Chapter Text
Dawn was breaking over the Sundom.
The jungle air was cool and thick with early morning dew. Aloy leaned against the east-facing balcony and took a deep, fortifying breath of morning air while she enjoyed the sunrise. This suite, which Marad kept reserved for her frequent visits to Meridian, was the smallest one in the palace, and the only one in which Aloy felt comfortable spending several nights in a row.
Since the Battle of HADES two years ago, Aloy had been travelling almost incessantly from the Sundom to the Sacred Lands and everywhere in between. As a woman with no particular loyalty to any one tribe and a love for all of them, she wanted to provide help as widely as possible. Happily, this also meant that Aloy could continue doing exactly as she loved best: learning and discovering more about every corner of her world.
Aloy reached into the pocket of her loose silk pants and pulled out a tiny ceramic green-and-blue Earth, a precious token she’d retrieved at Elisabet Sobeck’s resting place. And as she did on most quiet mornings, Aloy ran her fingers over the tiny Earth and puzzled about all the places on this globe.
There were supposed to be nine Cradle facilities; All-Mother was just one of them. Where are the other eight? Further south even than the Bloodlands? Across entire oceans? Aloy thought. Although she had no evidence to prove it, Aloy was convinced that there had to be other people, other unknown tribes, somewhere in the world. There just had to be. What were the chances that the Cradle facility at All-Mother was the only one that had remained active? It seemed very unlikely to her.
Aloy sighed. These thoughts were the same ones she’d mulled over for almost two years with little to no further clarification, and as she often did, she rued the fact that she had no one to talk to about Zero Dawn. For the first few months after the Battle of HADES, she’d spoken to Nil about Zero Dawn, and she’d tried talking out loud to Sylens in the hopes that he would speak back one day and tell her something about the world. Aloy was even willing to put up with Sylens’ insufferable smarter-than-you attitude if it meant she could have some answers. But as good as Nil had been at listening, he obviously hadn’t been able to provide clarification, and she’d stopped trying to contact Sylens after a year or so of no response.
Aloy quietly padded over to her bedside table and tucked the tiny globe into the smallest pouch on her belt. This pouch contained only two other items: her charm from Rost, and the first metal flower Nil had found for her on the Spearshafts, which she’d refused to sell to Kudiv.
Aloy returned to the balcony again and took another long, relaxed inhalation to chase away her mild melancholy. Then, as she did sometimes, she whispered out loud to Rost in the jungle breeze.
“The new Braves are shaping up well. I taught Sona and Varl how to make corruption arrows so they could anger the machines on purpose, have real targets with real danger to fight.” Aloy smiled to herself. “Remember how you made me take down that first Sawtooth on my own? You told me that you wouldn’t help me if I failed. But I don’t believe you,” she whispered. “You would have helped if I was in trouble. I know you, Rost.”
She swallowed hard to clear the sudden lump in her throat, then smiled. “But I think it’s fair to say I’m a better machine hunter now than you were.”
“Aloy? Who are you talking to?”
Aloy turned at the sound of the sleepy voice, then returned to the bed and sat on it cross-legged. “Just thinking out loud,” she explained. “Planning my day.”
Avad smiled drowsily at her, and Aloy smiled back fondly. His short, usually neat hair was flattened on one side, giving him a distinctly boyish look. “I wonder what it means that the Nora Huntress starts her day earlier than the Sun-King. I’m sure someone would disapprove,” he murmured.
“Probably Marad,” Aloy chuckled softly. “You can always get up earlier, you know. For a Sun-King, you almost never catch the sunrise.” This was one of Avad’s quirks that Aloy found most funny: when he had a choice, he preferred to sleep in, and she’d once known him to sleep until midday.
“Or you could come back to bed,” Avad grumbled with a slow smile, and he reached out to take Aloy’s hand and pull her towards him.
Aloy laughed and pulled away. “No deal, Your Radiance. I think you should come and see this sunrise. It’s especially clear today.” She rose from the bed to stand by the balcony again, then smiled winningly at him.
Avad groaned and rolled onto his back, then rubbed his face and stumbled out of bed. Blearily he pulled on his silk trousers and shuffled over to join her, sliding his arms around her from behind.
Aloy relaxed into his embrace, and together they watched as the first timid orange rays of the sun slatted through the thick foliage of the jungle. As the sun continued its inexorable rise, it gained confidence, its rays becoming lances of light that pierced the sky and painted the purple clouds with pale pink.
Soon the sun was above the horizon, spreading its buttery yellow light across jungle and city alike, and Aloy turned in Avad’s arms to smile cheekily at him. “See? It was worth it, wasn’t it?”
Avad smiled sleepily at her. “It was quite beautiful. Thank you for sharing this experience with me. Now can we go back to bed?”
Aloy snorted with amusement and gently pushed him away. “You’re such an ingrate. I can’t go back to bed after that display! You go back to bed if you want. I’m going out,” she told him, and began changing out of her silk pants and into her favoured light Carja armour.
Avad shuffled back to the bed and sat down with a sigh. “No, there’s no point staying in bed if you aren’t there. I’ll start my day as well.” He gave her a rueful little half-smile.
Aloy smiled back quickly, but avoided Avad’s eyes as she buckled on her vest and her pouch belt. Sometimes when he half-smiled at her, the strange familiarity of that particular expression on Avad’s face gave her a squirm of discomfort in her chest.
Luckily, Avad didn’t seem to notice these little moments of aloofness. He ran his hands over his messy hair and yawned. “What are your plans for the day?” he asked.
Fully dressed, Aloy felt comfortable to look at him again. “Trampler hunting,” she replied. “Then to Free Heap to drop the parts off to Petra. I should be back late tonight. But I might be moving on again tomorrow. We’ll see.”
Avad nodded in affable acknowledgement. When he and Aloy had first begun their liaison a couple of months ago, Aloy had made it clear that she would continue to come and go from the palace as she saw fit, and that Avad could not ask her for more than the nights that she spent in the palace. She suspected that his feelings for her still ran deep, but to her relief, he had never once questioned her terms and always wished her a fond but cheerful farewell when she left Meridian.
Finally Aloy racked her weapons on her back and turned to Avad with a smile. He rose from the bed and kissed her temple affectionately, then gallantly opened the door for her.
“I will see you tonight, then?” he asked mildly, and Aloy nodded.
“All right. May the Sun shine on your hunt,” he said with a cheeky smile, and Aloy grinned, then gave him a quick kiss on the lips before jogging away through the palace.
***************
Later that morning, Aloy was stalking quietly over a rust-red ridge of desert towards a herd of Tramplers. She would use her corruption-poisoned arrows to make the Tramplers attack each other, then she’d sneak into the long grass near their site to take down any machines that remained.
As always before starting the hunt, Aloy tapped her Focus to see if there were any other hostile machines or humans nearby. To her surprise, the orange glow of a hostile human - a Tenakth, no less! - showed up in a patch of long grass about forty paces away, alongside the purple glow of a friendly Banuk.
Uh oh, Aloy thought. A hostage situation, maybe? She would need to deal with this before taking out the Tramplers. Slowly and quietly, she began to sneak closer to the two humans.
When she was only fifteen paces from the two humans, she silently pulled her bow from her back and nocked a hardpoint arrow, then aimed it at the Tenakth’s skull.
“Don't shoot. They're with me.”
Aloy froze. She was paralyzed with disbelief, a sensation like chillwater running down her back as she recognized that voice. It was a voice that she knew as well as her own and had once loved better than any other, but which she hadn't heard in a year. A voice which apparently still had the power to stop her heart.
She lowered her bow. Then, slowly, Aloy rose and turned around to face the owner of that deep, sardonic voice, and her brain went fuzzy with shock as she met his pale silver eyes.
Nil.