Chapter 6
Hawke sat up at the bar at the Fat Chocobo. The TVs behind the bar usually played chocobo races, with the one of the far right showing motocross, but tonight they were all tuned to the same thing: Shinra's victory parade. The Wutai War was over.
Zack was in the parade, even though he hadn't seen any action. She caught sight of him, marching with enthusiasm. There was no sign of Genesis, though his picture popped up on the screen alongside Sephiroth's: the war heroes.
He didn't look Blighted. She wondered if the photos were just faked. Maybe that was why there was no sign of him in the parade: the infection had taken hold and he was hospitalised somewhere. It was impressive enough that he had survived the war let alone contrived to win it.
Her months of research had produced nothing whatsoever. As far as anyone knew there was nothing like the Blight on Gaia and the nurse at the local clinic thought she was making things up to get out of work when she tried to describe it.
The legend of the Great Calamity that wiped out the Cetra had some interesting parallels, but that didn't spread across the world and raise an army of darkspawn. It just... went away.
Why were there Blight-infected SOLDIERs in a world with no Darkspawn, no Deep Roads, and no hibernating old gods? It was enough of a mystery to irritate her. She had even furtively cast a healing spell on Zack at one point just to check, but if he was infected too then it was in such early stages as to be undetectable.
It had taken her brother, Carver, less than twenty-four hours to go from strong and healthy to collapsing on the cold stone floor of that filthy cave.
She squinted at the healthy looking photo of Genesis flashing on the screen over the rim of her beer glass.
Around her the bar was slightly drunker than normal. That was about the only real reaction to Shinra's great triumph. She wondered at it. She played cards with many of the other regulars and they were from all walks of life, a couple of them even ex-Shinra, though there were no current employees that she knew off. Some were refugees from Wutai. If anybody had an opinion on the way the war ended, they didn't say it.
Or perhaps they just didn't say it around her.
Reno settled onto the next barstool. "Yo."
"What are you having?" she asked. "First round's mine."
"I'm not sticking around."
On the screens the president began a speech and the barkeeper switched it to mute and someone started the jukebox up again. Reno leaned closer and spoke quietly, his breath sour with old cigarettes.
"You and the flower girl need to get out of town for a couple of days."
Her hand stilled at the base of her half empty beer glass. "Why? Who are we running from?"
"Us," he said with a wink. "Don't look so jumpy, we keep you around for a reason."
She raised an eyebrow. "Thanks."
"You're welcome, not everyone gets a tip off. If we go looking for you over the next three days its real important that we don't find you, yeah?"
She tapped her fingers across the surface of the bar, her thoughts racing. She kept him around for a reason too, but she hadn't expected it to come up so soon. "This isn't just a song and dance before you kill us, is it? You can do that right now and save us all the bother."
He snorted. "Course not, I know where you live, why would I do more work than I have to? This is on boss-man's orders."
She nodded. "Three days?"
"You heard me."
"I did." She knew some people, had enough money and goodwill that she could get them discretely out of town for a couple of days. Where to, Kalm? No, too close. Fort Condor was too far, and any of the little villages between were so small the appearance of two strange women would cause a stir. That left Junon. It'd be expensive. She'd owe some people afterwards. The cost of living, she supposed.
She gave him a jaunty salute and got up.
"Oh, and no need for flower girl to worry," he said. "We'll keep an eye on the little old lady while you're away."
She looked back at him. "That's awfully kind of you."
"It is, isn't it?" He grinned. "See you Tuesday."
The Turks weren't watching. Aerith looked out the window at all the little lurking spots they thought she didn't know about. Whatever else was going on, whatever Hawke had done that they suddenly needed to leave town, what mattered to her was that right this moment, nobody was watching.
She threw some clothes into a bag and ran back down the stairs.
Elmyra wasn't thrilled, but she understood. When was the next time she would get a chance to see the outside? If the Turks were telling her you to clear out of town that was exactly what she was going to do.
"We'll be safe, mum," she said, hugging her around the waist. "Don't worry."
"Don't tell me not to worry," Elmyra said, holding her close. She pulled back and looked sternly at Hawke over Aerith's shoulder. "Be careful, please, both of you. Junon is still a Shinra city."
"Of course," Hawke replied, then the goodbyes were over and the two mages swept out the house, unobserved. Unhindered. It was a dark and humid night, the green lights of the plate's underside blinked hazily in the heat waves far above them. They wove a roundabout route to the next sector.
Aerith kept looking around nervously, but Hawke lead the way with an unhurried stride. Looking for all the world as though they were off to the church like any other night.
Just going above the plate had been big. Aerith had dreamed of it and made up fanciful plans for how she might pull it off. This was something else entirely. She had never left Midgar and knew she never would, that was just her lot in life. But here she was anyway.
Every step felt like rebellion, it didn't even matter that it was done with permission. Maybe she could find the descendants of the Cetra tribe that settled in the Junon fishing village. Maybe she would never come back. Maybe the Turks would lose sight of them and they could just… disappear. Travelling the Planet was a very Cetra thing to do, she thought. Nobody knew how long Cetra lived, maybe that rosy cheeked matriarch in Junon would still be alive. Maybe she would be impressed.
A mud splattered vehicle pulled up near the outer limits of the sector and Hawke spoke quietly to the heavily armed driver. They looked like they knew each other.
They got into the back and the truck took off into the night.
The drive was winding and confusing: the route poorly lit and the cracked roads shiny with oil spills. The windows didn't close all the way up to the top and the smell and heat were even worse inside. Without warning the city limits appeared and the road got darker under the shadow of the gate. Then it passed them by.
Outside Midgar the moon was shining.
Cold and dusty wind whipped at her hair and made a dull roaring noise through the car. The heat dissipated and the stickiness of nerves and humidity on the back of her neck dried. Silvery plains spread out around them. She plastered herself to the window, and fell asleep watching it speed by.
The roar of the wind had stopped when Hawke shook her awake. Something smelled salty. She cracked an eye open and saw a cocky grin in front of blue sky.
"Sleep well?" Hawke asked.
"Very well, thank you," Aerith said, closing her eyes again and trying to lean back into the comfortable spot.
She shot back up a second later. Hawke stood back with a laugh.
The car had stopped at a look out spot. Below them tiered rows of houses marched down into the sea, and then there was nothing but ocean, grey and glinting with the soft light of early morning. Thin clouds like shredded ribbons decorated the sky, slowly falling apart in the wind.
She stood in silence and soaked it in. Hawke stood next to her and breathed in deeply. Black and white birds called to each other from balconies and awnings above. Only the shadow of Shinra's massive cannon pointing out at Wutai tarnished the view.
"If only it stank of rotting fish and I could think I was home," Hawke said. A jagged smile tugged at her lips.
It didn't feel anything like home to Aerith. It felt grand and unknowable, and like something a Cetra should feel comfortable with. It made her ache deep down in her chest.
"So," she cleared her throat and pulled herself up. "Where are we off to first?"
"This way, messere," Hawke said with a flourish and enough drama to bring a smile to Aerith's face. She gestured to the building just next door: a very sparse motel of a sort Aerith recognised from Midgar. Hunter hotels, they called them. For civilian monster hunters and rough travellers. They didn't ask for ID.
The two checked in, dumped their things, and then launched out into the city.
It wasn't a tourist town, most of the residents were military families: all around them troopers and SOLDIERs on leave spent the day with their loved ones. The two of them held cameras for others and pretended to have already taken their own photos. They ate expensive things, window shopped, and looked out at ships on the horizon from binoculars mounted on lookout posts. They joyfully pretended they belonged and had a wonderful time.
After a morning full of stalling and hoping maybe Hawke would bring it up so she didn't have to, Aerith looked down over the edge of the upper city, but it hung out well away from the shore. She couldn't catch a glimpse of the fishing village below the airfield.
Hawke watched her from the corner of her eyes. "Ready to go have a look yet?"
Aerith staunchly ignored the skittish nervous that had been building in the pit of her stomach all day. She smiled and nodded.
The way down lead them away from the uninterrupted sea and blinding midday sun, into a rickety elevator so dark they could barely see. It didn't look like it saw a great deal of activity. Creaking, it took them down, down, to the shore. The doors opened to a village under a city on a plate.
They looked all evening for some mention of the last Cetra. Anything at all. Nobody had heard of them. Some of them residents didn't even know what the word meant, and when Aerith explained they said the Ancients had died out a thousand years ago. Everyone knew that.
They ran out of places to look. There was a cordoned off archaeological dig beyond the city limits but it was high security in a way Hawke didn't know how to sneak around, and nobody even knew what they were excavating.
Aerith looked out across the pebbled beach. Clumps of black seaweed streaked across it and abandoned fishing boats sat pulled up past the tideline. It didn't smell of salt, it stank of rust, rot, and oil. Even the seagulls weren't interested in coming down here. Living without the sun was familiar to her, but Midgar had a grimy determination to it. This place felt like resignation.
Shinra's beady eyes weren't watching them down here. Nobody was, there was nothing worth watching. Until now she had never considered the despair of that.
Her eyes rose to the electric pylons rising up from the water. Angry tears sprung to her eyes. It was stupid. She knew, she knew better, but she'd let herself hope.
"Maybe they integrated with the rest of the village," Hawke offered awkwardly at her side. "Maybe these people are their descendants."
"Mixed up and watered down," she spat. "Like how I am. A half breed."
"Don't call yourself that."
"It's all the same! Don't you see?" Aerith flung her hands up at the city above and its hard line of shadow that cut through the water. "Stealing even the horizon for themselves, always, everywhere! They all died under a shadow Shinra built! Same as mothe- same as I will!"
"You aren't dead yet." Hawke said, suddenly vicious.
Aerith faltered in the face of it. "It doesn't matter. What's the point?"
"You might be the last but you are here. You are alive, you have a chance," Hawke said, her voice low. She put her hands on Aerith's shoulders and leaned down to look her in the eye, uncomfortably serious. "You're angry. Good. Be angry. Remember what those fuckers did to your family every time you see Reno or Tseng following you around, and when you have the chance to do something about it-"
"What chance?" Aerith scoffed wetly.
She straightened. "We make our own chances."
Aerith swallowed. She wanted to ask what she meant but she saw a terrible fire in the eyes of the alien woman and lost her nerve.
She wiped her own eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed.
"I'm just tired," she said.
Further along the beach someone screamed.
They both spun to look. A giant serpent slithered up out of the water, chasing a little boy.
Two staffs slammed into the pebbles and Hawke's ice froze along its body and Aerith's shield sprung up around the boy.
Genesis walked the length of the Mako Cannon and looked out at the sea. A wind had picked up and the distant water was choppy and sparkling in the sinking sun, vivacious and bright. The simulations didn't do it justice.
He sat on the very end of the canon and considered destroying it.
He wasn't meant to be up there, but he was a newly minted war hero and who was going to stop him? He and Sephiroth defeated Wutai in Shinra's name and now the company ruled the whole world. A lifelong dream fulfilled and every ambition he had ever entertained. What a monster he was.
The rot within him had grown with every step across Wutai's burning fields. An ache in his spine lingered at his lower back, and his offhand wouldn't stop trembling. It might have been a trick of the light but he could swear his complexion had turned ashen. If Hawke was even still in Midgar, what were his chances of finding her in time? Perhaps this was his due. To die with as little dignity as he had lived: just another of Shinra's leashed monsters. Nobody had even noticed that he was slowly dying. Or perhaps they had and simply didn't care.
He had destroyed this canon often enough in simulations, how would it feel to do it for real?
An empty gesture at this point. It wouldn't buy back his life or honour.
"When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end, the goddess descends from the sky…" he began, but faltered. The next lines were too optimistic.
"My friend, the fates are cruel," he tried instead and that felt better. "There are no dreams, no honour remains. The arrow has left the bow of the goddess."
A commotion rang out from below. An attack on the fishing village?
He couldn't see from this angle, but his enhanced hearing picked up the racket of combat. The crack of lightning and a monster roar. There were no defences down there, Shinra didn't care enough about the village to guard it.
He threw himself over the side of the cannon. His coat flapped in the wind as air rushed past and he spun to look back at the shore. He cast Float and his speed slowed to a crawl.
A burst of lightning lit up the darkened sea and shoreline, cast not by the monster but by a hauntingly familiar woman with strange armour and black hair.
Hawke raised her staff with a yell. Lightning thundered.
The serpent blasted water magic at her, distracted from the little boy and Aerith further up the beach. She redirected it with an ice spell, sending up curving frozen walls and barricades.
The monster reared up, towering over them. One of Aerith's earth spells rang out, a low tone barely on the edge of hearing. Long ropes of kelp reached up from the water and wrapped around its body, dragging it back.
It thrashed around, throwing up sand and water. Some of the kelp tore, but more strands wrapped around it on Aerith's command. It lifted its tail from the water and lashed it at Hawke. She leapt out of the way. The kelp tightened. Her lightning crashed down on its head. It screeched and shot magic around wildly.
Sand, pebbles, and wooden boats exploded under its blasts. Iron rivets shot in every direction and Hawke hissed at the stinging impacts but kept on casting. Lightning arced from her staff. Armoured scales cracked and burned.
The kelp snapped. The monster swung its tail and knocked her to the ground.
Its spike filled mouth loomed over her. She threw her hands up and blasted ice into its throat. It choked and reared back. It hacked and screeched, thumping its head against the ground in pain.
Her skin tingled with the burn foreign magic.
"Barrier!" she yelled to Aerith, scrambling away and raising her own shields.
The air warped with a spell she didn't know.
Red flashed, and the serpent's tail fell off, sliced clean in two. A familiar SOLDIER in a red coat landed lightly on the beach next to her, his sword glowing and dripping red.
"Hawke," he said with a tilt of his head.
"Stealing my kills again, tut, tut, tut," she replied with a feral grin.
The serpent roared.
She slammed her staff into the sand and a barrage of lightning bolts shot out. One of Aerith's barriers sprung up around the two of them.
Genesis lifted his hand out to the serpent. A materia glowed red at his wrist. Hawke raised her staff to throw ice spears into the gashes in its flank.
A Spirit sprung to life in front of Genesis, facing the monster. Hawke's swore in surprise and misfired, ice shards exploding. The spirit took the form of a tall blue woman, with long white hair and thin flowing silvery clothes. A freezing mist trailed along her feet and thick metal cuffs armed her wrists.
Hawke's fingers tightened around her staff. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
The Spirit of Wisdom flung ice stronger than any she could, a row of spears that shot through their opponent's side and head.
The serpent collapsed into the surf. The spirit turned back to face them.
"Now then," Genesis said, sheathing his sword.
"Hawke," Wisdom called, with a voice that shook the earth.
Genesis whirled back around in surprise.
"Free me," she called, her face haggard. Her eyes shone steely grey. "Please." Then she faded away, and the glow at Genesis' wrist died. Only a fine frost lingered where she had stood.
The two of them stared at the empty spot for a moment, stunned into silence.
Aerith approached quietly.
"What, on the Maker's green earth, have you done?" Hawke asks quietly.
"What have I done? What did you do to my summon?" Genesis asked, staring at her like she had sprouted horns. "She spoke! And she knew your name. Who are you?"
"You bound a spirit of wisdom to yourself," she said, her voice low. She had heard of such things done before, it was a cruelty that corrupted the spirit into a demon. But the spirit hadn't corrupted, it still looked like Wisdom.
Genesis lowered his brow, looking as confused as she felt. "I haven't bound anything."
"That was the Shiva summon," Aerith said, standing at Hawke's side. "The lady of ice. I didn't think they could speak."
"They don't speak." Genesis's hand rose to his wrist. He looked searchingly at the two women. "I never thought to ask whether or not they could."
"What do you want?" Hawke asked.
"Only a moment of your time." His hand dropped and he stepped forward and lowered his voice. "Where can we go to speak?"
She glanced down to Aerith then regretted it. They had come all this way to hide her from Shinra, and now a SOLDIER was staring her down. She couldn't invite him back to the motel, but she didn't know how to get rid of him or hide Aerith without drawing more attention.
"Or, if you would prefer, I have a place in the upper city," he said, when she didn't answer.
"No, that's alright. This way." She turned and walked back to the elevator into the upper city. She wasn't going to take Aerith to a place he controlled and from where there might be no easy escape. They could simply change motels after he left.
The sounds of two sets of feet crunching in the pebbles followed. When they stepped out into the upper city it was to a cold wind in the dark. She mentally scrambled the whole walk back, under yellow streetlights and palm trees flapping in the wind. Were all summon materia bound spirits? Was that why the fade was empty? Why did he have one? What did he want, and what was she supposed to tell him?
She knew herself well enough to tell that the Spirit's appearance had rattled her. She wanted to reach for a knife and twirl it around in her hand, just for the grounding comfort of it. Her dumbest tell, Varric called it. She refrained.
She paused when they reached the motel. Genesis hid the disgusted twist of lips at their lodgings half a second too late. Aerith hung back and tried to look inconspicuous.
Hawke sighed and crossed her arms.
"I'm happy to talk, Genesis, in exchange for a promise."
"Oh?"
"Promise you'll tell no one about me, or her. Not that you saw us here, not that we spoke to you, not even our names."
He raised a curious eyebrow. "Who are you running from?"
"No answers until I know you won't be passing them on."
He placed a hand over his heart and spoke quietly. "I'm here for my own reasons, not for Shinra or anyone else. You have my word. None will hear of you from me."
"Thank you." It was the best she could do. She lead them up the stairs and into their little one room apartment.
She expected Genesis to make a fuss about the locale and perhaps try to avoid touching anything. Instead he went directly to the only couch and sat luxuriously like it was his rightful throne and they his supplicants.
He unbuckled his sword and propped it up against the side of the couch in a practiced and pointed motion. Hawke replied by unhooking her staff and leaning it against the wall. There. Mutually unarmed. They made no acknowledgement of his materia bracers or the knives on her back.
"Now," he began. "Who are you? What are you?"
Aerith sat at one of the dining chairs and pulled her knees up to her chest. She looked between the two of them, fascinated.
Hawke stood in the kitchenette and leisurely poured herself a glass of water. "You can't just ask someone what they are, its rude."
"Answer my questions and I'll be more polite."
"Is that right?" she asked, taking an indifferent sip. "So you'll be impolite if I refuse?"
He tilted his head down slightly. "I gave you my word in good faith."
She tossed a hand. "Merely observing the lay of the land. One does like to know whether or not there's a knife at one's throat. Changes the whole tone of a conversation."
He smiled. "Stop stalling."
She looked down. She was flipping one of her throwing knives around her fingers. Damn.
"What is it you think I am?"
"A collection of so many contradictions, I can only assume most of what I know about you is false." He lounged, patiently waiting for her own nerves to betray her. "Well?"
She turned to pour the water down the sink, hiding her scowl at herself. She'd given up the control of the conversation. Best not to try and hide in words then, he was too wily for someone who didn't even know what was going on.
She sat next to him on the couch, forcing him to turn and move to accommodate her. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees and her hands open and flat.
She called up a leashed ball of lightning in the palm of her hand. It floated and sparked. In the other hand she conjured a solid and spiking ball of ice.
Genesis leaned back from the bright display. She didn't look at him, couldn't bring herself to while revealing her magic to an authority figure.
"If you're planning to attack me-" he started.
She swapped them. The lightning solidified into ice and the ice crackled seamlessly into lightning.
He sucked in a breath and she looked up. His eyes were wide with understanding.
"No Materia," he whispered. He reached out a hand over the lump of ice, she felt his mana questing out to sense what she was casting. She swapped the spells back and the lightning sparked there again. He snatched his hand back.
"I'm a mage. A real one. I don't need the bottled knowledge of the ancients, I have my own."
"How?" he demanded.
She let the magic die. "It's common enough where I'm from."
"Which is?"
"Thedas," she said, daring to hope. "I don't suppose you've heard of it."
He shook his head. "Where is it?"
"I don't know." She let out a breathe. She couldn't even bring herself to be that disappointed anymore. "It's not on any map I've found since coming here, and unless Shinra have hidden a whole continent, then its… not part of Gaia."
He shook his head. "That's ridiculous."
"So am I. And yet here I am."
He held out his hand and pursed his lips with concentration. The tiniest whisper of fire ignited and died again in his fist. "I don't need materia either. That doesn't make me from beyond Gaia."
She raised an eyebrow "And who taught you that?" He hadn't known about magic outside of materia when she spoke to him in the Fade.
"No one. I taught myself."
"Really? Did you teach yourself my name as well?"
His face froze, and then dropped. He looked as though she'd slapped him. It dawned on her what he was chasing. "You were hoping I could cure you." Her heart sank.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. "How do you know that?"
She tilted her head in sad reprimand.
"I told you. My name is Hawke, and I am not a dream."
He stood. "How is that possible?"
"The Lifestream, the Fade, the Dreaming, whatever you want to call it. I don't know why you're a mage when nobody else on Gaia is, or why you have the Blight when nobody else does or what any of it means." Her shoulders sank. He needed to know the truth, she was nobody's saviour. "I only know the Blight is fatal."
He stared her down. "So you can't heal me."
"No."
"Then… none of this matters."
"I'm sorry."
He turned away. He ran a shaking hand through his hair.
Finally he looked back at her, disappointment growing cold and weary in his eyes. "Thank you for indulging me." He took his sword and quietly left.
She and Aerith turned in for the night not long after. It had been a long day and any excitement it started with had been sapped away.
Aerith took the bed and Hawke made herself comfortable on the little couch.
She opened her eyes at the foot of a mountain. She climbed, not knowing where she was going, just that she had to get there, she had to see. It stretched high above her, steep and crumbling. One foot after another she climbed and climbed and climbed. The hard ground chipped under her boots and flung up to cut at her exposed arms.
The peak drew near: she could see a tall stone jutting up out of the earth.
She crested the mountain. It was an island surrounded by an ocean of thick viscous Lifestream. No horizon, no Black City, just the hard earth sloping away in every direction, and an Obelisk of grey rock. A list of names were carved into its side and a shape little rock stood at its base.
It was a grave. She hoped Aerith didn't dream that night, that she needn't see it. She reached out and traced the letters.
She knew some of them. She'd read them in the article about the last Cetra tribe. Only the Matriarch's name was missing, presumably there had been no one left to carve it.
She picked up the little carving rock and stood silent in the place of grief and shame and choked on it.
There were no spirits here to process it, to reflect and remember. The weight of ancient grief sat heavy and unmoved in the barren place. Not even a cruel wisp of despair to wear her father's, mother's, brother's, sister's face and make her remember.
She stepped back and another obelisk was at her back where there had been none before. She didn't turn. She knew the names that would be carved into it. That had to be carved into it. The little sharp rock cut against her palm. And tears gathered in the her eyes. If they weren't there she would have to carve them herself.
'Did you think you mattered, Hawke?' An voice rumbled from her memories, given substance by the fade, 'Did you think anything you ever did mattered?'
She cried out, and fell off the couch. She blinked in the dim motel room, so agitated it took her a moment to realise what had happened. She wiped at her face and looked at the clock on the microwave. It hadn't even been twenty minutes.
"Amateur performance, Hawke, real amateur," she muttered, trying to dredge up some amusement. She couldn't even remember the last time had been so agitated she knocked herself out of the Fade, she told herself, well aware it was a lie.
The room was far too small and stuffy, it smelt like old cigarettes. Aerith slept peacefully on the bed still. Hawke quietly left to get some air.
There was a staircase going down to the front door, and another leading up. She followed it to the roof, hoping the cold wind from earlier was still whipping about. The door was unlocked, it looked like the lock had been smashed off and left in pieces on the floor.
She stepped out into the night. Genesis was sitting on the ledge, looking up at the moon.
A/N: Thanks for reading! All reviews are welcome.
Next Time: The Wisdom of Shiva
