A/N: Dialogue! Dialogue everywhere! Also, I've taken a few liberties with the canon but hopefully no deal breakers. I'm sorry for the unpredictable updating lately. I've finally settled into my new house and a new job so we should be looking at reliable updates once a week.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Chapter 21
The helicopter took Hawke and Genesis half way across the planet and delivered them to a small village about a day's walk away from Cosmo Canyon. Their intended destination was highly isolated and could only be reached on foot as aircraft caused too much disturbance to the region's specialized research equipment.
After a quick equipment check and the procurement of a map the Champion and the Soldier began their trek. It wasn't long before they were surrounded by the rocky vistas distinctive of the Cosmo area.
Genesis was a little taken aback by Hawke's awe at the scenery. He had seen it all before, despite having never actually been to Cosmo. It was just terrain to be traversed as far as he was concerned. To Hawke however the layered rock towering around them in great rust coloured cliffs was utterly breath-taking. At least her wide eyed stare implied as much. Looking a little embarrassed when he commented, she explained that she had only ever seen the muddy fields of Ferelden and the sodden grey headlands of Kirkwall. The vibrant desert had her enthralled.
Genesis found himself eager to arrive; the Canyon was reputed to have centuries worth of archives. The Cosmo libraries were famous, not just for the sheer volume of books but the incredibly variety as well. Tomes long forgotten by the rest of the world could still be found happily resting in the remote Canyon. One need only take the time to find them. Why hadn't he done this years ago?
The piercing sun reached its zenith in the empty sky as they marched on beneath it. Genesis instinctively walked at the brisk pace he would take when leading troops and was sternly reprimanded for it. For all her competency Hawke was proving herself a stickler for not doing things the proper way.
"You're on leave! This is a holiday, stop trying to recreate working conditions." she had said, shielding her eyes against the harsh light with her hand.
He had grudgingly given in to her insistence, though they still made surprisingly good time. Despite her assertions that they needn't march anywhere she still kept pace with him and showed no sign of tiring. Trekking everywhere was clearly not a novelty for her.
Even so, the harsh conditions eventually began to drain even Hawke's enthusiasm for the locale. The endless blue sky and the lack of wind made the heat merciless. It was late in the afternoon when the map led them to a fissure in one of the cliffs. It was the entrance to an extensive cave system that ran right through one of the plateaus and would cut several days off their journey. Finally out of the blistering sun it was so much cooler, but also pitch-black.
Occasional shafts of light did break through the rock, but they weren't frequent enough to be of much use. Genesis pulled out a flash light and Hawke summoned a softly glowing mage light that floated along ahead of them. They continued on into the caverns, the eerie little lights casting dancing shadows all about them.
The occasional shafts of light changed from merciless white to the faint blue of moonlight. The caves became even darker. Genesis could swear he felt something dangling from the ceiling brush against him.
Then something attacked him.
He jumped back in the nick of time and instinctively cast a fire spell only for the creature to spit clinging webs at him and scuttle back into the darkness. He dodged the projectile and shot forward, slicing the monster in half. He could hear the sounds of Hawke stabbing her own attacker.
"Ugh! Is that-"
"Cave Spiders!" Hawke cried with a glee that was completely at odds with the situation. Another appeared out of the darkness and tried to strike her back. She rolled away and sent an ice spell at the creature which stood at nearly five foot tall. The giant spider reared back, its leathery hide dark and indistinguishable in the poor light and its beady little eyes glinting wickedly.
Countless spiders descended from the ceiling and cracks in the walls. The bobbing blue mage light made them look all the more grotesque and malformed. They slaughtered their way through the swarming creatures, dodging the sticky webbing and acidic venom being spat at them. As he cast a barrier Genesis could see Hawke swinging her staff and casting her own spells next to him. She was laughing with utter delight as she stabbed at the creatures and flung them about the cave.
"What is wrong with you Hawke?" he asked, baffled at her reaction. Who in their right mind would be happy to be swarmed by spiders each the size of a cow?
"I haven't seen a giant spider since I left Kirkwall!" She called as she pointed her staff. Her magic picked up a group and smashed them against the nearest wall. She smiled viciously at the gory mess. "I didn't think you even had them on Gaia!"
"How is that something to complain about? Why do you even like these disgusting vermin?" He noticed a cluster of the smaller ones trying to string webbing over the exit. He channelled fire into his sword and ruthlessly sliced through the silken barricade and its weavers.
"Oh, no, I hate the things; the wounded coast is just riddled with the bloody pests. We spent years trying to eradicate them."
He shot her an incredulous look. "And you're happy to see them, why exactly?"
"They're familiar." she said with a shrug. "Sure, they're disease ridden horrors but they're Thedas' disease ridden horrors."
He shook his head.
"Whatever makes you happy, Hawke." he said, burning up the last of the attackers.
"Well, better the enemy you know, right?" she said, renewing the dying mage light.
Ahead of them they could see the arachnids regrouping. Genesis flicked the ichor from his sword and straitened his back. Next to him Hawke's smile turned feral. If nothing else, he could appreciate how absolutely deadly the two of them were together.
The spiders seemed to have formed groups of nests within the tunnels. As they travelled on they would be attacked in waves until they left the infested pocket behind.
"This reminds me so much of the Deep roads." Hawke said, retrieving one of her daggers from a dead spider. "I keep expecting a darkspawn to jump out at me."
"Fortunately that is one thing we don't need to worry about." Genesis said, not bothering to sheath his sword. The spiders would undoubtedly be back sooner or later.
"True. And you don't complain nearly as much as my company in the Deep Roads. I always took Anders with me and he would drag his feet like a leper with a length of rope." she said.
He snorted. "Why bother taking him then?"
"He used to be a Grey Warden. He could sense the darkspawn; we never had to worry about being ambushed." she said as they continued along the path. "It wasn't always a blessing though. The last time we entered the Roads he almost lost his mind." she finished quietly.
"Lost his mind? What went wrong?" he asked. He had heard a lot about Hawke's old companions. Now he felt as though he practically knew the bizarre and colourful characters. Anders, however, was almost never mentioned. He couldn't say why.
"There was this ancient… creature, locked away within the Deep Roads. He called himself Coyrpheus." she started haltingly. "I don't know what he was, an ancient magister maybe, one of the first darkspawn, or perhaps even an unconventional archdemon. All I know is that he was corrupted and very powerful." she examined her gauntlet and tested the joints, as she so often did when feeling agitated.
"Anders, as a Warden, was also corrupted and started hearing Corypheus' voice. At first it was just a quiet present in the back of his mind, but then it began whispering to him. Had things worked out differently, well, eventually he would have done whatever the voice asked of him."
It was a chilling thought. The mention of a 'quiet presence in his mind' sounded uncomfortably familiar. Genesis knew that his own mind had been compromised before he was healed. Would the same have eventually happened to him? Would he have become just a spectator in his own mind? He was unfathomably grateful he would never have to find out.
"But Anders did get his mind back." he said.
"That day, yes." She said with a bitter twist her lips. That was the last she said about it.
"Must you loot every single corpse?" Genesis said, watching with exasperation as Hawke rifled through what was surely the thousandth body that day. "There are hundreds of these creatures and not one of them has had anything worth the effort."
"Yes but this could be the one carrying a one-of-a-kind artefact that will make it all worthwhile." she said, examining the upturned spider. Her previously melancholic mood had been swept away with the endless wave of monsters.
"Or it could have another completely worthless throw materia." he said. Where the spiders kept them he had no idea and had no inclination to find out.
"But we'll never know if I don't check." she said with an irritating smile.
"At this rate an age will have passed before we even glimpse the canyon."
"I didn't like this age anyway. Aha!" she held up a shining green orb of materia, brandishing it as though it weren't covered in spider innards. "I wonder what it is." she pulled it down to eye level and stared through it, trying to divine what it actually did.
Genesis rolled his eyes and stretched out his hand over it.
"Bolt. It's a lightning materia. I imagine it will respond to you readily enough. It's completely unlevelled though."
Hawke's smile grew as she continued studying the orb.
"So how do I use it?" She sent a tiny lightning spell of her own at the materia which resulted in absolutely nothing. "Okay, not like that." she said.
"No. Not like that." Genesis said with a smirk, almost impressed by her cluelessness. "Obviously not like that. If you can conjure electricity without it then why bother with the materia? It's not as though you need more magic Hawke."
"Humour me." she said with a dead pan look.
"Just push unshaped mana into it. It shouldn't be difficult." he said, crossing his arms and taking a few steps back from her.
She looked puzzled at him. "What?"
"I've seen what you can do with lightning, who knows what you'll be capable of with materia."
"Ah. A wise precaution then." she stretched out her arm, pointing the materia at a cluster of spider corpses a good 25 feet away.
"It may take more energy than usual since it's so unlevelled." he said. "Then again, don't use too much either or it might-"
The materia exploded.
Hawke stood blinking in shock, a fine layer of completely pulverised materia coating her front.
There was a moment of stunned silence before Genesis threw his head back and laughed.
She coughed and started trying to wipe the slightly coarse dust off herself.
"What just happened?" she sounded utterly baffled.
"That would be far too much mana." He said, still laughing. "What did you do, throw your entire reserve into it?" He snickered with secret delight, it had been quite a blow to his pride to be so ineffectual at her form of magic, he felt rather vindicated to find her equally hopeless at his own form. That and her look of shock when the materia had blown was both hilarious and adorable.
"It wasn't that funny." she said with no real bite, her own smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She gave up on getting the materia bits out of her hair and sighed in defeat, a small chuckle escaping her. "Well. Never let it be said I don't know how to destroy things."
"I don't think you were ever in any danger of being called harmless, Hawke. Or anything less than a walking catastrophe."
"Good to see I haven't lost my touch." she said with a smirk, "Who needs materia anyway. Rather I shall stick to electrocuting people with naught but my winning smile."
Still within the cave system, the two walkers eventually stopped for the night. They seemed to have passed or slaughtered the majority of the spiders, but they couldn't tell how far away the exit was. Even though they were surely almost at their destination Hawke was glad for the rest. The morning's helicopter flight had covered almost an entire month's worth of walking but had also left her unusually drained. She theorized that her body was just making sure she didn't miss out on any of the exhaustion she would have gotten had they walked the entire way.
Now, weary and covered in the burnt remains of countless giant spiders, she sat heavily in the little dead end tunnel they had picked for shelter. She and Genesis had squabbled over the logistics but eventually it was agreed she would cast as many wards and hexes on the entrance as she could and they would just have to rely on those to keep them safe. Their tiny little cave was now warded to the hilt. Any spiders, or mutant wolves or rogue tomatoes or whatever else this planet could think of would be dead a dozen times over before coming within range.
Meanwhile Genesis produced the provisions he had been carrying and prepared their meagre rations. Evidently, awful military rations were a universal truth. Since the roof was so low and they had nothing to burn they lit no fire. Instead they sat around an overcharged mage light and pretended it projected actual heat. Hawke sat picking spider webs out of her hair. Genesis took off his coat and lay back on it, wearing the sleeveless black shirt of his uniform.
Despite being filthy and exhausted and having just finished a meal of chewy cardboard, Hawke hadn't been this comfortable in months. This was how her life was supposed to look. Awful monsters, miserable surroundings, and entertaining company. Was that too much to ask?
It certainly helped that Genesis looked incredibly fine underneath that coat of his. Not that she was staring. She was most definitely not staring. Her eyes just happened to be passing that way.
She noticed the rather amused look in his eye. He raised an eyebrow.
Caught red handed.
Well, no point in pretending then. Hot damn was he attractive. Hawke had always appreciated a lean but muscled physique and Genesis fit that description in the best way possible. At her thoroughly obvious perusal he chuckled, failing to hide an incredibly smug smile.
Hawke cleared her throat and looked away. What was she doing? Had her dignity suddenly decided it was under appreciated and completely abandoned her? Isabella was probably laughing at her from the afterlife.
"Enjoying the view, Hawke?" he drawled.
"No. Well, yes, obviously." She really didn't see that the point needed expanding upon. The bastard's ego suffered from no lack of pampering.
"Even while I'm covered in dirt and spider guts?" he asked with a teasing smile. "Is that considered attractive in Thedas? Or is it just you?" she could see his eyes laughing at her as they glinted in the light. Well, this situation was clearly beyond saving, she may as well roll with it.
"You're asking about my kinks and fetishes Genesis? You haven't even bought me dinner yet." she said with a coy smile.
"Well, I did provide the MREs." He said with false haughtiness.
"Mm, cold pasta with dried meat from one of seven possible animals. You certainly know how to show a girl a good time."
"Second course will be roast spider."
The next day saw them leaving the cave system at the crack of dawn. Regardless of poetic niceties Genesis was still a military commander with very firm ideas about efficiency. Which apparently included absurdly early wake up calls to reach a place that clearly wasn't going anywhere. Hawke's decade of experience with Aveline's equally strict regulations was the only thing that stopped her from electrocuting him into the next life. His assurances that he wasn't a morning person either weren't particularly comforting to the sleep addled Hawke who was still trying to remember why they were in a cave.
Almost an hour of trekking later and they left the tunnels, emerging from within the cliff to be faced with Cosmo Canyon itself. The little town built atop a rocky hill in the middle of the canyon was just bathed in the first rays of dawn. The dome of an observatory and the red stair cases leading up to the town practically glowed in the day's first light. It was so beautiful both of them just stood and watched for a minute.
Of course it was less beautiful when they were actually climbing those endless star cases which had apparently been made for people with indecently long legs. Halfway up they stopped at a tiny landing before tackling the never ending ladder that would lead to the next landing. The view around them was no less spectacular; the red rock cliffs appeared to be almost on fire. It was well worth the effort.
Hawke turned to continue the climb when she suddenly paused.
"What?" Genesis asked, noticing she was staring at him. Her eyes narrowed.
"I was just thinking, isn't it a shame neither of us have the inexplicable ability to fly." she said dryly. "Just imagine how much time and effort we could have saved if one of us had, oh I don't know, wings?"
His step faltered. His expression was embarrassed for a split second before becoming carefully blank.
"It would have drawn too much attention." he said.
"Yes, I'm sure the barren wasteland would have told all of its friends." she deadpanned.
"And you would have missed out on seeing your arachnid compatriots." he said lightly.
She laughed and began ascending the ladder.
"How terribly considerate of you." she said.
"Yes it was, wasn't it?"
A/N: Thanks for reading! As always, reviews aren't required but are greatly appreciated :)
Next Time: Research and Scandal