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.”