Chapter Text
She always saw Elisabet when she dreamed.
It was never the same dream, though it was often similar. Sometimes, she would see her sitting on the bench at her ranch, the fields green and blooming behind her, smiling with tired eyes as she held out her arms like a loving mother to welcome Aloy home. Other times, she would see her standing under the ranch’s sign, looking out over a property ravaged by the swarm, her face pained and solemn as she stared up at its old walls, longing to return, but knowing she never could. In other dreams, she was standing alone on a hill, looking out over a ruined world – solitary and silent in her enviro-suit, the indicator on her oxygen tank flashing as her stores began to run low.
These were the dreams Aloy dreaded most, knowing how much it hurt Elisabet to see the world she loved gone forever – knowing there was nothing she could do to help her, to soothe her, to alleviate her pain and heartache. These dreams had been occurring more often lately, though she was not sure what she had done to provoke them; now, she could hear Elisabet’s last laboured breaths as she watched the world devour itself, consumed by greed, and, coming to stand beside her on the hill, Aloy looked over, seeing her last, silent tears streaming down her cheeks behind her faceplate. She could feel her heart squeeze at the sight, at the thought that this was the last world Elisabet had ever known—that she would never see what came after the swarm, what beauty her sacrifice had created. Aloy could tell her, of course – she had told her multiple times, as she could always speak to Elisabet in these dreams – but she knew it was all only an illusion; the real Elisabet was gone, and whatever was said here would only ever fall on deaf, imaginary ears.
Aloy thinned her lips to a stark line, turning to stare out over the barren countryside like Elisabet – this had been a lush field once, with greenshine-coloured grass that brushed her knees like softest Carja silk. She had been here in other dreams, in times when this place was alive and well, a mecca for butterflies with wings like the sun, so different from the jewel-blue butterflies that populated the Grove in her own version of the world. The Old World had been so full of life, so full of wonderful things she had never seen in her own world – would never see – and she let out a soft sigh as she folded her arms, looking out over the swirling blackness left behind by the swarm.
“What do you think, Aloy?” Elisabet asked, causing Aloy to look over at her, taken by surprise.
“What do I think?” Aloy repeated, unsure what she meant. She paused, before looking out to the field again, staring over the nothingness with a soft hum. “I think it’s terrible,” she answered honestly, her voice low. “I think I would’ve given up, if faced with something like this. I don’t know how you kept going, Elisabet. Faced with something so massive, so inevitable…”
Elisabet huffed, shaking her head, causing Aloy to stop, unsure what she had said wrong. “That’s not what I meant,” Elisabet corrected her, still staring out over the field, not turning to look at her. “I mean… what do you think about calculated sacrifices in the name of the greater good?” She paused, giving Aloy a moment to catch up, to understand what she was asking, before she took another long breath in, causing the red light on the back of her enviro-suit to flash again. “Maybe what you give up will help everyone… maybe it won’t,” Elisabet added, her tone rational. “But at the moment it’s needed, it seems like the best option. Much better than whatever comes second. Do you think the most logical option is always the better one?”
Aloy frowned, unsure how to answer, feeling a bit put on the spot. “I think you did what you thought was best,” she finally said, choosing her words carefully. “I think… what you did saved a lot of people. You kept everyone safe by giving up your own life. Nobody can say you made the wrong choice.”
Elisabet was silent for a moment, thinking it over, before she finally let out another soft huff. “That’s not what I’m asking,” she pointed out. “You’re avoiding the question, Aloy. Which is what I guess I should expect, coming from me. It’s hard to put an answer into black and white without being given all the variables first.”
Aloy felt her cheeks turn a bit pink, unused to being called out by her own subconscious; though she knew, logically, this was not the real Elisabet, it still stung as if she had been taken down a notch by someone she admired. “I don’t know how I feel about the idea as a whole,” she admitted, the words tumbling out before she could temper them. She hated when her mouth got ahead of her, but she was flustered now, her indecisiveness laid bare. “You would never give up on something just because one answer seems obvious,” she added, trying to justify herself. “You’d try to find another way around it. A way where everything could end up okay.”
Elisabet fell silent at her answer, taking another long breath that caused the light on her enviro-suit to flicker, and Aloy held her own breath as she waited for a response, hoping she had not said something terribly wrong. Then, after a moment, Elisabet turned her head, meeting Aloy’s green gaze with her own for the first time, and Aloy could see the pain and gravity in her eyes as her dried tears glistened on her cheeks, frozen in time. “Sometimes things just don’t turn out okay,” Elisabet told her, causing her heart to sink at the statement. “We have to accept those outcomes along with the good ones. Sometimes things go wrong, and there’s nothing we can do but accept that and continue on.”
“But—” Aloy pursed her lips, feeling her stubbornness start to rise. “But—that’s not what you did. You fought until the end. You didn’t ‘accept’ anything.”
“And you’re just like me,” Elisabet agreed, nodding. “So, do you think everything is going to end up okay?”
Aloy hesitated, put on the spot again, turning her gaze back out to the fields razed bare by the swarm. “I… don’t know,” she admitted after a while, her voice barely above a whisper, realizing she had never thought about it before. She had always lived her life the way she had been taught—one minute at a time, one moon, one arrow’s breath—and she had learned not to take anything for granted, never to become too sure of any one thing, knowing it could always be taken away. The concept of hope was not foreign to her, but neither was it particularly comforting to think about; optimism only led to cynicism in her experience, and expectation to disappointment. Still, she realized Elisabet had been neither of those things at the end—she had not been cynical in her last messages, nor disappointed in the choice she had been forced to make to save Zero Dawn—and Aloy felt her shoulders sink at the thought of how jaded she had allowed herself to become in pursuit of that same sense of certainty.
Elisabet paused, allowing her time, before she let out a soft, warm chuckle, one that took Aloy by surprise, causing her to turn her head again as Elisabet looked back over the field, taking a thoughtful breath. “Yes, you do,” she told her, confidently. “You’ve always known. You just think it’s better not to say, in case you’re wrong. Because you’re just like me, and you know the world needs you to be right—even when you’re not entirely sure, yourself.” Falling silent, she stared out towards the darkness, at the infinite nothingness left in the wake of the swarm, before she finally gave another tired breath, folding her arms over her torso to hug her slender sides. “You need that assurance, in case something doesn’t go to plan,” she added, knowingly. “So you can pretend you knew all along you weren’t going to succeed. But sometimes, we need to be wrong. Sometimes it’s okay to take risks that don’t pay off. After all, how else do we learn, if not from our mistakes?”
Aloy frowned, not liking the sound of that. “But… how do I know which mistakes are worth making?” she asked, feeling a bit hopeless at the advice. “I can’t just leap blindly, expecting something to eventually catch me. I can’t just keep making mistakes, hoping one of them will be right. That’s how you get people killed—good people. People who don’t deserve it.”
“Does anyone deserve it?” Elisabet asked, looking over at Aloy again, expectantly. Aloy narrowed her lips, saying nothing, knowing she had an answer to that, but not one Elisabet would like. In return, Elisabet gave another soft chuckle, reading her telling silence like a book. “There will always be a cost,” she acknowledged, looking out over the fields again. “But making mistakes is still the best part of anything—in science or in life. You never know what will happen when you do. All you can really hope for is to learn from them.”
Aloy hesitated again, uncertain, before finally letting out a long sigh, folding her arms self-consciously. “I’m tired of learning from my mistakes,” she muttered, shaking her head. “I just wish, for once, I knew what to do the first time. Without something always having to go wrong first. Without people having to get hurt.”
Elisabet smiled, her expression wan, the lines at the edges of her eyes creasing with experience. “Chin up, Aloy,” she told her, reaching out a gentle hand to lift Aloy’s head. Aloy felt a small warmth run through her at that, feeling the tenderness of Elisabet’s touch, even through her thick gloves – as much as she disliked being touched in the real world, she always found Elisabet’s touch comforting in dreams. Elisabet took another deep breath, this one sounding much more painful than the last, and Aloy frowned as she realized she was struggling to breathe as her air supply began to run short. She could hear her enviro-suit beeping, the beeps growing closer together as the last of her air fought to circulate, but Elisabet still did not let her expression falter, the dry tears on her cheeks glinting in the darkness as she held her brave smile.
“Trying to control every outcome will only drive us mad with disappointment,” Elisabet explained, still sounding hopeful, despite having to gasp to speak now. “Sometimes, we can do everything right, and things will still go wrong. All we can do when that happens is decide the next right move and keep going.”
“But what if I don’t know the next right move?” Aloy pleaded, desperate to know before Elisabet’s air ran out.
Elisabet paused, thoughtful for a moment, before she finally retrieved her hand, returning it to her side. “I trust you’ll know when the time comes,” she answered, looking out to the darkness again. “And even if you don’t… well.” She fell silent again, staring out at the nothingness, before she reached up, touching a pensive hand to her globe necklace. “We all make mistakes sometimes,” she admitted, her voice quiet. “It’s not the end of the world.”
It was still night when Aloy woke – she could always tell, even when she could not see outside to see the moon. There was something different about the base at night, something that made it feel smaller, colder, more isolated. Even with the controlled temperature and soft ambient lighting provided by GAIA to maximize mood regulation, it always felt lonelier in the base at night, quieter, though Aloy guessed it was always quiet here anymore. With the majority of her companions having left after the Zenith fight, there was no one left to provide their welcoming ambience – no one left to provide the low murmur of their conversations, the bright chortles or low, warm rumbles of their laughter. The only occupants left in the base now were too widespread to bother interacting unless absolutely necessary, and if they did interact, it was usually only to compare notes before returning to their various tasks.
Aloy, Beta, and Sylens were, without a doubt, the three least socially adjusted members of their group, and together, they made for a strange dynamic, one which Aloy knew would never have worked, but for the exact circumstances which had brought them together here now. Letting out a long sigh at the thought, Aloy sat up on her mat, taking a moment to find her head; it had been more than six months since their fight with the Zeniths, though it was hard to tell exactly how long had passed. Beta had tried to implement a calendar in the base a while back, but Aloy had always had a hard time remembering to check it, often losing track of days, then finding it too much trouble to catch back up again. Tasks took whatever time they needed, and trying to box them into arbitrary timeframes felt like pointless frustration, so it often surprised her to hear how much longer had passed than she thought whenever she tried to ask Beta for reference.
She had found time slipping away from her more and more these days, with weeks and tasks blending increasingly into one another, and while she had managed to keep good communication with her companions through the first month after the Zenith fight, she had soon found that slipping away from her as well. She had made sure to check in with her companions through her Focus in the first month – or in person, if the opportunity presented itself – but as that month began to wane, she soon found herself slipping back into old habits, prioritizing her mission over her social life. By the time the second month came to an end, she found herself barely communicating with them at all anymore, overwhelmed by tasks and variables, buried neck-deep in data that only presented itself once all other possibilities had been debunked and set aside.
Through the last six months, HEPHAESTUS had remained missing in the Cauldron network, meaning Aloy found her less pressing responsibilities starting to slip more and more through the cracks in pursuit of it; she had lost contact with Alva first, and then Kotallo, with Erend and Zo following close behind. She had not meant to lose touch with any of them, though she was sure they would assume she had – she was well-known for doing exactly that, and admittedly, she found it much easier to concentrate on her main mission with less outside obligations to distract her. Her focus on locating HEPHAESTUS had grown increasingly dire over the last six months, with new concerns emerging almost daily, the most catastrophic of which was something the tribes had taken to calling “the Dearth”. The Dearth, Aloy came to learn, was an event in which the machines they were used to hunting had suddenly stopped replenishing – where herds of Grazers had once roamed in plenty, there were now only empty fields, their red grass swaying quietly in the breeze, and even the larger machines were no longer coming back after being culled, their valleys left unguarded, silent as an Old World grave.
The absence of machines, particularly the larger predators, made the vales much safer to traverse, but it also made things much harder for the tribes’ survival otherwise, particularly those whose economy even partially depended on machine-based resources. Aloy had revisited some of the Cauldrons in the Forbidden West in that time, looking for some clue to where HEPHAESTUS had gone, or perhaps some further explanation of the Dearth, but they had all been eerily dead on her arrival – all production shut down, lights dark, pipes silent. It seemed that the function had gone completely underground, staying out of sight until it had a chance to resurge at full power, and in the process had abandoned all existing machines to their own devices, unrenewable and alone without their function to bolster their numbers.
The thought made Aloy’s stomach clench, and she let out another breath, looking around the room for something to distract her mind; there were mementos everywhere here, small memories she had collected over the years to remind her of reasons to keep going. From her mat, she could see the spear Rost had given her, assembled with his own hands to help her hunt and survive in the wilds, and she felt her heart grow heavy at the thought of him, at the memory of the last time she had seen him before he had been lost to her forever. She had tried to grow past that trauma, to push herself to be wholly independent, taking his lessons in stride, but she knew, even now, that she would gladly give up any number of lessons learned to have just a bit more time with him.
That was the way it always was, Aloy told herself – there was never enough time, never a moment to breathe. There was always something happening, something being taken away, making it hard to allow herself to become attached to anyone or anything. Glancing to her other side, Aloy looked up towards a nearby desk, at the knife given her by Unyielding Fashav; he had given her that knife on their very first meeting as a token of trust, offering her safe passage through the Forbidden West. She had learned a great deal from Fashav, though she had only had a chance to know him for a very brief window—still, it had been enough time for him to teach her an important lesson about diplomacy, about never judging a whole before coming to understand the sum of its parts.
Pushing herself up from her mat, Aloy let out a soft groan, rubbing her eyes, before shuffling across the room towards a bookshelf pushed up against the wall by the door. She could feel her expression growing softly solemn as she lifted a hand, touching the globe necklace hanging from the small carved tree; she had taken this necklace from Elisabet, from the preserved body of the only mother she had ever known, and she let out another small huff at the thought of the conversation she had just had with Elisabet in her dream. It had been an uncomfortable discussion, but one she was sure the real Elisabet would have wanted to know of her: what mistakes she was willing to make, and whether she would be prepared to make the hard choices for the greater good.
“You didn’t even hesitate,” Aloy whispered, pausing the globe with her thumb on the shape of their continent. It was strange to see the earth laid out so plainly, so wholly, all of it so much larger than she could have ever imagined – there were worlds beyond worlds out there, oceans beyond time, places she knew she might never learn the name of. Aloy frowned for a moment as she stared down at the necklace, debating whether to put it on before heading out for the day, before she finally shook her head, deciding it was too precious to risk losing. “Another time,” she told herself, quietly, letting the globe fall back to its resting position and watching as it swung faintly for a moment before stilling. Then, turning away from the little tree, she headed for the door, making her way out into the base at large.
The main living-area of the base was quiet as she emerged, though she had expected as much, at this hour – she always wondered if the others had the same trouble sleeping, but she had never taken the opportunity to ask. Sleep was a fleeting commodity here, with so many pressing things on everyone’s mind, but it did not take long for her to hear a soft beeping coming from Sylens’ quarters, letting her know she was right. Moving her way over to his door, Aloy passed a hand in front of the holo-lock, opening it quietly, before standing in the doorway with folded arms, looking in on the Banuk inventor and wondering how long it would take him to realize she was there.
“Bad dreams, Aloy?” Sylens asked, not even bothering to look up from his work to acknowledge her. It had taken less than ten seconds for him to comment, but she had the feeling he had known she was there even before that.
Aloy huffed, moving her hands to her hips. “Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked, keeping her voice low enough to not wake Beta.
Sylens chuckled, still not looking up from his work. “Not anymore,” he answered, his tone making it hard to tell if he was lying. Aloy frowned, her freckled nose creasing, waiting for him to make some further clarification, and after another moment, he looked up to meet her eyes, his dark gaze sharp, seeing how long she would wait to ask. After another short while of waiting, Sylens seemed to realize their staring contest would only end in a stalemate, and he turned to face Aloy fully, taking a deep breath and letting it out again in a thoughtful sigh. “I do sleep, at times,” he admitted, sounding as if he expected her to be captivated by this insight. “I’ve trained myself to sleep in thirty-minute intervals throughout the day… never long enough for anyone to track my patterns, take advantage. When a body gets used to functioning like that, it doesn’t need much more to keep it going. Keep it sharp.”
Aloy frowned, having a hard time believing him. “Humans need eight hours of sleep to function properly,” she argued, not buying it.
Sylens huffed, his mouth curling impishly. “Most humans do,” he agreed. “But, in case you haven’t noticed… I am not most humans.”
Aloy pursed her lips, ready to argue, before realizing it would likely serve her better to just drop it – she had come to expect this level of arrogance from Sylens, and she did not want to give him the satisfaction of thinking she was interested. “What about Beta?” she asked, not acknowledging his claim.
“What about her?” Sylens returned, unfazed.
Aloy held out a frustrated hand. “Is she still sleeping?” she asked, annoyed. “I assume she still needs to do that.”
Sylens hummed, turning to his work again. “‘Need’ is a relative term,” he answered, matter-of-factly. “But yes. Beta is still sleeping soundly in the communal quarters. She can still do that, unlike you and I.”
Aloy gritted her teeth, stopping herself from saying something snide in return, before she turned instead to head for the base exit, intent on getting a bit of fresh air to clear her head. Sylens was only trying to rile her, to catch her off-guard, as was his usual mode of operation—but she was determined not to let him get under her skin, not today, when she was already shaken up enough as a result of her dream. Moving past the Utaru weaveworks Zo had brought in to line the exit hall, Aloy waved a hand to open the exterior door, feeling the cold wind rustle her hair as she stepped out into the snow. It was always freezing out here, though she supposed that was inevitable, with their base hidden high in a mountain range, and she shivered as she blew on her hands, making her way past the small spring pool to the overlook where Zo had made a memorial for Varl.
The golden flowers Zo had planted in Varl’s memory had grown over the last months into a small verdant garden, a vibrant pop of colour against an otherwise bleak landscape of white and sullen mountain grey. It was symbolic of Varl, Aloy thought, to bring joy and comfort into places where there was none before, and she let out a soft sigh as she settled down on the bamboo mat, brushing a hand across the delicate blooms. “Hey, Varl,” she whispered, retrieving her hand again. “Been a while since we’ve had a chance to talk. Guess you don’t have a much better grasp of time than I do, but… a lot of things’ve happened. Feels like forever, to be honest.”
She paused at the thought, looking up over the mountain, feeling the chill wind nip at her already reddened cheeks, before she took another deep breath, her heavy brows furrowing as she thought back to all that had happened over the last few weeks. “Beta’s been looking for places HEPHAESTUS might’ve gone underground,” she said, knowing she was only talking to herself out here. “She’s been scanning for traces of dormant Cauldrons. Ones that wouldn’t show up on electricity maps, and might be hidden from GAIA’s network. We figured, even if GAIA couldn’t see them, they couldn’t as easily hide from the camera drones. I’ve been collecting as many as I can, and Beta’s been compiling them into digital maps, looking for places we might’ve missed before.”
She paused, taking a moment to look down at the memorial, noting all the contributions the group had made to it—a decanter of ale from Erend, a shell sculpture from Alva, a painted metal object from Kotallo that crudely resembled a bird. As she glanced further over towards a far corner, she paused as something caught her eye, a new contribution, and she reached out to pick it up, turning it over between her fingers before setting it down again, gently. It was a malformed little object, one that looked almost like a Fireclaw, but for its childish features; made entirely of Carja cloth, with beads for eyes and a crudely-stitched mouth curled into a smile. Aloy had never seen a Fireclaw smile, but this one made her own mouth turn up at how endearingly bizarre it was, and she could not help wondering what Beta had been trying to make, though she was sure Varl would have appreciated the love that went into it all the same.
“Beta’s been helping out a lot, actually,” Aloy noted, reaching out a finger to rub thoughtfully over the little object’s head. “Haven’t found too many Cauldrons this new way… but we’ve found a few, which gives us hope we might find more. If HEPHAESTUS really has gone into hiding, it’ll still need something to keep it going. It can’t survive entirely without core power.” Pausing again at the thought, she took a moment to consider how much of the last few months had been spent getting to know Beta better; all their time spent tracking down tech related to Elisabet or Zero Dawn had given her an incredible amount of newfound closeness to her sister. They had returned to the Zenith base together after a while, intent on stripping what residual information they could from its databases, and she had listened to Beta talk during all that time about her experiences with the Zeniths, both on earth and in space.
She had stood at Beta’s side when they had finally combed through what was left of Tilda’s data, seeing what she had saved of Elisabet, intent on adding any information they found to the slowly-growing catalogue they had been compiling together. It was a personal project they had agreed on, piecing together what sparse data they could find to help them know Elisabet better, and Aloy guessed, looking back on it, that that was probably what had been inspiring her thematic dreams lately. They were always different, always changing, but always about Elisabet, shifting in small ways to match any new information they had found—though she could not quite place what had inspired her latest dream, except perhaps some lingering, subconscious thoughts about Elisabet’s final sacrifice. Elisabet had never expressed regret for her own choices, but Aloy could not help her own doubts, her own personal sadness, her own thoughts and feelings about what Elisabet had missed, never being able to see her creation come to fruition.
Missing out on life in the name of the greater good was too common a theme, Aloy realized, looking down again at the memorial for Varl, and she felt her heart grow heavy at the thought as she pushed herself to her feet again, turning back for the base just as the sun began to peek over the edge of the horizon.
Beta was already awake by the time Aloy got back inside, and she looked up quickly from her cup of coffee, swallowing her last sip. “Aloy,” she said, lifting her chin to acknowledge her. “I found something last night. While I was scanning the digital maps.”
“Good morning to you, too,” Aloy greeted her, turning to the coffee machine to get her own cup. They had taken the machine from the Zenith base on one of their data runs—a small, self-indulgent trophy—and it had taken Aloy and Sylens no time at all to acclimate to its necessity as part of their morning routine. Pulling a silver cup from behind the coffeemaker, Aloy watched it fill with dark liquid, closing her eyes to inhale the welcoming scent of her morning pick-me-up, before she brought the cup to her lips, blowing gathering steam away from its surface.
Beta nodded, reaching for her Focus and taking another sip of her own coffee, already much more awake than her sister. “I found it on the data drive for one of the drones you collected near Plainsong,” she said, pulling up a picture of a mound nearly obscured by greenery. “An old, defunct Cauldron—nearly overrun with plant growth. I cross-checked it on the electricity map, and it is still giving off a faint signal. Nothing that would alert GAIA to its presence, but more than the average tree-covered hill would give off. It seemed promising.”
“Plainsong?” Aloy asked, taking a pensive sip of coffee as she stared at the mound. It was nearly eighteen hours out to Plainsong by Sunwing, she knew, let alone how much more time it might take to find the Cauldron, and she could not help wondering if there was something else along the way she could do to justify the long trip out. “Plainsong is where Zo is,” she finally said, sounding less enthused about it than even she might have guessed. “Guess I could pay her a visit while I’m out there. Depends on how close the Cauldron is to the settlement.”
Beta shrugged, finishing her coffee. “Has to be a lot closer than here,” she reasoned, collapsing the projection. “And since you’re already heading out there—”
“Yeah,” Aloy agreed, tiredly. “Guess there’s no excuse.”
Beta paused, staring at Aloy for a moment, her thin fingers curling around her cup, as if debating going back for another refill. “I’d think you’d be more excited to see Zo,” she finally observed. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen her, hasn’t it?”
Aloy hummed, trying not to make a guilty face. “Yeah,” she agreed, warily. “Things just got… busy. You know how it is. I’m sure she’s been busy too, with the gravesinging and all, but—”
“Oh,” Beta said, understanding. “You did your thing again. Your thing where you just, drop contact.” She paused again, thinning her lips, her expression not quite a frown, but still disappointed enough to make Aloy wince, before she finally shrugged her thin shoulders, getting up from her seat to make her way back to the coffeemaker. “I guess it would be awkward to just show up again like nothing happened,” she acknowledged, preparing herself another cup. “I don’t think Zo would mind, though. She’d probably just be happy to see you again.”
Aloy hesitated, before finally letting out a sigh, realizing there was no point in being cagey with her sister. “Last I heard from Zo, she’d been inducted into the Chorus,” she explained, setting her coffee aside and watching as Beta returned to her seat. “Gotta be a lot going on for them now… especially with the Dearth. She might be too busy to see me anyway.”
“She must be almost ready to have her baby by now,” Beta observed, not acknowledging Aloy’s excuses.
Aloy let out another sharp huff, thwarted, before forcing a smile to her face, one she knew was likely closer to a grimace. “Getting close, I’m sure,” she agreed, her enthusiasm too fake for even her to buy. She hesitated again, before finally letting her smile drop, her expression waning instead to a troubled frown, propping one hand on her hip as the other came to rest on the bar, drumming her fingers nervously. She had kept close track of Zo’s pregnancy at the start of their separation, in the first few months since she had last seen her, but she had lost count a few months back, and the thought that the baby’s birth was so close now made her nearly sick with worry.
Beta frowned, confused by her reaction. “Don’t you want to see Zo’s baby?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee.
“Of course I do,” Aloy answered quickly, letting out a sigh. “I’m just… nervous, I guess. Don’t know what to do around babies. Rost, and the Nora, were… very ceremonial about it. Lots of flowery language, not a lot of… hard facts.” She paused, retrieving her hands again, before folding her arms self-consciously over her chest instead. “Especially with it being Varl’s… I dunno,” she added, honestly. “I just don’t want to make a bad impression.”
Beta faltered, surprised by her answer. “Babies don’t care about impressions,” she finally said. “They’re… babies.”
“I know it’s not logical,” Aloy returned, exasperated with herself. “I just, don’t know how else to explain it. Zo’s about to be a mother, and I’m… still figuring out where HEPHAESTUS ran off to. On some wild AI goose chase. It just feels like I should’ve accomplished more, like… time is running out, and I’ve just been wasting it.” She paused again, thinning her lips, feeling her crossed arms grow tighter over her chest in anxiety, before she finally let out another long sigh, shaking her head as she reached for her coffee again. “I should’ve done something by now, I should’ve… fixed things by now,” she added, staring down into the dark liquid, too agitated to drink it. “It’s been six months—more than that—since Varl died, and… his and Zo’s baby deserves better than a half-finished world.”
Beta was silent for a moment, sucking her lips, before she looked down into her coffee as well, seeming to have lost her urge to drink it. “Doesn’t really seem fair to discount our work like that,” she finally said, her voice barely above a hurt murmur. “I know it’s frustrating to have not captured HEPHAESTUS yet, but… that doesn’t mean we’ve been doing nothing. We’ve accomplished a lot.”
Aloy sighed, realizing her mistake immediately. “You’re right,” she acknowledged. “I’m sorry, Beta. I didn’t mean it like that. We have managed to collect all the other functions—all except HADES—and GAIA’s purged all their malicious code by now so they’re relatively usable. A couple could stand to be a bit more stable, but…” She paused again, before letting out a hum, narrowing her lips and bringing her coffee up to take a drink. “Without finding HEPHAESTUS, there’s no way to know if we have enough processing power now to capture it,” she admitted, letting out another breath. “Who knows how much stronger it is now, after being run through the Zenith’s printing matrix? It could be… twice as powerful now. We might not be able to capture it, even with all the functions we have.”
“I feel like this is a step back from where I was trying to go,” Beta admitted, her soft voice frustrated.
Aloy frowned, setting down her coffee again. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just… in my head today, I guess. Can’t escape all these thoughts of things that could go wrong. Think it’ll be good for me to head out for that Cauldron you found.” Tapping two fingers to her Focus, she activated her wide view, before looking up as Beta did the same, waiting for her sister to sweep something over to her screen, a file which quickly expanded into a map with two marked dots. “Great,” Aloy said, closing her view again. “Something to keep my mind occupied, at least. And hopefully get us one step closer to HEPHAESTUS.”
“And don’t forget to visit Zo while you’re out there,” Beta reminded her, taking another sip of coffee as Aloy headed for the door.
The sun was barely peeking over the mountains by the time Aloy woke to the sound of her Sunwing stirring, and she opened her eyes to watch as it uncurled itself from around her, hopping instead over to the crest of the nearest rock. It ruffled its metal feathers as it settled, preening its cables as it turned to spread its photovoltaic wings towards the sun, lifting its crested head high as it allowed the pale rays to wash over its silicon mesh. Aloy could hear the bird cooing as the sunlight hit its wings, the sound mixing with the faint whine of its recharging hip-canisters, and she pushed herself up tiredly from the dusty ground, stretching her arms and legs as she readied for the day ahead.
She had flown nearly sixteen hours over the last two days, trying to make good time towards the Plainsong Cauldron, taking breaks every few hours to rest and hydrate so she could try to get to the coordinates faster. The ride had been long and gruelling thus far, and she knew there were still a few hours left until she reached the Cauldron, but it was a much less daunting proposition after a good night’s rest and with a stomach full of breakfast. Digging in her supply-satchel for her mesa bread, Aloy unwrapped it carefully from the rough cloth, catching a few stray seeds as they rolled over her fingers towards the dirt, before looking up as the Sunwing trilled at her curiously, its feathers rattling as it spread its wings further to catch the sun’s rays.
“Just a couple more hours,” Aloy promised the machine, moving forward to place a reassuring hand on its breastplate; she could see something rolling around inside its resource canister as she patted it, and she gave a soft snort, wondering if it actually knew what to do with the things it picked up. Finishing off a last bite of bread, she wrapped the rest in the cloth again, stuffing it back in her satchel, before placing a guiding a hand on the Sunwing’s shoulder, coaxing it down to allow her to mount for the flight ahead.
She could see her bird marked as a moving dot on her Focus map as they flew ever closer to the coordinates Beta had provided, her little flashing indicator steadily closing the gap to the solid point representing the Cauldron. She could not see the mound from the air just yet, but she guessed that was probably because she was too high up to see the land disparity—still, Beta had assured her it would be here, and she trusted her sister to know best about these kinds of things. The sun was climbing high in the sky by the time their dot finally overlapped the second indicator, and Aloy pulled back firmly on the Sunwing’s cables, before leaning sharply forward again, sending it into a dive. The wind whipped wildly through her hair as the bird plummeted, only to pull up in a swoop in a last-second recovery, settling down gently on a nearby rock and folding its wings over its long tail as it waited for her to dismount.
Had she not known there was a Cauldron here, Aloy could have easily mistaken this place for just another grassy hill – as it was, she could barely recognize the iconic shape, even knowing there was a Cauldron hidden beneath all the overgrowth. She was so used to Cauldrons having a certain feel, a certain atmosphere, a vibration in the ground beneath her feet, that this one felt almost unsettling—like any other hill, any other lifeless stone in the middle of nowhere. Drawing her spear to her side, she picked her way cautiously forward, pushing low branches out of the way, peering around for any sort of opening, any crack or crevice in the knoll she could use to wriggle her way inside. She did not need much of an opening, just enough to access some kind of door mechanism she could override, and she let out a triumphant huff as she finally felt a rock shift beneath her foot, kicking it aside to reveal a small, dark hole into the hillside.
“I’ll be right back!” she called to her Sunwing, waving a reassuring hand back at the bird. The machine only cooed in response, having no idea what she was talking about.
Aloy grunted as she pulled a few more rocks aside, digging her way down until she had pried open a gap just large enough to fit through, before dropping her bow and spear in first, making her silhouette as slim as possible to follow them down. Even without the added bulk of her weapons, she found the squeeze uncomfortably snug, and she let out a relieved huff as she felt her feet finally hit the floor, before squinting back up towards the small hole, wondering if she would be able to get back out again. She was sure she could find another opening, if necessary—Cauldrons always had two, in case of emergency—but the thought of being trapped underground still made her heart shudder for a moment in anxiety. “I’ll be fine,” she assured herself quietly, turning her gaze determinedly forward. “If nothing else, the bird can make the hole bigger. I just have to call it.”
Picking up her weapons, she slid her bow over her shoulder, holding her spear warily at her side, before starting to move forward into the darkness, tapping her Focus to light the way. The Cauldron was unnaturally quiet, the eerie silence causing her skin to prickle despite her best efforts to ignore it, the wires and pipes that usually lit up these facilities under her Focus’s scans lying cold and dormant in the walls. As she panned her light around, she suddenly saw something small light up near her foot, causing her to jump, only to let out an irritated scoff a moment later as it skittered away, and she realized it was only a large scorpion that had tunnelled in to take advantage of the darkness. “Scorpions,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Of course. It had to be scorpions.”
Turning her Focus to the floor, she checked for any more scorpions, not wanting to accidentally step on one, before panning her light over the walls again, looking to see if she might have missed anything there before. As she did, she noticed a small flicker of electricity running through one of the wires, moving deeper into the facility, and she turned quickly to follow it, keeping pace until it finally disappeared behind a wall. Looking up towards the wall, Aloy noticed that she was standing in front of a door, its lock dark, barring access, and she let out a hum as she picked up her spear, jamming it between the heavy doors to pry them open. She had known going in that this Cauldron would be a challenge, but she had never been deterred by a challenge before, and she grunted as the doors finally scraped open, before sliding her way nimbly through the narrow slot she had created.
The inside foyer of the Cauldron was just as dark as the entrance, and almost as quiet, save for the steady drip of water runoff, and Aloy frowned as she took a few steps forward, turning on her Focus again to look for the spark she had been following earlier. That tiny bit of residual electricity had likely been what had alerted Beta here in the first place, but Aloy could not fathom HEPHAESTUS hiding out in a place with such a low, almost nonexistent power supply to leech off of. There was not even enough power here to turn on the lights, let alone create anything as complex as a Thunderjaw, and, moving deeper into the dark hall, she panned her Focus around, making a face as her light fell over more large scorpions crawling over the pipes, making themselves at home in the darkness.
Turning her scan to the floor next, she nudged a scorpion aside with her foot, watching as it skittered away, before she noticed another small spark moving through the cables, and she turned quickly to follow it, keeping pace as it travelled leisurely along through the floor network. She could tell it was taking her deeper into the Cauldron, winding down a labyrinth of cramped tunnels she assumed would eventually lead to the heart, but she could not help wondering what the point was in this tiny bit of power heading there, except perhaps to complete some basic function that fed all power in one direction.
She did not have long to dwell on that thought, however, before she ducked through an open vent, making her way into the old assembly chamber—though it was less of an assembly chamber than a mausoleum, she realized, with its colossal machines all frozen in silent mid-production. The shielding that usually separated the various parts of the fabrication process had all shut down, starved of their sustaining power, and Aloy shuddered as she stepped over one of the shielding-ducts, casting a wary glance over her shoulder at a dormant soldering arm. She could not help the feeling that walking through this Cauldron felt like exploring the corpse of something only recently dead, and she felt her heart skip as she heard something creak, turning to make sure the fabrication chamber had not suddenly come alive to attack its intruder.
“Something isn’t right here,” Aloy whispered, tapping her Focus again to light the way.
“Find anything yet?” Beta’s soft voice came in, staticky from the bad reception.
Aloy hummed, looking around for the spark again. “Nothing yet,” she admitted, taking her time to scan the fabrication rooms. They were all dark and lifeless, like any Old World ruin, with only cold power cables showing up dimly in her view. “Just a lot of bugs so far. Don’t think I’m gonna find HEPHAESTUS here. No power to support it.”
“How much power does it take to produce machines?” Beta asked, her voice crackling over the receiver. “Is it possible for HEPHAESTUS to run on a low power mode?”
Aloy wrinkled her nose at the thought. “I’ve never known it to be able to,” she answered, honestly. “Usually the way we track it is by the signal it gives off from a massive use of power. There’s not even enough here to keep the doors active, let alone support any kind of printing process. Even the smallest machines—” Suddenly, she stopped, turning again as she heard a soft hum coming from one of the walls, panning her Focus around in time to catch the spark she had been following travelling through the wires in the wall this time. “Whatever this Cauldron was originally used for, it’s running on next to nothing now,” she said, starting to follow the spark again. “Just enough to keep it from freezing up, probably. Or maybe it’s just residual runoff from another nearby power source. Either way, it doesn’t look like HEPHAESTUS has been using this Cauldron lately, and probably won’t be back here anytime soon.”
Following the spark deeper into the Cauldron, Aloy ducked through another vent, stepping through a large triangular door, before eventually finding herself standing on a ledge overlooking a deep, circular pit. This was the main printing matrix, she realized – the heart of the facility – though its functions seemed to be at rest, its massive printing arm perched a few inches above the plate, ready to build, with the half-finished corpse of a Watcher tossed to one side against the wall, dropped from the stabilizing magnet when the facility lost power. Taking her pullcaster from her belt, Aloy hooked it warily to the edge of the platform, lowering herself down cautiously; under normal circumstances, she would have gone down faster, but she had no idea what to expect from this Cauldron. She could see the main datacore already raised in the middle of the room as her feet touched the ground, and she activated her Focus again to inspect it, watching as the small spark she had been following trailed lazily along the wires, until finally coming to settle inside the core.
She could see the core light up for a moment, the wires inside flashing as the current pulsed through them, before they quickly went dark again, that single bit of electricity not nearly enough to make any difference to the printing arm. Moving up to the hub to inspect it, Aloy frowned, picking up her spear to unlock the core, before listening to the high-pitched whine as she slotted the override circuit over the faint red ring. She could see the core make a faint attempt to reach out with tendrils of code to fight her override, but it did not have nearly enough power to withstand, and it took barely a few seconds for her module to overpower it, granting her access to its data core.
Stashing her spear at her back again, Aloy touched her Focus, scanning the core for traces of HEPHAESTUS, but she could not find any print records for machines she recognized dating back at least six months to when the function had disappeared. In fact, it seemed this Cauldron had been stripped of all override material when it lost power, and Aloy hummed, frustrated at the setback—before she suddenly felt something sharp inside her boot, and she jumped back quickly, letting out a startled yelp. “What the—?!” she hissed, reaching down to pull off her boot and giving it a good shake to empty it – only to watch in horror as a large black scorpion fell out, writhing on its back for a moment before righting itself. Aloy watched as it skittered away, zagging across the Cauldron floor and back towards the darkness, and she gritted her teeth as she grabbed up a nearby piece of metal debris, throwing it at the fleeing insect.
“Shit!” she swore, watching as the debris bounced and missed, the scorpion darting instinctively out of the way to disappear back into the shadows, before she let out a heavy sigh, leaning back against the hub and lifting her pained foot to get a better look. She made a face as she ran her thumb across the sting, noting that it was only a little red so far, but it still felt as if she had stepped on a sharp river rock, and she winced as she set it back down again, sliding it tentatively back inside her boot.
“Damnit,” she whispered, grimacing as she tried to put weight on it. “That’s gonna hurt for a while. Hope Zo has some salve I can use.” Letting out another frustrated sigh, Aloy leaned back on the hub, before suddenly feeling as the ground began to shudder beneath her feet, the Cauldron letting her know that the exit protocol had been activated by her override. The hexagonal flooring around the core began to move shakily upward, taking her with it, the ceiling blossoming open to allow her exit—until it suddenly stopped, letting out a loud whirring sound like a dying Widemaw as it powered down again. The platform jostled as it lost power, causing Aloy to stumble, barely catching herself on the core, and she let out another loud groan, realizing she would have to climb the rest of the way up.
“Should’ve seen this coming,” she admitted, glancing up the printing arm to see where she could find handholds.
It did not take long for her to climb her way up to the top floor, despite her injured foot paining her the whole way, and Aloy let out a frustrated grunt as she finally dragged herself onto the main level, sprawling out on her back to catch her breath. Her moment of rest did not have long to last, however, as she quickly caught a glimpse of something moving in her peripheral, and she sprang immediately to her feet again, realizing it was another scorpion right next to her face. She winced as her tender foot took the brunt of her recoil, before letting out another sigh, looking around for an exit, brushing herself off and thanking her stars no one was around to see her unceremonious departure.
“Think the only thing I’ll find here are bug bites,” she muttered, pushing her hair out of her face. “Should probably get to Plainsong while the sun’s still up. See if I can still catch Zo.” She could see the second exit at the far end of the corridor, a jammed door with a faint slit, allowing in a bar of sunlight, and she limped her way tiredly towards it, drawing her spear to wedge it between the doors, prying them open enough for her to slip through. She let out another pained huff as she dragged her injured foot through, making a face as she set it on the ground again, before she shielded her eyes from the sunlight, bringing her other hand up to whistle loudly for her Sunwing.
It was easy to keep weight off her foot in flight, so easy Aloy almost managed to forget she had hurt it at all, but she was reminded quickly as her Sunwing came to land just outside Plainsong, letting her dismount into the dirt. She hissed as her foot hit the ground, wondering if the pain only seemed worse now because of her few hours’ respite, but she gritted her teeth regardless, soldiering her gait as she made her way across the bridge and into the settlement.
It was nice, in a world so rife with uncertainty, to know that some things never truly changed, and Aloy smiled as she took a deep breath of floral air, noting that Plainsong was still almost exactly how she remembered it. She recognized its towering green structures, its communal gardens laden with flowers and cactus-fruit, the singing of the farmers in the fields outside mingling with the low bellows of the Land-Gods, making for a pleasant ambience. It was nice here, one of her favourite places to visit, though the reception she got was always mixed – some seemed glad to see her, recognizing her as the warrior who fought back Regalla’s rebels and saved the Land-Gods, while others had more mixed impressions, staying out of her way or regarding her with near-disgust.
She would never be popular with everyone, Aloy knew, especially after her direct defiance of several of the Chorus’ more traditionalist rulings, but she felt her decisions had made things better for the Utaru in the long run, whether they recognized that just yet or not. As she limped towards the centre of the settlement, an Utaru man in a garden looked up at her, his dark eyes intuitive – she could see him glance towards her boot, but he quickly returned his gaze to her face again after a moment, saying nothing. His face was gentle, his expression wise, his hands cracked from toil in the fields outside, and Aloy wondered if he had been there the last time she had visited, or if this was the first time he had seen such an usual passer-through.
“How can I help you, Saviour?” the man asked, his voice soft, answering her question for her.
Aloy made a face. “Just… Aloy,” she corrected him. “I was actually looking for Zo. Do you know where I might find her?”
The man gave a good-natured chuckle, the sound warm and deep in his chest. “She’s in no position to go out on another adventure, if that’s what you’re asking,” he told her, returning his gaze to his work. He hummed, his tune soft and sweet, picking up a half-woven basket Aloy assumed would be used for carrying crops, and she crossed her arms at his evasive answer, hoping there was more to come. “Zo is still here,” the man finally said, seeming to realize she was losing patience waiting. “Go to the central dish, up near the Chorus’ chambers. You’ll probably find her there at this time of day. She used to like to walk around Plainsong, checking on all of us, but her feet grow weary lately, so her walks have been shorter. If she still has strength enough to take her walks – which, her stubbornness will probably say she does – then that’s where you’ll find her.”
“Thanks,” Aloy said, giving him a short nod, before turning to follow his advice. The central dish of Plainsong was, as far as she knew, the economic hub, the place where most, if not all, of their merchants gathered, while the other two dishes were used mostly for housing, with a few spaces dedicated solely to transplants and Veterans. The layout of Plainsong was always changing, always growing, always adapting to new decrees from the Chorus, and Aloy could not help wondering how long they expected to be able to sustain a village built on limited space.
It would not be long before things began to change, she knew—had to change—with the growing peace between the Utaru, Carja, and Tenakth, and it was only a matter of time before either birth or transplant numbers would outgrow the amount of housing the Plainsong dishes accounted for. It was not a bad thing to have to prepare for, the idea that more peace would bring on the promise of more new life, but she could not help wondering if the Chorus was prepared to make the hard decision to either split their population or continue building outward. Overpopulation was a definite issue to consider, but one she was sure would not affect the Utaru for some time yet, and she found herself lost in these thoughts as she suddenly heard her name being called out from behind her, snapping her back to reality.
“Aloy!”
The voice was familiar, and Aloy turned quickly, blinking as she tried to find the source—but it did not take long, as Zo was quick to weave her way to the front of the crowd, making her way eagerly towards her friend. Zo beamed as she approached Aloy, holding out her hands to request contact, and Aloy smiled back, closing the gap and giving Zo the hug she wanted, feeling Zo’s stomach press into her own as they hugged, making her laugh at the strange sensation.
“Baby wants in on it, too,” Aloy joked, pulling back and taking a moment to observe her friend. Zo looked positively radiant, dressed in a sealed-grass tunic painted the eggshell white of a gravesinger, though her dried fern- and twig-mesh belts had been long abandoned, replaced by a single two-strap belt that helped hold the weight of her growing stomach. She was not wearing her headdress at the moment, instead allowing her hair to tumble down her shoulders in wild curls, making her look like some sort of nature goddess with how she glowed, luminous and lovely in her white dress. “Plainsong has been good for you,” Aloy noted, trying to hold back a wince as she took a step back, giving Zo some extra space.
Zo looked down, noticing Aloy’s awkward gait immediately. “Aloy,” she said, staring at her boot. “You’re limping.”
“Oh… yeah,” Aloy agreed, letting out a pained laugh, realizing nothing could be pulled over on Zo. “Got stung by a scorpion while I was out exploring. I… actually hoped you might take a look at it, once we got done catching up.”
Zo hummed, sucking her lip, before she finally nodded, looking up at Aloy again. “I’d be happy to put some salve on it,” she agreed, her motherly tone making Aloy feel like a child with a scraped knee. She could feel a small tinge of warmth in her cheeks at having to ask her friend for such trivial help, but she knew Zo would have wanted to help regardless, and would likely not have accepted no for an answer. “Can you walk a little further?” Zo asked. “I’ve got some aloe and dressings in my lodge, if you think you can make it that far.”
“I think I can manage,” Aloy answered, giving her another pained smile to let her know she was joking. Zo hummed again, not buying it, before touching Aloy’s hand, indicating for her to follow, and Aloy did as she was told, careful not to put too much weight on her foot as she followed Zo further up the structure. Looking up into the canopy, she squinted at the bustling city that had grown from the grave of the Old World satellite array, unable to help marvelling at the ingenuity of the Utaru people in the wake of such unforgiving lands.
“I hear you’ve been brought on as part of the Chorus,” Aloy observed after a moment, turning her attention to Zo again. “Guess they had an opening after what happened with Kalae and Kel. Not… that you should’ve had to wait for an opening to be allowed in.”
Zo nodded, seeming not to notice her slip. “You heard right,” she agreed, starting to make her way up another winding ascent. “And since joining, I’ve been working to implement knowledge and practices that will better help the Utaru long-term. While the Chorus is still stubborn – as could be expected – they have begun giving my advice some fair consideration… or, at least, as fair as anticipated.” She paused as she reached the next landing, before turning to head down a long walkway, leading in the direction of a bamboo dome, pausing as she reached it to push aside a curtain of dry reeds, revealing a warm hollow beyond. She paused as she entered, holding the curtain open and glancing back at Aloy, indicating for her to follow, and Aloy quickly complied, looking around the cosy hollow as she entered and wondering if all Utaru dwellings were this well-made and homey.
Zo’s room looked exactly how Aloy would have imagined it – spacious and round, lit warmly with the glow of hand-dipped candles, with thick bamboo walls to block out the low hum of rising song from outside, making it surprisingly quiet. She guessed the soundproofing was in preparation for her coming baby, as the farming choir’s singing would likely wake a sleeping infant, and she could not help admiring the amount of thought the Utaru had put into her friend’s natal dwelling. “Some of the things I’ve suggested are still a bit… progressive, for them just yet,” Zo admitted, settling with some difficulty on her raised bamboo bed, and Aloy hurried over to help her, taking her hand to give her some added leverage as she lowered herself down. She had never seen a bed like this in an Utaru settlement—when she had been at Stone’s Echo, her bed had been a woven-reed mat with a hide blanket—and she could not help wondering if this bed was also a special design provided for mothers nearing time for birth.
Zo sighed as she settled onto her mattress, looking less comfortable than Aloy might have guessed, but she had to admit that the thought of carrying around the added weight Zo did would likely make anyone uncomfortable. “That being said, they did say they would consider opening their ranks to other tribes more, should safety provide it,” Zo added, drawing Aloy’s attention back again. “Sentiment towards the Tenakth has improved… tentatively, since the return of our Land-Gods, and lines of trade and communication between the Utaru and the Tenakth in particular have become much more common since the start of the Dearth.” Pausing again at this thought, Zo looked down to her stomach, running a pensive hand over the weave of her garb, allowing her palm to rest reflectively at its widest peak as she took another deep breath, taking time to consider.
“I admit, I can’t say I’m sad to see the hostile machines go,” she said after a moment, looking up at Aloy again, her dark eyes sincere. “The less there are, the less trouble they’ll give our people, and our Land-Gods. I just hope this means we’ll be able to reboot the Zero Dawn initiative and destroy NEMESIS before too long.” Looking down again, she moved her hand downward, resting both hands under the curve of her stomach to support it. “It would be so nice for Varl and my baby to have a chance to live in a world without the threat of hostile machines,” she added, quietly.
Aloy nodded, unsure what to say, clearing her throat softly as she tried not to stare at Zo’s stomach; it was hard not to let her eyes fall to it instinctively, especially when Zo kept drawing so much attention to it. “So things have been okay for you around here?” Aloy asked, awkwardly. “No adverse effects as a result of the Dearth? Even from other tribes?”
Zo looked up at that, her expression thoughtful, her soft lips thinning to a wary line as her eyes travelled. “There have been… a few incidents lately,” she admitted after a moment, sounding hesitant to even talk about it. “A rash of violence broke out recently among some of our farmers, but all we know for sure is that the bodies of the slain were both Tenakth and Utaru. The Chorus tried to blame the incident on Tenakth transplants, but there was no solid evidence that it stemmed from them specifically—or even at all.” She paused again, making a face, one edge of her pretty nose wrinkling in disdain, before she finally let out a long sigh, letting her hand come to rest atop her stomach in exasperation.
“I’m not surprised they tried to change the narrative,” she admitted, shaking her head as she let her second hand rest beside her on the bed. “The Chorus has always been hesitant to allow other tribes to integrate into our numbers, and I’ve been pushing for more tolerance towards inter-tribal transplants lately. With that in mind, I can’t help feeling that this sudden rise of violent incidents involving Tenakth transplants might be… targeted, somehow.”
“You think they’re trying to frame the Tenakth transplants to justify less tribal integration?” Aloy asked, narrowing her eyes at the thought. As much as she hated to admit it, she did not find the claim so hard to believe – she had met the Chorus a few times during her trips to Plainsong, and she knew that, without Zo to make them see reason, they would likely have closed the Utaru off completely by now.
Zo hesitated, seeming loath to accuse, before she finally tilted her head, glancing towards a candle at the far end of the room. “Admittedly, the Dearth has been uniquely beneficial towards the Utaru, as our economy has never depended on hunting machines,” she said after a moment. “But, unfortunately, it’s caused other surrounding tribes to become more desperate… attacking our farmers to steal food, because their source of shards has dried up. I can’t help wondering if one of these potential thieves might be to blame for the recent violence, and the Chorus was simply using it as an excuse to throw disfavour on Tenakth transplants.” She paused again, her expression thoughtful, her gentle eyes warm as they reflected the soft candlelight, before she finally took another deep breath, turning her gaze to Aloy again, looking tired, but determined.
“That being said, I did manage to at least convince the Chorus not to close down the transplant program completely following the incidents,” she added, sounding less optimistic than she might have hoped. “Though, they’ve been more vigilant and wary about the program since the attacks – even floating the idea of closing it off to one or two people per year, rather than making it an entire program. I told them that doing that would be foolish, and detrimental to our people. We need our transplants—we need to be prepared to fight. The Dearth won’t last forever, and the Utaru need to learn how to defend ourselves from the machines that threaten our people and our homes.”
“Closing down the transplant program completely would be a death sentence for the Utaru,” Aloy agreed, her brow furrowing at the thought. “Even just keeping the Veteran program wouldn’t be enough. We’ve seen the hunter-killers. Who knows what else HEPHAESTUS is cooking up out there?”
Zo nodded, her expression still stern. “I agree,” she returned. “But the Chorus has become skittish and diffident on the matter… refusing to answer questions about their intentions for the future. All I can do is keep trying to convince them. Maybe you could be of some help in that regard.”
Aloy huffed, looking down to her feet, crossing her arms self-consciously over her chest. “I don’t know how much help I’d be,” she admitted, realizing she should have expected to be asked. She always ended up being pulled into tribal politics, whether she wanted to or not—which she never did—but she also knew how much this meant to Zo, and how important it was for the survival of the Utaru people. “The Chorus and I have never exactly seen eye-to-eye,” she admitted, looking up again with an uncertain expression. “I’d be happy to try, but… don’t be surprised if they turn us both down flat.”
Zo nodded, before looking to the side of her bed, reaching out towards a crude bamboo chest sitting by her bedside, and Aloy quickly moved to grab it for her, hissing through her teeth as her sore foot twinged at the motion. Zo took the box gratefully, opening it onto the bed and spreading her supplies out over the mattress, before patting the bed for Aloy to come sit beside her. “Here,” she said, calling her over. “Come sit down. Let’s take a look at that sting.”
“It’s just sore because it’s fresh,” Aloy admitted, sitting down beside Zo and bending to unfasten her boot. “It wouldn’t usually be such a problem, but I’ve got a long ride back to base. Would really prefer it not be hurting the whole way there.” Sliding her boot onto the floor, she picked up her foot, running her finger over the spot where the scorpion had stung her; it had turned a bit purple at the impact point, a dark, bruised-looking dot on the tender curve of her foot, and Aloy wrinkled her nose at the sight of it, feeling a bit foolish that such a small injury had caused her so much trouble. Zo only hummed as she stared at the sting, before picking up a small wooden box, opening it to a strong aroma of aloe, dipping two fingers into the salve and applying it gently to the wound, careful not to press too hard.
Aloy gritted her teeth as she watched Zo work, seeing her reach next for her dressings to bandage it up, wrapping the cloth carefully around the curves of Aloy’s foot in a technique that seemed almost like second nature. “It looks like you might be having some kind of reaction,” Zo noted, tucking the end of the bandage around her ankle to hold it in place. “I’d check in on it in a couple days to see if it’s healed. If not, you can apply this salve again, and it should go away in no time.” Closing the box again, Zo tucked it into Aloy’s hip-pouch, making sure she did not forget it, before she folded her hands over her stomach, watching as her friend put her boot back on, careful not to disturb the bandaging. Aloy huffed as she fastened her boot again, taking a cautious step as she stood from the bed, before she let out her breath in a relieved sigh, realizing her foot did not hurt nearly as much as it had barely moments earlier.
“You’re a lifesaver, Zo,” Aloy said, turning to look back at her friend, who only beamed tiredly from the bed.
“You can thank me by talking to the Chorus,” Zo reminded her, holding out her hands for Aloy to take. Aloy took both of Zo’s hands in her own, helping the mother-to-be to her feet with a weary grunt, and Zo faltered as she regained her balance, resting a hand on the small of her back to assist. “I can’t wait until this baby is born,” she admitted with a sigh, offering Aloy a smile that only accentuated her tired eyes. Then, seeming to remember something, she paused, before looking towards her bed again, staring at a low table resting against the wall. Aloy followed her gaze to the table, wondering what she was looking at that made her suddenly so thoughtful, before she spotted something she had somehow missed before—a small, embroidered leather pocket sitting on the stand beside Zo’s bed.
“I’ve already collected the baby’s seed-pouch,” Zo admitted, her gaze lingering on the small pouch. “Golden blooms, from Varl’s garden. I figured… they’re as much a part of him as the baby is, now. It seemed… fitting.” She paused at the thought, her soft lips drawing, her sculpted brows knitting in a solemn expression, pensive and sad, and Aloy frowned as she glanced back to her friend’s face, noting the faintest shine of tears in her eyes at the thought of Varl. “The blooms are native to the Nora lands, but they’re capable of thriving here as well, with a bit of love and tender care,” Zo added, matter-of-factly; she did not even seem to notice that Aloy had stopped looking at the seeds, and was now looking at her instead. “That seems just like Varl… and just like this child. It may have Nora roots, but it will grow and thrive here, in Utaru lands. But that doesn’t mean it should ever forget where it came from. Where its father came from. Nor will I let it.”
“Varl would like that,” Aloy agreed, speaking quietly, causing Zo to look up at her in surprise, as if she had forgotten she was there at all. Then, after a moment, Zo gave a soft huff, wiping her tears as she shook her head, looking embarrassed.
“I’m… sorry,” Zo apologized, softly. “I get… emotional, sometimes. Because of the baby. I should take you up to see the Chorus—they’re in session now. I’m sure they’ll be more than willing to hear you out.” She smiled softly at Aloy, reaching out to touch her arm gently, letting her know everything was okay, before she moved past her towards the door again, making her way out into the waning sunlight. Aloy frowned as she watched her leave, wondering for a moment if she had made a mistake in speaking up about Varl—if she had interrupted a moment that was not meant to include her, something personal she had tried to make into a communal event. She felt her stomach clench at the thought, hating the feeling that she had done something to hurt someone she cared about, but she only let out a soft, wary sigh as she moved to follow Zo out, walking behind her towards the Choral chambers.
“Zo…” Aloy started to say, speaking softly, but Zo quickly cut her off, taking a deep breath.
“I was thinking of naming her Vala, if she’s a girl,” Zo said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Aloy was listening. “Varl was always talking about his sister. About how much he missed her. I think he loved her more than anyone else in this world—maybe even Sona.”
Aloy hesitated, realizing she was meant to give an opinion. “Vala was very special to him,” she finally said, feeling a bit better.
Zo smiled, happy to have gotten her back on track, before she turned her attention to the walkway again, reaching out to touch a hanging vine that had been tied to the dish, and had begun to grow over the footpath. “I’m not sure what I would call a boy yet,” she admitted, her voice thoughtful. “Though I’m sure the perfect name will come to me, if I give it time. I still have a little time left, after all.” She paused, coming to a stop a few yards from the Choral hut, before she suddenly turned to look back at Aloy again, her gentle eyes knowing, intent, her expression hard to read, somewhere between expectation and concern. “We… do, still have a little time left, don’t we?” she asked, her voice quiet, the gravity of the question much different now.
Aloy faltered, before nodding firmly. “Yeah,” she said, just as quietly. “We’ve still got a little time.”
Zo hesitated, seeming unsure for a moment whether to believe her, before she finally gave a small hum. “Good,” she said, still not sounding entirely convinced. “Come on, then. The Chorus is ready to see you.”