#mareth the seneschal

[nirikeehan]

“Halla fur caught on tree bark” for whoever you like?

I. Look I'm sorry.

For @dadrunkwriting

Characters: Samson & Mareth (OC, his seneschal in nightmare!AU)

WC: 701

CW: Samson is a creepy sad sack

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Caught in the dead tree trunk was a soft white tuft, fluttering in the cold breeze. Samson reached out and plucked it with his gauntleted fingers. He couldn’t feel it, but it looked downy and delicate. 

“Halla fur, that is, ser,” chirped his Dalish seneschal from behind him. 

Samson let out a long-suffering sigh. “Did I not say I wished to be alone, Mareth?” 

“Er, so you did, but Lieutenant Rylen said you’d been gone so long that I should look for you. The column is near ready to march again, milord.” The redheaded elf peered over Samson’s shoulder. “I was sure the halla’d all have died out, what with the…” He gestured vaguely up toward the churning green-grey sky.

 “Are you saying there might be one alive round here?” Samson demanded. 

Mareth shifted his weight from one foot to the other, scratching behind a long ear. “Possibly. On their own they sometimes travel in herds, but… I wasn’t sure there’d be any this far east. We’re a long way from the Dales.” 

Samson was only partially listening. He brought the tuft of fur to his cheek. The sensation was intense — the fur was cool and warm at once, one of the softest things he’d ever encountered. These many months encased in heavy, burning armor, and the many years before that, sleeping on the hard cobblestones or the humble templar’s bed, it didn’t matter which. Comfort was only a vague concept to him. 

He remembered his dream; the girl’s silky skin had been near as soft as this. And there’d been a halla there too: a giant stuffed specimen, for the express purpose of fucking on its back. He quaked a little, aroused. Samson knew little of halla, aside from the brief glimpses he’d caught while on assignment for Corypheus in the Emerald Graves, but the thought of Thalia’s legs snaked around his waist, the two of them pressed against the velvety fur of the majestic creature, her breathy moans in his ear—

“How easy are halla to hunt?” Samson asked, cutting off his own reverie. 

“Hunt?” Mareth stared at him, aghast. “Halla are not creatures to be hunted; to the Dalish, they are the most revered animals of—”

“I don’t care what they are to the Dalish,” Samson sneered. “I care about whether we’ve time to kill one.”

His seneschal looked ready to either faint or be sick, perhaps both. “I am begging you, that would be a most cruel thing to do. If the halla are not already extinct, you would put them one step closer to their grave? Merely harming a halla would be desecrating our most sacred beliefs!” 

Samson loomed over his subordinate. “Does it look like that matters to me? Do you forget, Mareth, you’ve a new god now, our good lord Corypheus?” 

Trembling, Mareth shook his head. He stood to his full height, which was still a good head and shoulders shorter than his boss. “O-of course not. Milord.” 

“Good. You’d best keep that in mind going forward.” 

He opened his mailed list and let the tuft of fur waft into the air. Mareth dared not reach out and snatch it, and soon it was lost among the rest of the rotting forest. 

“Speak to my men. Surely there’ll be a platoon to spare for a side mission. Have them report to me at once.” 

Mareth let out a resigned sigh. “Yes, ser.” 

Samson stalked past the elf, headed to the Red Templar war camp. They were to march, of course, but if one unit could track down a halla for when they reached Thalia’s hiding place, so much the better. Was he fool enough to think she might be excited by the idea? Considering how boring things were bound to be between her and Cullen, maybe. Perhaps he’d have to talk her into it. That alone had its appeal; the women normally at his disposal submitted themselves to his whims with nary a peep, and it was only recently he didn’t have to pay them for the favor. 

No, it would be nice to have an equal at last, even if she might prove skeptical now and again. Samson allowed himself a secret smile.

[nirikeehan]

Oh no, Niri, here I am, ready to angst up your DADWC evening. Here's one from the 'Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows list': lachesism, or the desire to be struck by disaster. I THINK WE BOTH KNOW WHO I WANT THIS FOR, but dealers choice my friend, do what feels good.

I absolutely forgot this didn't even say Samson on it, but that's who you're getting.

A direct continuation of this, probably slated for the next chapter of Through A Glass, Darkly.

For @dadrunkwriting

WC: 992

CW: vague references to suicidal ideation

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Samson awoke shivering, head ablaze with pain. 

He tried to roll over in his camp bed, but landed on the empty bottle he’d been clutching the night before. He grabbed it with one trembling hand and squinted down the neck. Not a drop left. He swallowed thickly. His mouth felt like cotton, the headache shooting from his eye-sockets to his teeth. 

He hauled himself up, planting feet on the floor. It was all coming back now: his war pavilion, the caravan on the move, his men ready to strike when eyes were sighted on the enemy. They camped in a desolate patch of Orlesian forest at the base of the Frostbacks, where intelligence stated Lady Thalia had holed up. 

Samson staggered to the nearby wash basin and splashed water on his face. The table had contained a looking glass once, but somewhere along the way it had shattered. (A flash of his fist, wet with blood and flecked with shards of glass.) Only the baseboard remained, and he stared at it while grasping at the fleeting tendrils of his dream. The water dripped from his chin. 

 The girl in his grasp, naked and willing. And — a child? And Maddox too, still alive. Samson forced a guffaw, wincing at the intensifying pain. Wishful thinking, that’s what they called that. 

Still. There’d been a lightness in his chest in the depths of the dream. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that carefree. Never, maybe. 

He wound his way around the ornate furniture in his pavilion — the General must travel in style — and reached the cabinet containing a full array of bottled ruby red. He popped one open, took a hefty quaff. The headache receded at once, taking with it the tremor in his limbs. He came up for air, then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his nightshirt. The fog lifting, he remembered: he’d be late for the war council meeting if he didn’t hurry.

“Mareth,” he bellowed. 

His elven seneschal appeared at once. He was looking more harrowed as of late, carrot-colored hair sticking in all directions around his long ears. “Yes, milord?” 

“Help me don my armor. I’m to meet with Lieutenant Barris on the hour.” They’d likely be taking to the field today, and it wouldn’t do to let the troops see him without his iconic vestments. 

With a quick nod, Mareth hurried off to the far corner of the pavilion. Samson’s favorite blades gleamed on their racks, many hand-forged by Maddox. (The gap-toothed girl stood by Maddox’s forge, watching him fold the molten metal over and over itself with the singular awe of a child.) Mareth dashed past the weapons to the dummy fitted with Maddox’s prime achievement: the set of black metal armor, inlaid with the largest fragment of vermilion crystal worked by mortal hands. Even across the room, the steady hum of power reverberated from the armor; Mareth grimaced as he disassembled it piece by piece. 

Samson stood still as the servant dressed him. Invigorated by the red lyrium coursing through his veins and fitting to his body, his mind wandered to the tasks set before him. Retrieving the Inquisitor was of utmost importance. He needed to secure her before Corypheus knew she was gone from Skyhold. If he could renegotiate the terms of his prior offer, so much the better. (He could feel her naked flesh, soft and sweet under his touch.) For that, he was hopeful. She was alone, separated from her paramour, and under the thumb of Madame de Fer, to boot. Samson knew from prior intelligence that Thalia had never got on well with Vivienne — he was confident he could appeal to her. He’d had the dress made, after all.

Cullen remained the wild card. Missing still, every report claimed. Dead, maybe? Samson could only be so lucky. Thalia would never return to him if the oaf remained alive.

“A-are you very nervous, milord?” Mareth piped up as he tightened the straps on the cuirass. 

“Nervous?” Samson grumbled. “Why would I be nervous?”

Mareth shrugged. “I dunno. Eve of battle, and all that?” 

It occurred to Samson that Mareth had never been on the frontlines before. Before his promotion to seneschal, he’d been a gardener or some such. “I used to live for this. The thrill of it.” 

“You did?” Puzzlement mixed with horror in Mareth’s voice. He snapped on the greaves, his skin seared from the proximity to the red. 

Samson smirked, thinking back to the days of his youth, when he first held a templar sword in his hand and at last knew he’d found his purpose. He’d put other recruits to shame in the practice yard, even the lordlings promised to the Chantry at an early age, practically born to it. Knight-Commander Guylian had seen promise in him, the streetwise ruffian others would’ve been happy to leave down in the gutter. He’ll wash out of the competency exams, the noble asses whispered amongst themselves as a balm for their wounded pride. He can’t even read. 

Then he’d learned, the book stuff coming to him with surprising ease. Marks as high as the rest of them. 

I knew I was onto something with you, the Knight-Commander had said at the initiation ceremony, handing him his sun shield. 

If only being a Templar had been all that was promised. Noble warriors were one thing — the degrading, humiliating work Samson had done quite another. And then the fall, and the spectacular slog that followed, when he’d found himself belly-crawling again in the muck. A lyrium-starved desperation clung to the memory of those years, culminating in a ghost haze after the Chantry explosion and the city had collapsed into ruin. He began to desire… not a quick end, exactly, but some sort of glorious disaster. Something that would make others look and point and understand his sacrifice. See that he was the unsung martyr. 

Instead, they’d nearly made Cullen Rutherford goddamn viscount.