GARRETT HAWKE + ROSE TYLER
HAWKE AND ROSE WAKE UP IN A WEIRD MYSTIC FALLS CAVE
G | COMPLETE
Hawke really, really hated being knocked unconscious. Hated it. He especially hated it considering the circumstance: out on a mission with people who weren’t his people, in a place he didn’t know even slightly. He’d volunteered because constant training was a quick way to make him long for death. But he’d have felt better if his people were here.
Well, not here. Which was apparently waking in a dim cave room with only one boot. He groaned and rolled to his side.
“Maker’s balls, my head,” he grumbled, rubbing at the ache in his skull. “Anyone alive? Speak up. Unless you’re a giant spider, in which case you can just pretend to be dead. I’ll get to you in a minute.”
“Not quite a spider,” Rose murmured, opening her eyes and then closing them again when even the dim light felt like it was sending a knife right through her eyes. God, that hurt. Everything hurt. She felt slightly like she’d been hit by a bus or something, but...what had even happened? She couldn’t remember. “Are- God,” she vaguely recognised the voice that had joined her in the cave and she tried to push herself up on all fours, finally managing to open her eyes without her head pounding quite so much. The light in the cave was dim and she quickly realised that there were candles all around them, but...with no indication of where they were.
“Don’t suppose you have any idea of what this place is, then? I haven’t seen any spiders yet,” but it was somehow humid and kind of cold at the same time which altogether wasn’t a very pleasant combination when paired with the headache and full-body ache she had going on. “What happened?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Hawke admitted. Some days he would pretend to know more than he did, but that didn’t seem like a helpful strategy here. He sat up, arm propped on his knee and squinted around the room. “Seems someone got the drop on us. Too bad they didn’t stick around to tell us why,” he murmured.
The room was empty and eerie. And the coffin across the way certainly didn’t bode well. Hawke sighed and climbed to his feet. “Rose, right? I don’t suppose you’re one of the magic types?”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I'm- entirely human,” she grimaced a little when she caught sight of the coffin, shuffling over to the walls. “There's- runes here,” normally, the TARDIS would have translated most languages that she came across, but not this time. She wasn't here and Rose was pretty much on her own besides Hawke, who she… Really didn't know.
“God, my head hurts. Are you okay?” Even if she didn't know him she wasn't going to let either of them wander around with a concussion. “I think- I can't feel much dried blood or anything, I think whatever they did I must have just got a cut somewhere. I guess all we can do is grab a candle and try to find a way out of here.”
“Oh, I’m fiine.” Hawke waved a dismissive hand. “I wish I could say it was the first time I’ve been knocked over the head.” He smirked as he wandered over to collect a candle for himself. His eyes caught onto the writing on the walls and he frowned. It didn’t always work out well when the people who wanted something from him had a language all their own. He’d been lucky to have a crew so varied, they had most of the languages in Thedas covered. Here, not so much.
“I don’t see a lot of options, but I’ll wander off this way. Just, stay within hearing, alright?” Hawke moved off towards one of the shadowy corners of the cave. “Oh, and if I start screaming…panic.”
“Considering you were just talking about spiders, I’m more likely to assume you’ve run into a web or something,” Rose smirked a little half-heartedly as she stood up, holding out the candle so she could see which way he’d gone. After a moment of thought she decided that sticking together was probably for the best - they were both a little out of it considering they’d both just been knocked out to be dragged here. “How many other times have you been knocked over the head, then?” she walked backwards, keeping an eye on the cavern behind them.
The flickering lights were almost definitely playing tricks on her eyes, casting shadows down the wall. “Don’t suppose this was on any of the info they gave us before we got here? I didn’t- read about any caves, but I’m not with your team.”
Hawke gasped dramatically and tried to put his hand to his chest, only he picked the wrong hand and basically waved a hot candle flame under his nose. Once that hazard was held out and away again, though, he was free to reply, clearly more amused than offended. “I talked - not screamed - about giant spiders, thank you very much,” he clarified, huffing a laugh. “The ones in Thedas can get up to the size of small horses. Luckily, they aren’t smart enough to try and hit me over the head with anything. Bandits and Templars with obnoxiously large shields, those are a different story.”
As he figured the question about how many past head injuries was probably rhetorical – or at least it fade well should’ve been – Hawke ignored it and focused his attention on her more pertinent question. “I think I got the same information you did since I’m here as a spare without a team. I don’t speak whatever that is, either,” he gestured his candle towards the drawings on the wall he was passing.
“...God. I’ll pass on gigantic spiders, I think,” she grimaced a little at the wave of dizziness that hit her when she turned to follow him, trying to keep an eye on the uneven floors of the caverns. “I’m not really bothered by moderately sized spiders,” meeting daleks had put an awful lot of her more human fears into a very stark perspective, “but y’know. Giant ones are probably something I’ll give a pass,” at the mention of the writing, she held up her candle to look at them.
“It’s weird- they remind me a bit of like, runes? I mean, like...in my world, but they look pretty similar. They used to just be a normal language but now I think people use them when they do witchcraft and whatever. No idea what they say. We had to write our name in runes but the only one I could read is ‘R’ and it literally just looks like a normal R,” she shrugged. The Doctor could probably read it, but she was actively trying to keep him out of her head for now - but god, she wished he were here.
“Just hope one of these missions doesn’t take us to Deep Roads, because you can’t throw a rock there without hitting a bloody huge spider or some horrible breed of Darkspawn,” Hawke shrugged. Hopefully, he hadn’t just cursed them into exactly that at some point in the future. One annoyance at a time, he thought as he finished his route of one side of the room and headed back towards the center. Stopping in front of the rune covered wall, he tilted his head and surveyed the runes.
“We have a number of different runes in our world too,” he murmured. “Mostly magical. These don’t have the same…I don’t know, hum? But they could be more subtle magic. Hey, maybe someone won’t try to blast our faces off.”
“I kind of like my face. Don’t think I need it blasted off,” she squinted up at the runes but- no, she couldn’t make sense of them. Not without her phone, anyway, which...was not with her. Of course they’d take their stuff off of them. “Well. Maybe it’s just somebody’s weird Star Trek fanfiction. Maybe if we find our phones we can translate it, but I dunno if there’s much of a point. If we find some paper we could maybe take a rubbing?” Still. Right now, she was more interested in the both of them getting to relative safety.
“By the way- Deep Roads? Thedas? I can’t say I’ve heard of them, but you- I dunno, seem human. What’re the Deep Roads?”
Hawke snorted a little. “A rubbing.” He never claimed he was all that mature. Still, he smothered the snickering quickly enough and patted at his pockets. “I don’t exactly carry paper and chalk around with me, but I’ll look around and see what might work.”
Shrugging, he meandered towards the opposite wall, which was similarly marked. “As for the Deep Roads, they’re a massive string of caves that used to belong to the dwarves. The creepy crawlies and darkspawn own them now. This may be annoying,” he gestured around the cave, then glanced over at her, “but I wouldn’t trade places. Not unless you like getting lost for days on end and fighting every ten yards. What’s your specialty anyway? Fighting-wise. In case they bust in to question us or what have you.”
“Uh. I mean, hand to hand combat? I’m- less of a fighter than you are,” she could admit that without any hit to her pride at all. “I was mostly trained for self defense rather than actively fighting my way through things. Had some specialised weapons for specific enemies but- not really anything special. I can use pretty much anything to an okay degree, I guess. Maybe not a sword, but we did a lot of training with bows, crossbows, guns- things like that. None of which we have here,” she added.
“Alright,” Hawke nodded, eyes back on the wall. He was used to defending townspeople with no fighting ability whatsoever, so less wasn’t so terrible. “There are rocks, so if you can aim bows and crossbows, we might manage well enough. At least whatever took us must be small enough to fit in here.”
“Or, there’s a secret entrance we don’t know about yet,” she grimaced a little. “God knows where...we even are. Maybe underneath the falls? It doesn’t seem very- waterfall damp, though,” she paused and looked around. “They must know we’re missing. We should keep going, though.”
“I only meant at least we know it isn’t a giant,” Hawke joked. Leaning over, he picked up a rock, tossed it into the air, and caught it. “But a secret entrance would be amazing. Let’s see if we’re that lucky.”