Work Text:
“Strider,” Rost grunts—a brief, but not exactly terse, response to the latest in the girl’s near-constant barrage of questions. All-Mother grant him a scrap of Her patience, she never stops. Never stills. Hands, feet, mouth, mind. Too much spark for her scrawny body to contain—and where else can it go, besides jetting into the wilds? Besides into learning the weight of a bow’s draw, or the clamor that follows spear-clash? Besides sweeping him away in the ever-steady current of energy, too?
Even now Aloy scampers a few paces ahead on the tree-lined trail, skinny little limbs draped in autumn furs, boundless, somehow leaving him to follow. Her tread deviates now and again to stomp with purpose on a brittle fallen leaf. In one hand, her bow swings with loose ease, and the other is occupied with grasping a particularly-speckled rock (look, Rost, look! This one’s got freckles like me!, all demanding eagerness, always searching for reflections of herself in a world that has provided no such comfort so far). She nods in the midst of her motion, appeased with his answer—for a moment. Because it’s only a few heartbeats before her nose scrunches up again, and Rost already knows what’s coming before she can—
“Why?”
A sigh, carefully hidden. No reason to break her spirit, even when the spiral of willful wondering begins to wear his calmness thin. After all, the girl cut her teeth on why. She still rambles herself to sleep with it, famished for insight before she finally collapses. It’s aimed less at him now, and more at that…device. Though he’s allowed her to keep it—a child deserves some glimmer of joy in a harsh world, and she’s never been so immediately attached to much of anything—it still makes his skin crawl when she stares off into some undefined distance and murmurs nonsense (Isaac? Sometimes Rost wonders, too—very much despite himself). Even so, there’s no lack of curiosity to spread. When those strange paths run themselves out, her attention shifts back to him.
And the question posed here is one of foolish play—machines are to be respected and minded, not considered with preference for one beast over another. All the same, it’s easier to entertain than others. Others he cannot answer, no matter how her fists clench or how she bares her teeth at his avoidance or outright denial.
Where she came from, and why she’s been marked with scorn. Who he was before she was placed—life-struck and tender, weaned far too early, wailing for any shred of comfort—into his arms.
“For the bounty they provide for us, if we show due appreciation for their power,” Rost says, after considering. “Plenty of metal and small parts for crafting and armor. Blaze to keep our torches lit and our hearth warm. Lenses and hearts for ritual, to offer thanks for the Goddess’s favor.” That’s all he had intended to say. But another facet of the Strider’s nature emerges after the tangible ones are listed. Rost doles out lessons whenever he can—whenever he knows she’s listening. “Tell me, Aloy: what do Striders do if a huntress forgets stealth before she approaches a herd?”
Another leaf, crushed underfoot. “They get spooked, and run away. Can’t catch them.” Then she swings her arms and lets out a braying noise that’s—in honesty, a fair imitation of their startle-call.
“That’s correct,” Rost says when she quiets, “in part. The herd might retreat quickly. But most of the time, one lone Strider will stand firm, placing itself between its kin and the detected danger. Even the most docile machine can become deadly when its herd is threatened.”
An old gravel in his voice. A lesson. That’s all this is. The pause he takes is fleeting. Enough to go unnoticed.
“A Strider is loyal to its kind, as we should be to the tribe and its rituals. The act of loyalty itself is greater than hoping to collect what is or is not reflected back for us.”
Aloy’s feet scuffle down an embankment that Rost’s gait takes all at once. She makes no response to his final assertion, but her expression shows that she’s whittling down the words all the same. The rock in her hand, turned over and over with her fingers. It’s a start.
“Now ask me mine.”
Of course.
“And what’s your favorite machine, Aloy?”
“Watcher.” Her bright-eyed response bubbles up before he can even complete the formality of asking. A few silent paces, and then: “Rost. Ask me why.”
Apparently adults need impatient reminders to be curious.
“Why?”
Her list of reasons is already nocked like an eager arrow, and it comes loose from her mouth with abandon. “They’re little! And fast. And they love rocks—at least, they always chase them—and also looking around in the tall grass. Those things are like me.” She flashes him a missing-tooth grin. Desperate to fit somewhere, constant pursuit of semblance, drawing the most distant of connections. They’re all she has. “And they get to speak to the other machines, all the time. Warn them about danger. I’m sure they like Watchers for that, too. Watchers are a part of everything.” Her demeanor changes, quick as river-current—a brief fall into flattened quiet. Shoulders seize, fists clench around bow-grip and stone. “That’s...not like me. But I want it to be. And I think I could be just like a good Watcher too if…”
Aloy’s voice trails off into the sound of now-softer footfalls before coming back, barely over a whisper.
“I could be those things, too. If they let me try. I know it.”
It always comes like a dull spear-thrust, watching that tiny body curl in on itself. She keeps moving forward on the trail, but a sharp lack of vigor, and All-Mother’s Embrace itself seems filled by a sudden gloomy hush. Nature, hovering with stillness, hinging on her reactions. That thought in particular makes it difficult for Rost not to conflate anger at the tribe and its laws with every depth of sadness he feels for her.
A child’s life should be different. This truth was his to witness, once, but not far enough. Never far enough. Another burst of grief, one that will never diminish, one that surges in unexpected moments—when Aloy takes idle hold of his hand as they walk side by side, or when he covers her with her bedfurs after she finally collapses into sleep at night.
Those are the old instincts he harnesses, now, despite the ever-present hollowness—ease of manner from a time before he relinquished his soul to All-Mother in the name of another curious little girl. It comes back to him on the breeze that rustles through the changing autumn leaves.
“Aloy.”
“Hm.” Tight-throated. She doesn’t look up. Just gives the undergrowth a good sullen kick.
“I know another way you’re like a Watcher.”
Before she can react, Rost darts up from behind and grabs her under the armpits, sweeping her high into the air.
“This!”
Aloy starts, at first, arms flinging out in surprise, nearly clobbering Rost with her bow. But it’s only another instant before she catches on and squeals in delight that dissolves into giggles, distress dissipating within them. Rost swings her ahead and she flails her legs like a Watcher diving into combat. A gleeful again! bursts from her when she nears the ground, and Rost complies, heaving her forward again (this time she adds Watcher sounds: rowr, rowr!). For good measure, the skinny fur-clad Aloy-shaped Watcher takes a third swoop at an imaginary hunter before Rost brings her, breathless and thrilled, to sit atop his shoulder.
A child deserves some glimmer of joy in a harsh world. It's his duty to provide—his duty to follow, and lift her up.
One small hand finds gentle purchase his braids for keeping steady. He touches it with his fingertips.
“You might make a fierce Watcher, girl,” he tells her, voice soft, shrugging to give her one last joyful bounce, “but I, for one, am glad that you’re Aloy.”
After, she says nothing. No counterpoint or further question. A rare occurrence. Instead, her scrawny arms draw his head in for a calm embrace. And there, with her weight nestled on his shoulder and her cheek pressed against his crown, she’s not the beloved daughter he brought into this world. The one he couldn’t save—the one he gave everything to abide, after she was gone. Aloy is not meant to be her. No replacements, no pantomimes. But she is the child who needs him now. And by the Goddess, he will keep trying to do right by her.
He carries her like that for a short distance longer. It’s the most settled Aloy has been since she bolted out of bed, waking before the sun, as they move through the changing season. A herd of Striders ambles by the stream where he sets her down without a noise.
“Quiet now,” he whispers. “And ready your bow. Remember your stealth. You will bring in the first kill today.”
No why follows. Aloy glances from him to the herd and smiles in anticipation, green-gold eyes gleaming with renewed promise. Touches the ancient metal by her ear, crouches low, begins the slow process of drawing near. She’s learning well.