Chapter Text
Aloy shifts in discomfort, tuning out the fraudulent Shaman lecturing her through her Focus. The fight against the Rockbreaker and Thunderjaw at the Branded Shore had left her with scratches, aches, and a longing for sleep that she can’t treat and indulge until she’s back in Meridian.
It certainly didn’t help that Sylens’ remarks were more cutting than usual after she delayed her foray to the ruins underneath Sunfall for a third time. He grew angry at the fact that she travelled all the way to the Shadow Carja capital ‘just to get distracted and help the first miserable urchins that ask for help.’
What’s important is that a little girl was now being given urgent life-saving treatment. An innocent man was also saved from death and is now free to return home to Meridian. But of even greater political impact was her mission right now — smuggling the Queen Dowager Nasadi and Prince Itamen to the safety of Holy Meridian’s walls and delegitimizing the Shadow Carja’s governance.
Despite the urge to rebut Sylens, Aloy couldn’t even give him a dose of her usual snark as he ranted through her Focus. Since she was on a boat with other people including a spy and a sleeping prince, she settled for temporarily tucking her Focus into a pouch at her hips and enjoyed the reprieve from his shady nagging.
Aloy was the one risking her ass to find answers, and she’ll do it at her own pace. Sylens can wait in whichever dark hole he was hiding in. After he led her straight to HADES last time, she really wasn’t looking forward to another mission with him behind the scenes.
Before long, they make it across the Lake of Daybrink and arrive at the Brightmarket Docks just in time for sunrise. With relief, Aloy and her companions watch as Avad welcomes his brother and step-mother, before the Sun King turns to her.
“Aloy, it seems I see your influence everywhere. You’ve done so much for the Sundom, and it will always be appreciated. You have my thanks. May you walk in the light.” Avad turns away with a smile, now guiding Itamen and Nasadi further into the protection of his personal guard. He then pauses, seemingly remembering something.
“Oh, and Aloy? You have my warmest congratulations.” With a final smile, he walks away with his family.
“I spend two years setting this up and the redhead gets the credit,” Vanasha playfully complains, waving goodbye at the tiny prince who had taken a quick peek back at them.
“I’m still getting paid, right?” Three-Toed Huadiv narrowed his eyes at Vanasha.
“You’ll be lucky if I let you live.”
She turns to Aloy and looks her in the eyes. “I couldn’t have done this without you. When we meet again, I’ll give you a proper thanks. I promise.” As Vanasha takes her leave, Huadiv keeps at her tail to pester her about payment.
At this point, the adrenaline of the fight and the alertness she kept primed against potential Snapmaw attacks during their ride have long since faded. Now that she knows her bunk at the Hunters Lodge is but a few minutes of sprinting and an elevator ride away, all her aches and the insistent pull of her eyelids to close seem that much more intense.
But wasting precious daylight when there’s so much left for her to do to prepare for Sunfall seems unwise. Medicinal provisions and wire for her ammunition were running dangerously low, and so were her shards.
Aloy steels her resolve with an internal sigh. Sleep can wait: it seems trade and treatment should be her priority.
She walks outside of Brightmarket and towards the nearby river. Maybe it's just her tiredness, but the usual whispers about her from the busybodies seem a little more obvious than they normally were, even though there were much less people around. In the early light of the mostly risen dawn, the comments seem less like petty dismissal of her abilities as a ‘savage’ and more like just unsubtle gossiping, though she doesn’t bother to listen closely. The stares at her back feel like they last longer, too. She can’t be sure, but she might’ve sworn that one of them directed a quick ‘Congratulations’ to her.
After tiredly collecting some ridgewood she comes across in her search for blooms of hintergold and salvebrush, Aloy goes ahead and dips into the river to clean out her wounds and bathe.
Sighing in relief after washing out what felt like buckets of sand off her and out of her hair, she takes the chance to try and launder her clothes and armor, too. The Nora outfit she had been wearing during her trip to Sunfall — and her subsequent trips to the Greenclimb and the pass near Branded Shore — felt crusty with machine oil and blood. Whether her own, from bounty hunters, or the Eclipse, the dark stains can’t be distinguished anymore.
She bandages her remaining wounds and changes into her light Blazon to help deal with the Sundom’s heat. Enjoying the sensation of being clean and refreshed, she ignores the growling of her stomach and presses on. She doesn’t have many shards to put towards food right now.
As she approaches the lower village, the sun sits higher in the sky and traders have mostly settled in their posts. Workers and families were beginning to mill about, going about their business, but some of them were pausing to look at her and even subtly point, their indistinct murmurs seemed to add to the usual din of bustling trade.
How unusual. After earning some of the lower village’s goodwill through helping Kindiv’s group and Nasan, these folks normally just nodded in acknowledgement or left the ‘savage Nora’ alone.
Brushing off their strange attention with the ease of a lifetime of being outcast, she heads deeper into the village center to trade her lenses and hearts for materials and shards.
She sells a pouch full of the slagshine and desert glass recovered from her recent clashes with the Eclipse and the bounty hunters, and adds her remaining five Thunderjaw hearts and a few Stormbird lenses to the trade for shards.
Then she tries to buy several bundles of wire, but unexpectedly, the merchant refuses to take her payment and even adds a few more bundles to her haul.
“No need for that today, child,” the merchant says as she pushes Aloy’s shards back into her hand. “Consider it our congratulatory well-wishes.”
Aloy tilts her head. “For what?”
She didn’t think her involvement with the rescue of Prince Itamen had already been made public. It was just past sunrise; knowing the Carja and their ceremonial theatrics, the formal announcement of Itamen’s return would be made at high noon.
The merchant laughs. “Ah, youth. Always think they’re sneakier than a Stalker at night. Now, now, you know very well what it’s for, and I’m sure you have more important things to do than talk with this old woman, young Thrush. May the Sun light your way,” she kindly dismisses Aloy.
“Uh, thank you… You’re... very generous.” Before the situation can get any stranger, she takes her resources and walks away.
Weird, but in no way unwelcome. Her no-longer-worryingly-light bag of shards certainly isn’t complaining despite the burgeoning worry at the pit of her stomach.
She makes a few more exchanges, awkwardly acknowledging a few more unexplained congratulatory comments, until a bit before high noon.
As she steps out of the Great Elevator, she sees Vanasha seated at a local eatery, waving at her to come by.
“Little huntress! I didn’t think I’d see you this soon.”
She gestures to the seat in front of her. “This is no proper thanks nor congratulations, but come sit! The least I can do for now is buy you a meal. Najeed!” Vanasha calls the young server. “I would like your finest plate and ale for my new friend here!”
Hungry and tired, she takes a seat in front of Vanasha, and before long, wooden bowls of steaming maize rice and tender slices of boar meat, along with a pint of cool corn ale are soon laid out before her by a man around Varl’s age.
“Is it really Aloy of the Nora? The Machine Rider who saved Meridian and His Radiance from the criminal Dervahl!” Najeed claps once in delight and turns to face Aloy.
“It is our honor to provide you a meal. Any time you pass by our humble establishment during your extensive travels, please don’t hesitate to ask for a seat at our table and the best roasted boar you’ll ever find in the Sundom. Free of charge! Consider this our congratulatory gift, honored Thrush.” As he takes his leave and accepts Aloy’s awkward thanks, Najeed bows his head with a smile.
“But this was going to be my treat,” she called after Najeed playfully. “Ah,” she sighed with fake disappointment. “Now I have to do something else for her.”
Aloy hums as she drinks in the sight and scent of the food. It’s been so long since she last sat down and had a proper, unrushed meal, but her question can’t wait any longer. “Vanasha, can that ‘proper thanks’ of yours take the form of information?”
She barely registers the spy’s nod as she starts chewing the tender, smoky meat with delight.
“Meridian has been driving me crazy with the whispers! Why are they congratulating me? I was just here about two weeks ago and some were still calling me savage. Now I’m getting discounts, free meals, and well-wishes since this morning!”
“Can’t have been for Itamen’s return… Don’t Marad and his priestly folk announce important news at high noon?” Aloy asks as she continues eating. The fragrant maize rice perfectly accompanied the flavorful meat.
“You really have to ask? Because Sunhawk Talanah Khane Padish accepted your Gift!”
Aloy raises a brow. She gave Talanah a modified Powershot bow almost two weeks ago. There’s no reason it should be on the lips of what felt like every villager here after so long.
Vanasha continues speaking as she adds meat to a piece of flatbread. “It’s unconventional, rare, and — dare I say it — very sweet, so the village women and even the noblewomen have been swooning and wagging their tongues since it happened. It was the first thing I heard about since I got off our boat.”
“And why is that so gossip worthy? She’s a hunter who uses bows, so I gave her a bow. It’s just another weapon,” she says, just barely finishing chewing before getting the words out.
A beat of silence. Aloy looks up from her food to see that Vanasha has stilled — a stunned expression on her young face. She has only known the spy for barely two days, and yet Aloy gets the feeling that the concept of ‘surprise’ and ‘Vanasha’ rarely occur together.
“Just a bow?” Vanasha repeats in shock. “So you didn’t mean it?!”
“What, the gift? I meant it. I wasn’t expecting Talanah to owe me a boon or anything, if that’s what you mean. She’s an admirable, skilled warrior and I know that bow would serve her well. She’s been through a lot and I thought a practical gift would give some cheer, that’s all,” Aloy says around bites of her food.
Vanasha slowly lowers the bread she was about to bite into. “But… you crafted it. With your own hands. To match your own bow. And presented it to her at the Hunters Lodge!” Her voice grows increasingly incredulous, as if there was some point to her statement that Aloy just couldn’t grasp.
“I did. Why is that such a big deal? It- it wasn’t some insult or… or cultural misstep was it? I didn’t… unintentionally supplant her to become the new Sunhawk, did I? Is that why they’re congratulating me? That’s not- ” Aloy falters and takes a deep breath.
“Look. I just… I knew Redmaw damaged her bow a while back. I wanted to get her an even better one, but I didn’t have enough Bluegleam and shards to buy another Adept Banuk-crafted bow just like that. Buying mine just barely left me enough shards for arrows to catch my own food. Luckily the woods around Song’s Edge had the materials, and my- Rost, he taught me to make my own weapons. Since I had my own, it was easy enough to copy and improve one.”
“I just... wanted to help.” Aloy shrugged.
“Oh, little huntress… surely by now you’ve noticed that the people of the Sundom have a tendency to hold strength and prowess in high regard.”
“...When it comes to men, at least,” Aloy mutters.
“You’re not wrong,” laughs Vanasha. “But in this case, related actions hold a lot of meaning for us Carja. Gifting a weapon, for one, means that you want the person to be protected even when you’re not there.”
Aloy nods, but she’s still confused. “Well, I do want Talanah to be safe. So?”
“That you made the gift yourself means that a part of you went into that bow with the intention of protecting her. That the bow is better than her previous one, and modified to her fighting style says that you know her very well and that you trust her skill.”
“Again, so? I do trust her skill. We did take down a Thunderjaw together. Still not getting the point of all the whispers.”
“Yes, defeating a fearsome machine of legend such as Redmaw with her has already proven that you trust each other to have your back. It is also an omen that bodes well for… future endeavors with her, as your partnership has overcome such a great obstacle with such ease.”
Aloy snorts. “‘Such ease’? Nothing easy about Redmaw.” She takes another bite.
“Regardless, you two, alone together facing an enemy like that and winning ? It’s symbolic of the Sun’s favor for a great marriage: You two can face anything as long as you’re together.”
Alarmed at the mention of marriage out of the blue, Aloy chokes a bit on her rice, coughing.
Vanasha continues without even blinking at her distress. “And since you presented the bow to her at the Lodge, at the seat of her command with her people watching, what you did became a public acknowledgement of your esteem. You told everyone there that the Sunhawk is someone you hold dear to your heart — a person precious enough to you that you would take great pride in declaring your Intention.”
Aloy’s eyes water a bit at the edges as her coughing fit continues. As she gasps and tries to take a more controlled drink of her ale, she turns a wild-eyed, confused stare to the spy in front of her.
Vanasha sighs. How much more obvious can she make this? “You gave the Sunhawk a Gift of Intention. You invited her to be your mate. We are congratulating you on your — apparently unintended — engagement.”
Aloy sputters. “E-engagement? It hasn’t even been a season since I met her!”
Toned shoulders give an elegant shrug. “It is not uncommon for Carja nobles to meet on the day of their wedding. That you actually get along with her is already auspicious. Tongues might wag more since a Khane Padish heir would normally be expected, but since you’re both women…”
“Heir?!” Aloy shakes her head before she can even begin to think about that. But then she catches the last few words of Vanasha’s explanation and stiffens.
Suddenly anxious, Aloy rubs her hand across her tired eyes. “Obviously, this is…” she waves her hands vaguely. “Um. Not really going to happen. It’s all a misunderstanding! A-and I’ve brushed off cruelty and indifference towards me for almost my entire life. I’m used to it. But I’m not bringing Talanah shame, am I?”
“Not at all! Nothing more than what feeble-minded traditionalists already look down on because she had the gall to exist as a female Sunhawk, anyway. Some elders are likely to throw a fit, but who cares about those old windbags? The Sun has set on their beliefs, and soon enough, on them.” Vanasha rolls her eyes. “No, no, little huntress. I assure you — the well-wishers comprise the majority of buzz around the City.”
“So they’re... more concerned about the lack of a potential heir than two women together?”
“Mostly. Since His Radiance Hivas, 12th Sun King, decreed that every first-born male had to serve in the Sundom’s then-depleted ranks, and the Mad King Jiran’s bloodthirst killed almost as many male soldiers as the outlanders they captured during the Red Raids, it has been far more common and accepted for women to seek companionship with other women, men with other men, and those who are neither with anyone. Gleeful Maren even performs the Rite of Binding on such couples, regardless of station.”
Aloy shoulders relax a bit, but she still looks like she's in deep thought. “But you said it was unconventional and rare.”
“Oh, it is. But not for those reasons. Normally, a noblewoman would present a gift with more monetary value than practical value. Perhaps a jewel-encrusted lance or halberd, a set of ceremonial armor, and the like. A flashy token to appeal to her chosen nobleman lover’s ego, meant not to be used in battle, but to be displayed. Enough to hold meaning, but not exactly serve a functional purpose. Very low effort put into them, too. Mostly they just provide the jewels to be added to a weapon they didn't make, or just outright buy something rare and present it immediately.”
“Sometimes parents would give the Gift on behalf of their child to the head of the Khane they wish their child to marry into. But traditionally, a noblewoman, much like the only daughter of the Khane Padish lineage, would be the one expected to present such a gift to a noble-born man. That she was the one to receive an offering of a Gift of Intention said to all watching that you respect the station she fought to carve for herself as Sunhawk and acknowledge it with pride. Honestly, your entire thing sounds almost too romantic, like it was taken straight out of the great bard Serana’s songs. It’s small wonder people are practically swooning over it,” she laughs.
Vanasha grins coyly. “I must warn you, little huntress: Rites of Binding are done by drinking out of the same chalice and binding wrists at sunrise - greeting the day together as one. Just in case you somehow stumble into that by accident like you did with the Declaration of Intent.”
Aloy barely responds to the teasing, brows furrowed in contemplation and worry. “But I’m not a noblewoman, not even Carja. Some people still even call me savage.”
Vanasha leans closer to reassure her. “Little huntress, rude people are everywhere, but regardless of their unfortunate existence, you are exceptional in the eyes of the Sundom. And it is not just because you saved Meridian and the Royal family. Not even just because you are a respected Thrush of the Hunters Lodge — the one who helped bring down Redmaw and holds a complete set of Blazing Suns. Whatever you did to help the lower village and the surrounding communities like Lone Light and Brightmarket certainly endeared you to a lot of Carja common folk, and your help in the Tent City has even softened the hearts of some in Sunfall. The Sun shines quite brightly upon your name, Machine Rider.”
Leaning back with a coy grin, she adds, “It certainly helps that you are not unpleasant to look at. Delightful freckles, hair like flames, eyes of gold-flecked emeralds. With the Sunhawk next to you? You two are a vision worthy of His Radiance Marzid’s greatest portraits, so of course the gossip mill has thrived in your favor."
She pauses to appraise Aloy with a critical eye. "...Though a real bath would certainly help, too. Some oils for your hair, new silks to complement your impressive frame. I would be glad to arrange such for you, if you would be so inclined.”
Aloy mutters a distracted “Thanks, but no.”
For a minute, she stares at her empty plate before moving to stand. “I… need to talk to Talanah.”
Vanasha lightly catches her wrist. “Little huntress, don’t be hasty,” she warned. “Think a little more about your way forward. If you… detach from this too quickly and without care, you may ruin all she has worked for.”
“What do you mean?”
Vanasha hesitates. “It’s… complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it. Please.”
At Aloy’s pleading stare, Vanasha sighs and inclines her head.
“Very well. I’ll try. But first, I need context. How exactly did you end up following a noble Carja tradition to the letter by sheer accident?”
“It all started when I stopped to help these two Oseram, Jorgriz and Beladga, the last time that I dropped by the Free Heap. Petra Forgewoman and I were talking, and…”