Shinra functions were boring. It was a fundamental truth of the universe.
Genesis stood trapped between the hor dourves table and President Shinra and one of his old golfing friends who was the head of consulting. Or maybe auditing. It didn't matter, the conversation was the most profoundly uninteresting thing he'd heard since Palmer's speech on the Air and Space Department future thirty minutes ago. He shoved a pastry in his mouth to escape answering an inane question.
It was Air and Space's party. Blown up satellite photos of the other planets in the solar system decorated the room, and the table cloths were dotted with little stars and galaxy patterns. It was a little sad really. The space project was finally dead: they would keep launching unmanned satellites for military reasons, but to the moon nobody would go. Air and Space would become just a subset of the air force and the failed rockets would rust where they stood.
The President asked if he agreed. Genesis nodded and said that he did. The conversation trailed on. It was too soon to excuse himself. These were networking events, a certain amount of suffering was necessary. He nursed a gin and tonic and kept a politely interested smile anchored to his face.
His eyes trailed over the planets. Gaia's photo was a stunning display of green and blue in high definition. They had edited it so that Midgar looked larger and you could see the Shinra building. The others were less clear, with the furthest planet little more than a smear of orange.
Even the planet closest to Gaia, Sukra, was blurry. Brown and blue swirls dominated the photo, the ridges of what might have been mountain ranges edged with green on one side.
It looked oddly familiar. The President told a joke and Genesis laughed on autopilot, but his brow furrowed. The largest landmass on the visible side of the planet had a thin line of ocean splitting it through the middle. He tilted his head.
There was a scraggly looking hook of land on the northern half of the thin sea. He had seen it before.
Hawke had drawn him a rough map of Thedas. A tapestry of it had hung in his mansion in the Fade ever since.
He was looking at the harbour of Kirkwall, on the northern shores of the Waking Sea. Hawke's homeland was the neighbouring planet.
"Considering a career as an astronaut, Genesis?" the consultant asked, with a mocking laugh. "I've got bad news for you, friend."
Genesis forced a smile. "Yes, a great shame."
The president clapped him on the shoulder and launched into another boring anecdote. Genesis nodded along, too shocked to do anything else.
The damning photo loomed in the corner of his eye. Now that he knew what he was looking at, it was obvious. The coastlines and typography were identical. The blue smear of a lake sat in the middle of her homeland, next to the mountain range that marked the border between them and the empire Hawke held a grudge against. The dark patches of forest, the large islands to the north and the curling bays in the south.
It dawned on him that he hadn't actually believed he would find any concrete sign of Thedas. Not outside of the Fade or a museum.
What was he supposed to do with this information? What would Hawke do with the information?
She couldn't teleport, and even if she could, the distance was surely too great. The Space program was over and had never so much as gotten a man beyond the atmosphere anyway. He could not get her there.
Maybe she would grow despondent at the impossibility of returning. She might no longer see the use in helping him when there was no way for him to uphold his end of the bargain.
She had made it very clear that her help was not quid pro quo. She reiterated it in fact. Perhaps… the lady doth protest too much. Her offer of help had been made before he gave her the hope of the magic mirrors. What would happen if he crushed that hope, now that she expected something?
He pursed his lips. How important was this new knowledge anyway? She hadn't asked him to find Thedas, she asked for a way to get there. In that pursuit he had discovered nothing.
The conversation ended, the little group broke up, and he walked away.
Sephiroth and Angeal found him and they sequestered themselves away from the bulk of the party. People looked at the three of them and assumed they were talking about important SOLDIER business.
"I liked the little pastries," Angeal said. "With the dill sauce."
"Too salty," Sephiroth replied. "I prefer the egg sandwiches."
Genesis shook his head. "There aren't any baby quiches. You know the ones they always have at Weapon's Dev parties?"
"Maybe they'll bring some out later."
There was a thoughtful silence as they pondered this mystery.
Genesis and Angeal had a rare mission together to the Bone Village coming up soon so they talked work briefly, before Angeal turned to Genesis.
"Did you blow a training room the other week?"
"They really should have made them tougher by now," Genesis replied, taking a slender glass from a passing water. "I was thinking of speaking to Lazard about the designs, they contain magic well enough but the rate they dispel the energy is woefully insufficient."
"Tell the engineers that," Sephiroth said. "I've been trying to get the limits increased for years."
"But you fried the room by yourself?" Angeal asked.
Genesis narrowed his eyes. He knew that tone of voice, that feigned innocence in his expression. Anyone who thought that Angeal was stoic and humourless was blind.
"Why, can't you manage it?" he replied.
Sephiroth looked at him, his head tilted. "You don't normally train that hard on your own."
Genesis flicked his hair and ignored them both. He should have known he'd gotten off too easily with only the Director's reprimand.
Angeal cleared his throat and used his best stern mentor voice. It hadn't fooled Genesis since they were children. "It was reported to me that you brought a civilian woman up to the SOLDIER levels."
"You shouldn't gossip, Angeal, it's dishonourable," Genesis replied. "And I can see you trying not to laugh."
"Breaking regulation is dishonourable," Sephiroth chimed in.
"That woman from the market, wasn't it? The green grocer?"
"She had some fascinating opinions on poetry," Genesis said, sipping on his champagne.
Angeal raised his eyebrows. "Must be some dangerous poetry, if it needed to be in the high energy VR room."
"Thankfully I was there, so it was perfectly safe."
"Inappropriate use of company property," Sephiroth added.
"But it was so gracious of him to help train a civilian," Angeal said, crossing his arms. "We're glad to see you taking an interest in public safety, Genesis."
He glowered at them both. "Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess," he ground out.
Angeal snorted. "I can't believe you."
"What? I don't have to justify myself."
"Or the destruction of the good training room?" Sephiroth drawled.
"What's going on, Genesis? Since when do you bring civilians into the building? Or, for that matter, miss an opportunity to boast about your…" Angeal hunted for a word, wearing an uncomfortable expression, "...female friends?"
Genesis scoffed. "Please. There's nothing to boast about. Nothing is going on."
Genesis and Hawke sat together in his private box of the Grand Borealis Theatre, clapping for the final curtain call. The actors bowed, then the orchestra, and the curtain dropped for the last time.
The lights came back up and he looked over at her, blinking a little at the sudden light after being in the dark for so long. She was smiling and stretching her arms up over her head, twisting her neck.
She looked delicious in vibrant, swirling peacock colours shot through a dress of black silk. It matched her eyes and made them flash in the light. It was a dramatic look that demanded to be seen, and made for a contrast he rather liked next to himself, in a rich burgundy suit over a black shirt and bowtie.
"You were saying?" he asked. He was not especially impressed with the production and had already seen it twice before. Had they not been in a private box they probably would have been asked to leave for all the whispering.
"I'm as entertained as the next punter by people dancing around on wires, but by that point it was just padding."
"Dancing isn't padding."
She waved a hand. "Papering over a contrivance, then. They didn't know how to move the plot along so they did a little jig and said that fixed it."
"It was symbolic for the goddess favouring them on their journey," he said with faux outrage. He was picking a side purely for discussion's sake.
"Then they should have said that," she replied, amused.
"And here I thought you were distracted by the pretty lights and spectacle."
"Spectacle would have been seeing how the Hero got to the finale with a broken leg and a dead chocobo."
"Details, details. The injuries were as symbolic as his victory over them. 'Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return.'"
She wrinkled her nose. "Too pat. I still enjoyed it, mind you, it was lavish and lovingly crafted." She stood, turned, and leaned back against the balcony. "I only wish it could have been messier."
"Of course you do." He crossed his legs and looked up at her thoughtfully. "Perhaps you would enjoy a more bare bones performance. There was a stunning one-man show last year, an independent production, very experimental, fiendishly well written. You would have liked it, the Hero died of his injuries before he could make it to the climactic duel."
She laughed. "So who won, the Wanderer or the Prisoner?"
"Neither. As I recall they couldn't bring themselves to fight each other so they faced the goddess together and the ending was ambiguous over whether or not the world survived her wrath."
She raised an intrigued eyebrow. "We should go to something like that. I like my stories a little ambiguous. Don't hand me everything, make me work for it."
He smiled and tucked that little piece of information away. "The bigger productions usually play it safer, of course, more inclined towards public-friendly, feel-good endings."
"I do feel good, no complaints there." She fixed a suspicious look upon him. "But you're being very neutral. Don't tell me you don't have an opinion."
"It was fine."
She narrowed her eyes. "Merely fine?"
"The actor playing the Prisoner was atrocious. His delivery was flat and stilted. Did he have a cold, why was he so nasally?"
"And he had all your favourite lines too."
"He had all the best lines and he wasted them." He joined her at the balcony. "How can you declare 'there are no dreams, no honour remains, the arrow has left the bow of the goddess,' and sound bored? Don't tell me you found him compelling."
"Oh, he had a certain melancholy to him," she said, wearing an enigmatic little smile. "I believed him as a tragic figure, but I didn't get the impression he cared to fix the situation very much."
"Resignation in the Prisoner, appalling. What's the point of his storyline if he's content to lose? Even if he knows he can't win, he should at least have the drive to try."
"Quite," she said. She looked out at the theatre spread out below them.
It was a large and modern hall, with soaring stacked balconies and black leather seats. He preferred the mystery of it in the dark, with only the light of the stage reflecting off metal detailing. The rest of the audience was filtering out, the murmur of conversation reaching them only faintly. They were quite separate from them up in the box, curtained off and invisible in their own little world.
"How goes the hunt for the Blight?" he asked, his voice hushed.
She turned her head and reached out a hand with a brush of healing magic.
"That wasn't what I was asking."
She raised an eyebrow. "Nothing has changed, Genesis. Unless you have some new information for me, I've got nothing. I don't even have a trail to follow."
He nodded and looked down. "If I dig up the documentation of the original project would you look it over for me?"
"Of course."
He felt her eyes on him.
"How goes the hunt for Thedas?"
He shook his head. "You would know better than I. How was Ettie and her magic mirror?"
"Didn't even look at it. We talked about herbalism the whole time."
They conversation trailed through her recent escapades and they made their way out of the theatre. The hour was late but the night clear, and he drove her home.
"Weren't you living in some cinder block abomination in sector four?" he asked as she directed him through the crumbling streets of sector three. He pulled up outside a tall and thin wooden house with an uneven porch.
"Yes, but the guy across the hall invited me to his sister's wedding."
He failed to follow that progression of events. "So?"
"So now I live here," she replied, like it was obvious.
He studied her for a moment. She met his eyes, shameless. Funny how someone could put up such a convincing facade of fearlessness while in the middle of running away.
"And when will it be my turn to look for you and be met with only an empty apartment?" he asked.
"Does Thursday work?" she replied.
"Friday would be better."
"Can't do Friday, I'm getting my hair done." She opened the door and got out. He followed.
"Saturday then, so I can track you down before I leave on Monday," he said, rounding the car and joining her at the bottom of the stairs. "Granted, of course, that you can manage not to run away again before the next weekend."
Her shoulders hitched up slightly. "I'm not running away."
He raised a sceptical eyebrow.
She lowered her eyes. "You're betting on a lame horse, Genesis. Or chocobo."
"So fix the race. Isn't that you're style?"
"I would if I could." She looked up again, eyes hooded and hesitant. "Perhaps it would be kinder if I got out of the running's altogether."
He stepped closer. "Then why haven't you?"
"I'm sucker for bad odds," she said, with a helpless shrug.
"This metaphor is confused."
"Perhaps," she whispered, the light of the nearest street light shiny and bright on her eyes, "the metaphor is itself a metaphor." She licked her lips.
His eyes followed the flash of tongue. Glass smashed in the distance and the moment crashed to a halt.
"'The metaphor is a metaphor'?" He pulled back, outraged. "That is the stupidest pick up line I've heard in my life."
She laughed. "Worked though, didn't it?" She climbed the shallow steps up to her front door.
"Debatable," he muttered. "Hawke. Am I going to come knocking one day and find nothing but silence and abandonment?"
"You need me desperately, don't you? If I disappeared you'd just track me down again."
"I would, yes."
She looked down at him. "I don't abandon people. Not even the presumptuous and demanding."
"And… after I'm healed?" he asked, slowly climbing the steps until he was level with her again.
She blinked, then narrowed her eyes. "Let's assume either I'll have found a way back home or you'll have come to your senses."
"I never lost them."
"You're standing on a porch propped up by milk crates."
"And yet you think I'm not serious," he said, closing the distance between them.
She gulped but stood her ground. They were perilously close again.
"You shouldn't be," she whispered.
"Hawke," he said, quiet, close, and intimate. He trailed a finger along her jawline. "Don't tell me what to do."
He turned and swept away, calling "goodnight," over his shoulder as he returned to the car.
"Dirty tease," she muttered. He smiled to himself.
The next week Genesis set off with Angeal for a monster hunting mission.
The Shinra transport dropped them off on the outskirts of the Bone Village. The air was crisp and the wind biting, whistling over the plateau. A line of snow capped peaks dominated their view to the north, and the bright blue sky fell interrupted down to the horizon behind them.
It had been some time since they had a mission together, just the two of them. Genesis let Angeal lead, happy to follow his burly childhood friend on the trek to the village. He looked healthy, Genesis was glad to see. He hadn't lost any of his muscle mass and moved without hesitation or bowing under the weight of the thick slab of a sword on his back.
They reached the Bone Village, and realised the name undersold it. It was in a craggy ravine, cut into the plateau. On the other side was the dark green mass of the Sleeping Forest, but dug into the cliffside itself was the settlement and digsite. They stared at it in silence for a moment.
Little buildings and platforms were wedged into the stratified rock, linked by scaffolding and skeletal staircases. Overhanging it all and only half excavated loomed a spine and ribcage so giant the buildings were set in the gaps between ribs. It was bigger than Bahamut, bigger than anything still roaming Gaia. The skull was further below, disconnected from the rest and cracked and partially missing. It's massive teeth remained.
The length and body shape suggested it might have been a serpent akin to Leviathan once, but it was at least twice the width of the Leviathan summon. They had both seen photos of course, but they didn't do the reality of it justice.
"They say the Planet once created mighty living weapons to defend itself," Genesis said.
"From... what?" Angeal asked.
"Nothing I want to ever want to face."
Angeal agreed with him on that, and they continued across the bridge. The Sleeping Forest overhung the edge, roots and moss creeping across the cliff's lip. Their mission took them down into the ravine, but Genesis looked at the impenetrable mass of trees. It was dense and dark beneath its boughs, and perfectly still. No birds sang and the wind, sharp and howling everywhere else, didn't disturb the forest.
Legend said the Ancients once built great cities within. It, too, was inaccurately named. The forest didn't feel like it was sleeping, it felt like it was watching.
He shook himself and focused on the mission.
It proved to be quite simple. There were monsters nesting in the bottom of the ravine too tough for the local muscle to handle. The two of them finished it all off before the sun had even begun to sink in the sky.
They reported back to the town hall afterwards. It functioned as such at least, it was pulling double duty as both the administrative centre to the village and the sole watering hole. The overseer exchanged their summation of the monster problem for beer and stew.
Genesis asked him about the Sleeping Forest.
A handful of mercenaries and treasure hunters at the only other occupied table hushed and looked over.
The overseer shook his head. "No monsters come down from there. Nothing comes down."
"They say the Ancients themselves cursed it," a scarred old old treasure hunter said.
"Don't the stories say they blessed it?" Angeal asked. "So only the holy could enter unharmed."
The overseer scoffed. "Or it's filled with dangerous monsters, same as every other dense forest on the planet." He scoffed again. "Cursed. What are you, children?"
"What kind of monsters?" Genesis pressed.
"Dunno." The overseer shrugged and scowled at him. "I'm not going in, Shinra."
"Do you know anyone who has?"
There was silence for a moment.
"Nobody who came back," the treasure hunter said.
Genesis raised an eyebrow at Angeal. Angeal frowned.
Ten minutes later the two of them stood on the lip of the forest. The cold wind tugged at Genesis' coat and threw dust from the dig site into his eyes.
"This is a bad idea," Angeal said,
"It's just a forest."
"Which nobody ever comes back from."
Genesis flicked his hair. "Then we shall be the first." He plunged in.
"Genesis…" Angeal sighed, then followed him in. "Why do I keep letting you drag me into these things?"
"Because I make your life so much more interesting."
The bright afternoon sun disappeared entirely beneath the canopy. The wind died as suddenly as the light was cut off. The ground and tree trunks were covered in spongy, damp moss. The air was warm and humid, and it smelt sweet: old leaves decomposing in the underbrush.
Genesis held his breath and soaked it in. It felt old. Ancient. The veil was thin here. He tapped one of his materia, certain that if he were to cast any magic it would be quicker and more powerful.
They both drew their swords and set off, following a grown over pathway further in. It was perfectly quiet, and they used all their expertise to avoid disturbing it. Angeal for all his grumbling looked around just as tentatively as he did.
And nothing happened. Nothing jumped out at them. No great magics assaulted them, nothing. They had been walking for thirty minutes before Genesis lowered his sword in frustration.
Was the thinning of the veil truly all the fuss was about? Perhaps to a non-mage the close press of the Fade was alarming enough to inspire such fear. He saw worse in his sleep every other night.
"Or I would be making your life more interesting, were this an actually haunted forest," he muttered.
"It seems it wants to keep its secrets to itself," Angeal said, looking both relieved and frustrated. "You of all people should understand that. We may as well turn back."
"We haven't found anything yet. Do you want to go back to Sephiroth and tell him we stood on the edge of an unknown, untamed danger, and were too afraid to confront it?"
"I doubt he'd care." Angeal returned his sword to his back.
"Probably not," Genesis conceded. "I don't want to tell myself that I was too afraid to confront it." A tree trunk creaked. He spun to face it. It was just a tree trunk.
"Even though you're injured."
Genesis stiffened. "Who told you that?"
"I'm not an idiot, Genesis." Angeal crossed his arms.
He frowned at him. "When did I get injured?"
"How should I know, you didn't tell me." Angeal shook his head and dragged a hand through his hair. "You ask me to watch your back but you won't tell me where you need support or why."
Genesis felt cold. It was his job to fix it. Angeal would be broken by the knowledge. He trusted Shinra too much, he trusted himself, his own heritage. He couldn't know, he didn't need to know.
"It's none of your business."
"Really?" Angeal laughed, a short hollow exhalation. "Caring about my friend is not my business? Being concerned about the fact that you've done nothing but lie to me for over a year now, is not my business?"
"That's not what I said," Genesis snapped. Angeal didn't back down and he felt shamed by it. He shook his head. "I keep things from you because... I'm concerned for you as well."
Angeal's expression hardened. "It's for my own good, is it?" He turned to the nearest tree and sat at its base.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm tired, Genesis." He dragged a hand through his hair again and leaned against the trunk, his eyes turned to the skies. "You don't want me to know anything or do anything." He crossed his arms and rested them on his drawn up knees. "Am I wrong? Is that what you want?"
"No." Genesis scowled. It wasn't that straight forward. "You trust Shinra too much. There are things that if you knew… it would make everything worse."
"So we'll just stay stuck here forever, will we?"
It was all wrong. Genesis scrapped a hand down his fair and made a noise of frustration. "Fine. If that's how you want it to be."
He sat against a tree opposite Angeal and crossed his arms.
Angeal scoffed and looked away. Genesis pursed his lips and refused to say anything.
He wasn't just being petty, he had very good reasons for not telling Angeal. He had planned to originally when he intended to desert and burn shinra down but it just wasn't feasible now. In the face of any number of war crimes and cover ups, Angeal had always found a way to convince himself Shinra weren't as bad as they looked, there had to be information they weren't privy to, or some angle they weren't considering. If shown that they had betrayed him from the very beginning, what would he do? Would he refuse to believe it, as he had everything else? Or would it break him?
Or was Genesis just too attached to his comfortable life, and the delusion that he could fix it without losing anything. Telling Angeal would upset the apple cart and destroy any hope of quietly resolving the problem.
Could you fix a life that had been rotten from the beginning?
He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. Finally he opened them again, resolved to come clean.
Angeal was asleep.
"Goddess, are you really that tired?" he exclaimed.
It came out weak and quiet. He hadn't realised how tired he was too. He felt comfortable against the tree and the bed of soft moss, so comfortable he could even sleep in his armour. The forest was so warm and quiet. It was never this quiet in Midgar.
He narrowed his eyes. This wasn't right. What were they doing?
He felt the same way he did when the Fade played tricks on him. He tried to stand up. He couldn't.
Angeal was too still.
Magic washed over him. He bared his teeth and cast dispel on himself.
A haze fell away from his eyes, and a hulking, fleshy spirit towered over him, reaching out with long clawed fingers.
He cast fire. It's hands wrapped around his face.
Everything went dark.
A/N: I know that Sephiroth's supernova attack shows that Gaia is in Earth's spot in our solar system. But that's dumb and what is canon? A miserable little pile of facts.
Reviews and Concrit are all welcome.
Next Time: Sloth.
