Genesis looked out across the dark rooftops.
Silvery moonlight glowed through shredded clouds high in the sky, and just on the edge of hearing waves crashed against the city's pylons. Nobody was out, the night was cold and quiet.
Hawke was lying. She had to be. Shared dreams, magical illnesses, and made up worlds, how could it be anything but lies?
But her name really was Hawke. Like the dream had said. Like she said to his face in the waking world, in a direct reference to it. They had shared dreams in a display of magic so outlandish he had no name for it. She spoke with the Summon spirits and knew things that couldn't be known.
A cold wind whistled between the air conditioning units on the motel's roof, whipping his hair about and piercing through the weave of his uniform. He shivered.
What did it matter? She could walk through as many of his dreams as she liked, his degradation marched on.
The door opened. The woman who could not save him stepped out.
"What are you?" he asked quietly.
"Human." She spoke from several meters behind him
His gaze dropped from the cold beauty of the moon. The black ocean soaked up the light and reflected nothing back. Every one of his assumptions about her had proven false. Even if she was telling the truth, he had no idea who or what she truly was.
"Why are you here? On Gaia?"
She sighed. "It was an accident."
"Convenient."
"It really isn't."
He frowned and turned to face her. "That an unknown agent from an unknown nation, with powers we know nothing about, should arrive in Midgar without Shinra's knowledge or permission, and immediately ingratiate herself with well-connected locals?" He tilted his chin down, looking her over critically. She had left her weapons and gauntlet inside, but already proven how little she needed them. "Incredibly convenient."
"Ah. I see. You've discovered my dastardly plans." She snorted and leaned against a humming air conditioning unit. "Next I'll tie you to some train tracks and twirl my moustache."
He paused. "There aren't any trains in Junon."
"Tram tracks?"
"Lacks the charm," he replied, feeling himself awash on a tide of absurdity. Perhaps this too was a dream. Old injuries ached with the chill.
"I suppose I'm not a very dastardly then."
He gave a wan smile. "Merely disappointing."
Her grin fell.
"I'm not the hero of this story, Genesis," she said, her voice hard. "Or any story."
"Apparently, no one is."
"Sounds about right." She frowned at him, eyes trailing over his body. "You're hurt?"
He scowled and turned away. His back ached acutely but he refused to show weakness by leaning on the railing. "I believe we have established that."
"But you've got fresh injuries." She came and stood next to him, leaving him no escape.
"It's nothing."
"Shut up and take your coat off."
"You can't heal anything," he bit out. "What difference does it make?"
"Pain relief. Mobility. No difference at all, really, forget I offered."
He remembered the sheer relief when it hit him that his shoulder was closed over. It hadn't re-opened, despite Hollander's claims. It had brought so much false hope, every time he saw the faint and inconsequential looking scar. He didn't want to be deceived again. His left hand trembled with old nerve damage. He screwed it up into a fist. It made no difference.
He let out a harsh breath and pushed his coat down off his shoulders.
She stretched her hands and fingers out in front of her, then gestured at him. "May I?"
He nodded. She placed her hands on his bare shoulders and questing magic sank into him like ink through water. She narrowed her eyes in concentration.
His memories had turned her into something playfully benevolent, haunting him from the dim twilight of the slums. In the hard shadows of the night she was a spectre of sharp edges and unknowns.
The questing magic died away. He sighed. Nothing had changed.
She tilted her head with a hum.
A wave of magic hit him. He gasped at the strength of it, it sank down into his bones, his blood, his very cells. Her fingers dug into the meat of his biceps. It was nothing like a Cure spell, which worked in soft and gentle patches no matter who did the casting. Its weight fell on him like a heavy blanket with a chaffing edge to it.
She put an arm around him to place her hand on his lower back. It felt like a deep cleanse, scrubbing away old clinging filth. He closed his eyes at the sheer relief.
Finally the magic ebbed away and she let out a heavy breath, then released him. He rolled his shoulders and felt nerve endings giving feedback where before they had been deadened. He twisted his torso without pain for the first time in months. Even his mind was clearer, his thoughts curiously un-muffled. He hadn't noticed that they had been otherwise before. How numb he had grown, the sheer amount of life being siphoned out of him.
He met her gaze, his throat closing up. Blue eyes glinted from under the shadow of her sooty black hair.
"Can you blame me for putting my faith in you?" he asked. It came out too raw.
"I told you I couldn't do it," she replied. Her shoulders slumped and she stepped back. "I visited you in your dreams to tell you I couldn't."
"How can you heal the damage but not the root? Surely killing a contaminant is easier than undoing cellular decay!"
"Oh, it is, is it? How about you give me a demonstration then and I'll copy you."
"What kind of healer treats only symptoms?" he demanded, all his frustrations bubbling over. "What is the use of you?"
"None whatsoever," she snapped. "So I guess you won't bother with me next time you slip in the shower."
"I would hate to inconvenience you," he sneered.
She sneered back. "Yes, you're so concerned about what this might cost me."
"I didn't ask for your help in the train graveyard."
"Forgive me for freely offering it."
He clenched his jaw and looked away. He didn't mean it, he was grateful, and he couldn't afford to alienate her. She might not be the cure but she was the only stop-gap he had. But why wasn't she enough? Why couldn't she be enough? It felt so tantalisingly, infuriatingly close, only centimetres out of his reach.
"Can't you… figure it out?" he asked, hating how pathetic he sounded. "Examine the damage, experiment on samples, whatever trial and error it takes."
She shook her head.
"I am dying," he spat. "Won't you try?"
"I have tried!" she snapped back, suddenly savage. "If I could heal this, my Father would still be alive and my brother wouldn't be dying in a cave somewhere." She blinked at her own words and shrunk back. She looked away. "I tried. I'm sorry. I tried."
His brow lowered. She hugged herself against the cold and looked out across the rooftops, pointedly avoiding his gaze.
"Your brother is a SOLDIER?" he asked quietly.
She forced out a breath and hunched her shoulders. "He's a Grey Warden. You don't have them here. Been infected longer than you, but he's tough." She crossed her arms. "Probably outlive you."
He raised an eyebrow. She raised one right back at him with her lips pursed, and he decided the subject of her family was best left in peace for the moment, and whatever a 'Grey Warden' might be.
"I am grateful for what you've done," he offered. "Perhaps I can repay-"
"If you offer to pay me I'll undo all the healing I just did."
"Then I remain in your debt."
"I know. I'm ingratiating myself with all the powerful locals, remember?"
He placed his left hand on the railing and tapped his fingers against the cold metal. Not a trace of the tremor that had harried him for months remained. Looking at her, her lips still turned down in a sulk, he found it hard to believe his own accusations.
"Is there nothing I can do?" he offered.
She turned and leaned her back against the railing, facing the towering heights of the city with her arms crossed.
"You've never heard of Thedas," she said. It wasn't a question.
He shook his head.
"Neither has anyone else I've spoken to since I arrived." She looked up, her expression grim and bathed in cold moonlight. "I've exhausted all my resources trying to find just a mention of it. I don't know where to look anymore."
"I'll see what I can do," he said, slowly. What that would amount he had no idea. He had more resources than anyone living in the slums, certainly, but he had travelled the entirety of the planet for Shinra. If he hadn't heard of it, it either didn't exist, or accessing it was beyond the realms of possibility. Did she know that? Would her willingness to help him evaporate when she found out?
"It's not a price I'm demanding, by the way, this isn't quid pro quo. I won't stop healing you even if… anyway." She ruffled up her fringe with her hand and tossed it out of her eyes. "You need me to patch you up or stick your legs back on, find me in the Fade."
"Thank you. For doing what you can."
She snorted. "I know, I'm a crushing disappointment."
"Not… crushing." He looked her up and down from the corner of his eyes. "In certain ways, you have completely exceeded my expectations." Upon closer examination, there was no greater evidence of her coming from a mythical land than herself. Who dressed like that? Who would be so brazen as to go around healing unconscious men she didn't know with impossible magic? What a bizarre creature she was.
"Oh?" She gave him a jagged grin and tilted her head up to catch more of the moonlight. "Did you forget how beautiful I am?"
"It was a privilege to behold you once," he replied, flat and indulgent, "who would dare to hope for twice?"
"You, apparently. The audacity."
He tossed his hair back and turned to look up at the moon as well. "Though the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return."
The remainder of Hawke and Aerith's time in Junon was subdued and largely spent indoors. The excitement of the city had worn off entirely. After a fitful night of sleep for the both of them, Hawke led the way up to the landward gate.
According to Reno's instructions it wasn't safe for Aerith to be in Midgar for another day and a night just yet, but that was alright. Time to start recouping the trip's expenses.
The stench was the first thing that greeted them as they approached their destination. Then came the squawks.
Aerith had been walked with her head down and her staff thudding heavily into the footpath. Then her brow furrowed and she looked up.
"What is that?"
Hawke grinned. "That's our ride."
The road turned and the chocobo stables came into view, housed just outside the city wall.
Aerith expression bloomed with excitement and Hawke laughed. The ride home was technically a job: Hawke had hired them out as rangers who would guard the flock on the road back to Midgar. They would each ride or walk at the head of a long line of them roped together. The guy who had hired them didn't even care that neither had any experience with the birds so long as they could defend them from monsters on the way back. He wasn't paying well enough for any actual rangers to be interested.
The rest of the morning was spent jovially falling off of chocobos and pretending to be cowboys. By the time they set off both were smiling, Aerith was chewing on a long piece of straw, and the sun was high in the sky.
Ahead of them the flock's owner rode on a tall blue rooster, the only non-yellow of the flock. A couple of other hirelings rode around, each with their own long line of birds trailing behind them.
Hawke gave up trying to ride before the city had even disappeared from view behind them. Her meager experience with horses wasn't applicable in the least. She dismounted and walked alongside the head of her line, an elderly hen with no sense of direction, understanding of fences, or even the lead gently nudging her in the right direction. Hawke named her Elthina.
Aerith rode with ease on the back of a noisy and affectionate cockerel that she named Zack, with a grin that was trying very hard to look innocent. Hawke snorted a laugh and took a photo for her to send to human Zack.
A pack of Kalm fangs attacked but Hawke fielded it before the other rangers could even dismount. The slow ride continued peacefully and the owner let the two of them bring up the rear.
Hawke walked between the two lines of birds, Elthina on her left and Aerith riding tall on Chocobo Zack on her right. The birds chattered happily, with choruses of warks and kwehs.
"So…" Hawke began. "What's the deal with summons?"
Aerith held down her cowboy hat against a gust of wind. "They're rare Materia."
She nodded, she knew that much. Genesis and the Blight had demanded enough of her attention the evening before that she'd forgotten to ask him about Shiva.
"Ever used one?" she asked.
Aerith shook her head. "I saw someone summon Cactaur once. It's cute."
"What's Cactaur?"
"It's a walking cactus. It shoots needles."
"Huh." Did that make it like a dessert variety of a Sylvan? "How many are there?"
"Loads. There are plenty of Ifrits. I don't think there are many Shivas. And there's definitely only one Leviathan."
Hawke frowned. The long dry grass of the foothills pulled and snapped against her boots. Just the term 'summon' put her on edge. And there were used commonly enough that their names were well known. She couldn't shake the image of Anders, glowing blue with the strength of a spirit of Justice. She shook her head and instead landed on the Grey Wardens at Adamant fortress, slaying their own numbers to summon and bind spirits to themselves.
Elthina warked at her and investigated her hair.
"You think the summons are spirits," Aerith said after Hawke had gotten lost in her thoughts for too long.
"Shiva is. She's a spirit of Wisdom." And not even a corrupted one. She had been clearly bound, begging Hawke for her freedom, but she hadn't twisted into a demon.
"How do you know?"
Hawke shrugged and pushed Elthina away. "I've been a mage for thirty two years. I know a spirit when I see one."
"Are there lots of them?"
"Thedas has more spirits than people, but Wisdom is so rare its often thought to be a myth." She had only ever seen one before, years ago, deep in the Fade. It had cradled her face in its hands and shaken its head mournfully. She gave a crooked smile at the recollection. Even then it hadn't surprised her much.
Aerith hummed in thought. She leaned over from her high vantage point and picked a downy feather from Hawke's hair. "Where do they come from? Aren't they supposed to live in the Fade?"
"Supposed to?" Hawke blinked. The borrowed memory of a time full of elves where the waking and the dreaming world were one tugged at her. A shiver ran down her spine. She shoved the memory deep down inside of her where she didn't have to think on it. "They do live in the fade," she said forcefully, insisting it be true, "but they come from people. Or… what people think and feel. They reflect yourself back at you."
"That explains why Wisdom is so rare."
"While Rage, Hunger, and Fear are as common as dirt."
"But there are plenty of people here. Why is the Fade empty?"
"I don't know."
"Where do they actually come from?"
Hawke sucked her teeth thoughtfully. Where did any life come from? 'The Maker made them', was the official word on the subject.
"New ones sprout from the broken pieces of old ones," she said instead. "Shatter one in the Fade and the pieces will grow into dozens more. They're impossible to get rid of once they're there."
"But where did the first one come from?"
Hawke shrugged. "I don't know."
"Why would they be inside Materia? And unhappy about it?"
She shrugged again. Aerith made an irritated noise.
"Why did she speak to you? You don't know anything."
"I knew what she was."
Aerith hmphed. "Yeah, but you're just a…"
A grin broke out across Hawke's face and she looked up at Aerith.
"Just a what?"
Aerith sniffed with exaggerated pomp. "A mere mortal."
"Thank you for blessing me with your presence, oh mighty ancient." Hawke bowed dramatically.
She extended her hand, chaffed and dusty from the riding. "You may kiss the blessed hand."
"May I push the blessed ancient off her chocobo?"
"Denied." She broke into a giggle and accidentally tugged on the reigns. Chocobo Zack startled and tried to leap forward, yanking the bird behind him. Elthina got excited by it and pushed closer, upsetting her own followers.
Hawke pushed her back and they spent a few minutes calming the birds back down again. Aerith had to dismount because Chocobo Zack had gotten it into his head that she wanted him to run. She petted his neck and cooed at him. He bent his neck over and warked beseechingly.
"Spirits aren't mortal, are they?" Aerith asked, when the bird gave up asking and took to sulkily ignoring her.
Hawke shook her head. Elthina caught sight of a field mouse leaping between the grass and tried to wander off. She tugged on the lead, gently directing her back.
"The ancient elves were immortal too because they were spirits made fl-" Hawke stopped speaking, her mind drawing a blank. Somewhere in her head glass shattered.
"Wisdom doesn't normally fight," she said, as though that was the sentence she had begun, "it's not an aggressive spirit."
Aerith looked at her with both eyebrows raised.
"Ancient elves?"
Hawke patted Elthina's neck reassuringly. The bird looked at her, confused. Aerith did the same. She ignored them both.
"The older a spirit is, the more complex and powerful it will be, often taking whole swaths of the Fade as territory."
"Oh?" Aerith said, still looking at her oddly.
"New born Hunger will be simple and obvious, probably conjuring up generic looking food. But give it a hundred years of people-watching and it might grow into Longing. It'll fill the Fade with the smell of Poppa's old workshop, or the cold salty breeze of the beach house your grandma took you to when you were a child. It might conjure up flaky pastries that are almost but not quite the ones they used to sell at your best friend's bakery, then watch you bite into it and satiate itself on your longing for the real thing."
"Oh. That's mean."
"The predatory ones will lure you and trap you there, keeping you like an emotional battery. You should see the things Fear can come up with. Or Regret."
Aerith frowned and patted chocobo Zack's flank idly. "I think I'm happier without them then."
Hawke looked at her. "Did you dream in Junon?"
Aerith's frown deepened. "Yes."
Hawke looked away, giving her all the privacy she could. "The Fade is already mean. Without them… something is missing."
Soon the foothills plateaued and the sun began to sink the sky. Soon it would be all downhill and on to Midgar.
"Can you free Shiva?" Aerith asked after hours of walking in silence.
"I don't know," was all Hawke could reply.
They stopped for the night halfway down the foothills. The birds settled down in little circles, perfectly continent to sleep on their leads. They set up camp and shared a gamey dinner cooked around a campfire. The other rangers were nice people, even the stingy and grouchy owner of the flock was nicer and more relaxed while sitting on a log around a crackling campfire.
Aerith didn't say much. She sat between two of the ones she didn't know and just listened. Hawke swapped jokes and stories with the others and they laughed together long after the sun had set. Someone produced a metal flask and passed it around. She had a sip and coughed but nobody made fun of her.
The night was warm and the food surprisingly good. She was dirty with old sweat and the dust of the road. Her body ached from the long hours riding, but it was a satisfying kind of pain. She had earned it, by doing something she'd never done in her life before.
Tomorrow they would arrive back in the city. She pulled her jacket tighter around her.
"Cold?" one of the other rangers asked, an awkward older man who seemed more at home among the chocobos.
She shook her head and said she was alright. He put another log on the fire just in case.
She smiled and ducked her head.
She would do this again one day. She promised it to herself. Somehow, someday. How could she go back to quietly existing under a lid now that she knew how wide the horizon was?
Finally they called it a night and headed off to their bed rolls. Hawke volunteered for second watch and Aerith felt inspired and took the third.
She laid back on her thin mattress, near her circle of chocobos. There was a rock under there somewhere, and no amount of fishing around in the dirt had found it. She gave up and just went and leaned against one of the birds. It shuffled it feathers but didn't wake. It was nice and warm under her, and rose and fell with steady breaths.
A few minutes later Hawke joined her on the chocobo next door.
"You are a genius, Aerith," she mumbled, curling up under a wing.
Aerith smiled and looked out across the horizon.
The plains stretched out below. It wasn't the grey dust of the Midgar plains yet, grass still grew and there were clusters of trees here and there. There were so many stars above them. She watched it in quiet awe.
She had seen photos before of course, on tv, and astrology charts, but somehow it hadn't struck her that it was real. She assumed it was all exaggerated. Like maybe you could see two of three stars on a good night and the others could only be seen by telescope. It had never occurred to her that such a magnificent display was just… there. For free, every night.
Hawke didn't even look up at them, it was so normal for her.
She ought to have been sleeping, but try as she might, she couldn't keep her eyes closed. To think, just weeks ago she had been afraid of the sky. She tried to press as much of it to her memories as she could.
In the distance Midgar's glow was visible over the horizon. There was a thick band of dark pollution above the yellow and green smudges of light, blocking out any stars in that part of the sky.
Her thoughts travelled back to her discussion with Hawke about the spirits. How the Fade should have been full of them. The emptiness was unnatural. It had to be Shinra's fault. Maybe the reactors, those big black voids eating the Lifestream from the inside out, had destroyed them all. Maybe they choked and died under the progress of human industry as surely as the Cetra did.
She reached into her hair and slowly undid her braid. Her mother's Materia rolled out of the ribbon and landed heavily in her hand. She always forgot the weight when it was in her hair. She rolled it in her hand. It was so warm, so present.
She thought back to her despair on the Junon beach. The silent monument to dead Cetra in the Junon Fade. On bad days she liked to think that the Materia pulsed or glowed in sympathy. It didn't really. It didn't do anything. She was alone. The vast expanse of stars blinked down at her, unmoved.
She scrunched her mouth up to stop herself from doing anything embarrassing.
"I'm… angry," she whispered. She didn't want it to be true. She wanted to be cool and untouched, above whatever the world threw at her. She wasn't. Oh, planet, she wasn't.
She was so angry. At Shinra. At the whole world, for leaving her alone with its weight. How was she meant to carry that by herself? She was just one Cetra, she didn't know what she was doing, what she was supposed to do, not even what the dull white materia in her hand was supposed to do.
But it was hers to carry. Hers alone. Her hand tightened around it.
Tears dripped down her face.
The chocobo at her back warked softly in its sleep and wrapped a wing around her torso. She sank back against it. The stars twinkled on, beautiful and unyielding. Midgar's glow blocked the sight of them, but they were still there.
She let out a deep breath. Then she nodded to herself and did her hair back up, tying the white materia back into its place. She felt stronger.
The ranger on first watch looked over at them. It would be Hawke's turn soon.
She reached out a hand for the alien woman, and found a black head of hair somewhere between all the yellow feathers. She knew Hawke understood, intimately, what it meant to be alone.
"Hnf? Hawke mumbled, rising from the depths of sleep.
Aerith smiled, still a little teary and tender.
"Thank you for being my friend," she said.
"Thank you for being mine," came the groggy reply. Then a moment later, lighter and more aware, "even though I'm merely human."
She shook her head and ruffled the visible hair. "I'm sure you didn't mean it." She ducked her head, even though Hawke couldn't see. "I know I didn't."
"I know. 'M just teasing." The woman rose from the blanket of feathers, just peeking through over the edge of the wing.
Aerith looked back to the stars. At the band of darkness that was Shinra's crown jewel. She breathed in the clear, wild air, and felt just as wild herself. She felt like anything at all might be possible.
"One day…" she said, smiling and not even bothering to whisper, "will you help me tear down Shinra?"
Hawke twisted her neck to look at her. Then she burrowed back into the yellow wing.
"Yeah, alright."
A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews are welcome, I'm looking for constructive criticism on this story.
Next Time: Genesis Lucid Dreams Again.
