Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Beta.”

The name chokes inside her throat, and Aloy collapses into her sister’s arms, the acrid tang of smoke and blood flooding over all of her senses. “I’m so sorry,” she croaks, her whole body shuddering, and the wear of the battle tears into her. A lick across her lips, and the flood of blood is not only in the air. It is in her mouth, coppery and sharp. It is spilling into her lungs, and each breath burns as Aloy drags it into a body that will soon refuse it. “I couldn’t stop it. I failed us. I’m so—”

The breath in her lungs shreds into pain as a cough tears its way out of her chest, and Aloy is choking on it, drowning in it, and all sensation fades to nothing more than Beta’s hand pressing tight to her cheek.

“It’s ok, Aloy,” she whispers, and there are tears in her eyes. “I can fix all of this. It’s going to be ok.”

Aloy shakes her head desperately, and dimly she can hear the roar of machines in the distance. Time is slipping away from their hold, falling through their hands like grains of sand.

“You’ll understand,” Beta croaks, leaving Aloy crumpled against the ground, her hands working with careful precision upon the console. “I don’t have time to explain it now, but if this works, all we’ll have is time.” Something hums to life, and Beta lets out a shuddering breath, before kneeling on the ground beside Aloy, wrapping her arms around her sister. “You did your best.”

“Beta.” She shakes her head, and everything is blurring at the edges. “I’m sorry. I should have saved you. I should have…”

“You will,” Beta croaks. “Promise me you’ll find me, Aloy.”

“I’ll find you,” Aloy sobs, her hands reaching up to tuck around her sister’s arms.

“Please don’t take too long.” Beta buries her face into Aloy’s neck, the heat of her tears burning against her neck. “I really don’t want to go back there again. Please find me, Aloy.”

A wash of exhaustion pulls itself over Aloy, and she is drowning. She opens her mouth to speak, the words catching within her throat.

I love you.

The words go unspoken as the world dissolves into starbursts of light and sparks, the wash of white over all her senses, a ringing in her ears.

And then the world is gone.

-

Aloy jerks upright, dragging a breath into lungs that scream in protest, and then she is curling into herself, hacking coughs that insist she is dying, the taste of blood upon her tongue, yet none of it can be found.

In fact, as her mind slowly clears of the fog, she realizes that any such pains that had torn through her only moments before are now fading with each heartbeat, like ashes on the wind. She blinks repeatedly, disbelief building itself in her chest, and the world unfolds around her.

She’s in the cabin. Rost’s cabin. She’s home.

Her hands shake as she pulls the blankets off of her sweat-soaked body, and the next breath in floods in familiarity. The constant of smoke from the fireplace, the slight earthy tang of herbs that Rost always kept pinned up to dry, and a richer, heavy scent of meat within stew.

Another step, and the wood creaks beneath her weight, causing her to flinch from the sound of it. Aloy shakes her head, drawing another breath into her lungs, and swipes her hands along her sides to rid them of their shaking. Another pause. She isn’t wearing her skyclimber armor like she had been when the battle had begun. Instead, she is only in simple leather and fabric, a hole worn into the hip of her leggings.

“No,” Aloy whispers, shaking her head, her fingers prodding through the torn fabric. “None of this… this doesn’t make sense.”

She turns, eyes narrowed as they scan over her surroundings, and the impossibility of it all is crowding at her mind, a pressure that pounds against her skull. “I don’t—”

A pounding outside the door, and Aloy jolts into a ready position, eyes searching desperately for where she knows their weapons were stored inside the cabin, but the years and panic claw too desperately at her thoughts for her to focus. Aloy is helpless to do anything but turn to the door, heart in her throat.

The door opens.

Her chest expands, and she is faced with yet another impossibility.

The name breaks in her throat.

“Rost?”

He lifts his head, and everything about him is exactly right, exactly impossible, and everything about this is impossibly wrong, yet Aloy cannot even find it in herself to care anymore.

There is only time enough for confusion to flash in his eyes before Aloy has thrown herself into him, her hands grasping desperately at him as she crushes into his chest. He stands there, unfaltering, the surety of a mountain as Aloy winds her arms around him, her body beginning to tremble.

“Aloy?” His voice rumbles through his chest, drawing straight into Aloy, and all of her strung out nerves snap at the same time. She manages one choking breath in, before the sob claws its way out of her, terrible and heavy as tears pound unshed behind her eyes.

Aloy chokes the sounds against Rost’s furs, burying herself closer to him, her hands grasping around her back for something—anything to ground her in this moment. His own hands, which had hung lifeless at his sides, shift to press against her back, and Aloy lets out a low keening sound, desperate for his touch, for his presence, for him.

Her body goes slack, yet Rost’s hands remain upon her as she curls up into him, lungs aching from the lack of air as she finally pulls her head back to look at him, face soaked through with tears. The confusion in his eyes has since shifted to concern, searching and lost as Aloy catches her breath.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” She whispers, the words hoarse within her throat.

Rost’s brow furrows, twisting the paint upon his face, and the sight of it crushes against her chest once more. “If you were to hunt in this condition, then yes, you might end up so.”

Aloy gasps out a ragged laugh, drawing her hands up to press against her mouth. She must be dead. That has to be the only explanation. Why else would Rost be here? Why else would the pains of the past hours suddenly be gone from her, ripped so completely away that not even the aches of them remain in her bones, but within the echoes of her mind? Why else would she be here at the cabin, a place she hadn’t seen in so many years, now in a presence more exact than she could ever recall on her own?

She shakes her head, resting it against Rost’s shoulder as she pulls her hands up to her own chest once more. “I don’t even care,” she whispers. “I don’t care if I am dead. I just… I missed you so much.”

His hand moves, cupping against the back of her head, and his beard itches at her skin as Rost dips his own head down. “Child, what in the name of the All-Mother are you speaking of? You should have no intentions of such a thing. The Proving is only three days from now, and then the rest of your life will truly begin.”

“The proving?” Aloy stiffens in his hold, a jolt in her bones. “No, but that doesn’t…” She trails off, and Beta’s words flash through her mind. If this works, all we’ll have is time. Aloy pulls herself away from Rost, her hands questing for what she knows isn’t there. The scar upon her throat is gone, nothing but unblemished skin beneath her fingers. A shudder in her lungs, and Aloy knows the pledging tattoo that had joined her and Kotallo together in the year before doesn’t exist anymore, lost to whatever Beta had done to bring her to this moment.

“I need some air,” she says suddenly, lurching away and stumbling out the still open door, jerking it closed behind her. The cold winter air of the mountains slams against her skin, and Aloy shudders from the sensation of it, shaking her head. “Ok,” she whispers, sinking to the ground, her back pressed tight against the wooden form of the cabin wall behind her as she curls up into herself. “So you’re not dead. And you’re probably not dreaming, because if you were, you would be waking up now.”

Aloy hides her face in her hands, body trembling against the wind. “Get it together, Aloy. You’ll figure this out. You have to figure this out.”

She pushes her hands back, sweeping over her hair, and the motion brushes against her focus, spilling it into life. Aloy startles briefly from the appearance of it, then freezes, her eyes widening.

Contact: Beta

One unread Message

Heart in her throat, Aloy taps the message, and the pit in her stomach twists as the hologram begins to play.

Beta crouches before her, her eyes distant for a moment, before settling directly on Aloy. “Ok,” she says, her voice strained. “If you’re watching this, that means our plan against Nemesis failed. Which… isn’t great. But if you are watching this, it means that my plan did work, and that is great.” A nervous laugh spills out of her, and Beta shakes her head, hands knotting themselves together in front of her. “Um… I really am sorry I never told you about this. Or the plan. But I’m still not sure if this will even work, so getting everyone’s hopes up doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.”

Beta shifts forward, her gaze piercing. “I’ve spent the past three years messing with a discarded concept by the Zeniths. I wont try to explain everything; we don’t have enough time and there’s so much of it that I don’t understand myself.”

A breath, and Aloy presses her hand to her chest, staring at disbelief at the prerecorded holo.

“But here’s what you need to know. If I did this correctly, you should be back five years ago now, before the Proving.” A wavering smile, a tightening to her expression. “I thought… if I was sending all of you back, I might as well give you a chance to fix as much as you can. And that Rost…” Beta trails off, her gaze going distant. “You deserve another chance, Aloy. At saving him.” Her hands flex in front of her, and Beta shakes them out anxiously. “But you’re going to have to be fast, Aloy. You need to get everyone back together so we have more time to prepare for Nemesis.”

“Get everyone?” Aloy mutters, and it seems as if Beta had anticipated this question.

“This should have dragged everyone in the group back as well, and they should have all of their memories of the past five years just like you, but none of them will have their own focuses yet. They’re going to be lost and confused, Aloy, and it’s up to you to get everyone back.” Beta’s voice hitches, and she wraps her arms around herself. “And I’m going need you to come get me Aloy. Please. I don’t—”

Something lurches in Aloy’s chest as she realizes that Beta is crying, spun light traveling down her cheeks. “I really don’t want to go back to the Zeniths,” she whispers, the words wavering. “But I’ll hold on as long as can, because I know you’ll be coming for me.”

Another shaking smile, and Aloy muffles another sob behind her hand as she looks at her sister, mind flooded with the last words they had spoken to each other before.

Please find me, Aloy.

 “I love you,” Beta chokes out, brushing away her tears. “Stay safe, Aloy. You can do this, I know it.”

Aloy chokes down a breath as the hologram ends, Beta frozen in place just before her, that last look of hope still caught in her eyes. “I’ll find you,” she whispers, reaching out to place her hand against the projection of Beta’s cheek, blinking past her own tears. “I promise you, Beta. I’ll find you.”

She closes her eyes, steeling herself against what lies ahead, and pushes herself to stand. “We’ll get it right this time,” Aloy says, determination building itself up in her chest.

“I promise.”

Chapter Text

Aloy closes the door behind her, the warmth inside the cabin flooding over her as she crosses through. Her hands shake at her sides, and she presses them to the table as she looks across it to Rost, whose gaze holds an uncertain edge to it, studying her just as much as she is studying him.

“I’m not dead,” she says flatly, to which Rost’s gaze shifts, a grit to the wrinkled edges at the corners of his eyes. Aloy’s lips twitch into something almost like a smile, fondness warming within her chest as she settles across the table from Rost.

“You’re concerning me, Aloy.” He does not meet her gaze, keeping his attentions solely set upon the fire now, his voice low and rumbling.

A laugh trips against her lips. “When do I never not concern you, Rost?”

His lips press into his own flat smile, and Aloy reaches out, brushing her knuckles against his, even as she fights back the press of emotion in her throat. “Where did you get such thoughts, Aloy? You were… distressed beyond what I have ever seen.”

Aloy makes a small noise in the back of her throat, looking towards the fire as well. “There’s a lot of things out there beyond what you’ve ever seen. Even from when you were a Death Seeker.”

The jerk to Rost’s body then is one that is far without any of his typical calm, the surprise in his eyes blooming into deeper. Something that looks almost like fear. The sight of it sends shivers running down her spine. “You should not know that name,” he mutters, his voice dark.

“Shouldn’t I?” Aloy counters, gesturing at his face. “You put that mark on every day.” Something like anger burns within her, and she stands, staring down at her father. “Did you think I should never know?” There’s an accusation in her words, and it tastes of smoke and the copper tang of blood. “That it would be fine to keep such a thing secret from me, after all this time?” The anger coils tighter, a snake readying to strike. “That you could just walk away from me after the proving, disappear from my life as if you had never existed?”

Rost flinches again, his gaze wearied as he looks at her. “Aloy, I cannot allow your attachment to me keep you back from the tribe. You have dedicated the whole of your life to this, and if you were to lose it so quickly for breaking the law—”

“Who cares about the law!” Aloy snaps, throwing her hands up in the air. “And for that matter, who cares about the tribe!” The words taste bitter on her lips, but there is a freedom to them as well. Anger and emotions that she had tried so hard before to turn away, now flickering and snapping in her chest. “I never once trained so I could join the tribe, Rost. I trained so I could get my answers.”

Aloy turns away, crossing both her arms over her chest as she forces her breathing to even out, to level her mind. “But I have my answers already. Answers that the High Matriarchs couldn’t even give to me.” A grit to her teeth. “All that work to win the proving, and they couldn’t even help.”

The idea is a flash within her mind, the eclipse of the sun behind the moon, and Aloy jolts back around, slamming her fist down on the table, a cup on the edge of it rattling. “The proving,” she insists again, grinning back at Rost. “That’s it! I already have my answers, Rost. I have everything that they could give to me, so I don’t even need to run now! And if I don’t run, then Olin cant see me, and the Eclipse wont attack, and everything will be fine.”

Rost shakes his head, a scowl deepening itself across his features. “Aloy, do you hear yourself? All these years of your life, and to throw it away now? Why would you even think such a thing?”

“These lands aren’t my life!” The words cut out of her, and Aloy stares down her father, gaze sparking. “My life is out there—” she gestures to the back of the cabin, and beyond it, all of the lands spilling further west. “My life is in the west, held in the lives of my friends. And I am trying—” her voice breaks, and Aloy shakes her head, tears burning in her eyes. “to save your life, Rost.”

His gaze darkens immediately, and when Rost rises to his feet, there is a quiet anger within his eyes. “My life is of no consequence in this conversation. It does not matter what—”

“It matters to me!” Aloy shoves a pointed finger at him, and even though his expression flares at such an action, Rost gives no further response as she rounds the side of the table to stand before him. Her hand is still shaking before her, and Aloy pointedly ignores it as she jams it into his chest. “I just got you back, Rost. And I would sooner die than lose you again.”

She throws her hands down, shoving past him and back towards the door. “I cant—” the words are catching in her throat, and Aloy growls through the thick of emotion welling within her. “I cant talk to you right now.”

“And where are you going?” Rost does not make any moves to stop her, but there is something so profoundly exhausted within his voice that it pulls a cord within Aloy’s chest.

She pauses just long enough to grab her bow and shove a worn set of armor under one arm, frustration tugging at her bones. “I’m going out to hit something,” she huffs. “Before I end up saying something I’ll regret.”

Aloy kicks the door closed behind her, some impossible hope that she might leave all her frustrations locked inside.

It doesn’t matter. The anger follows her through the courtyard, their presence mirroring her bootsteps crunching through snow.

Like so many haunting ghosts, Aloy’s grievances settle upon her as she leaves what once was her home.

Memories of the past and present yet to come.

-

Aloy mutters a curse as she slams the head of her spear into the body of a scrapper, her chest heaving as she glares down at the now sparking remains of the machine. “You can come out of those trees now, Rost.”

She lets the silence settle over her as she crouches beside the machine, her knife slipping through the metal with long-practiced precision, grunting quietly to herself when the blade slices through a tube, the bitter flood of machine oil filling the air. She’s only just removed the heart and is shifting her attention towards the lenses at the Scrapper’s head when Rost’s footsteps fall into place beside her, his presence quiet but undeniable.

“Those were not moves that I taught you.”

“Nope.” Aloy shifts her knife, prying off the plating that shields the lenses from her.

Rost crouches beside her, and at the press of his hand to her shoulder, Aloy freezes, her gaze slowly dragging towards him, where he looks at her with that same concern in his eyes, and deeper still, a confusion that Aloy knows she cannot fully answer. “You seem… tired.”

Aloy scuffs a breath out of her lungs, looking away. “It’s been a long day,” she mutters, falling back into her work. Rost remains at her side, and his silence urges her to speak. “It’s been a long few years.”

His hand moves, thumb brushing against her throat where her own hands had so desperately searched before, looking for a mark she has not yet been branded with. “You’ve changed.” His voice is soft, and Aloy grits her teeth against the sound of it. “I can see it in you.” His fingers trail up from her neck, to rest upon her cheek, quietly and insistently turning her face to look at him. “Can see it in your eyes. As if you have grown older overnight.”

Aloy lets out a tired laugh, but there is no humor in it as she lets the weight of her head sink into Rost’s gentle hold. “If only you knew.”

She gives no protest as his hand moves once more, snaking around to her back of her head and pulling her forward until her forehead rests against his shoulder. Aloy simply sighs, closing her eyes as she soaks in the comfort of having her with him.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier,” she says quietly, one hand coming up to rest upon his arm.

“And I am sorry,” Rost replies, his low voice such a distant familiarity. “That I cannot understand what it is that you are going through now. I am sorry that I cannot guide you as I should.”

“It’s fine,” Aloy chokes out. “I’ve gotten used to having to do things without you.”

They don’t speak of how casually she says “without him”. Instead, Rost only lets her go, and they work in quiet efficiency to gut the scrapper of the last of its valuable parts. They leave the husk of machine behind them, the snow around it melted, destroying even in its death.

Not another word passes between them all the way up to the cabin on the mountain, but once they are in the courtyard once more, Aloy lets a dry breath slip through ice-cracked lips. “Can you make rabbit and mushrooms for dinner tonight?”

Her head is pounding, and all she wants is to curl up before the fire and pretend as if nothing has happened. As if she is simply eighteen again, desperate to prove herself and still looking to the future with all of that foolish hope that comes with youth, and the proving is the only thing left to care about.

But she cant. Not now. Not now that knows what lies ahead, for her, for the Nora, for the world.

For Rost.

He dips his head in quiet acceptance. “Of course,” he answers. “You should clean up first, you and your gear. Food will be ready by the time you are done.”

Aloy hums a response, dropping her bow back by the door as she enters the cabin, and the tension of everything is catching up to her once more.

“I have to get this right,” she mutters, dragging her hand over her eyes, and her body aches as she kneels before the fire. “I cant afford to mess things up this time.”

The lull of the fire washes over her, and Aloy closes her eyes in exhaustion, wrapping her arms tight around herself.

By the time Rost approaches her with word of dinner, Aloy is fully and entirely asleep, head resting upon her crossed arms. Rost looks down at her with a fond expression, trading the bowl for a blanket to be settled over her shoulders.

“Rest, my daughter,” he murmurs, his fingers stroking over the top of her head. “The days ahead will not be kind.”

-

When Aloy wakes again, the cabin is dark from the stretch of early morning still across the sky. A turn of her head reveals Rost, slumbering in a chair with his back pressed against the door, bow settled in his lap.

As if protecting her.

Or keeping her locked in.

Aloy pushes herself up from the floor, readying herself for the click and strain of joints and muscles that she has long since grown accustomed to hurting, but finds that no pain accompanies the moment. Another reminder of where—or when—she is. She hasn’t been around long enough to rack up the injuries that had kept her up through many sleepless nights.

She doesn’t expect for such a freedom to last much longer. Not when there is work to be done.

Aloy crosses the cabin to stand before Rost, tapping her hand against his arm. “Hey,” she says softly, nudging him again. “Rost. Rost, wake up.”

He lets out a drowsy sound, his head barely raising from where his chin is pressed against his chest, and Aloy smiles in reaction to the sound of it. “Rost,” she calls again, slowly working the bow out of his hands. “If you stay here the whole night, you’ll be too stiff to hunt in the morning. Come on, get out from the door.”

Another sleep-tinged groan, and his hand latches upon hers. “Safe,” he mutters, the word almost slurred. “Keep… safe.”

“I will,” Aloy promises. Then she plants her feet, wraps both her hands around his arms, and hauls him into standing. “I won’t get up to any trouble. Just go to sleep, Rost.”

It’s much easier to convince him across the room than she would have thought, and Aloy still is finally able to convince him out of keeping the bow tight within his grasp, looping it up beside her own before maneuvering Rost towards his bed.

A sigh on her lips, Aloy tugs the corner of the blanket over his shoulders, her touch lingering upon the surface of it. “I mean it,” she whispers. “I’ll get this right, Rost. I’m not letting you die this time.”

Her fingers settle upon her own bow first, but then her attention flicks to Rost’s bow, hooked and hanging beside hers, and something pulls in her chest. The craftsmanship behind it is just the same as the bow she had won from the Arena, and a secret hope that she had held for these many years blooms deep within her chest, tears pricking in the corners of her eyes once more.

“I guess you always have been looking after me,” Aloy murmurs. “Even when you were no longer around.”

Her hand wraps fully around her bow, moving to sling it over her back. “But this time, it’s my turn.”

The door closes behind her, and Aloy disappears into the snow.

Chapter Text

It’s colder than she remembers it being in the Sacred Lands.

Snow crunches beneath her boots as Aloy tracks out to the overlook, and she rolls her shoulders up closer to her ears, muttering a quiet curse into the darkened sky. Between all the time spent rushing between the Grove and Meridian in all of their preparations for Nemesis, her body had long since become accustomed to the press of sun against her back and the incessant heat that came from such places. The chill of the air around her is an unfamiliar presence, even as her mind soothes itself from the settle of snow upon her skin.

It's quiet in the Sacred Lands as well. The hush of dawn is still a few hours off, and Aloy’s ears strain from the silence all around her. When she had lived here before, when she had been younger and bitter against the tribe that should have loved her, she could have gone days in the wilderness without seeing another soul.

None save Rost.

It had always led back to him in those days, back to his comfort, back to his presence beside a crackling fire. Back to the countless nights where not a single word had passed between them, yet their eyes and motions spoke all the same. Back to a hundred different times Aloy had looked back and wished that she could have done something different, that she had known him more, that she had realized what she would be missing once she became a Brave.

Rost had never held any intention of remaining in her life once she joined the tribe. He had probably lived her whole life with that same detachment, that reminder drumming through his mind every time she looked up at him. Aloy had even held such a thought, once, to not let herself care for another when their loss would be inevitable.

Her hand draws upwards to press against her chest, fingers brushing against the line of her collarbone even through the leathers of her worn armor, beaded necklaces uneven beneath her hand. She had sat there for many painstaking hours, her hand gripped tight in his and all of her thoughts upon him as the inker etched the permanency of their love onto her skin.

Something tangible to have, to hold, even when he was away.

Aloy ducks her head, blinking furiously against the tears that now creep their way up her throat, and her fingers leave her chest. The tattoo isn’t there anymore—she had checked earlier in the night. All that was left of her was too-smooth skin, the hide of an animal not yet hunted. No arrow marks, no plasma burns, no cuts and scrapes and lessons learned. Her body is young but her mind is old, and oh how her mind remembers.

“Get it right this time,” she mutters, tossing her hook across the zipline. “Get it right this time, and maybe it wont hurt as much again.”

The rush of air around her strips away the last of her thoughts, leaving her only with the work that must be done.

And the first of that work is to find her friends.

-

Mother’s Heart seems impossibly small as she approaches it, and something hardens within Aloy’s chest the closer she draws.

This is where Rost had said goodbye before. Where he had given her his necklace—Alana’s necklace—and had intended to never be seen again. She had vowed to find hum in that moment. That he could never go somewhere she would not follow. That he would spend the rest of his days with her on his track, relentless and without flaw, just as he always taught her to be.

Heart burning within her chest, Aloy forces a growl through her throat, vision set upon the wooden gates before her. She will not give Rost another chance to be lost to her. Not again.

Never again.

The two guards posted there visibly bristle once Aloy hits the bridge, and something in her twists at the sight of them. These are people who had kept what she thought was happiness locked away from her for all those years of her childhood. Guards and sticks and stones, all keeping her from the answers she craved.

But now she knows what they are. How little they matter, how little claim the Nora Lands kept upon her once she had left them. Of all the things to bind her back to this place, there now remains only one. And he is not here. He is nestled back in the mountains, back on the snow covered stones that had carried her younger years.

The Nora have no claim upon her now.

Her home was never here.

Aloy stops ten paces away from the gate, and settles her gaze evenly upon the two guards. “I need to see one of the Oseram Outlanders who have traveled here.”

The guards look between themselves, and Aloy does not miss the way their hands grip tighter around their spears.

She scoffs, crossing both arms over her chest. “By the All-Mother, I’m not asking you to speak to me. I just need you to go find Erend the Oseram. Tell him the Outcast is looking for him, I don’t care! But I need to speak with him.”

“This Outcast holds no shame,” one guard mutters to the other, though her voice is clearly set to be loud enough that Aloy might hear. “To storm up to the gates, where she is not even worthy enough to stand? Then to dare ask us to speak to a cursed outlander?”

“Foolishness,” the other guard agrees, his tone flat. “It seems the wilds still have not taught her as they should.”

Something darkens in her chest, some terrible beast that begins to claw against her lungs in its fury, and Aloy takes one step forward, her gaze glittering in cold anger. “The wilds have taught me more than you will ever know.” The words jerk themselves from her throat, an arrow tipped in acid, a blaze across distant lands. “And if you’re not going to get Erend Vanguardsman for me, I’m going to get him myself.”

A wicked smile pulls itself across her lips. Aloy tips her head back, pulls a breath in, and shouts—

“EREND.”

-

“It’s too early to be awake right now,” Erend groans, covering his face with his arm. “Varl, we barely got any sleep last night.”

“That’s because we need to be looking for Aloy.”  He pulls his bow on over his shoulder, ignoring the shake in his hands, and chooses to then kick at Erend’s hip with one foot. “Quit being a lump and get up.”

Erend sits up with a sigh, shaking out his head. “Why can’t we just wait until the Proving happens? You said it’s going to happen in just a few days, and we know she’s going to be there.”

Something twists within Varl’s chest, and he cuts a sharp breath from his lungs. “We can’t wait that long,” he mutters, his gaze dark. “We can’t waste any more time, Erend. We have to find her today.”

He offers one arm out to the oseram, and the other man takes it, allowing Varl to drag him up to his feet. “It’s not my fault you forgot where Aloy lives,” Erend mutters, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Varl settles a dry look upon him. “We didn’t meet until after she was already on her way out of the Sacred Lands. Its not like she was inviting me over to her place when we were kids, Erend. I’ve never even been there before; I just know it’s somewhere in the mountains to the west of the Embrace.”

“Whatever,” Erend huffs, clapping him on the back. “Let’s just get looking and get this over with. The sooner we find Aloy, the sooner we can finally figure out what’s going on and why we’re back here before the Proving.”

Dawn is barely cresting on the horizon when they leave the cabin Erend had been given for the duration of his stay in Mother’s Heart. There’s something unsettling within Varl’s mind at being back here again. After so long… after so many years spent in so many other lands, to be in a place he once called home so many years ago…

It is a sensation of feeling terribly young and incredibly old at the exact same time. As if none of the details are exactly right, but then again, what candle can his memories hold to the burning flame that is this new reality?

If he had been alone, he would have thought himself mad. That it was all some strangely twisted dream—torn from fever’s hands—perhaps, or some other addled delirium. Instead, he had found Erend, muttering and lost and flinching at every sound.

When their gazes connected in that moment, Varl realized several things in a span of time no longer than a heartbeat.

The first of which was that he was not alone.

The second, and harder to accept, was that this moment was painfully, dreadfully, real.

The third and final one stole his breath away, a hope that seemed so fragile it could not be properly held.

A realization that this was a chance to change the past.

A chance to save his sister’s life.

And the only other person who might hold answers is the one person he cannot find now.

The closer they draw to the gates of the village, though, the more Varl hears a disturbance splitting through the air, and there are already people drawing towards the gates, curiosity in their eyes and sleeplessness in their forms.

“Hurry,” Varl mutters, picking up his pace. “Something’s happening out there.”

Panic is beginning to lurch in his chest, and he can just barely make out the sounds of a scuffle on the other side of the gates, the sound of blows and the crash of weapons.

Then, the sudden blare of a goat’s horn splits through the air, and he and Erend both snap to a halt, the Oseram’s hand’s flying up to cover his ears. “What the hell is that?” He shouts through the noise.

“Alarm!” Varl shouts back, his own hands snapping to draw out his spear. “The gate’s under attack!”

The other Nora around them are also falling into defensive positions, and others now running towards the gates, but for many the alarm has left them startled and confused as what to do next.

There’s the harsh sound of a shouted curse on the other side of the gate, and something in Varl’s chest stutters as he pushes up the block from the inside. That voice…

“Erend!”

The voice tears through from the other side of the gate, and his attention snaps back to the Oseram, who stares at him with widened eyes.

“Aloy?” The name trips out of his chest, and Varl flings open the gates, a desperate hope burning within him.

Aloy whips around, her chest heaving as she stares at him, and a grin breaks across her face, the light of the rising sun shining within her eyes. “Varl!”

She drops the Nora guard who had been held in one hand—who Varl hadn’t even noticed until they now lay crumpled on the ground, and practically flies towards him, tackling into him with all the force of a sawtooth.

Varl lets out a gasping breath, stumbling under the sudden weight of her embrace, though attack seems just as fitting of a word as her arms crush around his chest, drawing him tight against her. “I cant believe it,” she gasps, the words ragged and rushed. “By the goddess, Varl. I was almost afraid to hope.”

The spear in his own grasp drops, and Varl settles his hands upon Aloy’s back, fingers splaying out across her hair. “Aloy,” he groans, tipping his head back. “Aloy, I cant breathe.”

“Oh!” She jolts back suddenly, but her hands still remain upon him, and Varl notices a slight tremble to them as her fingers dig against his leathers. “Sorry, I just…”

“And what am I?” Erend’s voice cuts across any words she might have said, and Aloy’s attention whips towards him now. “Cut scrap?”

“Erend!” Her greeting towards him is no less exuberant than the one she gave Varl, though Erend is able to take the sudden contact far better than he had.

Varl’s own attention drops to the guard now trying to push herself up from the wooden slats of the bridge, and he offers his hand out to her, an apology in his eyes. “Aloy, what in All-Mother’s name were you doing out here?”

The guard doesn’t take his hand, but instead spits on the ground, shoving her arms up until she is kneeling. “You soil yourself,” she mutters, gaze blazing. “Talking to that motherless curse. Your mother may be War Chief, Varl, but I pray the All-Mother forgets you.”

Varl stumbles back, a gasp tearing itself through his chest. Those are not words that are spoken lightly. In fact, the only time Varl had ever heard them spoken before was during the days of the Red Raids, wailed and sobbed against the name of the Carja. He had never before heard them directed towards a Nora.

“—but they wouldn’t let me through, and I knew that I needed to come in here.” Aloy rambles on, completely oblivious to the exchange that had just passed behind her back, and she’s gesturing towards Erend now, one hand idly twirling her spear.

Her story continues, unheard to Varl’s ears as he watches the first guard pick up the slack body of their accompaniment, and the pressure of attention scores deep into his chest as his gaze lifts.

There are Nora there, standing at the mouth of the gate. Nora with deeply twisted scowls and hatred within their gaze.

And for once, their hatred isn’t settled upon Aloy, the motherless outcast.

It’s upon him.

Chapter Text

"We need to get out of here."

Aloy lifts her head at the sound of Varl's voice, still tangled up in Erend's arms, and there's something unsettling about the expression upon her friend's face now. The other Nora turns away, his hand wrapping around his spear that had been dropped to the ground, his steps slow and measured.

Aloy pulls herself away from Erend—his hand trailing across her back—and falls into step at Varl's side, her shoulder brushing against his. "I can't believe everything that's happened, Varl." Her gaze searches his face, something churning in her stomach the longer he goes without looking at her. "I have so much to tell you—both of you, really. And—"

"Aloy, stop!" His hand juts out in front of her, cutting her off her words as he steps away. "Just… stop. Stop speaking. You shouldn't be speaking to me. I shouldn't be speaking to you."

No. No.

Aloy stares at him in dislbelief, and the confusion in her chest flickers into something deeper, something that burns in her next breath. "You can't be serious."

"We're in the Sacred Lands, Aloy." Varl turns away, his gaze darkened as he continues to tracks ever further from the settlement. "You can't just do whatever you want without thinking. Not here. Not now."

"Not now?" She echoes, running forwar to grab at his arm. Varl grunts as he pulls against her, but Aloy refuses to relent, jerking him closer so that she faces him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Hey, guys—" Erend's voice is strained, a cut to it that aches within her lungs. "Why don't we put a hold on this and figure it out later?"

"No." There is anger burning in her lungs. and she finds just as much anger within Varl's gaze. "No, I want to hear it from him. I want to hear whatever excuse he has to give for suddenly deciding to treat me like we haven't spent the last years fighting at each other's sides!"

"Because that hasn't happened yet!" Varl shouts, his voice raising. "Everything that we have gone through, it hasnt happened yet! You're still an Outcast, Aloy. You aren't the Annointed, and I'm not a Seeker tasked to work at your side. We're just… I'm just…"

"And what does that matter?" Aloy shouts back. Erend reaches out, but Aloy brushes away his hand. "Who cares what the Nora think now, Varl?"

"I didn't say goodbye!"

His voice breaks, and Aloy takes a step back, the weight of his sudden panic choking in her lungs. "They're going to cast me out for speaking to you, Aloy, and there's no way for us to deny it. You came—in full view of Mother's Heart—and you—"

Varl turns away, covering his mouth with one hand as he tilts his gaze upward. "I didn't even say goodbye to Vala."

The haunted whisper of his words fade into the air, leaving the three of them in nothing but silence as the wind drifts through the woods, Varl's ragged breathing slipping through his fingers.

"You'll see her again though, right?" Erend's voice draws both of their attention towards him, and his words sound just as lost as he looks. "We're not going to let her die again, Varl. So you'll see her again."

Aloy's eyes widen, realization digging into her throat. "In how long?" She whispers, horror spilling into her bones, and her hands begin to tremble before her. "Varl, how long?"

He shrugs, the leak of tears down his cheeks. "Months? Years? Does it matter, Aloy? We'll be long gone by then, and all Vala will know is that I disappeared just before her proving."

"I'll tell her differently," Aloy insists, stepping forward. "I'll be there, Varl. I'll let her know!"

"No!" He cuts, his eyes widening. "No, Aloy, you can't do that! Olin is here, and we can't let you be seen. I'm not risking the life of my people for you to run the Proving again."

Something pulls in her chest, something defiant, but Aloy quells it down. He's right. She's already told herself she holds no need to run the Proving. Not when it risks Rosts life. Not when it risks Vala's life as well, and so many other Nora besides.

A sigh, and Aloy dips her head. "No, you're… you're right, Varl. I'm sorry. And you were right about me not truly thinking, I just—" her voice catches, and Aloy looks away. "I needed to find the two of you."

"Aloy," Erend says cautiously, and her attention snaps back to him, almost having forgotten that the Oseram was there at all with all the tension that had written itself between her and Varl. "Why don't we get out of here? I can feel those Nora at the gate giving us the stink eye, and I don't want to be here if that glare suddenly turns into action."

"Right," Aloy breathes, shaking out her arms. "Right. Yeah, ok. Let's get the two of you back to the cabin. We really do have a lot to go over."

She can't help another glance towards varl, and the catch of light upon the tracks in his paint tears into her chest.

She looks away.

-

Erend sends a cautious look over towards Varl, his brow furrowed as he studies his friend.

It's strange, seeing him so young again. He no longer holds the slight favor to his left side, nor the beard that Zo had convinced him into regrowing a few years back. And for all the youth upon his face, there's an age to his gaze, a wear that Erend is sure can be found within his own eyes as well.

To see Aloy as she is now is strange as well. He had never really registered her growth over the past years, but walking beside her now he realizes just how much shorter than him she had been when they had first met.

However, some things never do change in a person. She has always been relentless, and the pace with which she leads them now only falls into such.

Varl's steps pause, only momentarily, before he moves faster to stride slightly ahead of her. "Aloy. I thought you and Rost lived somewhere to the western edge of the Embrace—why are we going down to Mother's Watch?"

"We need to get focuses for everyone." Her hands flex in front of her, fingers curling in and out. "I can't be sure there's enough for Zo and Kotallo and Alva in the west, but I can at least get enough for us."

"Zo!" Varl's voice catches, his eyes widening. "Aloy, does that mean she came back too?" His hand wraps around hers, a spark catching in his eyes. "She's…?"

"Of course." Aloy stops, staring back at him. "I mean… I think so. In truth, I was still holding some doubts, but seeing that you and Erend are both here and…"

Another long moment. She draws in a breath. "We just need to get the focuses, and then I can catch you up to speed. Or—or Beta can."

"Beta?" Erend cannot stop the grin that pulls itself across his lips, a sense of relief. "Then she's ok, right? How did she get a message to you?"

Aloy freezes, her whole body going stiff, before slowly stepping away from Varl. "Lets just get this over with," she mutters, turning away from them both.

Erend catches Varl's gaze, and the other man only shrugs as he looks after Aloy. She gets several paces beyond them, before Varl tilts his head in soundless command. They both fall into step behind her shortly after.

Aloy remains silent the entire rest of the walk, even as Erend and Varl keep up quiet conversation behind her. Their words hold little meaning to them, and neither one misses the glances the other shoots towards their friend as she charges on before them.

Finally, she comes to a halt before a sudden pitch of collapsed ground, a whole leading into the darkness. Her lungs heave as she stands there, staring down into the depths.

Varl's head swivels, before his attention catches upon a painted stone just beyond the clearing. "Aloy," he says cautiously, drawing his gaze back to settle on her. "This is a tainted ruin."

"Mmm-hmm." She shakes out her hands again, before turning an uncertain look towards them both. "You guys don't have to come down with me, but… the focuses we need are down here."

"I'm game." Erend replies quickly, stepping forward. "Ten knows this isn't the first ruin you've dragged me into, and it won't be the last."

A breath. A smile. Her gaze shifts to Varl. "You don't have to come," she whispers. "I know we're close to Mother's Heart. I know that… simply being seen with me is damage enough."

Varl stares down at the painted stone, before shaking his head, his expression turning firm. "No. You're right. The Nora… what they think of me doesn't matter now. We have work to do."

They meet Aloy on the edge of the hole, and a shiver crawls along Erend's skin.

"I've never seen this place before," Varl says quietly, following in Aloy's steps as she begins the climb down.

Aloy's voice echoes strangely amidst the gloom. "I fell into it as a child."

The hole opens up into a shattered cave, the thick of wet and moss and mildew clinging to the air, and Erend holds down a cough, his eyes widened against the dark. Then the stone shifts to metal, the glow of purple lights cast upon fossilized walls. The sound of dripping water fills the silence that follows, matched only by the heaviness of his own breathing. "I think I watched that, once," he manages to choke out, a tug within his stomach telling him to keep close to Varl as they walk.

Aloy nods, the cut of her shadow against the dark. "I came back years later. Rost and I had gotten into an argument and I—I wanted to hide from him. Go someplace he would never dare to follow me. And then…" She goes through a pried open door, directing Erend and Varl to do so as well. "I kept coming back."

Varl stops, staring at the letters scratched into the walls, and lets out a whistling breath. "Yeah. I can… I can see that, Aloy."

Erend's gaze follows, tracing the lines and lines of written words, spilling off the walls and leading into different hallways. Aloy doesn't spare any of them a second glance, yet he finds Aloy's touch etched everwhere he looks. Sketches of machines, smaller sections of writing, a forgotten pile of machine scrap, open crates and containers long since raided of any value.

"You must have tried to hide from Rost a lot."

A quiet sound that catchs somewhere between a laugh, and something almost like a sob. "More than I ever should have," comes her words, strained and heavy.

Another long moment, and Erend catches Varl's eye through the darkness.

"Let's just get the first one," Aloy mutters, her words sharp once more. "Through here."

Erend tries not to shudder at the movement of rats running through the water underfoot, but the longer they walk in here, the more he's beginning to regret agreeing to come down.

Aloy crosses through this first room, cutting directly towards something that once looked like a couch and—

"Is that a body?"

Erend cant help it. He's seen a lot of death in his lifetime, and been the cause of plenty as well, but seeing that shriveled up contortion of limbs and stone makes him take a step back.

Aloy doesnt even seem to notice. She taps a hand to her focus, then lets out a quick breath. "Still active. That's good." And then she just—reaches out. Plucks a focus off the corpse's temple. Brushes off a bit of dust. Holds it out. "Who's taking it first?"

"Aloy." Varl's voice is haunted, and he sounds just as horrified as Erend is feeling in this moment. "What are you—"

"We need the focuses," Aloy says, almost too forcefully. "They're not using them anymore. Take it or leave it, Varl." There's a shadow to her gaze now, one that doesn't come from the darkness of the ruins.

A breath. A hesitation. Then Varl reaches out and lets Aloy drop the focus into his hand.

"Right," she says, turning away. "We'll get those calibrated once we get back to the cabin. Lets keep looking."

Erend's gaze follows her, but when he looks back down, Varl is crouched before the body, his lips moving in quiet prayer. "May you rest in the embrace of the All-Mother—forever."

He offers a hand up to his friend. "You know he's been dead for a thousand years, right Varl?"

The Nora looks away, his gaze troubled. "His name was Jackson Frye. And he was praying when he died."

They follow after Aloy, finding her bending over another calcified corpse, her fingers worked to turn its head to extract the focus. Erend looks away, a pressure building up in his throat.

"How many people died down here?" Varl asks, looking to the full bunks, and the silent occupants within.

Erend's own attention is caught upon the body collapsed upon the ground.

"Too many." Aloy replies quietly, pushing this next focus into Erend's hand. His fingers curl around it, almost on reflex, but all he can think of is the body on the ground, and how it almost seems melted onto the floor.

Aloy moves to the next bunk. Varl whispers another prayer.

Erend cannot breathe.

"And one for Rost." Aloy slips her hand into a pouch at her side, and her whole body seems to curl within itself.

"Let's get out of here." The words strain themselves past his lips, and Erend drags in another ragged breath. "Lets get out of here, Aloy. We got what we came here for."

"No." She shakes her head, expression hardening. "No, we have to keep going."

She doesn't even look back. Just keeps forcing her way deeper into the ruin, and the further they go the more the air tastes of damp and foul. Down the stairs. Into a hallway. There's another body on the couch, one Aloy passes right by. The focus in Erend's hand feels impossibly cold.

Then Aloy staggers out of the next room over, her eyes wide and arms wrapped around herself, her breaths short and ragged. "Wrong room," she croaks, and doesn't meet either of their gazes.

The focus buzzes as it clips to his temple, then Erend steps into the room and finds the slump of a man against the wall.

I don't owe anyone anything anymore.

His head snaps back at the sudden crack of sound, and Erend hisses out a breath in response, his eyes closing against the thudded sound of the body.

Varl is at his side, his hand curling around his arm.

"Varl, did he just—"

"I think they all did," Varl says, his voice strained. "Everyone here. I think—"

The scrape of metal on metal draws their attention away from each other. Varl turns to leave.

Erend stares down at the body. Wordlessly, he takes the focus from him as well.

Then he walks away, the echo of the gunshot ringing in his head.

Chapter Text

They end up watching Beta's video long before they ever make it to Rost's cabin.

Aloy stares intently down at her hands, flinching at every time she can hear their breaths catch. She's already seen the video too many times, more than she would ever want to see again.

To see Beta, her eyes filled with tears, hands shaking and that same strand of fear drawn tight around her neck.

Her sister, back in the clutches of the Zeniths.

Of Tilda.

A shudder tears across her, and it has nothing to do with the cold air pressing against her skin.

When full silence settles upon them all once more, Aloy draws in a shaking breath, lifting her head. "So…"

Erend shakes his head, his brow drawing close. "That explains the dreams."

"Dreams?" Aloy flexes her hands, trying to ignore the trembling of them, trying to steady her breathing.

"Ah—it's nothing." Erend shakes his head again, looking away. "Just… right before waking up, I remember… a haze. Smoke and ash and—and blood." He turns a faltering smile upwards. "Guess it wasn't just a dream."

Aloy stands, her hands outstretched, and Erend meets her there, stepping into her open arms. "I'm sorry," she whispers, fingers curling against his back. "I'm sorry I failed." The words choke within her throat, and Aloy closes her eyes, crushing her face agaisnt his chest.

"We just won't fail this time." Varl's voice is sharp as he speaks, but his touch is gentle as it settles upon her shoulder, a comfort in the weight of it. "We have a second chance, Aloy. We cant afford to waste it."

Erend withdraws from her, making space for Varl to sling his arm fully across her shoulders. Aloy drags in another breath, leaning against his side.

"We have to get Beta out of there," Erend says, his voice dark.

Aloy grits her jaw, the thought of her sister back there—caught amongst the Zeniths once more—flashing through her mind. "I know," she croaks, the words straining past her lips. "I know, and I want to get her out. But there's just—" her hands curls into fists, and Aloy steadies them against her sides. "There's just too much standing between us and her right now."

"Then we tear it all down," Varl mutters. "One step at a time. We have time on side now, Aloy. We know what's supposed to happen, and we can do it better."

Aloy nods, stepping away. "Speaking of doing it better…" She lifts her head, her gaze falling upon the vague shape of Mother's Heart in the distance, and something pulls within her chest. "I need to talk to you two about the Proving. About everything that's supposed to come next."

She closes her eyes, a vision of Rost drifting through her mind. "But let's get back to the cabin first. I need—Rost will—" A breath. Her hands uncurl. "I don't think he's going to truly understand unless you two are there as well."

They turn towards the mountains, and Aloy stares up at them, uncertainty churning in her chest.

She has to tell him.

He has to understand.

He has to.

-

They stand just at the base of the cliff, the mountain chill coiling itself up against her skin once more, crawling across any stretch of bared skin, gooseflesh on her arms.

Aloy looks up, lifting her chin towards the cliff face. "Right up here," she says, gesturing towards the platform that would begin their climb.

Erend stares at her in disbelief, the weight of it hanging about her neck. "Aloy, you have to be kidding. That's sheer rock."

Varl shakes his head, gesturing one hand out to the Oseram, his eyes narrowing. "No, this… This looks like a… a brave trail?" His head turns towards Aloy, his gaze searching. "This is your only way home?"

Aloy shrugs, dusting off her hands, trying to ignore the tremble of them. Trying to convince herself that this is only the cold set upon her. "I mean, there is that path on the other side of the mountain, I guess. But we only use that when we're coming home from a hunt." She nods towards the cliff again, her gaze traveling along the zipline that traces down from the height of it. "But Rost put this up when I was… thirteen, or so? He said I would need the practice."

Erend lets out a cutting breath, a scowl pulling across his features. "Thirteen," he mutters. "Doesn't that seem like pushing you too hard?"

Aloy turns a sharp look towards him, her words flat and laced with ice. "If Rost hadn't pushed me like he had, Erend, I would have been dead several times over."

The words are sobering, cutting something between them, and Erend looks away, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Varl grasps that loose thread, ever the mediator, and catches her gaze. "Surival requires perfection," he murmurs, the words knowing. "My mother drilled that into me too." A lopsided smile upon his lips, a boyishness to the gesture, something almost young.

When was the last time any of them had been young?

"I wonder who the two of them learned that from?"

Aloy smiles back, but the action almost feels false as Varl steps away, motioning towards the wooden platform. "Lead the way, Aloy. We'll follow you anywhere."

"Including back in time." Erend's voice is roughly cut, the scrape of stone and hammered steel, but when his eyes lift, they are warm once more. The light of a man who had invited her out to drinks once, so many years ago, on the eve of her Proving. "C'mon, Sparkfire. We ain't getting anywhere just standing here."

Aloy nods, stepping quickly up to the platform, and the years between the moments fall away. The motions that she falls into only grow in familiarity the longer she climbs. Even after so many years since she had lived here last, her body—this body—seems to remember exactly how every jump was meant to feel, the sensation of it all rushing back at her.

Halfway through and clinging to the cliff face, Erend's voice crackles through her focus, panting and strained. "Aloy," he huffs, the words followed by a grunt of effort. "Why didn't we take that—" Another grunt. "—that mountain path you talked about?"

"Uh…" Aloy hangs from one hand, shaking the other out at her side as she peers ahead, wind beginning to buffet at her hair and twisting it across her neck. "I forgot?"

A beat of silence.

"I hate you so much."

The sharp of Varl's laugh that follows cuts through the otherwise silent air of the mountain.

Aloy chuckles alongside, the warmth of it pushing her back into motion. There's the slightest of burns along her muscles as she finally lifts herself up from the last ridge, her breath pluming out from her lips. Varl is only a step behind, and Aloy stretches her hand out to him, hauling him up beside her.

"Thanks," he pants, the back of his hand swiping against the dots of sweat upon his brow. "It's been a while since my last good climb. I almost missed it."

They sit there in silence together, soaking in the chill of the air around them. Aloy drags in a frost-tinged breath, listening and waiting as Erend finishes the last of the climb. When he finally comes within sight, his face red and blotchy, they both offer their hands out to him.

He waves them away. "No offense, but I'll drag you off the mountain." Another grunt, and he kicks up the last portion, surging onto the overlook beside them.

This time, he does take Varl's offered hand, the two of them staggering slightly as Erend steadies himself. Then he turns towards Aloy, jutting a finger out at her. "I hate you," he says again, panting sharply.

Aloy shrugs, a smile tugging at her lips. "I think I can live with that."

He moves to punch at her shoulder, and Aloy side steps, catching his arm. "Let's not fight on the cliff edge," she says lightly, a teasingness in her eyes as she swings his arm back down towards him. "Now come on, I'm dying to get back in front of a fire again."

They carry a light conversation all across the bridge and through the courtyard, and with every step, Aloy's nerves spark within her. She can hear each caught breath of her companions, each faltered step as they stare at another portion of her life that she had thought she would never see again.

And yet here she is. Home again, with friends at her side.

The idea somehow seems wholly incompatible.

A shudder runs through her the moment her feet hit those wooden slats, but Aloy pushes on, crossing the few final steps to the door.

She has Varl. She has Erend. Now all she has to do is convince Rost. Somehow.

Aloy pushes open the door.

Erend and Varl step in behind her, their conversation cutting short in the silence before them. And amidst the quiet comforts of the cabin, Aloy finds Rost standing across the way, his bow drawn and taut.

An arrow leveled at her chest.

Something cuts at her breaths, the words drawing from somewhere deep inside her, the nervousness spilling into every bone. "Hi, Dad."

A widening of his eyes. The bow drops from his hands, the clatter of it sharp upon the ground. Aloy takes a step forward even as Rost takes a step back, his expression twisting.

"Rost." Another step forward, her hands raising.

"They should not be here." His words come out in a growl, a flash of anger in his voice as he turns away.

"Rost, if you could just—"

"They must leave!" The words rip out of him, and Aloy flinches from the strike of then through the air.

She canhear Erend shuffling behind her, his voice strained. "Aloy, do you need—"

"Stop." Varl's voice settles upon them both, and Aloy shivers at the press of his hand to her back. "Aloy, go talk to him. And remember, he is more Nora than you or I will ever be again."

A breath drawn in. All the familiarity of home floods in, years of her life spent within these walls, caught within her lungs. Something sharpens within her chest, something that burns and flickers.

"Rost." She crosses the cabin, her steps echoing upon the floor. "Rost, look at me."

He shakes his head, his head still turned away. "I can't allow this, Aloy. I can't…"

"Just listen," she says quietly, and the air is charged between them, the edge of every argument that has drawn unspoken at the surface these past days.

"This has passed from risk to recklessness, Aloy. It is dangerous."

Aloy huffs, stepping closer. "Of all the things I've seen, this is the least of it. How is this dangerous?"

"Is it not enough for you to suddenly spurn the Proving?" He turns now, his words searching, his gaze clouded and dark. "For you to cast aside your future and your life? Must you also drag a Nora Faithful into this as well? And Sona's son, at that!"

"Varl is my friend!" Aloy cuts back. "Rost, I'm trying to tell you—"

"You should not have—"

"Dad, stop!"

Once again, the words crash upon him with a visible effect, his body somehow stilling and shuddering all at once. Rost looks at her with widened eyes, something deeper in his gaze that she cannot name, his hand raising up to press against the center of his chest.

"Can you please—" Aloy draws in another breath, reaching out for him. He offers no resistence as Aloy steps close, leaning against him. "I hate this," she sighs, closing her eyes. "Every time I dreamed of seeing you again, I always thought… thought it would be so easy."

The silence hangs between them, before finally, Rost's hand settles upon her back. "You had only called me dad once before," he says gruffly, the words soft. "Years ago."

"Yeah, well…" Aloy curls her hands into his furs, her body shivering. "There's a lot of things I regreted not saying to you over the years. And I… I want you to know that you always have been—that I always thought—"

"I know." His other hand draws up, stroking at her hair, and Aloy presses all the closer against him. He holds her in this way for three breaths more, the beat of his heart echoing within her own chest.

"You said Varl is your friend?" There is a shift to his voice now, the questioning more gentle than it was before.

"For years and years," Aloy murmurs back, drawing in another breath.

"But not these years." Rost shifts away from her, and Aloy cranes her head to look up at him, at the crease upon his expression. His fingers brush at her face, rough and calloused. "Where did you go?" His eyes search hers, set heavy with grief.

Something jolts in her chest when she realizes the grief is meant for her.

"What happened to you, my daughter?"

Her control breaks, the words shaking as they fall from her, tears burning in her eyes as she catches his gaze.

"The end of the world," she whispers, the crash of Nemesis upon her skin once more. "And I'm terrified that it's going to happen again."

-

Aloy spills the story out to Rost slowly, her head lowered, unable to meet his gaze. He sits across from her at their table, a small one meant for two, the two of them alone. Except… it's no longer just the two of them. Varl and Erend are there, watchful eyes and strained expressions as Aloy carries over the past years of their lives.

Rost says not a word as she speaks. He simply sits there in silence, a silence that before would have been as comfortable as any other night. But now? When there is an expectation set upon it, an anticipation that bites at every thought and strains at her mind?

Aloy drags her gaze down to her hands, hating the tremble of them upon the aged wood of the table.

She's supposed to have more control than this. She's supposed to be their relentless leader, determined in all things.

But sitting here in front of Rost and spillling out everything that had happened to her makes her feel like nothing more than a child.

Finally, finally, the last words fall from her mouth, settling upon the wood before her. Aloy holds the shape of them in her hands, the threat of blood and destruction and ruin and death.

Nemesis.

All that planning. All those years. All that fighting and preparation and for what? She had still failed them all. The Earth was meant to be eclipsed by the realization of every terrible end, and she had failed to make a difference at all. In fact, if it hadn't been for Beta, she wouldn't even be alive.

No one would have survived.

Yet somehow Beta bought them all time. Bought them all their old lives, trading hers in to meet the cost.

Caught within the hold of the Zeniths.

For how long? How long would her sister be forced to wait? How long would it take for Aloy to finally find her, finally free her?

A thought catches within her mind, a thought that curls in her fingers in, the nails of them digging into her palms.

Would she even be able to save her sister at all?

What if she was still up there, pinned among the stars, held beyond her reach? Would it really matter how quickly Aloy fought to reach her side if she was still kept, wholly unattainable? What if—

"Aloy." Rost's hand settles on hers, the size of it in such sharp contrast to her own, and something within Aloy's chest aches, a longing that nearly steals her breath away, another hand drifting to her mind.

A gentle touch that had held her through so many aching nights, a touch that had drawn her from the darkest of shadows before.

She has Rost back now, yes, but her strongest comfort, her greatest support, is half a life away, far beyond the reaches of the Sundom. And she isnt even sure if he remembers her.

Rost's gaze holds hers, eyes blue as the sky and searching in the flickering firelight. "What do you need?"

Aloy closes her eyes, and everything within her wants. "We need to go west," she murmurs, curling her hand within Rost's grasp. She can feel his grip tighten to her words, as if knowing what she might say next. Aloy opens her eyes, a coil of determination sparking, blaze and brilience, red-hot and bright.

"We have to leave the Sacred Lands."

Chapter Text

Somewhere along the way, Rost had made them all food.

Aloy stares down at the bowl in her hand, then back up to her father, then to her friends who are bickering closer towards the fire. She's not sure how he managed to stretch the meal from two to four on such short notice, yet he had still done it.

Rost shifts his stool closer to Aloy and takes a seat at her side, letting out a slight grunt with the motion.

Aloy blinks, considering him, before leaning over to brush her shoulder against his own. "You're taking all of this surprisingly well," she says, her voice quiet.

Rost lets out a low, considering sound, yet his attention is caught solely upon Varl and Erend as they speak. "It is a tale too strange to disbelieve, yet I can find nothing to say yet to rebuke you."

"So when I said we need to leave the sacred lands…" Aloy says slowly, drawing the words out. "Are you really alright with this, Rost?"

His head turns, his gaze heavy as it settles upon her. "Aloy. I have raised you and known you all of your life. And I had always—" a hesitation, the slightest of crease to his brow. "Always feared you would go far beyond where I could guide you. But I see now that you have already outgrown anything more that I can give you."

Aloy shakes her head, taking up his hand in both of hers, insistence in her voice. "That's not true, Rost. I didn't outgrow a single thing you taught me. Your words are what grew me, and they are what have kept me alive, kept me fighting all these years. I would have been lost without them."

Rost scuffs out a breath, his own version of a laugh, and draws one hand up to stroke his thumb across her cheek. "I wish you had not had to do it all alone."

Aloy leans into his touch, closing her eyes. "I told you. I didn't do it alone, not the whole time. And that's why we have to go west. It's why I have to leave."

Rost tips his head forward, pressing his forehead to her own, and Aloy breathes in his presence, hand curling tighter around his. "And where you go, I will follow."

Aloy closes her eyes, her breaths shaking in her lungs, and lets the words sink deep into her.

When she finally pulls away, Rost settles into himself once more, lifting his chin towards Erend and Varl. "Tell me again about your companions." A slight creasing to the corners of his eyes. "It still… seems strange, to see a Nora act in such familiarity with one from outside our tribe."

Something like a laugh catches itself inside her throat, and Aloy shakes her head. "Familiarity? Try mated."

Rost turns to her then, a widening to his eyes. "Those two?" He asks, voice furtive as his gaze cuts towards them once more.

Aloy's gaze follows as well, before the laugh pulls itself fully from her lips, forcing her to set aside her bowl of food and hunch into herself, near choking as she tries to stifle the sounds.

Rost looks after her in alarm, and even Erend and Varl cease their verbal jabs to stare at her, and Aloy waves all of their concerns away with one shaking hand. "Varl," she manages to strain out, sitting back up. "Tell Rost about your wife."

"Wife," Rost echoes softly, his eyes narrowing in slight understanding. "Then the Oseram is not…?"

Another wave of delirious laughing crashes into her, and Aloy slumps forward once more, breaths wheezing in her lungs.

Erend scoffs out his own laugh, leaning against the table as he grins at Varl. "Oh, Zo's gonna kill you if she finds out you got hitched without her!"

"Erend," Varl groans, shaking his head. "Shut up."

Erend gives Varl a smug look, crossing his arms over his chest. "I mean, I am a well formed Oseram specimen. Maybe Zo won't be surprised when she finds out it's me you fell for."

"I'm going to stab you with this spoon," Varl huffs, leaning across the table.

"Whatever you say." A beat, a wink. "Husband."

Aloy has to slam a hand over her mouth to contain herself when Varl lunges for their friend.

Rost seems more tired than anything else, and breaks the brewing scuffle with nothing more than a cut sigh and pointed look. "Do not spill the food," he says, his gaze set upon Varl. "To waste the All-Mother's provision is a shame upon those who brought it to you."

Varl freezes, and the expression upon his face makes him seem truly young, and he pulls away from Erend, his own hand coming out to still one of the bowls that had been left to rattle between them.

Rost's hand brushes against Aloy's arm, a wordless query, and she answers in like kind, her fingers tapping in silent assurance. He nods at this, then turns his attention back towards Varl. "Tell me about your mate. This… Zo?"

When Varl smiles next, it is the look of a man who—against many weary years—is still relentlessly in love. His eyes soften, and all annoyance towards Erend seems to have dissolved itself from his features as he begins to speak.

"Zo is… she is kind. And strong. She's an Utaru, and a healer, and a fighter, and—and we have a daughter!" Varl's grin only grows, if such a thing is possible at all. "Vala is nearly four now, and is just like her mother." Varl quiets, only briefly, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Sometimes I can't really believe Zo's put up with me for so long. Gaia knows this path hasn't been easy."

Something curls in Aloy's stomach, heavy and hot, and the rest of Varl's words fade in her ears, crowded out by the ringing that settles in her mind.

"Varl." His name settles on her lips, the curl of her fingers on her lap, but the sound of her voice goes unheard.

"Honestly, I don't think I could have made it as long as I have if it wasn't for Zo. She's saved my life so many times." His hand moves to his chest, then hesitates there, and when his gaze lifts to find Aloy's, she knows they are thinking of the moment, crushed in darkness and the tang of metal on blood, the flickering of shields and the terrible belief that things couldn't be fixed.

Varl's hand settles against his leathers, yet his own expression seems strained, distant. "Guess I keep forgetting where we are now," he says, finally dropping his hand. Another breath, the silence held within their throats, before Varl shakes his head. "But enough about me. You should tell him about Kotallo, Aloy."

Rost's attention is back on her, and Aloy swallows back some of the heat, yet it only returns to rise back up her throat, scalding and buzzing in the back of her thoughts. "I—"

Her hand moves to her chest, almost unconsciously, fingers curling towards skin that she knows is no longer marked. Skin that hasn't known his touch, even though her mind remembers every moment, every smile, every slow and aching kiss that had passed between them in these past three years.

But that was half a life ago—or ahead of them?—even though she had woken to all of this only two days before.

Trapped, pinned beneath Rost's careful gaze, Aloy drags in a breath, even as her thoughts claw inside her mind. "I—"

Erend had described it as hazy and torn. Varl had spoken quietly to how he had questioned it all, that if Erend had not been there he might have dismissed it all. Even she had been lost upon waking, believing herself caught in the space before death, rather than inside a moment of life.

How much worse could it be for Kotallo, when he was all alone?

How would he know that what they were was real?

Rost catches her torn expression, and settles his hand upon her knee. "Someone else, then. You spoke of having a sister? Did I—you seemed to be speaking quickly over many details, and I would like to know more. Beta, was it not?"

Another, smaller sound scrapes itself against her throat. Beta. Beta, who had given herself up for all of them. Who had traded herself for time, for Aloy to get it all right. Beta, who Aloy can't even be sure she'll know how to rescue when the time finally comes.

Erend's voice is low as he speaks, his brow furrowed as he stares towards the table, his hand curling into a fist. "Beta is the smartest person alive on this planet," he says, and Aloy finally frees a breath into her lungs. "And she knew exactly what she was doing when she sent us all back here." He catches Aloy's gaze, eyes insistent and warm. "So we have to trust her."

Aloy lowers her head. "We have to save her, Erend." She leans into Rost's shoulder again, closing her eyes. "We have to leave as soon as possible. Not just so we can fix everything and save the world, but so we can save her too."

"You will."

His hand presses at her back, heavy and familiar and unfamiliar all at once. "You always were a willful child. I have seen you commit the whole of your life in pursuit of what you want and need. This is what you need, Aloy, and I hold no doubt that you will do whatever it takes to get her back.

Aloy lets out a breath, soothing the ache of it within her lungs. "We'll save her."

There is no room for questioning. No room for hesitation.

She cannot fail.

-

Aloy takes Rost by the elbow and walks him towards the wall of their cabin, hesitation faltering within her as she stares up at him.

Any minute now, and she's waiting for all of it to fall apart. That this is some bizarre dream that she has fallen into, rather than this new reality. She's waiting to blink—and when she opens her eyes she will have lost him once more.

But Rost is still here, looking down at her in silent concern, and his hand moves to cup at the edge of her elbow as well as Aloy gathers the words within her.

No going back. "We can't stay here much longer," she murmurs, her free hand moving towards the pouches at her hip. "And I… I need to give you something."

Fingertips brushing against cold metal, and that charge within Rost's eyes, holding her tight. Aloy sighs, and pulls her hand back out, presenting it to Rost even as she works to keep the tremble of uncertainty from edging its way down her arm and into her open hand. "A focus," she says quietly, the words trembling in her throat.

For all that she has fought, for all that she has faced, there is something achingly vulnerable within her now in this moment to lay this out before Rost. An offer that she is still uncertain he will take, when so many times before it had led to countless arguments and silent nights rife with tension.

For her, it has been years and years, sleepless nights in which she had time to regret every choice that had been made between them.

For Rost? In this moment, in this day?

It has been no time at all.

"You don't—you don't have to use it. Or wear it. Or any of that. I just… I want you to have it. Keep it on you, somewhere." Another harsh breath, and Aloy drags her head up to meet Rost's eye. "It will help, if you let it. But you don't have to. Just… take it, please."

Rost's fingers are rough against her palm as he takes the focus up. "You insisted before that this was no plaything." His gaze narrows slightly, shifting the weight of the focus, studying it, his eyes heavy with intent. "That it was a tool."

His head lifts, and he and Aloy both look towards Erend and Varl, who have cleared off the table and are looking through their own focuses. For a moment, Aloy's thoughts wander, to how bizarre it must seem to Rost in this moment to see them now, their hands swiping through the air and yet nothing at all.

"You mean it now," he murmurs. "I will need this to understand what you intend to lead me into." A shake of his head. "And only a fool refuses understanding when it is placed before him." He lets out a breath, before Rost presses the focus to his temple.

There's the sharp, metallic hum of it activating, and Rost's steps falter backwards, his eyes widening, and Aloy takes hold of his arm once more, grounding them together.

"You alright?" She murmurs, studying his expression even as it falls impassive once more, betrayed only by the slight pull between his brows.

"Lights." The word comes out almost awed, and Rost's blinks before clearing his throat. "Lights and… and sound."

A chuckle brushes across her lips, and Aloy squeezes his arm. "Just wait until you finally get to meet Gaia," she murmurs, even with the slightest of apprehension down her back.

What would he even say in that moment? Rost, devout as he is, meeting the what he might believe to be his goddess? The All-Mother herself, and yet in none of the way that has been understood before?

How would she even truly begin to explain, that he might understand now?

Aloy shakes her head. "Come one," she says instead, pulling him towards the table, and their movement pulls Varl and Erend's attention upwards as well. "We have work to do."

As soon as they are all standing before each other, Aloy pulls up the map interface on her focus, no longer littered with campfires and settlements and markers and machine locations, but instead covered in a thick grey haze that she had stared so frequently into as a child. She had always wondered what was out there, beyond the reach of the Sacred Lands. She had always wondered why her focus might know the shape of the lands, but not what was held within them.

Now, she knows what is out there. They all do.

Aloy pulls the map out into a holo projection and tosses it out across the table, to the sound of a caught breath at her side. A look over her shoulder, and Rost's face is as calm as ever, but there is interest reflecting in his eyes.

"Alright," Aloy says, leaning her weight on the edge of the table, staring down Erend and Varl and the lights cast across their faces, tension drawing itself through her bones and curling down her spine.

"What exactly can we remember from the last six years?"

Chapter Text

It is no small thing, to see her now.

To see Aloy, her brow furrowed in the same concentration he has always known her to hold, and yet now it is tempered by the occasional smiles she lifts towards the others in the cabin.

And it is no small to see these others, as well.

To see Sona's son, his once-spear mate's child, a boy he had seen grow over distant years, now within his own home and standing beside the daughter of his heart.

To see Varl—who had been raised to abide in the teachings of the Nora in every way—now speaking with ease towards this Oseram man.

Rost could not disbelieve Aloy even if he wanted to. Not with these three before him, and a familiarity between them that Rost knows can only come from those the battlefields that forge such bonds.

A familiarity that can only be achieved by years at another's side.

There is familiarity in Aloy's eyes as well, and that smile—

Each time she smiles, it is as if Rost sees it for the first time.

And it is no small thing see what has become of their cabin—a room that had so often descended into silence before, now filled with the sharp cut over words overlayed upon one another.

And the focus at his temple—strange beyond words, the flickering lights within his vision, the cast of them across all that he sees, and the faintest pulse of an ache behind his eyes the longer he strains to understand all that is unfolding between the three before him.

Some part of him acknowledges that he will never truly understand, even as it all occurs before his very eyes.

They map out markings—battles, machines, locations where allies can be found. Remarks on "data" and Gaia, flickering points of light placed in the furthest reaches of the glowing map before them all.

Aloy carries the brunt of the load. A gesture is made—and something upon the map changes. Her fingers now carry threads of light, detailing the paths she had followed and crossing across the unknown space several times over.

The more she speaks, the more an uncertain sensation shifts inside Rost's own chest.

So much more to disbelieve, yet he has nothing left but to believe.

And if he is to believe… then the weight that was placed upon his daughter's shoulders hangs heavily upon his own shoulders now, in this very moment.

She had tried to insist that she was not alone, not truly, yet for the few times that Varl or the Oseram might add their own tracks to walk alongside her own, for much of her paths, Aloy walked on her own.

He had left her.

It was an unwitting failure upon his part—he knows this. In this other life, this other time, he chose then what he would choose even now—to give his life for the sake of his child, to die that she might live.

Yet even before that, he had meant to leave her, to break the promise that he had made all those years ago.

A few short days ago, and the choice might still have been the same—to leave Aloy to her life in the tribe, so that she might not be lost from the sight of the All-Mother in her persistence to follow him—yet now he can see the mistake within those words.

She would have followed him, always. He should have known, relentless as she is—and perhaps it had been suspected even in that other life.

This other life—he had saved her, yes, but what sort of life had he saved her for?

What sort of solitude had he condemned her to with his own death?

The afternoon drags on.

Aloy's steps upon the map become more convoluted, more repetition between each placement.

Her words begin to falter.

There is something now in her eyes that Rost cannot recognize.

Aloy does not smile now, as she looks down towards the map. There is only that crease upon her brow, that grit to her jaw, and the way her knuckles turn white from where her hands grip at the edge of the table.

Is this is what she has been forced to live through, in all of these years?

She had said the fate of the world was in her hands—and he can see some of it now, the weight of it upon her shoulders.

There is far too much hurt in her eyes for someone so young.

But she's not young anymore—is she? Years and years without him—years that she had been forced to grow and survive and he had failed to follow her, to protect her as he promised.

Aloy had always grown up fast. It was an unavoidable fact within Rost's mind, something that could not be changed as she raced towards each challenge with more fervor than the last. But this is more that just growing up—maturing past the girl he had raised all these years, and returned back to the cabin to find that the girl he knew was gone.

The woman who stands before him now has been hardened by the world, and Rost cannot help the distinct sense of loss within his chest.

He's lost her, in a way. This is Aloy—she looks the same, speaks in much the same way—but this is not his daughter as he knew her last.

This is not the same girl that he had seen slip off into sleep only two short nights before.

And worse than the loss is the knowledge that he will never get those moments back. All those years that she had grown without him—left with nothing but absence and grief—and yet she is here now, different.

Yet no matter what, this is his daughter.

And he will not leave her to face this alone again.

"Aloy."

Varl's voice is soft, gently prodding, yet Aloy doesn't even react, just keeps staring down at the map, that same hardness in her eyes.

This, at least, he recognizes. He's seen it far too many times before, on long afternoons that she insisted they train again, and again, and again. Hunting trips that went far longer than he had planned, simply because she wanted to keep going until she got the technique perfect.

Unrelenting persistence.

Survival requires perfection.

And that shadow in her gaze tells him all the more, she is chasing that perfection even now.

Erend moves his hand across the table, reaching out for her, and Aloy startles from the sight of it, lurching back all at once even as awareness drips back into her gaze.

The others stare at her for several long beats, before she shakes her head, letting out a sharp breath.

"Is that everything?" She asks, her voice scraped through and raw, and the edge of it bleeds into Rost's own lungs.

"Near about." The Oseram's voice sounds just as faint, a quietness to the way he regards her now.

The map is a mess of flags, markings, and scribbled lines. Paths and pins and red lights bleeding from the focus.

Aloy mutters a curse under her breath, scrubbing her hands across her face. "There's so much we're missing," she whispers, tilting her head back. "I know it. I mean, we don't even have the Tenakth lands available on here."

Varl waves his hand over the lights, causing some of them to flicker and distort. "Over half of these are from after we made it to the west, though. We won't have to worry about them for…"

"Years," Aloy fills in, dropping her hands.

The detachment begins to creep back into her eyes.

"What if we screw this all up?" Her hand flicks, and everything disappears all at once; every colored mark and note they had detailed in the passing hours—gone. Then Aloy's hands fall upon the edge of the table, gripping tight. "What if we make everything worse by changing it?"

"And what if we make it better?" Varl counters, mirroring her position from across the table.

The map between them casts purple hues across their skin as they stare each other down.

"We can fix things." Varl shakes his head, only the slightest. "I'm not going to hesitate if it means we can keep Vala alive. All of them, alive."

Aloy's gaze flicks towards Rost himself. Only for a second, but it is enough to see her, truly see her.

There is fear, there, hiding in her eyes. That same desperation that had been dripping from her voice as she clung to him only days before, breaking in a way that he had never seen before.

That same desperation seems to bleed into her now, and Aloy sighs, looking away. "Alright," she says, swiping through the air once more, and this time, only a handful of the markings remain, outlined in blue. "Next steps, then."

Of all the things that he cannot help in this moment, this, at least, he knows.

"The Proving," Rost starts, stepping away from his placement of silent observation.

"No proving," Varl and Aloy snap in tandem, the words sharp and scraping in the air.

"We're not risking it," Varl continues, letting go of the table and folding his arms across his chest.

"Rost, I know you've always wanted me to—" Aloy's head lifts as well, but then she cuts off.

Rost tilts his head at her, the slightest lift to his brow, and Aloy falls into silence, as if chastised by his own quiet.

Across the table, Erend's features shift into a frown.

"The Proving—" Rost begins again, stepping forward once more, gesturing over the map. "Means that there will be less stationed guards at the gates, and the Nora in the villages will be more concerned with revelry than with the movements of three passing outcasts."

He gestures to the North gate. "I had meant to—"

"Take me hunting," Aloy finishes for him, understanding in her eyes as she looks upwards. "The Sawtooth."

Another flash through her eyes, and she lurches back from the table, curses falling from her lips. "I'm already messing this up," she hisses, pacing across the cabin. "The Sawtooth, Brom and—and Olara, and of course Odd Grata and the rabbits and—"

Rost catches her by the arm, and for a moment Aloy starts against him, the eyes of a cornered animal—bright with fear and dark with threat, a snarl twisting across her lips. Yet Rost does not waver, and Aloy releases a heavy breath, the fight leeching out of her as her own hand comes to rest against his arm.

"Aloy."

She's going to burn herself to ashes, this girl.

Aloy stiffens at the sound of his voice, and she turns her head away, letting out a slow sigh. "Yes, Rost?"

She doesn't look back towards him. She doesn't need to. For all that she has changed, some things still remain the same, and for all that she may have spent years without him, he will always know his daughter.

"Step away." It is as close to a command as he can make it—but she was always stubborn, and she never took to her enforced breaks very easily before.

"Rost, we don't have time to—"

Her head shifts upwards just as Rost settles a hard glare upon her, and something in her eyes begins to falter. Just the smallest amount, like slipping at the edge of a cliff, but Rost refuses to let her fall. He curls his hand tighter, comfort and pressure all at once, and he nods.

"Would the Carja delegation not be concerned over your Oseram friend's absence?"

He tilts his head towards Erend, and the other man has the decency to at least look down, rubbing at the back of his neck. Rost's gaze shifts toward Varl next, and there is something like understanding in his eyes as the other Brave stares back.

So even then, in all of these years, some things never change. And Varl clearly recognizes the distance in Aloy's eyes now.

Perhaps she is not so unknown to him in this moment.

"Return him to Mother's Heart safely. The hour is growing late, and there is nothing more that can be done tonight that cannot be achieved tomorrow."

Aloy sighs, scrubbing her hand over her face. "But—we still have to…"

"I do need to get back."

There's something almost apologetic in Erend's eyes as he looks towards Aloy, and he can't seem to hold her gaze for long before he looks away, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. "Ah—your… Rost is right. I've probably been away long enough, and Varl already stole me away most of yesterday too."

"Besides!" Varl's voice cuts through, warm and soothing all at once, and he taps the lights across the map, swiping through the air. "Erend and I both have have Focuses now—we can always keep planning if we have to."

Another motion, and the Focus on Rost's own temple chirps. He tries his hardest not to flinch from the sound, but the knowingness in Aloy's eyes shows that his reaction did not go unnoticed.

Yet that knowingness softening into a smile, and her hand squeezes against his arm—just once—and she does not refute Varl's words. "Alright," Aloy says, stepping away from him. "Let's get our Vanguardsman back where he belongs." She taps her focus, and the map fully disappears, snuffing out from existence like the fading light of a dying machine. "We can set up our plans for the next few days on the way there, and then—" she pauses, her gaze flicking back towards Rost. "Varl and I can update you when we get back."

Rost nods, and some of the aching tension that had pressed between his lungs eases itself.

There is determination in her eyes still, yes, but this time it has purpose. An effort behind it, a goal to aim for, and Rost has no doubt that the world itself would fall to the will of Aloy's determination—just as he has learned it has countless times before.

Perhaps she has changed.

But the smile she gives her friends—friends, that he had never lived to see her with before—eases the worst of the doubt.

She has changed. And he will have to change to keep up, to keep his first promise he had ever made to her.

Wherever you go, I will follow.

Chapter Text

They are far from the cabin when Erend begins to speak.

"Aloy—"

His voice seems to hang strangely in the otherwise silent air, and Varl looks up at the sound of it.

There is something strained and guarded in Erend's eyes, something Varl had noticed from the second they stepped into the cabin, and the edge of it scrapes there even still.

"Aloy, I have to ask." Erend stops in his tracks, and Varl slows his pace as well, his feet stalling another three steps away.

Aloy continues on, as if oblivious.

Or too focused on what is to come, and unaware of all that she is leaving behind.

"Aloy."

Erend's voice raises, the sound of her name ringing sharper through the air, and finally, Aloy pauses.

"Yeah, Erend?" She turns, a tilt to her head, her fingers still wrapped tight around the spear at her side.

She had been carrying it ever since they left the cabin, though he and Erend had seen no need to pull out their own weapons in all the course of the morning.

A shift beyond him, and Varl's eyes narrow. Perhaps something had changed, though, because Erend's hand rests against the hilt of his hammer, fingers curled just beyond a state of being at rest, and the sight of it alone is enough to prickle against Varl's skin, setting him on edge.

"Are you going to be alright?"

There had been a tension in her. Varl would have missed it entirely, if not for the fact that now, visibly and heavily, it eases from Aloy's shoulders, like mountainside sloughing off snowmelt in the midst of spring. She lifts her head, and some of the weariness from before has broken through the cracks, glinting in the falling light of the sun.

"Alright as any of us can be." A dip of her head, quiet acknowledgement. "It'll be easier having you guys with me this time."

"And will you be safe?" Erend steps forward, and his hand is still tight on his hammer, prepared for a fight that Varl cannot see, and yet everything in Erend's posture seems to be screaming of it, all brash and ready for battle.

Aloy scoffs, but there's amusement in the sound of it, something bordering on light. "None of this is ever safe, Erend. But I'll have Varl, and I'll have Rost, and you'll catch up in a day or two to—"

"That's what I'm worried about, Aloy. Will you be safe with him?" Another step from Erend, and he's drawn level with Varl, his whole body crackling with energy and nerves, like ozone just before the strike of lightning.

Aloy shoots a confused look at Varl, and he can only shrug in return, the anxiety from Erend leeching into his own body, his mind readying for an enemy he knows his bones do not remember, that these hands have never faced, but it still rattles up in the space between his heart and his throat.

Still. Varl cracks the words free from the tension between them all, and lays them out as he catches Erend's gaze.

"Safe with who?"

"With Rost."

A bitter choke in Erend's voice, and an indignant sound blusters its way out of Aloy as well.

"WHAT?"

Erend throws his arms up in some mixture between dismay and desperation. "He drew an ARROW on you, Aloy!"

"He didn't know it was me!" Aloy snaps back, her own eyes bright with disbelief. "He thought we were intruders!"

"And that makes it better?" Erend scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. "Aloy, he forced you to climb sheer mountains at thirteen! He took you off to fight a sawtooth that had killed Braves before you!"

"I had to!" Aloy advances closer, the disbelief shifting into something closer to anger, and Varl steps back in response. "My options were to either push myself to the edge, Erend, or die. That has been my life for years and the only reason we have even made it this far is because Rost trained me to survive, because that was my only option!"

"Or maybe he forced you to take too many risks!

"What does it even matter?" The words are tightly drawn in Aloy's voice, like the tension of a bow about to break, the downswing of a blade set to fall. "Why bring it up now, all of a sudden?"

"Well I wasn't going to ask that in front of him." Erend gestures roughly backwards, and though they had left the cabin long ago, the shadow of it seems to loom over them even still. "So of course I'm voicing it now!"

"What is your problem, Erend?"

Or maybe it is the shadow of another moment, heavy upon Erend's shoulders and clouding in his eyes.

Quiet realization kicks into Varl's chest—the memory of a night from many years ago and the shaken sound of Erend's voice.

"He could have killed you today!"

Erend jams his finger into the air to punctuate his words, but the trembling of his hand speaks just as much of his fear as the breaking in his voice.

"One slip of that bow, and he could have killed you. And you never would have seen it coming and you didn't see it because you trusted him but Aloy, he—"

Varl's hands press against Erend's shoulders, pushing him back one half step, and the other man's words finally break and falter into silence.

"Erend." He won't meet Varl's eye. It doesn't matter. "Erend, it's not the same."

"Not the same as what?" Aloy snaps from behind him, but Varl doesn't pay her any mind. His palms flatten out against Erend's chest, finally catching his attention, and the sudden expanse of his lungs beneath Varl's hands is a heavy and aching thing.

"I knew about Rost," Varl murmurs, his voice low, holding them both steady. "He's not the same, Erend. It's alright."

"It takes one bad night," Erend growls out, but there is less bite in his words than there had been before, and he drags in another long breath.

"And I'll be right at her side the entire time." Varl dips his head to the side, holding Erend's gaze even as he tries to look away. "If you won't trust him, trust me. I'll keep an eye out for her. I promise."

It is a long, hard moment. Aloy's exasperation is near tangible at his back, but Varl does not falter until finally—Erend lets out a heavy breath, and shrugs him off.

"Fine. Fire and slagging spit—whatever you say, Varl." Erend snaps out the words unceremoniously, shoving past Varl and then even Aloy as well, all blistering thunder and grinding gears. "Yell I'm going the wrong way!" he shouts backwards, storming into the unfolding woods, and Erend doesn't even bother to look behind him as he scrapes the words out. "Made enough of a slagging mess of this already. All we need is for me to get lost."

Varl pulls his attention away just long enough to find Aloy's hot upon him now, and if she were any sort of machine, his focus would be sending up red alerts and messages of a potential attack.

Part of him wonders distantly if her body would even light up in the placid blue of "friendly" should he scan her with his focus, what with the way she's glowering at him now.

Aloy crosses her arms over her chest, and it's such a strange echo to be back here again, to see her now. Just the same as he knew her only days before, and yet the person standing here is from a lifetime ago.

She looks so young, before the burdens of the world had ever forced themselves onto her shoulders. She had been young, when it had all happened before. When she had been scraped and stretched like fox hide to become whatever anyone else needed her to be—forced to become what she had never hoped to live for, to change into something new—all brittle scars and determination in her eyes.

The scars have not carried back with her.

The determination is still there.

"Start talking, Varl."

A sigh within his throat. Quietly, Varl sets a location pin upon the focus map, knowing it will direct Erend, and begins to walk. It takes only two steps until Aloy falls into stride with him, her gaze still heavy at his side.

"Not my forge to smith. Not my tale to tell."

He can feel the start of Aloy's protests, and for as many years as she has fought, she is still somehow so unendingly impatient, and some sound of amusement escapes him even as it turns dry as dust within his lungs. Still, it is enough to quiet her, and Aloy falls into aggravated silence at his side.

Erend remains a distant figure, stepping into the growing shadows of dusk falling through the forest.

"When we get through this, Aloy, talk to him sometime." It isn't his tale to tell, but that it has been this many years, fighting at one another's sides, and yet somehow she does not know…

Had Aloy never thought to ask?

Had Erend not seen it fit to share?

"Loss may be our constant, what brings us all together, " Varl murmurs, and the words ache within his chest from the truth of them alone. "But that does not mean that we have all lost in the same ways. If you talked to Erend, maybe you would realize the differences in the griefs you both carry."

A silence. The wind is quiet in the trees.

"I will."

Aloy's voice is small, still with that hint of frustration, but it is tempered now, relenting.

And almost… uncertain.

"I feel like I'm about to screw all of this up, Varl. Like I'm going to ruin this second chance we've been given."

Varl reaches out, seeking her, and intertwines his hand with Aloy's, a binding assurance, as if he could somehow let the certainty from his own bones seep into hers as well.

"Nah." A tilt of his head, an almost playful lilt to his voice. "With all of us at your side from the beginning? There's no way in all the tribes that we'll fail. Besides—I know exactly what we're fighting for, and I don't feel like giving that up."

Her hand squeezes against his own, and when Varl chances a glance over to her, there's an almost smile ghosted across her lips.

"I'm not giving up either," Aloy whispers, and though her voice is soft, it is so much more certain than it had been even a few heartbeats before.

Another squeeze to his hand, a silent apology, before Aloy lets go, and breaks into a soft jog to catch up with Erend leading ahead.

-

The sun has hidden itself fully behind the mountains by the time they reach Mother's Heart, and for the first time in all the many years of his life, Varl looks upon the settlement with a rising sense of what he would almost call dread.

They let Erend lead the pack. Of the three of them—he is the only one that the Nora Guards would actually hold orders to allow back in.

They are still a day off from the Proving, so Aloy remains as nothing more than an Outcast in their eyes, and Varl…

Well, he has condemned himself.

Varl draws in a steadying breath, lifting his head and, keeping his distance behind Erend, far enough that the guards might know he holds no intentions to enter even as he follows. That he is aware that he might never cross those walls again.

Aloy is further back, the deepest cast of shadow set upon her, hidden from the flickering lights of the torches.

Erend pauses at the edge of the bridge, waiting for him, and Varl steps forward to pause at his side, taking the firm hand that the Oseram clasps around his arm.

"You watch out for her," Erend says, his voice low as he dips his chin to Aloy still cast in darkness. "And the I'll do my best to watch out for her." An upward jerk, and Varl's eyes follow the movement, finding a silhouette staring out at him from the top of the gates.

He does not have to see anything of her face to know exactly who it is.

A warrior's clasp is not enough. Varl releases Erend's arm—and drags his friend down into a tight hug instead, gratitude rippling raw and unspoken within his lungs, beating out any other chance of words as he buries his face into his war-brother's shoulder.

"We're all getting out of it this time," Erend murmurs, his hand firm at the back of Varl's neck. "I promise you that, Varl. Everyone is going to make it this time."

Erend finally lets him go, dips his head towards Aloy again, then approaches the gates, clearing his voice as if readying to speak.

The large wooden doors being to open before he his voice ever has the chance to break the night, and a cry sticks itself in his chest as Varl truly sees her for the first time in years.

Vala slips through them, a hard look in her eyes pressing upon the gate guards. "You should escort the Oseram back to his Carja friends. Can't have him wandering off again."

When one of them takes Erend by the arm, he offers no complaint. He only looks back at Varl, and even through the darkness he can see the promise firm in his friend's eyes.

She says something else to the other guard next, and they hesitate for only a moment before following their partner through the wooden doors, the gate pulling closed behind them.

Varl stands alone on the edge of the bridge, his hands shaking at his sides.

Vala stands before Mother's Heart, the place he had once called home, the life he can never return to.

The sound of her boots echoes against the wood of the bridge, and Varl closes his eyes, waiting for her to approach. His breath looses from his lungs as her hands clasps around his. "Varl, tell me that they're wrong."

He opens his eyes and finds her, as bright as he always remembered, a constant challenge in her gaze. The challenge that bleeds into desperation the longer she speaks. "Tell me what's going on. I heard it when I came back from a run and it can't be true, it can't. I waiting all day for you—I waited, Varl!"

"I'm sorry." The words crack through his lips, and Varl shakes his head

"No," Vala hisses, holding his hands tighter, pulling him with her. "No, it can't be true. I have my proving in two days and you have to be there, You cant—you promised you would be there, Varl!"

Varl sighs, something in him breaking at the sight of her. He had thought losing her to the silence before had been hard enough. This is almost worse, somehow, to see the anger and confusion in her eyes even as she understands that she is losing him.

He is doing this for her—and he will be losing her all the same.

"I know," Varl whispers, and he knows there is no assurance within his words for her. "And this isn't anything that I planned. But it's what has to be done." He pulls her close, and Vala wraps herself into his chest, her hands digging into the back of his armor.

"It's the Outcast's fault," she seethes, and Varl tips his head back, eyes burning. "Why did she have to come? Why couldn't she have just waited? We run in two days, Varl, why did she have to take you from me?"

"She didn't take me. This is my choice now, Vala." He tightens his arms around her, perhaps for the final time, and memorizes the sensation of it. So long as they get this right—and they have to get this right—Vala will still be alive. She will be safe, and she will thrive here amidst the Nora, just as she was always meant to do before. Before Helis, before the Eclipse, before the shadow of the Proving had darkened across the life of every Nora upon these lands, and stolen countless more.

Another breath. He lets her go. "I have to leave," he says, memorizing every feature about her that he had mourned before, the haze of time upon his memory. "And I don't know when I'll be back." The words catch, unspoken. If I'll be back. "I want you to know that I love you, Vala. And I am beyond proud of you and I know that you will win the Proving. I'm sure of it."

She shakes her head, hand still wrapping around his arm. "Varl, it's not forever. I won't let it be forever, do you hear me? They'll… the Matriarchs will share the length of your punishment tomorrow and—and I can ask of it for my boon! I'll ask them to take you back—I'll make them take you back!"

"I'm leaving the Sacred Lands."

His words, as blurted out as they are, are enough to halt her, and Vala remains motionless for a very long time. Her only movement is the slow curl of her fingers into his arm.

Finally, with a shaking voice, his sister raises her head. "What?"

"I'm leaving the Sacred Lands." Varl takes another step back, and he cannot breathe from the hurt suddenly held within her gaze. "And I wanted to see you one last time before I go."

"No," Vala whispers, and there is something like horror building up in her eyes, and the sight of it all slides like a blade into Varl's side—the echo of a memory of a death he has not fallen to in this lifetime, but he might as well be dying in this moment.

"You can't."

The shuffle of sound, and Aloy steps forward, broaching from the shadows. "Varl. It's time."

Vala bristles at the sight of Aloy, then turns her gaze back to Varl, shaking her head. Varl sets his lip into a thin line, letting her hands go, and takes another step back.

"I have to."

Vala's hands drop to her sides —and her body crackles with anger, the barest edge of every fight they have ever had rearing up at once, before falling all away just as swiftly.

"I'll find you, Varl. I swear it on the All-Mother."

Varl pauses to look over his shoulder, wavering in this space between the past and future, the beginning of everything that he might somehow change, the hope that he has left inside his lungs, and presses a sad smile against his lips.

"I hope that you don't," he murmurs, the words shaking in the space between his ribs and his heart, a part of him dying in the sound of them. "I hope that you stay here, Vala, and become all that the All-Mother plans for you. I hope you grow beyond anything I could have ever dreamed."

And oh, how he had dreamed before.

Far too many nights and days, holding the knowledge that he would never have seen her smile again, or to see her with her warrior's braid. That they never would have faced battle as Braves together, that he would never have seen her rise into dance at the Winter's Deep festival, now that she had finally proven herself.

Everything that he had never gotten to see before.

And everything that he will never see now.

But it is all that he can hope that she might still—

"Stay vigilant, Vala. May the All-Mother guide you on your path."

Varl turns away before he can regret it, and disappears with Aloy into the night.

Chapter Text

"What's the plan today, Aloy?"

Varl's voice is brighter, now that it is morning. They had returned to the cabin in silence the night before, Rost waiting with two full bowls of stewed rabbit and mushroom; quiet understanding in his eyes, and all of the winter bedding laid out before the fire for Varl.

But night itself has come and gone, and now the sun brushes slowly from the eastern edges of the mountains, liquid gold spilling out across the valleys of the embrace as dawn breaks with a quiet yawn.

And the three of them stand in the cabin, packing bags filled with arrows and supplies.

"I have a couple errands to run," Aloy answers, sweeping her hands across the sides of her thighs. "Loose ends to wrap up before we leave here."

"We will go to trade with Karst as well."

Rost's voice is clear and simply cut—it is not a question, but a statement of absolute truth. Still, it has Aloy's head jerking upwards, and she stares at him with something in between shock and disbelief catching itself within her.

She turns to him—slowly. "I thought you didn't like me talking to Karst. Said I was dishonoring both his and my own commitment to All-Mother."

Rost dips his chin, quiet acknowledgement. "That is what I have said before." He lifts his head, catching her gaze, and even though it has been many years since she was as young as she had been the last time he had looked upon her in such a way, there is something in the solemnity his gaze that truly strikes her as to all the many years Rost carries upon his shoulders. "But there are ways to get what we need without speaking directly. And we have a need." Rost nods again, turning his attention back towards the bag he had been packing. "Karst will trade."

Aloy sends a half frantic look towards Varl, but he only stares back in faint confusion, and she cannot help but to sigh. He wouldn't know—couldn't know—that even in just a few short days, Rost seems to be changing as well, shifting before her eyes.

She cannot say what she would have ever expected when in such a situation as this one. Perhaps she had dreamed of it, once or twice in the dead of night and tears damp upon her cheeks, some foolish fantasy that if she were ever to see him again, how he might have responded. But they were nothing more than that—foolish dreams. And she had never dared to have consider if Rost would have ever followed in her path, if only he had survived.

They were only quiet indulgences, soft comforts in the midst of nightmare riddled nights, and she had never let herself think far beyond the steady familiarity of it all, to remember Rost just as he was.

But it is real. And she stands here now, and Rost as well seems so willing to change, so suddenly.

Nineteen years of stubborn determination, and now he agrees so readily to break the law of the All-Mother?

The grievances they had carried for so many years, and now he casts them all aside without a second thought?

Aloy shakes her head head roughly, her hands curling into tight fists at her sides, nails digging in like clamberjaw teeth into the soft of her palms.

This is… this is a good thing. That Rost has agreed so quickly. That she does not have to face the alternative of forcing him along—or worse, to lose him fully and leave him once more.

Shouldn't it be a blessing from whatever half belief she might hold in the deities? That Rost would break from his very life to follow at her side?

So why does the thought of it all taste foul within her mouth?

"Is there any way for me to help, Aloy?"

Varl's voice snaps her out of her thoughts, and Aloy tugs her attention back towards him, staring without comprehension for several long moments, before the meaning behind the words finally connect within her mind.

"Arana."

There's only the faintest flicker of recognition in Varl's eyes at the name—as if it is familiar enough to know, but not enough to remember, so Aloy continues.

"There was… something about a scrapper? Her getting lost? I remember it was between here and the Northern Embrace Gate."

Varl nods, taking one of the half finished bags of ammo and slinging it around to tie at his hip. "I can handle that, then. And afterwards?"

"We will meet outside of Mother's Cradle." Rost answers before Aloy ever has a chance to speak, and that twisted up feeling knots itself through her chest again, pounding in counterbalance to each beat of her heart. "For trade."

Aloy swallows down the worst of the bitterness on her tongue, and turns away, taking up her bow in her hands. "So we all know what we're doing, then." The words taste sharp within her mouth, the edge of metalbite and frost rimming her teeth. Three more steps, and she's at the door. "I'll see all of you later. Alert by focus if you need anything."

Aloy clicks her mouth closed before anything she could regret bites its way free from her throat, and shoves the door shut behind her.

-

She doesn't even bother looking for Olara first. Doesn't look for Brom at the camp, or stop by the blood slicked alter that she already knows is there.

Instead, Aloy marches straight for the protruding boulder that she had found Brom at in the end of all things, and starts climbing.

He's not yet there when she arrives. Maybe it's for the best—her thoughts feel like a seething pit of snapmaws, all bitter frost and teeth flashing in the light of the sun.

Things should feel easier than this—shouldn't they? She knows everything that is to come, every first and second step to take. She knows where all of her allies lie, and where not to put her trust.

So why does she feel so uncertain in this moment? As if the ground is reeling beneath her feet, and one wrong move will send her plummeting from the edge?

Perhaps her relationship with Rost had never been perfect, but shouldn't it be easier than this? It's not as if he could have truly changed in just a matter of a few short days—

Unless she's changed too much. Too far. Cut out too many parts of herself to survive, and now that she's back, all of those rough and splintered parts of her chafe inside the body of who she used to be.

Aloy buries a groan into her hands, then into her folded up knees, letting her fingers trace out the tension along the back of her neck as she works to steady out her breathing.

For a moment—for one ghost of a moment—there is a warmth at her side, a gentle pressure at her back, and the stroke of calloused fingertips against her skin.

Breathe, Kotallo's voice reminds her, an echo of all the moments that she had sought solace at his side before, or all the times that he had laid comfort against her skin without her even having to speak for the need of it. You will overcome this.

Aloy lifts her head, cracking her eyes open against the faintest brush of tears, and the memory of warmth disappears from her just as quickly as it had appeared.

And in the absence of it all, her heart aches.

In all that has happened, in all that has changed, thoughts of Kotallo are both a constant and a curse, a thread tied to the very center of her being, and yet something so distant it feels as if she cannot fully grasp it. He is back in the Tenakth lands, far from her, far from everything that they had gone through together, and yet—

Again, uncertainty ties itself up through her throat.

Would he even remember who they had been? Who they had become? Everything they had fought and outlasted, side-by-side?

Or would she find him, and find a stranger staring back at her again, warm brown eyes that she once saw the whole world within, and this time, they would again be looking at her in guarded calculation as she stands before him, a stranger.

Or maybe this is all for the best.

Maybe—if she gets this all right, if she fixes everything, maybe she could even help him too.

Maybe the embassy won't have to end the same way.

Maybe Kotallo won't be the only Marshal, left standing alone.

Maybe there will be no need for such a Kulrut, or to challenge Tekotteh, or any number of things that had set them on the same path, footsteps following in tandem to the lead of the other.

Maybe he won't remember her.

Maybe it's better that he doesn't.

Aloy buries the thought back down, and grits her teeth so harshly that a dull ache begins to flare up through her jaw.

She cannot think in such a way. Not now. Not when all they have left is to try and hope—to try and fix things.

She cannot give up hope.

The sun is warm against her skin. Aloy tilts her head back and lets the light of it thaw through the worst of her frozen fears, letting out breath after slow breath as the tension frozen between her lungs finally begins to melt away.

She is not alone.

They will make it through this time.

By the time Aloy catches Brom's voice floating upwards from the edge of the rock, she has all of her frayed nerves set close, woven tight against her bones.

It's easier than she remembered to talk the other outcast into climbing back down and returning to his camp.

This time—she promises to walk beside him the entire way.

-

Olara hasn't turned up yet. Or at least—she has not yet started to call for her brother.

The small camp is quiet around them as Aloy watches Brom pack up his meager supplies, and something about the sight of it all sticks dully in her chest. She's done this more times than she can count before—settling down, completing the mission, moving on again.

He doesn't have much to begin with—and most of it is blood smeared, at this point. Still, dutifully, he packs it all, save a small scattering of crafted figures left about the site.

There's a twisting in Aloy's stomach as she peers down at them, just as covered in already drying blood, the color of it darkening from vibrant red to the dull black color she has seen far too many times in her life.

"Brom?" They haven't spoken much since they left the outlook. Or—she hasn't spoken much. Brom had still passively murmured to himself during the walk, and continued even still while slowly disassembling his camp. The sound of her voice is enough to make him pause and turn towards her. Aloy gestures down at the figures. "What are these?"

She had hardly noticed them, the first time around. If it wasn't relevant to finding him, she had ignored it. But looking at them now, at the way that they are arranged… that twisting sensation in her stomach again, a scrape against the back of her mind, like a knife chafing against bone.

This feels too familiar.

"The voices," Brom says simply, once he has found the focus of her attention. "I make them." He gestures, almost absent-minded, and his attention is already drifting. "Feels right. Like how the voices say."

It's a coincidence, probably, but Aloy's mouth still goes dry when she notices the one with red leaves for hair, and a smear of errant blood across the figures throat.

She tries not to look at the one carrying most of the blood, caked and dried into the pine bristles that make up its beard.

"Here." Brom is back. Aloy hadn't even realized he had left, but he is back now, on her other side, pressing something into her hands. "You should have this one."

That scraping across the back of her skull again, her whole body shuddering and going still all at once.

This figure is just as simple as all the rest—twigs and torn bits of fabric winding it all together, different only by the smear of white against brittle bark, rather than monotone brown. All the same, except for the one thing that stops Aloy's heart inside of her chest.

The left arm is missing from its side.

-

Aloy gets to Karst's before anyone else.

Or more accurately, Aloy does as she always has, and settles down in the last grouping of red grass before the edge of the village, and waits. Waits for the others to arrive. Waits for Karst's regulars to filter through, and for there to finally be space for his oddity to slip back in.

She's not the only Outcast he's ever traded with. She knows this, but for so long, Aloy still found herself looking at Karst as hers in a way. Complicit in a crime she was actually choosing this time—just like the cavern of the old ones. If she was going to be Outcast—set apart and scorned—then Aloy had made certain there would be reason behind it. And Karst had been willing to trade with her, conspirator at arms.

She still remembers finding his body after the Eclipse had raged through the Embrace, and she had sobbed. Because that was one more piece of her childhood—untouchable, pure, innocent behind the supposed safety of the gates—that had been ripped from her.

She didn't have any reasons left to go back to the Embrace anyways. It shouldn't have mattered if he lived or died, when Aloy never would have seen him again.

But he had. And now he's alive again.

And Aloy adds his name to an ever-growing list of lives she swears to save this time around.

Varl is the next to arrive.

He comes in the shadow of Arana and her father, Thok. Just a few steps behind, and if Aloy had not known any better, if he had been any other Nora, if she had existed in any other moment of her life before, she would not have questioned it.

But they are now marked in the life by after. After Nemesis. After Beta's plan. After Varl becoming an Outcast. After Rost saying things she cannot understand even now.

And in this moment of after, Aloy purses her lips together and lets out a thin whistle, catching Varl's attention and turning him back towards her.

No one else is looking when he brushes through the tall grass to get to her, then settles down to sit at her side. Aloy presses her shoulder up against his, and Varl presses back, silent as they watch the settlement below them.

Rost is the last to draw close to Karst and his trading stall, which shouldn't have happened. Arguably, he had the shortest task today—no tracking down runaway scrappers with spears, no talking confused outcasts off a ledge. But the sun is well past its midpoint by the time he finally arrives, and all it takes is one good look to spell out the reason why.

The first being the large travel sack slung over his shoulders, and the several pelts of fur hanging from his hips.

The few Nora still speaking with Karst break off mid-trade, staring back at Rost with something almost like disbelief, before something else flickers through their eyes—Aloy would almost call it respect, if she didn't know any better—before turning back to Karst and gathering their goods, leaving their trade unfinished.

They meet Rost's gaze as they turn, before both of them dip their heads and walk away.

May Aloy doesn't know any better.

Rost watches them leave for a moment, before his attention turns, slow, studying. He doesn't even have to tap his focus to hone in on Aloy and Varl both sitting in the grass, and all it takes is a simple tilt of his head to have Aloy tapping Varl on the shoulder and drawing both of them out and falling into his footsteps towards Karst.

Karst, for all that she has seen him before, has something else unrecognizable in his eyes as he looks at Rost. "Well, look who it is," the trader crows out, folding his arms over his chest. "And here I thought the mountain itself would collapse before you ever came down to trade."

Rost doesn't answer, but his lips do press into something that Aloy had long ago memorized as the barest amount of amusement he allows himself to show at times.

Aloy scoffs as well, unhooking the pouch of scrapper lenses she had spent a good part of the morning hunting down and dropping the pouch on one of Karst's crates, snapping his attention back to her. "Trust me, it's been a weird few days. We've got a lot we'll need to trade for."

Karst studies her, then Aloy can feel his gaze traveling over her shoulder to Varl, just a half step behind. "So it is true," he says, not directing the statement at any of them exactly, just letting the words hang in the open air. "The son of the War Chief ran off with the Outcasts."

Varl winces, and Aloy narrows her eyes at Karst before reaching back to brush her fingers across his arm in comfort. He presses a thin-lipped expression back at her, but does not say anything in his own defense.

"All-Mother's faithful turn to her in their hour of need." Rost's voice breaks through the tension, and he drops the bag at his side. "She calls them to follow her voice beyond the Embrace."

Karst scrapes a noise through the back of his throat, but the longer that he stares at them and the gathered Outcasts do not speak, a deeper realization seems to flash through his eyes. "Oh," he finally says, and his arms drop to his sides. "Well, alright then. What do you need?"

Rost runs his fingers down the lengths of knotted cord hanging from his hip, a her next breath catches in Aloy's lungs at the sight of it. She had almost forgotten, somehow. She stopped using cords as counting forms years ago—hasn't had need of it between her Focus and the three different glyph systems that she now knows how to write in, and seeing it now is like seeing something so fundamentally Rost.

And she had almost forgotten.

Aloy blinks back against the sudden sting of tears, and even as Rost begins to list out exactly what supplies he needs from Karst—talking to another Nora, just another thing that has changed—she grabs Varl by the arm and drags him into deeper into Karst's stall behind her.

She needs to get it together. She has to focus.

She picks up a sharpshot bow and balances a breath inside her lungs just as she balances the weight of it upon one outstretched hand.

She needs a distraction.

"You've been quiet today." Even though the words are directed at Varl, Aloy still finds her attention drifting back towards Rost, still haggling over amounts and costs with Karst. She didn't realize until so much later, but he always cut her a deal whenever she came to him for trades before. Even after she became a Seeker, or even the Anointed, no other trader in the Sacred Lands seemed to keep their prices as low for her. Maybe, just maybe, he had been a little bit fond of her back then.

Aloy forces herself to look away, and she finds Varl idly checking out all of the components of a tripcaster—no doubt trying to puzzle out where upgrades could be worked into the base of the weapon. "Not many people to talk to out here," he answers, not meeting her gaze. Just runs his thumb down the side of the caster, before going through the motions of drawing it and aiming across the stall. "Not supposed to talk to anyone else as an Outcast, right?"

The words burn in Aloy's chest, an echo of all the angry nights and days she had spent growing up in the cradle of the Embrace, a ghost and a lonely girl all at once, and even in his downcast eyes, Aloy can see a fraction of that in Varl even still.

"I am sorry," she says, her voice low, stepping forward. "I didn't mean for—"

Varl shakes his head. "It's fine." The words snap over hers, cutting her off. "It had to happen either way. We just have to keep moving."

"Varl—"

"I said, it's fine." He puts the ropecaster down with a sharp clatter, and though Aloy doesn't quite flinch from it, the sound still rings in her ears. Karst's head jerks over to look at them, she's sure, but she doesn't pull her attention away from Varl long enough to check.

Just tightens her grip around the bow in her hands, and watches him. Studies him.

She's not the only one watching the world change around her.

"Ok," Aloy says, her voice soft, and she lets the matter go. "Just—" Varl tenses, and she can see his jaw flex as he turns back to her. "Make sure to pick out any weapons you might need, ok? I don't know if any other traders will deal with us until we make it to Carja territory."

He sighs. Picks up a blastsling instead, and considers the shape of an empty core in his hand. "We should make sure we have plenty of fire ammo," is all he says in return, and somehow, right now, that is enough.

Aloy gives it another beat, another breath, before hefting the bow higher in her hand, and walking out to Karst. "How much?" She asks, holding the bow up. Her eyes dart towards the small pouch of scrapper lenses she had collected, still left on the crate she had dropped it on.

It's been so long since she had ever really had to worry about the cost of a trade before. The past few years have been a blur of travel and fighting, and between the different titles trailing after her name, the stripped machine carcasses left in her wake, or all the discovered ruins of the old world, having enough goods needed for trade was almost an afterthought, a non-issue. The worst she had to worry about before has having the lens or heart of a specific machine, and after enough years racing across the known tribes, she was almost always certain to have at least one tucked into her inventory somewhere.

Now, she's back to counting out shards and intentionally picking fights with machines, just with the hope that she can scrape up enough resources to back her up in a trade.

Rost raises one hand, the motion almost dismissive if it wasn't for the calm settled over his expression, and cuts over whatever answer Karst had been about to give. "She'll need new armor as well."

Aloy blinks at him—not quite in surprise, but something about it still catches in her throat anyways. Right. Another thing she's back to not having—no more top quality resources woven between plates of repainted apex machine plating. No more acid resistance treated arm guards, or leathers coated with fire kiln root.

Karst stares at Rost as well, somehow managing to look more off-balance than Aloy feels at the statement. "I don't—" he turns, gesturing back at his stall. "Do you see any armor stands here? This is a resources and weapons trading site. I don't deal with armor at all."

Rost's lips press into a thin line—disapproval. "Surely the people of Mother's Cradle do not have to travel all the way to Mother's heart for a new set of pauldrons. You must have something here."

Karst frowns, and when he looks at Aloy, she holds his gaze, staring evenly back at him. And perhaps she's simple thinking too much about this all, but for a second, she would swear she can see understanding flicker through his eyes.

"You're not running the Proving," is all he says.

Aloy presses his lips into a thin line, and lets out a breath. In another life, he had wished her luck. Made her promise she would still find him and trade with him sometime, gave his own word that they would both be silent about their harmless crimes of trading with one another.

It shouldn't feel so raw in this moment, to feel like failure when she is choosing to step away from what had been her life's ambition before.

Because that was all from before—before she had ever known what she was made for, before she became all too familiar with the weight of the world upon her shoulders, and this is now the after.

And it all feels so impossibly small.

Her silences stretches on for too long. Karst nods, just once. "I might have something stuck in a crate. Give me some time to look for it."

They do. Karst turns away and all but buries himself into the back of his stock. Varl reappears at some point, carrying an axe curved in a Nora style—something Aloy hasn't seen in years—and Rost ends up giving him tips on how best to hold the staff of the weapon.

She's certain that by the time they return to the cabin up in the mountains, she will step back outside and find Rost drilling Varl through forms on it.

When Karst finally comes back out, Rost has already divvied up the rest of their new supplies into packs for both Varl and Aloy to carry as well, and Aloy watches absently as he begins to count out pelts and machine parts as payment.

Karst pushes a leather wrapped bundle into Aloy's arms. "It's one of Teb's pieces he couldn't get to sell in Mother's heart. I never had the heart to tell him that it wouldn't sell out here, either, but…" he trails off, and there's a softness in his eyes before he suddenly looks away. "He had something he made for you, you know. He'll be upset that he won't get to give it to you, but maybe knowing that is with you—" he gestures at the bundle. "Will be enough for him."

Aloy tucks the bundle into one of her bags, and shifts her stance against the weight of it all, reaching out to briefly brush her hand against Varl's side. He doesn't smile at her, exactly, but some of the tension in his eyes seems to bleed away as he presses closer to her touch.

"Is that everything, then?" Karst asks, standing off across from Rost.

Rost dips his head, just once, then motions to the assortment of machine hearts and lenses left laying on the pile of animal hides. "This should be enough."

It's more than enough, really. Even just from here Aloy can see a Sawtooth heart along with several glinthawk lenses, plus a few more parts that she knows can't be found anywhere in the Sacred Lands. If Karst was to sell those off, it would get him more shards than maybe what his entire stall is worth.

But Karst only shakes his head, as if somehow used to this. "You always did carry the most valuable trades with you," he sighs, looking up at Rost. "Sure you won't need any of this for whatever journey it is you're about to leave for?"

A dip of Rost's head. "It will suffice."

The words are not a dismissal outright, but it seems even Karst knows when Rost will not be moved on something. He studies them all, one last time. "Don't get into too much trouble," he says to Aloy, and there is something almost fondly amused in his eyes.

Aloy smiles back, but she cannot draw it to soften in her own eyes. "I won't." Rost has already turned away, and Varl is following after him. Aloy pauses just for one second longer. "Tell Teb I'm sorry I never got to see him again. I know he… was hoping we would. And—" her voice catches, and she swallows the knot of emotion in her throat back down. "Stay safe, both of you."

When she follows after Varl and Rost, it becomes just another part of her past that she is leaving in the wake behind her.

Another fractured piece of the person she will never be again.