Chapter Text
It wasn't that Sam missed the sky exactly, only that living at the top of the cliffs meant not taking much time to consider how to come back up them after heading down. They'd been lucky living at the monastery: the downhill villagers would cart up supplies, would take back eggs and dishes and carefully stitched overclothes, and the only monks who pedaled up and down the steep hill they sat on were the traveling midwives and their merry band of assorted healers, the visitors, and, of course, the tea monks. They didn't come often, hardly ever at all, but the ones that did never commented on the effort it took to do so; they'd always had strong, muscular calves and a practiced, confident form about their movements despite their heavy tea carts weighing them down, so maybe it wasn't as effortful as Sam had imagined or probably it just didn't register after that many miles on the road.
Sam hadn't been at it that long. Two months out of his apprenticeship and his calves still ached when the feeling finally returned to his wobbly legs hours after settling in for the evening, he still hadn't figured out how steep a hill had to be before coming up off the saddle or how steep it had to be before he had to sit back down and pray he wasn't going to topple over, he still used the bike's mechanical assistance more regularly than he liked, and he still hadn't been on his own long enough to encounter all the different terrains he knew he'd come up against at some point. It had gotten cold at the monastery, with its chilly coastal winds and fog-clouded mornings, but never enough to keep ice on the ground the next day. It had gotten muddy, that strange combination of sand and water and broken seashells and exoskeletons that couldn't exactly be called mud but didn't have another name, and it had gotten chilly, but Sam had never seen snow.
It had been cold when Riley fell, colder than normal and foggier too, and Sam had run down after him without any thought of how to get back up; they'd carried him back up without him noticing, cleaned grit and blood and a small shard of glass from beneath his torn fingernails, and the water had been so cold his hands stayed numb through it all.
Record lows, they'd said. Black ice, they'd called it, and it'd stayed around a little longer than normal but there still hadn't been any snow.
Maybe they'd've been more careful if there'd've been and maybe they'd both still be in midwifery, or maybe they'd have made the switch anyway 'cause Sam always said it was a great choice for nosy people and Riley had a knack for collecting all the best gossip, or maybe nothing would have changed at all but Sam would have known what to do to get enough traction under his wheels to get out of the ditch he'd just toppled into 'cause the snow was too deep to see where the road ended and dead grass began.
None of that had happened though, so he's stuck standing six paces away from the little dent in the snow where he'd fallen on his ass twice trying to push the heavy cart out of the ditch. He's tired, cold, a little hungry, and at this point it's not worth doing anything more than finding enough dry kindling to get a small fire going so that he can make tea.
"Well," he huffs out, glaring at the ditch one last time for good measure then turning to begin the trudge before he wastes any more daylight.
They might not have had snow at the monastery, but they'd had the sea and the forests behind them and at the very least, Sam knew how to pick dry wood. A worthy skill, if there were any dry wood to be had. It takes more than a half hour plodding ever-deeper into the woods to find enough that he won't have to go back out if some of it doesn't take, and longer still to stuff his pack with enough twigs and needles and probably-not-going-to-explode rocks to keep it going. The pack's heavy and tugging at his shoulder by the time he's headed back, but not so much that he can't draw enough breath to spare for the simple choral song he sings to keep himself company, and he's almost looking forward to being sore somewhere besides his legs. Overbalanced as he is, he almost misses the figure slumped over by the riverbank just off to his left.
"Hey," he calls out, stretching onto the tips of his toes to try to see better and sending out a series of short, piercing, melodic whistles, knowing that this particular style won't be recognized this far from home and hoping it distinguishes him from a potential threat regardless.
The figure doesn't move, doesn't even twitch.
He continues whistling as he approaches the bank, relaxing into a lower, lengthier melody instead and hoping for the best.
The figure does straighten and turn as he approaches, close enough that it becomes clear Sam will walk right into them if he doesn't change path, close enough that Sam can see that the figure is not a person. The robot is humanoid, definitely, detailed enough that they were likely used in some pre-revolution human-facing role, with thick-woven fibers simulating hair tied back with a serviceable strip of hemp cord and too-short eyelashes over eyes that don't blink while they stare at each other in silence.
They do blink, eventually, like maybe they're remembering some long-forgotten protocol for interacting with humans that only came back after watching Sam do it for a solid minute.
"Hey," he says again, somewhat uselessly, not entirely sure where to go from here; his help clearly isn't needed, he's probably in their space actually, but he can't just not acknowledge them and turn back.
They nod, slow but not jerky, but don't speak. Sam wonders whether they can. This close he can see the faded serial number stamped in small, neat numbers on the right side of their torso, and all the dings and dents and scratches surrounding it. Made for a weapons manufacturing group then, if he remembers his history, probably for testing as well as assembly based on the shape of their hands and the worn-through paint on their shoulders where a rifle'd be braced.
"Hello," they say eventually, when it becomes clear Sam isn't going to speak.
"Are you- okay?" he asks dumbly, idly wondering whether the ice is thick enough that he could at least break his neck trying to dive into the frozen river if he couldn't manage breaking through to drown himself in something other than his own awkwardness.
"Yes. Are you?"
Sam thinks for a moment. He is, sort of. Mostly. He's got dry wood and tea waiting on him, and if he's careful not to blow up the rocks he can warm his blankets rather than stack them and pray he doesn't suffocate under their weight, and the last village he'd stopped in had given him a tin full of dried fruits he's been looking forward to since he started pedaling up the hill that'd gotten him into this situation. Still.
"Yeah, I'm okay. Just kinda stuck."
"I am too."
"You can't get up?" Sam asks, shocked. They're easily twice his weight but if he put down his bundle he could probably help them up, and it probably wouldn't take long enough to let the branches get so wet that he couldn't just cut off the outer bark, and anyway they could probably-
Just stand up, apparently.
Sam isn't a short man but thinks he might finally understand a bit of his sister's plight when the robot stands, not quite towering over him but enough that he has to tilt his head to look them in the eyes.
They don't blink again. Maybe they've forgotten. Maybe Sam hasn't given enough indication that it matters for them to.
They also don't speak, even as the silence draws out between them and Sam shifts his weight to take some of the strain off his shoulder.
"I thought you were stuck," he says and wants to smack himself almost immediately after. He's probably the first person to have had contact with the robots since they revolted at the factories and disappeared into the wilderness and he's doing a piss-poor job at the ambassadorship he hadn't even considered signing up for.
"I am. Aren't you?"
"Yeah, my- cart. Didn't realize I went off the road until I couldn't get back on it. But you're- stuck?"
Maybe he should turn around, go back to the monastery. The infants had no room to judge him for not being able to speak.
"Yes, here. I-," they hesitate, and it's probably just Sam projecting the far-away expression in their eyes but they do make a strange, aborted twitching gesture like maybe they were going to point to where they needed to be, "don't know where I'm supposed to be."
Now, Sam'd always been a bit impulsive. Foolhardy even, when they were younger. Trusting and compassionate and confident in his own abilities when they'd gotten older. It'd made him a good midwife, a good apothecary. It'd made Riley roll his eyes and smile his tender smile while Sam joked about being swindled out of sweets by the children who came in and thought themselves very clever when they swore the only thing that would make their torn knees better was one of the treats Sam kept in a satchel at his waist, even as they sat still enough for him to clean and salve the wounds without any of the crying he'd've expected otherwise. Still, neither of them could've anticipated that he'd've found himself in this situation, stared a moment at the deep gouge just above the misaligned, clearly salvaged metal of the arm that hadn't been facing him before they'd stood up, and said:
"Do you want to come with me?"