Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aloy is hard to track.

Being one of the most proficient hunters and survivalists of not only the tribe, but quite possibly the entire region just wasn’t enough, it seems, because for all the disaster she seems to chase, she leaves no trace of it. It’s inhuman, almost; even War-Chief for a mother (and all the joys that entailed) didn’t seem to be quite enough to level the playing field, as it were. She’s quiet, she’s careful, but perhaps most pivotally, she’s quick. Suffice it to say: For the past three months, Aloy has been hard to track.

That is, up until two days ago.

Fleeting glimpses of hair like blood through canopies of green, or a campfire’s smog of gray ash just barely visible rising against the black of night were once the only indications by which Varl inferred a left wasn’t made where there should’ve been a right; that he was, indeed, on the Savior of Meridian’s trail. (Oh, how she’d spear him on sight hearing the words out of his mouth—if he hadn’t been skewered already once she realized he was trailing her.)

For the past two suns, however, there’s been more to go off.

And it might’ve been a blessing—if not for the nature of the “more” in question.

Stems, of medicinal berries, littered about the path. That was the start; enough for him to notice, planting a knee in the dirt and turning a clutch of them over in a palm. Maybe a scrape with a particularly murderous pack of Ravagers—too many around here, if you asked him. Even Saviors have tough breaks—possibly. He wouldn’t know.

Then, though, were the actual, honest-to-Goddess tracks. Never had he been close enough to his mark to squint at the unmistakable divots of a Charger’s wild gallop, broken on occasion by the telltale prints of leather-crafted boots three-quarters his size. He was gaining on her, he’d deduced. That wasn’t right. After all, Aloy was, for all intents and purposes, faster.

Finally, the coughing.

It’s by the sunset on the second day of oddities that everything starts to make sense.

Goddess above, there she is. Well, her camp, at least; fire, with smog billowing in the woods not an arrow’s fling away, herbs and berries stockpiled in abundance, Charger’s passive blue light cutting through the trees, this has got to be it. He actually caught up to her.

She’ll shoot, no doubt, if he so much as snaps a twig while her back is turned. A more conspicuous approach springs to mind; only pitfall being the whole spear-on-sight thing, but Varl elects to take a risk. This is the world on her shoulders, he’s sure. Better volunteer an arm to carry it now more than later.

He’s opening his mouth to, until he sees her.

Curled on one side, cheek in the dirt, chin to her chest, the Anointed of the Nora appears smaller and less Anointed than she ever has. Shuddering, clammy fingers fist the fabric of her underarmor—on closer inspection, skin ridden with a vile invention of a burn-hive amalgam. Her forehead, arms, all visibly weep with sweat, almost sparking in the light of the fire, but she never stops tremoring, as if knee-deep in the biting ice of Ban-Ur.

And she coughs. Her eyes are fluttered shut, the rest of her muscles dead-still, but she’s wracked with hacking, rattling things Varl can swear he feels in his own bones. They barely gift her time to breathe, a moment’s peace; bout after bout, she splutters, caged over some torturous, flimsy pit between consciousness and unconsciousness.

The river is the next thing his fastly flitting eyes catch: red. More accurately, infested, with Blight. For miles and miles, its tendrils have snaked beyond just the kindleweed in the depths; it extends to the very water itself, now, painting it in blood, tainting all it—

Oh.

Everything clicks.

Taking too many shortcuts, he realizes, then and there. Walking through it, breathing it, drinking it. Plagued by it.

Spears and Saviors be damned, Varl lunges for her, bruises his knees in the dust at her feet and sweeps her head in his arms.

“Aloy.” She doesn’t stir; she just coughs. “It’s Varl.” Not a machine. Or anything else trying to kill you. Which must be new for her.

There’s no indication she processes the words, but there is something still clinched between her teeth: a stem of salvebrush. Blighted; the best she could do, but surely not helping. He coaxes it from her lips, ransacks his own stash for fresh ochrebloom instead.

Water.

One-armed, he fumbles for the canteen from his pack; filled from much cleaner streams that morning. She seems to be functioning, if on sheer instinct alone, enough to drink it, which is, good. Marginally. Her shaking breaths echo in the hollow of the wood until he watches her throat stop bobbing, at which point he uses what’s left to cleanse her skin, red and angry and painful as it looks.

The rest of the time he spends crushing excess ochrebloom into a paste that, conjecturally, should help soothe the burn-hives into something a little less grievous. By the time it’s all done and over with, she’s slathered with salve, sufficiently hydrated, and still coughing—but somewhat more inconstantly, and with less of her ribs involved. She’s—alright. Eventually. Sooner.

It’s at that moment Varl makes the executive decision to stay. At least, until sunrise; lest any Stalkers happen upon camp, or HADES incarnations, or spears raining down from the heavens. (She’s probably fought it all.)

No matter; he’ll sit, with head in lap and bow in hand, and stay, to ensure the Savior is, just this once, the Saved. For a few short hours, just when she’s not conscious to know, he’ll have the privilege of shouldering her world.

When the sun comes up, Varl leaves.

He can stand to track her for a while longer. It’s not right for him to catch up—not now. Not yet. After all, Aloy is, in all the ways that matter, more quiet; careful; quick.

Which is precisely why Varl will never speak of the one occasion on which she was not.

Chapter Text

“You ready, Beta?”

In truth: Not really.

This is an outside-the-comfort-zone endeavor—one she specifically requested, approximately five days ago at fourteen-hundred hours—but outside-the-comfort-zone nonetheless. Still, will she ever be? Aloy does hard things. Surely, she can, too. To an extent.

So, the answer is, in all its croaking ricketiness: “Yes. Ready.”

The croaking and the ricketiness wasn’t subtle. Aloy picks up on this—really, what doesn’t she pick up on?

“Hey.”

And her voice gets all gentle, too; she can do it all. Machine-murderer and sister-soother. God, what a legacy. A hand on the shoulder effectively jolts Beta back into the present and out of her own mind, and she flails around for a heartbeat or two before looking up, into green eyes that are equally a mirror image and poles apart from her own.

“Don’t worry,” says Aloy. “I’ll keep you safe. Alright?”

Beta musters up a nod, as pathetic as it is. The tiniest sliver of faith worms its way into her psyche. “I, I don’t doubt it.” At least that much is true: Should she irrevocably screw this up somehow, Aloy is more than capable of picking up the pieces.

The resolution is made right now, however, to make sure she doesn’t have to.

“You’ll do great. Here.” Something long and pointy is thrust right into her vision, and Beta startles, not for the first time—she’s done that thing again, that retreating-into-her-brain thing. “You’re gonna need this.”

She takes it, gingerly. The Focus identifies it in all its glory: “A spear,” she says, a little breathless.

“And I’ll teach you how to use it,” promises Aloy, “once we get there. Just, hold it, for now.”

“Yes, hold it. I can do that.” Probably.

Aloy—actually, seriously—laughs. Just a small one, but a laugh. “As long as you don't grip it by the pointy end. Now, hop on, and let’s get moving.”

Beta manages that, so they do.

Riding Charger-back took a hot minute of getting used to, the first time, but since then, it’s been unexpectedly—wonderful. In fact, it’s a good chunk of the reason she requested to venture beyond the bounds of the aforementioned “comfort zone” to begin with: machine-taming.

GAIA’s brain-children have always been one of the most fascinating things about this world, this place that is very quickly becoming less new and more home. Of all the vast oceans of data she’s combed through, one of the only things she’s had the pleasure of actually experiencing has been the greatest discovery.

It isn’t just the marvelous sights passing you by, wind tousling hair and snapping shirts, the thrill ride-esque rush of your steed jumping a river. It’s, the blue light, a little bit. A mechanical companion; a quiet friend. It’s a new understanding between man and mech.

The ride isn’t long before the Charger trots to a stop and Aloy announces: “And a-here.”

In the blink of an eye, she’s swung her leg over its haunch and landed with two feet in the dirt like it’s the easiest thing in the world. A strange cocktail of awe, inadequacy, and panic makes a home in Beta’s head.

But Aloy’s already outstretched an arm. She takes it, scrabbles a little on the way down and yelps once or twice, but then she’s back on solid ground again and only one shin-bruise richer. And, also, not dead. So, a win. “Th–thanks.”

“Down,” hisses Aloy.

Down? “What’s d—”

A firm hand on her spine compresses her into the dust, among a sea of tall grass, and she gets her answer.

“Burrower. Scanning.” Aloy punctuates with a thumb jabbed in that general direction.

Oh. “Right.” Beta swallows, thick.

“Use your Focus, see where it’s pathing. “ She does. “A good place to sneak up for an override is by the mouth of that”—another thumb-jab—”cave.”

Beta’s eyes widen of their own accord. “There’s nothing—lurking in there, is there?”

Aloy seems to consider this. “I’m by here plenty, and it’s usually just the Burrower. Should be safe from an ambush, if things go south.”

Of course; she thinks of everything. Where’s her faith in her? The spear suddenly feels heavier in Beta’s two hands; a reminder. “Okay,” she says, slowly. “So, what do I do when it’s close?”

Aloy taps the module on her spear. “Stick this end by the flank and hold tight. It’ll establish a connection to the core—you’ll know when—and then, just yank it back out.”

Sure. Light work, for the savior of this planet, but—this is doable. Very doable. Just a Burrower.

“Absolutely,” mutters Beta. “Got it. Okay. Cave,” she resolves, face set.

“Cave,” agrees Aloy, and it looks like they’re about to get moving, until she stops. Then, looks her in the eye, and morphs into something between soft and firm. “You can do this, Beta,” Aloy tells her. Like it’s a fact.

Well, Aloy’s pretty much always right about everything else. Maybe, just maybe, she can be about this thing, too.

“Just remember: non-pointy end.”

“I, I won’t let you—” This registers in Beta’s brain. She levels her sister with a flat stare. “Right. Got that,” she deadpans.

Aloy snickers, turns over one shoulder, and she’s gone.

Beta scrambles to follow. It’s heart-pounding business, it turns out, wriggling and slithering among patches of tall grass, attempting one of Aloy’s deft rolls which ends in disaster and a resounding oof as Beta bodies the dirt, but otherwise, at risk of a stroke or not, successful.

Her fingers are grossly sweaty over the handle of the spear when, after an only mildly perilous journey, they make it behind a cluster of crates stacked by the gaping entrance of what appears to be a ruin from the ‘40s. In position.

The path ignites in purple light. Only a matter of time before the Burrower makes its way down.

Beta swallows. Her clutch tightens, slippery as it is.

Each drip, drip of condensation into the pool accumulated in the divot of metal makes her jump, shoes soggy and toe-deep in cave-water, but that sensory nightmare is somehow the least of the concerns at the moment. Pinpricks of trepidation crawl up the back of her neck, goosebumps prickling along her arms in itching bursts.

I’m nervous, she tells herself. Because she is. Just, never been in the wilds. Should’ve worn better shoes. Yes, that’s right.

The Burrower is here. Aloy’s signal comes. “Spear…”

Beta primes the override, sucks in the deepest of breaths.

“And—”

That’s when it all goes wrong.

The ruins tremble. Beta whirls, what has to be an eighth of a second before her sister does. Survival is perfection, she heard her mutter beneath a breath, once.

Beta supposes it makes sense that an eighth of a flaw is all it takes, then.

She dives, instinctually and unglamorously, out of the way, with yet another winded uff and a bucket of cave-water to the chest.

Aloy does not.

Her instantaneous reaction, split-second decision, is to nock an arrow to the string of her bow, which might've been perfection.

If she didn’t get halfway to pulling it taut before the crash.

It’s bone-rattling, wind-knocking. In a heartbeat flat, Aloy is bludgeoned into a slurry of dirt, rock, and steel by a lithe set of claws. Her body plunges into the shallow water with a dull flump, like boulder sinking into sea, bow clattering from her practiced fingers across the floor.

“Aloy!”

It’s at this point that sheer stupefaction dissolves enough for Beta to fly a hand to the Focus.

Scrounger, it all but screams, in big, bold letters. A familiar feeling courses through her: white-hot, blinding panic.

Run! Run! Run! screams every rational instinct, and so on trembling legs Beta does indeed, scampering out of the shin-deep pool to dive headfirst into the tall grass, away from that thing. But then an equally powerful sensation tugs her, backwards, as if by a wire wound round her heart.

Beta’s eyes dart over a shoulder.

Aloy fights, hand-to-hand—rather, hand-to-steel. Her biceps tremble with exertion, teeth grit, brow cut in a deep line as she performs what may be the most high-stakes round of arm-wrestling known to man—Beta would know, given there’s a surprising chunk of data on the matter.

“Aloy!” she cries out again, instincts at war in this moment, yanking one step caveward, then into the grass; closer, further; back, front; safety, saving. “Are you alright?!”

The only response is a primal grunt, as she releases one arm to throw a punch. She manages to clock the Scrounger directly in the right socket of its glinting red eyes, and it rears backwards with a grating, strangled screech.

Precious milliseconds to roll left and lunge for her bow.

She makes it. Beta resists the urge to cheer; the Scrounger is seesawing backwards, a perfect target, as Aloy notches one, two, three arrows for good measure, and aims, still horizontal and chin-deep in sediment water.

That’s how Beta knows what’s going to happen before it happens.

Something fizzles between the Scrounger’s jaws, hisses with sheer energy, makes each blade of peach fuzz stand on end and not because of the goosepimples. Realization dawns, fast and hard.

“Aloy!” it rips from her throat, one last time. The Scrounger rears. “Get out of the w—”

Crack.

The Zeniths were above electricity outages; fizzling bulbs; power surges. On the Odyssey, such things simply didn’t happen, and the only knowledge of them committed to memory was from data points; intangible things. You can read about something all you want, but it just doesn’t make sense until you see it.

It does now.

For a split second, the pool ignites—or seems to. Consciously, Beta is aware that what’s happened is the Scrounger’s shock attack charged the water; a natural, logical conclusion, from said data points. But in terms of describing it, suddenly, she gets the poetic tribespeak uttered by the majority of the population here: the pool is on fire.

And then so is Aloy.

The bow and three arrows topple, never shot, against her chest. Something’s—happening. It’s not good. It’s awful. She gasps and shudders, stiff, tight, before flumping backwards against the ruins of cold steel.

She doesn’t move. Just twitches.

Ohhh, no. No, no, no.

Beta’s grip on the spear tightens enough to induce splinters, psyche on the verge of kernel panic. This is not supposed to happen. It’s Aloy the Savior, and Beta the Inferior. Not— oh, God.

The Scrounger’s closing in.

And that’s when the grass rustles.

She very nearly yelps, but manages to clap a spear-less hand over her mouth and peer up.

The Burrower—none the wiser. Flank inches from the override module.

There’s no time for hesitation; just instinct as Beta primes, thrusts, and holds.

It connects. 13%… 36… 78% COMPLETE, reads the Focus, number rapidly climbing.

Faster, faster, faster, she finds herself pleading with algorithms, even cursing the obsolete tech of the ‘50s for the first time, but then, the Burrower’s quizzical yellow light dies.

It bleeds blue.

As instructed, Beta promptly yanks the module free. Now, after the override, her sister’s words echo in the walls of her mind, you’ll have to land a hit on whatever you want the machine to go after.

The Scrounger’s teeth of steel rev up for the kill, snapping her eyes back to the horror movie currently playing out in slow-motion. Immediately, her brain runs the calculations in double-time: throwing this spear is a no-go with her laughable upper-body strength; giving it a hearty thwack to the face wouldn’t have nearly the success rate as when Aloy does it; oh, dear God this cannot possibly be where it all ends.

And then Beta nearly trips.

Upon stuttering to her feet: The culprit is a rock.

100%.

The Scrounger unhinges its whirring jaw.

Without another thought, Beta takes the jagged edges in one fist and throws.

Clunk.

The whirring stops. The Scrounger leans back, rattles its head, as if it were just sneezed on by a particularly loathsome fruit fly.

Then it’s punted in the jugular by a flying Burrower.

That does it. Both of the machines go down in a brilliant shower of sparks, erupting into light that paints the limestone white for one wild thrum of Beta’s heart, and then, silence. Dark.

Aloy.

She races. Shoes be damned, Beta tears across grass, rock, dirt, and metal to plunge her knees into the water at her sister’s side. The leather of her armor is smoking, currents still dancing along the wires stringing her breastplate together, something like furious red welts on patches of her exposed skin. She twinges and shudders. Any idiot with half a brain would know: moderate electrical shock.

“Aloy? Aloy! Can you”—she’s briefly gifted a sting to the fingertips at one nudge too close—”ow, shoot, can you hear me? Are you alright?”

The lids of Aloy’s eyes flicker, don’t stay open; but the muscles in her face go from slack to tense, wrinkles crumpling her forehead and all around her eyes. She lets loose a groan, then slurs, “Yeah,” contradicting just about every other physical aspect of her.

Beta frowns. “I, I don’t think—”

Before she can dare to finish that thought, with one huge heave, Aloy attempts to lurch to her feet with the structural integrity of a Tallneck on stilts. Beta jumps.

“Whoa, whoa—”

Predictably, she staggers, proceeding to come inches to faceplanting directly into the cave-water until Beta yelps, sailing in with two arms beneath hers, but oh dear she’s heavy and they both just end up tumbling to their knees, covered in sludge and sediment and machine oil and whatever else.

“I’m fine,” gasps Aloy, already shrugging her away, and against all odds and/or rational reason must be her adage, because she begins to drag one leg up to try again.

Beta musters up the mental and physical fortitude to give her a shove back down, and Aloy really must be battered, because it actually works.

“No,” she says, with more firmness than she might’ve ever had, “you’re not. You’re hurt. I…”

You can do this, Beta.

She gets one good look at her sister, still smoking, one shuddering hand curled around her side, and Beta’s heart hardens. “I can do this. I’m calling for help. Just, rest.”

“No,” Aloy bites back, somehow. “It, it’s fine. I can— I should—”

“Aloy, I promise, I—”

“I didn’t protect you.”

The world goes quiet.

Aloy’s head hangs, so it’s impossible to see anything her face might’ve told her. “Twice,” she says, fragile, quiet. Things Aloy is not.

Beta’s mind picks this opportune moment to provide nothing.

“I already failed you once,” she chokes. “Mistakes are deadly, Beta. Mine could’ve—did—”

“You never failed me,” says Beta. She doesn’t have to think about that.

Aloy looks up, and her expression is somehow more pained than any injury has ever made her look.

“What happened was their fault. Never yours.” That one’s a no-brainer, too. “Mistakes are—human. The reason we survived this one was, was because of what you taught me. Did you know that?”

She didn’t. Beta can gather from the look on her face.

But it dawns on her. For a brief moment, Aloy looks no less dejected, but slightly more—relieved. Maybe even, Beta would hesitate to say, proud. The creases in her skin ease.

Then, she promptly collapses.

Beta gasps, quick hands catching her in her lap. Without further delay, she taps into the Focus. “Erend?”

He takes a good seven seconds to pick up, some bumbling around audible on the other line. “Aloy? I mean—Beta? Sorry. You two sound the same on this thing. It’s the, crackly, stati-whatsit—”

“Never mind that,” she says, quickly. “We had a bad run-in, and we’re in need of a pickup. I’m sending you our location data.”

To his credit, immediately, he seems about three times less drunk. “Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah, you got it.” There’s shuffling sounds, bay doors opening and closing. “Greenswell. No sweat. Be there, uh, A-S-A-C.”

Beta doesn’t ask. “Thank you,” she says instead. His voice fizzles out.

Until then, Beta keeps her sister safe in the ways she taught her, and in some other ways she didn’t. She lays low, pastes Salvebrush to her wounds, but also, she holds her close, and waterfalls her braids through her fingers; the calm, after catastrophe.

Aloy really did change her; make her better, even. Give a little piece of herself—all her greatness, courage, and humanity—to her.

GAIA said something before. It all makes sense now, as Beta takes a turn saving the world’s Savior, for once.

In you, all things are possible.