Someone To Fight For
Chapter Twenty-Six
"Get the reading and I'll watch for sandpeople," Zenith says as he sits down against one of the large boulders next to his rifle, props his hands behind his head, beneath his lekku, and fixes his eyes on the wide, empty landscape of sand, sand, and more sand. Behind him, he hears Gaerwen settle against the sand.
"You know, if I had known you would have been disinterested in this, I would have brought along Tharan. I imagine he would have appreciated the geologic and meteorological science behind Tatooine's creation…" she trails off, but then adds, "or maybe that nice geologist from Makeb."
Zenith rolls his eyes and drums his fingers against the barrel of his rifle. Her words ring partially true; surveying the fissures for meteor pieces isn't interesting to him. He'll never say that he's bored aloud, not to her. Their excursion across the Jundland Wastes has been anything but thrilling and exciting—not that he needs that constantly in his life—but it's been relatively uneventful, and that makes him suspicious.
"Wow! I found it. You really ought to see this, it's so huge! Definitely extraterrestrial, maybe if I just zoom in a bit…" he hears the faint crumbling of rocks, then a high pitched scream, more crumbling, and he sits up immediately to move to the cliff's fractured edge.
Zenith finds her not knelt by the edge, but what appears to be a meter or so down the side, dangling from a protruding ledge. Her eyes are wide as she panics, struggles to hold on as her fingers start to slip.
"Gaerwen! Gaerwen, you need to calm down, breathe for a moment—"
"Zenith, this is probably a horrible, horrible time to tell you that I'm…" she glances over her shoulder and whatever color remained in her face fades, "I'm really, really, really, really, really, really, scared of heights!"
He leans over the edge after settling against the solid, secure slab of rock. He extends his hand, using a raised notch in the rock as some form of leverage. Gaerwen looks up and takes his hand. Immediately, Zenith lurches forward and he digs his knee into the rock to support himself, then carefully starts to tug her upwards with both hands. When she's dangling freely, with only his grip holding her, she swings her legs erratically as she desperately tries to find solid footing to push off of as well. At one point, her foot slips again, and she slips somewhat in his grip. Her eyes fall downward, and she shrieks again.
Zenith holds onto her tighter. "Look at me, Gaerwen," he grunts, "trust me."
Her eyes flash upwards again, and though she continues to writhe, he manages to raise her up far enough that she can pull herself onto the ledge with his additional support. When they're both back on solid, sturdy, sandy ground, his body feels sorely numb, and Gaerwen continues to cling to him as she hyperventilates. Zenith sits up carefully, groans again as his back protests, and helps her into an upright position.
"Next time, try not to let curiosity kill you."
He knows that's what she needs to hear, one of his sarcastic comments to lighten the mood, and Gaerwen laughs shakily.
"Never a dull moment, right?"
Zenith smirks. "No, not around you."