easy with his hands at his back.

"So," he says. "I understand you've found yourself with a shard," how will that even interact with the Red Lyrium that crawls through Samson's bloodstream; Thranduil hardly wants to imagine that at length, "and in our keeping."

Back where he started. The poetic elements of Samson's fate do not escape Thranduil. His attention slides from Samson's face to his quarters, absently ticking over the furniture, the room itself. "Casimir has a few questions we have all the shardbearers answer. It is on the survey, but I would know if it is still hurting you."

[redinside]

This time, Samson is made aware of the appointment with enough time to see himself adequately prepared, and so he's just standing up out of his chair when the secretary is allowed to pass through the door. He has chairs now, you see: two of them, placed by a modest table. And a bed, with a frame, and a stuffed mattress, elevated from the floor (if only just). The room lacks a fireplace, but making up for that is a stout iron brazier with a bowl deep enough to go on smouldering through the night. Given all this, and more, perhaps it's no wonder that he hasn't bothered to ask for any clothes other than the prison standards to which he's become accustomed.

So the secretary arrives, and the prisoner is there in his prisoner's clothes, standing tall and wearing a curious frown, which fades when Casimir comes fully into the room and thus fully into view. In its place settles a gentle sadness—it's not pity, but the signature of a deep and honest ache, completely beyond Samson's control to conceal. He attempts to mitigate it by pressing his mouth into the polite ghost of a smile. This is not the first Tranquil he's met since he left the army, but his thoughts of late have scraped that weakness raw. He can't bring himself to speak a reply.

The elf's arrival stuns him into continued silence. Provost, is it? Of what? Our keeping? Who are we, then? Maker, but that's a tall elf... look how splendid he is... those memories must not have been warped by the thirst after all.

His focus is slow to coalesce; but thankfully, not so long that the Provost will have had to repeat himself in the meantime. An almost robotic look down into his own left palm, prompted by the question, finally snaps him back to the present moment.

"No," he rasps, and lifts his gaze to meet that of the elf, after an involuntary detour to his aide. "Not at the moment. I can feel it there, but it doesn't hurt." Then again, he thinks, his perception of pain is undoubtedly skewed.

[aestivation]

"Proximity will lessen discomfort." To a point. There's no cause to house him with the rest of the shardbearers, at least. Casimir sets the papers upon the table, approaches. "If I may?"

He offers his own hands to take, broad and marked by the particular callous of delicate tools (held too long; gripped too tightly).

There are questions to be asked; there's confidentiality to consider. If Samson can’t know to open a rift, he and the Inquisition are safer for it. All the same: That both hand and blood might thin the Fade?

[rathercommon]

She catches sight of the prisoner when he's being brought in. It's hard not to - it's quite the production, half-a-dozen guards in clanking armour and their hands on their swords. He's not the first prisoner who's even been brought into the Gallows, she expects, but you'd expect prisoners to be hauled to some dungeon-like room. But he's brought to living quarters. It's so odd. She doesn't understand it at all. And the subtle little questions she puts to some of the others - their answers are quite unsatisfying.

So she takes to following him, sometimes, when he's out in the Gallows. Not in any obvious way: she just finds business to do in the places where he is, assigns herself to tend to gardens or sweep up dust when he's in the area. And she watches. What, she wonders, is so special about him, that he's accompanied by a guard everywhere he goes? Who is he?

[redinside]

It is odd, isn't it? Samson hadn't quite believed it, himself, until he was left alone in his room. Even now he's still in a bit of a daze, always half expecting this little vacation to come to an abrupt end due to some bit of intelligence or other, some detail he refused to share during interrogation, some technicality they've been saving to use against him. This is why, when he notices he's being shadowed, he lets it carry on for a few days more. Let them see what he's up to, then. Record his every mundane habit. He couldn't care less; in fact, he expects it.

After those few days more, though, the mere sight of this girl begins to irritate him.

Today he's sitting at a small table on the terrace of a courtyard garden, messing around with what looks like an embroidery hoop, complete with fabric and needle and thread, when that familiar shape materializes in the periphery of his attention. Now, he could do his best to ignore her. He could, of course, go elsewhere. If he really wanted to make a fuss, he could even involve the guard assigned to him, get her into some trouble. These are some of the reasonable options available to him.

But, no—ultimately, the prisoner opts simply to raise his head, lower the craft hoop to his table, and stare directly at her.

Let's see how she likes it, then.

[rathercommon]

Unfortunately, perhaps, for Samson, this is Kitty Jones. He meets her gaze, and she takes a moment to feel a little prickle of unease at his sunken darkened eyes and sallow skin - and then she stands up, and moves over, and flashes a little smile at his guard before sitting down across from him.

"Hullo," she greets, leaning forward to look at his work. "Are you doing needlepoint?"

And then she lifts her head and gives him her winningest smile.

[redinside]

This girl, whoever she is, or thinks she is—this girl leans almost into Samson's space, and, rather than sitting back to maintain a polite distance between strangers, he remains just where he is, unfazed. His eyes, unsettling as they might be from a distance, are truly strange: heavy-lidded, bloodshot, pupils wide, pale hazel irises rimmed in a colour not unlike drying blood.

After several long and heavy seconds of deliberation, he answers with an affirmative grunt: "Mm." The work itself, if it can even be called such at this stage, amounts to a few stitches and more than a few holes where stitches used to be. "Found it slipped under my door last night. Not as easy as it looks."

The hand holding the threaded needle is shaking faintly, minuscule misfires brought on by the pinch of his fingers. He has yet to stop watching her face.

(The guard, meanwhile, observes the pair of them steadily.)

[libratus]

Ilias is not a conspicuous person by nature. A life spent weaving between the grieving and the restless dead has left his steps light and his bearing unobtrusive, a grey shadow against the drapes in a grandfather's bed chamber or marring the wallpaper of a child's nursery. Or, today, lingering behind the stone arch of the bath house, robes neatly folded atop a nearby bench, when a pair of Templars bring their charge in to wash.

There have probably been rumors. He doesn't tend to listen very closely to gossip -- most tells you more about the speaker than the subject, and he has better ways to occupy his time. But a man brought in under guard creates a certain impression. Ilias stands still as marble, long enough to watch said guards come and go again, though he expects not far. Longer, before raising his voice just enough to address the stranger.

"Are you permitted company?" is asked simply, without trepidation. Not Should I leave?, but Should I avoid drawing attention?

[redinside]

This, tonight, will be the first bath he's been permitted to take without a long-suffering escort hovering nearby. They might have needed a few days to be sure he wouldn't drown himself, or fashion a bar of soap into a weapon, or what-have-you. The odd hours he's kept so far may have something to do with it; the less likely he is to encounter any other residents, perhaps, the more they're willing to allow. Or it could be his babysitters have just had their fill of keeping watch over his bare arse.

This noble task falls now to someone else, apparently.

Startled by an unexpected voice, Samson lances the perpetrator right in the eyes with a bright scowl, though it quickly loses its ferocity as he allows his attention to wander. Seconds of wary appraisal, lingering briefly in every place you'd expect. He blows a quick breath through his nose, then, and continues on his way to the washing area, where he drops his few bathing implements on a low bench and begins to disrobe with his back turned to the stranger.

"You can stay if you like. Makes no difference to me... or to them outside the door, so long as you don't try anything funny." His belt falls to the tiled floor with a muffled clatter.

(They've spared him the indignity of wearing that buckled chest harness at all hours, thank the Maker. The hood's bad enough...)

[libratus]

There is a towel at least, held half twisted in one hand but covering the essentials well enough. The rest — it seems he's not so modest as to shy from a wandering eye, save for a ghosted motion toward his chest that never finishes. "I will try to restrain myself."

With that, his off-hand drops again, but as he scoops up his own soap and pads toward the tub two over from the other man, that abandoned gesture's destination might come into clearer focus — a thin line of white that follows his sternum, as if there'd been a string beneath the skin at the notch of his collarbone, and someone had plucked it and pulled. His attention flits toward the Templars once more. Maybe there's a reason he chooses to bathe when most people aren't.

Or why, when presented with the sort of man who must inspire a thousand invasive questions, Ilias opts to ask none of them.

"You are a Marcher?" he hazards instead, dipping a shoulder to test the water. "From Kirkwall, or— forgive me, I am still developing an ear for the accents." Keerkwall comes out thick enough to spread on bread, in his.

[redinside]

So this one's got a little sense of humour, then—good. A person who can crack even the driest joke is much easier to be around than one who insists on being grim all the time. As for Keerkwall...

"Heh. Well, you've nailed it regardless." A pause while he pulls the heavy shirt over his head, shakes it back into more or less the shape it's supposed to be, drops it over the bench as well. His broad back shows a scattering of freckles—more properly named moles, perhaps, or beauty marks if we're feeling fancy—and a few scars typical of a soldier who's seen his fair share of battles. Nothing especially out of the ordinary there. He is, however, not in terrific shape; to one accustomed to studying anatomy, this is clearly a body in transition, either to or from a state of ill health. "Was born out on the eastern coast, but spent the greater part of my life in Kirkwall. Lived most of those years right here on the island, in fact."

There's only one thing that could mean, really.

Boots kicked off, trousers and smallclothes shed, modesty given nary a thought, this lean and naked fellow spares a moment to tug the bench a little closer to bring the soap and whatnot within easy reach—and he even uses his foot to do it so he won't have to bend right over in front of company. You're welcome. Finally, Samson climbs into the basin without any fuss and sinks down, and down, until his height forces him to bend his knees out of the water. A long breath sucks in, rushes out through his nose.

"They ought to build these longer," he says, his head half hidden by the rim of the tub.

[doneisdone]

[On one lonely evening, a small packet slides under the door. There's a note within, bearing no indication of its sender, but it reads:]

Try not to go mad.

[The packet also contains an embroidery brace with fabric already clenched into it, a needle thrust into a spool of thread, and a little scroll with handwritten instructions on basic cross-stitch.

Have fun.]

[redinside]

[He will have fun, thank you very much, if only out of spite. Whoever you are. Mysterious gift-giving admirer.

Needlework is perhaps not the ideal pastime for a man whose fingers tremble during most of his waking hours, but what the hey, he'll have a crack at it. Why not.]

[notched]

Every night, she traverses the rooftops of the Gallows like a cat. It is a manageable affair to crawl around the island, which in its entirety she sees as a jail although she knows well enough they think themselves civilized in only having specific areas meant as holding pens. She is not terribly convinced about the civility of this land. She thinks them naive to all that can go wrong in a city, how deep into the earth that wrongness can go.

She knows which rooms are empty, which staircases unguarded, windows unlocked, which turrets she can jump from and not break her ankle. It had only taken a few nights to establish this, and now she wanders the patterns she's fleshed out in her mind over and over again. She checks in on the naive, sitting in the dark across from their windows and watching their own patterns play out. The dull mundanity of their rituals. Some of them talk to her. Some of them never even notice that she was there.

She notices the new light in his tower window. The first night a curiosity, but then its reliability draws her to it. Who is this new lantern in her dream? She watches from the dark at a distance. Then finds a perch nearer on a steeple, and then even nearer on the nose of a gargoyle that spits water from its open maw when it rains.

She sits. She watches. And then she throws one pebble.

[redinside]

One pebble to summon the princess locked in the tower. Alas, this princess doesn't have quite enough hair to make the story a classic one, but his lack of abundance in that aspect is, perhaps, redeemed by his many other charms. Charms such as his strange discoloured eyes and their haunted stare, and that crease between his eyebrows that never quite seems to go away.

As it happens, he is not convinced of this land's civility, either—and he was born and raised in the Free Marches. But that is neither here nor there.

The room appears residential; it is sparsely furnished and just as gloomy as the rest of the Gallows. Its resident glances toward the door before he stands to investigate, leaving a book behind on his chair. He approaches slowly, but not in fear, and leans to peer through the thick glass and into the darkness beyond. A tall shape in the candlelight, broad shoulders, narrow waist. He looks ill.

[notched]

It's almost easier to smell her than to see her in the dark. The leathers she wears have a distinct order of blood and char, a tang of something indefinable at the edges of it all. But then she shifts closer and makes herself obvious, a woman with expressive childlike eyes peeking over the edge of a high collar, dark hair in a tangled swoop to one side of her head.

"I noticed someone new in this tower."

A lazy gesture with her gloved hands meant to smooth over this fact, as if it were normal to observe such a thing, normal to act upon it like this. She is much more at ease in this skulking and whispering than she ever is in the daylight.

"Am I disturbing you?"

[redinside]

He's still got his hand on the window's latch when the apparition draws near enough to see—then he draws it back, not with a jerk of fear, but slowly, as though in the presence of a wild creature. Is he not? This is a figure he can imagine clambering over rooftops like a lizard, bright-eyed and silent.
Aha, it speaks.

"You are, a bit," he says, slowly, on the careful side of casual. After tilting his head to give her a more obvious, curious look over, he clasps both hands on the sill and leans out, head and shoulders, to look down into the darkness, and beyond it, the warm pools of torchlight in the square below. Back up to her, then, the grit in his voice somewhat smoothed by its hush: "Did you climb all the way up here?" Obviously she did; the incredulous why is implied.

Being closer now, she may see the detail of his strange eyes, their pale irises, limned in the dull red of drying blood.

[onlyhymns]

After their brief encounter, Cade has been unable to put out of his mind the idea of finding Samson. Was it really him? It had to have been, didn't it?
Several queries, flights of stairs, and polite discussions with the door guards later, a quiet knock heralds his entrance, the door creaking open and Cade peering inside like he can't quite believe what he's going to find there. Even after his eyes lock on Samson's form, he looks like he's seen a ghost.

[redinside]

The prisoner is still rising to answer the knock at the door when it opens, and that nervous face peeps in, with its halo of curls and everything. The moment of recognition hangs there temporarily, Samson standing there with his forehead wrinkled, not quite standing up straight, his hands hovering at his waist—and then he relaxes into correct posture, and he smiles. His brow, however, bears the crease of a frown.

"Harimann. Well, colour me surprised... usually it's the higher-ups let themselves in. You gone and gotten yourself promoted while I was gone?"

If this is a ghost, it's an unusually corporeal one; there's definitely a soft sound when he scratches his head.

Which, by the way, is clean. The rest of him appears to be clean, too, right down to the nails on his big bare feet (though no number of baths will wash that haunted quality away). He's even got a new prison uniform. Truly, they spared no expense.

[onlyhymns]

It takes Cade a moment to realize Samson can't possibly have known, and it can't be an intentional dig-- can it? He's taken aback slightly by the question, but just shakes his head. "I just... asked," he murmurs, and straightens with a look of minor paranoia. Samson doesn't need to know, yet, that he's no longer talking to a Templar. Maybe he never needs to know.
Fat chance of that, but, still.

"You're..." Cade stammers, realizing he immediately forgot what he was going to say, "...you look well."