Chapter Text
With Meredith’s bootprint fresh on Samson’s ass, he doesn’t land on his feet in Lowtown; he lands on his hands and knees. He crawls for the first few weeks until a supplier for smuggled lyrium finds him, foaming and fidgeting in a dark corner of Lowtown. The lyrium helps him focus, helps him move from a crawl to a stumble, helps him manage.
He manages to find a flophouse to sleep in, manages to keep himself fed if he visits the food stalls right before they close. The days he manages to keep himself from getting sick from want of lyrium, and manages to keep himself healthy enough to work, are good days.
Samson works the docks at night as a loader. It’s day labor, every evening bringing the dread of not being needed but it keeps him in almost enough coin to make things work. He manages to never drop any cargo and manages to not to mouth off when the crates get heavier as the night wears on.
He shows up to stand on the stones every evening before the loading shifts start, and the foreman points at him and sends him down the wharf with the other loaders for a night’s work.
He works on small crews of three or four, packing boats with sacks or barrels or crates or whatever comes down in the cargo nets from the dockside cranes and down into the hold. Kirkwall’s harbor is too shallow for the deep hulls of the cargo ships, so smaller boats are loaded up with the cargo and sailed out to meet them. The cargo is transferred from the boats to the ship, the anchors are pulled up, and the ship sails away.
Tonight’s loading is going as well as any. He moves quick, chatting with the two other loaders working with him for the night. He stacks a sack portside, and brushes at something buzzing at the back of his head. All kinds of vermin live in these holds no matter how much they clean before and after loading.
The buzzing returns as he drops off another sack. He remembers the sensation: it’s someone pulling for their magic.
Only a few pieces of cargo are left in the net. He can handle that amount himself and get the boat cleared.
He spins on his heel, arms open wide, and claps his two companions on the back, “Would you look at the pair of you? Worked clear through the night and worn down to the bone.“ He smiles, "How about I do you both a favor and finish stowing these last few sacks while you piss off to the Hanged Man?”
"And why would you do that?” scowls the stout one, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
He pushes them towards the rope ladder that reaches out of the boat’s hold, “I’ve got me a soft heart, you could say. Buy me a beer or three when I come by in a bit and we’ll call it even.”
“Seems fair,” shrugs the pretty one. “S'only a few more of ‘em there,” he motions to the four sacks still in the cargo net. The stout one shrugs in concession before she starts the climb up the rope ladder.
Samson unloads another sack as they climb out of the hold. “There’d better be a beer waiting for me!” he shouts up as they pull themselves over the lip of the deck.
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll have your beer,” the stout one shouts down.
He turns back to stow two more sacks. He speaks to the boat in low, even tones as he moves, "You from the Gallows, or you looking to stay out of there?”
Samson can hear the rustle of their robes, the scrape of their shoes on the wooden hull. He sets the a sack down on the starboard side, “You smash your phylactery before you dashed off tonight?”
The buzzing at the base of his skull gets stronger, it makes his eyes water. He unloads another sack before pressing the heel of his hand into his temple, “Guess not.” He blinks to clear his vision.
“I-I-I have to… I have to get out,” the voice that creeps out from behind the stack is thin and tight.
“Figured you weren’t out for a midnight stroll. Got a plan for what you’re gonna do when this boat meets up with the big cargo ship out there?”
Samson grunts as the buzz intensifies. It forces him to double over to keep his balance, “I want to help but I can’t with your magic swelling like that. Ain’t got the tolerance for it like I used to.”
“How do…”
Samson’s afraid to tell them he’s a templar, afraid of them doing something drastic, of them asking for 'help’ from something in the Fade. They’ve got to trust him, though, and trust isn’t built on hiding things.
“I’m-was… I was a Templar before Meredith threw me out for passing letters for a mage,” he spits her name out.
“Templar Samson?” A tall, gangly girl with dark brown eyes, curly yellow hair, and tawny skin steps out from behind a stack of flour sacks.
He straightens up as her magic ebbs, “Just 'Samson’ now, if it’s all the same to you, Chalan.” He remembers when she was brought in to the Gallows as a child; all tears and snot, and wailing so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. He remembers reaching to give her something to wipe her face with. He remembers watching her recoil from his metal-clad hand only to scream louder, for the buzzing to intensify, and for her tears to start freezing to her face. He remembers the quick-thinking enchanter brushing past him to comfort the girl, and Samson falling back into line without a word. A reminder that he wasn’t trained to comfort.
How her hair managed to lighten, and her dark freckles never disappeared despite the lack of sunshine for the mages in the Gallows, he could never figure.
"So it’s true then? The letters?” Chalan steps towards him, her eyes wide. “I mean, we’ve all seen Maddox-”
“It’s true,” he grumbles, the wounds are still too fresh, the hate is still too hot. “No time for stories though. They still got your phylactery, which means you don’t have much time. Also means you can’t stop running, you know that, right?”
“Running is better than… than… the Gallows,” Chalan wrings her hands, cracking a few of her knuckles.
Samson nods. Seems like they both have stories that don’t need telling tonight.
“This boat’s meeting up with a ship headed for Rivain. You got anyone there?” he asks.
She shakes her head. No, course she doesn’t. He tries not to think about how little she really knows of the world outside the Circle and its books. Tries not to laugh at how little he knows outside of the Circle. No one writes books on how to feed yourself, keep yourself clothed, and keep yourself safe in a city.
Chalan cowers as footsteps knock along the deck overhead. They don’t sound heavy enough to be templars, and they aren’t moving very fast.
“It’s the ship’s crew getting ready to sail the boat out,” Samson pulls on the rope holding the empty cargo net a few times, and it’s winched out of the hold. “They know the loading’s done. Now we shove off and meet up with the Rivaini ship out in the bay. Last chance to head back to your bunk in the Gallows.”
Chalan shakes her head, arms stiff at her sides, “I’m not going back.”
He nods, “Let’s get you on that ship, then.”