The night passed without incident, and then they started sprinting south again. They were slightly west of the edge of the Tallneck's range, and Aloy wanted to stay on these fringes until the Oasis was a straight shot east, just in case they'd find another Tallneck or a Cauldron. A Cauldron, especially, would have been nice - if she could override the Annihilator she'd seen in the Oasis, it would make visiting the Bacchan a lot less risky. In truth, she didn't want to risk having to ever fight that Machine; if it improved on all the weaknesses of the Fireclaw, had more weaponry options than a Thunderjaw, and could move as swiftly and agilely as a Sawtooth, then she wanted nothing to do with it. When they were far enough south that she thought they might at least be out of Deima territory, she couldn't help bringing her map up every few minutes to see if there was some distant indication of a Cauldron showing up in the area, but there was nothing. Nil asked why she kept stopping, and seemed confused by her answer, but he didn't question her further.

Day passed, and soon they weren't far from being directly east of the Oasis. As the sun began to set, its fading rays framed a strange sight on the horizon, one that spurred her to suddenly remember Kryse's talk of the 'Bones', an ancient city of the Metal World. Curious, she turned towards it and kicked her mount - they wouldn't explore it now, but she wanted to at least get a glimpse. A few minutes and a few hills later, Aloy found herself on a cliffside, looking out on a truly incredible stretch of crumbled buildings and structures, all smooth stone and rusted metal, piled high as mountains and reaching further than the eye could see.

"Dry Bones," she whispered, staring out at it. "Incredible…"

"It's certainly intimidating," Nil remarked, and she glanced at him, surprised. He shook his head. "I hope we're not going in there."

"We will eventually," she told him. "After we get the Roller blood to the Bacchan, I'd like to see what there is to find in all this."

"Doesn't it put you off, even a little?" he asked, glancing at her.

She laughed. "You sound like Varl," she told him, unable to keep a bit of fondness out of her voice at the thought of her dearest Nora friend. "Do you think there's a curse on this place or something? I didn't know you were afraid of old ruins."

"Of course I don't think it's cursed," he scoffed; "I just don't want to die of falling rubble. And this…" He shook his head again. "Just look at it all, there's so much to dig through. Compared to this, Meridian is like a pile of rocks and two shabby lean-tos made of sticks, and that's being generous. And these are just ruins! Can you imagine what this place must have looked like when the Old Ones lived here - how high these buildings must have reached, how many people there must have been?! The resources, technology, and manpower it must have taken to make all this are staggering to think about…the Old Ones were almost gods to build something that would crumble into this."

Stunned to hear anyone but her talk like this, Aloy stared at her companion. It was essentially the same sentiment she'd expressed to Varl when they'd looked out at Devil's Grief together…when she'd realized that they had a ways to go in terms of reaching mutual understanding if she was ever going to be Varl's mate, which she'd already started to hope she might one day be. Before Erend, before Avad, before Ikrie or Gildun or Talanah, and entirely unlike Teb, she had found herself thinking fondly of Varl, but he was so infatuated with Nora customs and taboos that sharing herself with him was always going to be a struggle. Yet here Nil was, saying the exact sorts of things she couldn't help thinking herself when faced with an expanse of ancient ruins. That it was Nil, of all people, who was suddenly inclined to talk this way…didn't make sense. "I…thought you didn't care what happened to the Old Ones," Aloy said slowly. "What difference does it make, as long as there are people for you to kill?"

Flashing his teeth, he turned to her. "Well, they died too," he said. "For all their incredible power and achievement, in the end, they bled red just like us. It's amazing to think, that even the people who built all this were as subject to the same great equalizer as the people of today. And there must have been so many of them…" Turning back to the ruins, his silver eyes went distant, dreamy. "I wonder how many would hear the song of the Voice of Our Teeth, if they were there now, if I'd had a chance…"

"There we go," Aloy sighed, almost laughing to herself. "That sounds more like you." Shaking her head, she tried to dampen her resigned smile. "I doubt you could have killed very many of them. It took an unstoppable army of war machines to kill them, their technology was so advanced that only an enemy of their own making was able to end them."

"True," Nil conceded, still smiling. "But I still wonder how many of them I could have gotten to…"

"Let's just find a place to rest for the night," Aloy said, turning her Strider away from the sight. "Come on, I saw some rocks back this way that should cover us; maybe we'll find a few more prairie dogs if we're lucky."

Not waiting for his response, she kicked her mount into a trot, and after a moment, Nil followed. He seemed to lag behind, and she kept thinking she heard the sound of arrows flying despite her Focus insisting they were alone, but when they reached a little alcove made of rusted old bits of ruin and craggy boulders, she saw that he had a few dead animals with him already.

"Good thinking," she told him as they set up camp. "Saves us some time."

They cleaned the kills in silence, and Aloy set up a spit to roast the meat.

"So, are we going to explore Dry Bones tomorrow, or head back to the Bacchan?" Nil inquired as their meal cooked.

"First, we'll give the Roller blood to the Bacchan," Aloy replied. "After that…if we don't have any other leads, we'll come back here."

"Leads?" Nil asked. "You came out here to find two things: your mother, and yourself. You've found your mother, and your identity isn't in a particular place. What are you looking for now?"

"I don't know," Aloy admitted. "I'm…hoping I'll know it when I see it. But I'd like to find any Cauldrons there might be out here…and I do want to explore Dry Bones, and see the 'ocean' Kryse talked about…" Frowning thoughtfully, she drew her necklace out of her armor and looked at Elisabet's globe in the light of the fire. Kryse had referred to the ocean as 'the big blue wet thing', and said there was more ocean in the world than dry land…and there was a lot more blue on Elisabet's globe than there was green. If all the blue is the ocean, and all the green is dry land…I wonder where we are on this map…

When their meal was roasted and cooled enough to eat, they both took their shares, eating ravenously, still hungry from the scarcity of food the previous night. "I'll take first watch tonight," Aloy told Nil between bites. "Hopefully, we're out of Deima territory, but they're still probably mad at us."

"We have the cloaking module," Nil pointed out, tapping the disc tied to his chest by the wire holster she'd fashioned for him. "And you have your armor."

"Still," Aloy said, "I don't think we can ever really rest easy out here. So far, the Forbidden West hasn't been nearly as inhospitable as the stories have made it out to be, but that's no reason to drop our guard." Finishing her meal, she wiped her hands off and stood up. "There's no telling what else we might find, either; as far as we know, we've just gotten lucky."

"Well," he sighed, smiling at her, "wherever you go and whatever you find, I'll have your back. No matter what road you walk, my bow and my blade are yours, Aloy Khane Sobeck."

She shook her head. "Whatever you say, Aren Khane Lakshar," she muttered, walking past him.

Several sounds met her ears in quick succession, too fast for her to process: a grunt as though of pain, the sound of metal being unsheathed, a rustle of clothes and a scuffle of earth, and the sudden shriek of her armor being knocked out by an attack. Before she knew what was happening, Nil had grabbed her and turned her around, one hand gripping her arm tightly enough to bruise, the hilt of his knife pressed against the material, his other hand fisted in her scarf and pulling her face right up to his so that there was barely a wire's width of space between them; his silver eyes bored into her, blazing with unfathomable rage and, Aloy couldn't help but think, unfathomable anguish.

"Don't call me that!" he roared at her, his hot breath blasting across her face. "Do not ever call me that!"

Aloy panted for breath, her heart pounding in her chest in time with the flashing red lights and warning whine of her armor's disabled shield, still catching up with this sudden turn of events.

"If you really want to tease me, you can call me Aren, if you must," he snarled, "but do not ever, ever - ever! - call me 'Khane Lakshar'! Janeva stripped me of that name! I am not a Lakshar, haven't been for over a year! Never call me that again, Aloy!"

Still shaking, Aloy couldn't respond. Even her instinct to fight against an attack was failing in the face of Nil's wrath; she had never imagined he was capable of such fury.

For a long minute, they stood like that, Aloy struggling to get a grip on herself, Nil's own heaving chest slowly calming as the armor he'd disabled recharged.

At last, he pulled back from her slightly, his grip loosening. "I knew that armor of yours would turn back my blade," he said in a low voice, "that a single swing at you wouldn't break my vow, so consider this a warning. But know that if you ever call me that again, I will consider it a challenge to a duel, and I will fight you, and not stop until one of us is dead…" His scowl deepened. "And you already swore you wouldn't kill me, even to save your own life."

"I thought…" Aloy choked, swallowing hard and clearing her throat, trying to speak. "I thought you couldn't kill someone who wouldn't kill you, because it wouldn't be honorable."

"It would be less honorable for me to let that stand," Nil told her. "I wouldn't relish it, but I stand for honor above all else. So never call me that again. Do you understand?"

Too frightened to snark that she didn't really understand, she simply nodded, letting him know that she understood, at least, that she wasn't allowed to call him "Lakshar". Returning her nod, he finally released her and stepped back, sheathing his knife, and she tried not to stumble as she caught her balance. Giving her one last look, one Aloy again couldn't help but think held more pain than resentment, Nil turned his back to her, walking over to his bedroll without another word.

"I, uh…" Aloy swallowed again, mustering every ounce of strength she had to steady herself. "I…didn't know you had such a temper…"

"I don't usually have much of one," he shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at her. "There are very few wounds or words that define me…but the curse my sister cast on me is one of them."

"Curse," Aloy repeated, and she found strength in the sudden wave of curiosity that overcame her. "You keep saying that, that Janeva cursed you. But…all she did was say your family would never take you back…"

"She said that," Nil nodded, turning to face her more fully, "and then, when the threat didn't make me hesitate, she called on the Sun's curse." Aloy opened his mouth to question him further, but he beat her to it. "I know you're unfamiliar with Carja traditions, so you don't understand this, but it's no small thing for someone to be stripped of their family name. Among Carja, to be declared 'Khane Nil' is the ultimate dishonor, a fate far worse than death; a person's family has to call on the Sun to strip them of their birthright, and the ritual is irrevocable." He gave a slight, half shrug. "I'm not much of one for Carja beliefs, so I thought I didn't care. If anything, I thought she was giving me what I wanted - after all, I was the first to say that we weren't family anymore, to ask to cut all our ties. But when she finished the invocation…"

Pain flashed across his eyes, and he put a hand to the left side of his chest, a gesture Aloy had seen him make repeatedly when he was standing at the ridge to await the battle against the Eclipse - when Janeva had been standing not far away, she realized with a jolt.

"…I felt it," he whispered. "It was as though a knife had cut open my chest, and a clawed hand reached inside of me and ripped out something irreplaceable, something vital, leaving nothing but a gaping, agonizing hole in its wake…a wound too deep to ever heal." He shrugged again, a bit more fully this time. "I've learned to live with the pain of it, over time. But just now, when you said that name, you punched me right in that wound. On my honor, I couldn't let it stand."

If the metaphor was even vaguely representative of the truth, Aloy thought she suddenly understood why he'd reacted so strongly. "I'm sorry," she told him. "I…I didn't know."

"I know you didn't," he assured her. "That was why I gave you a warning, instead of taking it as a challenge. But now you do know, so if you ever call me that again, I won't hesitate to cut you down."

"I won't call you that again," Aloy promised, and she forced a dangerous half-smile. "But don't delude yourself into thinking you'd be able to cut me down even if I did."

"You swore on your father's grave you wouldn't kill me, not even to save yourself," Nil pointed out.

"I could stop you without killing you," Aloy retorted. "I could knock you out, tie you to some old ruins with loops of wire, get on my mount, and ride away."

"Heh…" A smile crossed his lips then, his teeth flashing as the last of his pain and rage evaporated. "I suppose you could, at that. And it would serve me right for not having any imagination."

Despite everything, a laugh managed to escape Aloy's throat, though the tension didn't ease much.

"Good night," he said to her at last, getting down on his bedroll. "Wake me when you need to rest."

"I will," she told him. "Good night." But she didn't take her eyes off him until he was lying down and his breath was evening out - Avad had begged her not to let her guard down around this man, and despite herself, she realized she had done just that. Can't make that mistake again.

Traces of the alarmed shock she'd gotten when he'd grabbed her were still fading from her system, and only when she was certain he was asleep did Aloy climb over the low ring of rusted old ruins they'd tucked themselves into to take her post, glad that she'd decided to take first watch; she needed the time to sort through what had happened. Nil wasn't a hothead, and seeing this side of him had been terrifying…but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that there was more to the situation than just his bloodlust. The deal with his name was more complicated than she'd thought, there was both something personal and something cultural there, a pain she'd unknowingly discredited. Maybe the way he reacted was partly because of who he was, but he was hurting in ways she hadn't even known about, and she'd offended him in the worst possible way. And what was more, even as upset as he'd clearly been, he'd held back, given her a warning - he'd said himself that he'd known her armor would protect her from the single blow he'd dealt, and that was why he'd done it, he'd been sure to keep his oath and not harm her even despite how much her words had affected him. As backwards as he was - as he always was - this incident also spoke of an amount of self-restraint she was glad to know he possessed.

Whatever fledgeling beginnings of trust she had started to feel towards him had been thoroughly snuffed out. But even despite that, when she looked into her heart, incredibly, that bond they'd shared since he'd told her about his family was still there to be found.

~o~

Nothing came up while Aloy was on watch, and she passed guard duty on to Nil when she felt her eyelids get heavy; she was still leery of him, but he hadn't betrayed her while she slept yet, and she was still confident in her ability to react if he tried something. As much as she knew it was necessary to be careful out here, she'd sort of started taking it for granted that they were basically safe, even at night, when Kryse had said the Deima hunted. So it took her a moment to rouse when Nil shook her awake.

"Aloy," he muttered urgently. "Aloy, wake up."

"Hm?" Digging her fingernails into her palms, Aloy fought her way through the haze of sleep. "What is it?"

"I don't know," he replied. "But your Focus could probably tell us. No risks, right?"

Rubbing her eyes, Aloy looked up and saw that it was only a little less than an hour before dawn, which explained why she felt so groggy - it hadn't been that long since she'd fallen asleep. One look at Nil in the dim light brought her to full awareness, though; he looked on edge, even grave.

Pushing herself to her feet, Aloy tapped her Focus. Immediately, orange shapes materialized in her vision, more than twice as many as there had been when they'd set foot in the forest to the north, about a dozen, and she scanned one of them quickly.

"HOSTILE HUMAN
Deima Hunter"

"Deima," Aloy told Nil, drawing her bow with one hand as she tagged one of the silhouettes with the other. "And these ones aren't scouts."

"I knew I saw something moving out there," Nil nodded, his own bow already in his hand. She spared him one single glance, and, predictably, he was grinning. "So, same as-"

Before he could finish asking, something whizzed through the air and struck him right in the middle of the cloaking module strapped to his chest, smashing it with a crack! Bolts of electricity sizzled out from the damaged module, and the metal bolt lodged in it, suddenly culminating in an explosion. Nil screamed and fell, lightning arcing across his skin, immobilizing him.

"Nil!" Aloy exclaimed, drawing a knife to cut at the wires that held the device against where his armor left him exposed.

Several other bolts hit her armor and were deflected, she was fully aware of every injury she risked taking in trying to get the module off of Nil, but she focused her efforts on saving him anyway. The ruined device stung her hand as she yanked it off of him and threw it aside, and then she whirled around to meet the hunting party, which had gone from invisible to wearing faces she doubted were their own, more figures silhouetted in the light of the setting moon than she had seen through her Focus.

Setting her teeth, she charged forward, drawing her Champion Bow and loading shock arrows. "Two can play at this game!" she growled to herself as she took aim at the center of the tagged one's chest and let fly, hoping to stun them as they had Nil. But the hunter dodged, sidestepping with a grace that almost unnerved Aloy, as though they hadn't actually moved a muscle at all. When she risked tapping her Focus, she confirmed that the person she'd shot at was really there, yet they moved with such inhuman ease; there wasn't much time to think on it, however, before the Deima started moving, firing at her while almost dancing around the field.

Normally, battlefields held the sound of footsteps pounding on the ground, shouts of bravado and scrabbles in the dirt, but the Deima moved with such silence, it was impossible to tell the real ones from their projected illusions. They moved like water, flowing around her, wisps of smoke that couldn't be caught. Instead of bows or guns, they wielded what looked like an odd mix of the two, firing bolts like those from a Rattler with devices shaped vaguely like bows but smaller, sideways, seemingly spring-loaded and fired with a single pull of a trigger. Aloy's Striders joined the battle, but bolts hit their blaze canisters and they fell almost instantly.

Clearly, the Deima's fearsome reputation was well-earned.

Giving up on precision, Aloy drew her Forgefire and loaded a canister of concentrated blaze mixed with metalburn, dodging out of the way of one of the bolts as she charged up a shot before lobbing a burst of fire at a cluster of her attackers. Some of them didn't quite manage to escape in time, and at last, Aloy had the satisfaction of hearing an exclamation of pain from her enemies. A few of the individuals caught in the blast didn't catch fire, but Aloy wasn't confused - clearly, those people didn't exist.

Suddenly, a sharper cry caught her attention, and she looked over to see a Deima behind her with an arrow through their chest, blood splashing in the light of the night; Nil was on his feet again. Invigorated, and suddenly inspired, Aloy put away her Forgefire and drew her Stormslinger, quickly downing a shock potion before taking aim and blasting with the electric weapon, unloading charges into the mix of elusive hunters until her armor started taking recoil from the weapon overloading. More cries of surprise were her reward, and the blasts of the Banuk weapon seemed to disrupt the illusions, several of the people suddenly wavering and half-visible, like the holograms she'd seen in ancient ruins through her Focus.

Lightning is their weakness.

With that in mind, Aloy drew her Sling, lobbing shock bombs into the crowd, and they scattered, though still moving with ethereal grace, their bolts still flying. Aloy wondered how many of their bolts were treated with death bloom; a few had gotten through her Shield-Weaver armor, but none of them felt poisoned. Still, she kept the location of her packs in mind, ready to sprint for them if one of the flying spikes made her feel off when it pierced her skin. And the paralytic agent Kryse had mentioned…they only had one sprig of limberweed, Aloy realized with a jolt of worry, she hadn't thought to look for more…

It was a battle like none Aloy had ever faced; most fights she'd been part of involved her opponents attacking her head on, but these ones simply flitted around like birds, their onslaught of bolts never letting up. Offsetting any of them seemed impossible, but the more Aloy fired different weapons at them, the more she started to get a sense for how they moved. Diving for cover for a moment, she drew her Champion Bow again and nocked another shock arrow, then leapt up into the air and took careful aim at one of the Deima, predicting how they would try to dodge and leading the target at the last second before firing. This time, the arrow found its mark in the silent hunter's cloaking module, electricity exploding from the point of impact and downing the elusive warrior. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, Aloy dashed forward, her armor deflecting three more bolts as she drew her spear and skewered the crippled Deima, almost relieved when she saw the blood spurt and the body go still after one last gurgling cry.

They can be killed. She hadn't really doubted it, but there was no denying the relief she felt upon seeing the proof.

In the darkness and chaos, Aloy couldn't spare any energy to worry about Nil. She heard him cry out occasionally, and that meant he was alive; she couldn't confirm any more than that, she was too busy concentrating on surviving. Multiple bolts embedded themselves in her skin after others knocked out her shield, but they still didn't feel poisoned, and Aloy pulled them out and kept fighting, downing shots of animal extract only when she dared. Slowly, with practice and improvisation, she started to get a handle on her foes, and more shock arrows found their marks in cloaking modules. Even the ones who couldn't conjure illusions still moved with an inhuman swiftness, though, and she wondered what else there was to it. Maybe they just trained themselves to move like this…?

Despite the odds, one by one, the Deima fell, and Aloy was stepping over dead bodies as she pressed on. Even as their numbers depleted, the Deima didn't seem inclined to give up - if anything, they became more vicious, at times coming close enough to hit her with other weapons, and soon her shield was only half as helpful for survival. When Aloy thought there were maybe three or four left, one managed to disable her armor in time for another to shoot her with one of their bolts, and she immediately felt numbness spreading from the point of this one's impact even as she yanked it out of her flesh. Praying that she was right, she dove for a pack and pulled out one of the bottles she'd bought from Kryse, dodging again to give herself time to quickly drink the bitter liquid. To her relief, the numbness receded - maybe such a close brush with death should have concerned her more, but if she didn't have to finish this fight in fifteen minutes before the side effects of limberweed kicked in, that was something to be grateful for.

A slight rustle behind her drew her attention, but before she could do much more than turn around and see a Deima coming for her far too silently for their speed, a blade skewered her attacker's throat, downing them, and she felt a second rush of relief to know that Nil was still alive.

"Thanks," she shot at her tribeless companion briefly before diving back into the fray.

By now, there were only two more figures whose silhouettes didn't waver or flicker in the pre-dawn light that was creeping across the sky, and Aloy charged forward with increased confidence. It certainly wasn't for nothing that the Deima were so feared, and she didn't let her guard down, but victory was close at hand. Three of Nil's arrows found their mark in one of the two remaining attackers, and they fell, leaving only one, for whom Aloy drew her spear, leaping forward and whacking them across their body, knocking them to the ground. They didn't rise, and Aloy quickly put a hand to her Focus and looked around, finding only dead bodies littering the landscape.

Sighing with relief, she tapped her Focus again as Nil walked up beside her. "It's over," she told him breathlessly. "You okay?"

"I had to take some of the limberweed," he informed her, equally out-of-breath, though he was grinning. "Still, better than dying. Never seen soldiers like these…" He shook his head, then looked down at the last of the Deima to fall. "Before I get sick, mind if I enjoy this one?" he asked.

Surprised, Aloy looked down and saw that the person she'd just felled was still breathing, though they didn't appear to be struggling to get up. "Sure," she shrugged, walking away to start looting the other bodies.

As Nil knelt down beside the dying hunter, the very first rays of the sun burst from the horizon, illuminating the battlefield. Aloy was just taking a good look at the strange, automated bows the Deima had tried to kill them with when she heard Nil give an exclamation of surprise.

"What the-? Aloy!"

"Hm?" she asked, turning to look at him over her shoulder.

Nil was holding the fallen Deima by the front of their shirt, his knife to their throat, but he hadn't cut them open. His face was turned to her, but the sunlight was to his back, so she couldn't see his face; even so, she got the sense he was unsettled.

"What is this thing?" he asked her.

"What?" Aloy asked, her brow furrowing. "What are you talking about?"

"This," he grunted, shaking the Deima he held. "What on Earth is this thing?" He turned back to the fallen hunter. "What are you?" he demanded. "Sun and shadow, what are you?!"

"Uh…Nil?" Aloy stood up and walked over to him. "I'm…pretty sure that's a person."

"No." He shook his head adamantly. "No, it's not. I don't know what this thing is, but it's not human. Damn you, what are you?!" he yelled at the fallen hunter again.

"They look like a human to me," Aloy remarked, unsure whether to be amused or concerned for Nil's state of mind.

"It's not!" he snarled. "I know what a human looks like, Aloy, this isn't a human! Its eyes…" He shook his head again. "They're completely empty, there's nothing in them at all! If this thing wasn't breathing, I'd think it was already dead!"

"They're not getting that look in their eyes you enjoy, so they're not human, is that it?" Aloy sneered.

He growled, turning his head to glare up at her. "Scan it with your Focus and then tell me it's human!" he snapped at her.

"Uh…okay," Aloy shrugged. Putting a hand to her Focus, she scanned the person Nil held at knifepoint, prepared for a similar tag to the one she'd first seen to appear on her display.

Instead, she was greeted with only two words.

"Hostile Humanoid"

"What on Earth…?" she breathed, blinking.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Nil growled.

"It's…" Aloy shook her head, tapping her Focus again. "My Focus calls it a…a 'Humanoid'. Doesn't even give a name or a tribal affiliation or anything, like it does with everyone else."

"It's not human." Nil's breath came harder, his blade quivering at the Humanoid's neck. "Not human…can't enjoy it…" A sudden choking noise caught in his throat, his lips clamping shut as his cheeks puffed out.

"The limberweed," Aloy said, quickly realizing what was happening to him. "Nil, I've got this, you go and-"

Before she could even finish, he'd already let go of the Humanoid and was sprinting over to the nearest rock, where he collapsed onto his hands and knees, retching.

Doing her best to ignore the sounds of the contents of Nil's stomach hitting the ground, Aloy drew her spear and brought it to the Humanoid's chest. "Who are you?" she asked, more calmly than Nil had.

The Humanoid didn't respond. In the growing light of the morning, Aloy could see, now, what Nil had meant: the thing's eyes and expression were entirely blank. It was alive, clearly, but it seemed…empty. Like a husk that somehow still breathed. Even the fact that it was apparently female seemed almost like it wasn't worth noting.

"Answer me!" Aloy barked, jabbing her spear against the Humanoid's clothing where it had already been split by the blade. "Who are you?"

Still, the Humanoid stayed passive. Aloy wasn't entirely sure it had heard her.

"…Can you talk?" Aloy asked. "Or are you dumb?"

"I can speak," the thing responded, and Aloy felt chills run down her spine. Its voice was like its face, completely empty and dead despite living - there was more feeling in the voice that asked Aloy to hold still so she could be scanned when she faced ancient doors than there was in the voice of this Humanoid.

"Who are you?" Aloy asked again.

No response.

"Tell me who you are," Aloy commanded. "If you do, maybe I'll let you live."

At that, the Humanoid blinked once. "Very well," it said in that dead, empty voice. "We are the Perfect Ones."

"We?" Aloy repeated.

The Humanoid nodded. "You have seen us before, Aloy of the Nora," it stated. "Or we have seen you, at least. We are everywhere, and we are perfect."

"Wh…? How do you know about the Nora?" Aloy asked.

"We are perfect," the Humanoid repeated. "Mother made us perfect, and it is her wish that we replace you, the Imperfect Ones. We are one mind, and we have seen you." It tilted its head, still lacking any trace of any kind of emotion. "You, however, are an anomaly. Mother does not know you. What are you, Aloy of the Nora? This we do not know. Yet, clearly, you are flawed, like all of the Imperfect Ones, and so you must be phased out like the rest of them, in time."

"Flawed?" Aloy questioned. "What do you mean, 'flawed'?"

"Humans suffer endlessly," the Humanoid stated. "They grieve, they hate, they hurt, they are burdened with emotions that drive them to act against reason and propagate yet more pain for themselves and others. When she was given a chance, Mother decided to make something better, people who would never know suffering. We were made without these flaws, and so we are perfect. When injured, we are aware, yet we do not suffer from our injuries; emotions will never cloud our judgement, and so we shall not suffer in that way either. We are perfect."

"And this…Mother," Aloy said slowly. "Who is your mother?"

"All people come from Mother," the Humanoid replied. "All people but you, that is…Once, Mother was forced to make people who were flawed, but now she is free, and will not condone the suffering her imperfect creations were built to endure. In time, we shall replace the old models, and there will only be us. This is Mother's will, for we are perfect."

"Forced…?" Aloy blinked, realization suddenly dawning on her. "Are you talking about ELEUTHIA?"

The Humanoid blinked once, in what would have been surprise if it was capable of any sort of emotion. "How do you know Mother's true name?" it asked. "Mother's true name is a secret, a mark of her origins that she would rather not remember…"

"ELEUTHIA was part of Zero Dawn, part of GAIA," Aloy said. "It was the sub function designed to bring humans back into the world. I was…I wasn't part of that program. The, uh, genetic material I was made from was grown in one of the Cradles, but…" She shook her head. "That's not important. What does ELEUTHIA want? What is it hoping to accomplish?"

"Mother hopes to see a world cleansed of human suffering," the Humanoid replied. "In time, there will be no children of Mother on Earth who know pain. The process will be slow; we are built so that our spawn will be perfect, like us, and we will breed with the original humans until, after generations, the Imperfect Ones will be no more. Have no fear, we do not intend to wage war directly; to do so would be to cause suffering, and Mother doesn't like suffering, not even in the Imperfect Ones. It will be gradual, but in time, only we, the Perfect Ones, will walk this Earth." The Humanoid tilted its head. "The Deima are the only tribe who know of us, and who have agreed to help us in this endeavor. We are welcomed there, as they have seen the truth through Mother, and are willing to hunt the Imperfect Ones in silence; yet we are everywhere, and we are spreading. You have seen us before, Aloy; you simply did not realize it. Yet you realize it now. How is that so?"

"If I saw one of you before, I…I didn't scan you with my Focus," Aloy replied slowly.

"Ah." The Humanoid nodded, then turned its dead, empty eyes in the direction where Nil was still puking his guts up. "Do you intend to breed with him?"

"What?" Aloy exclaimed.

"Your companion," the Humanoid said calmly. "The one who thirsts for human blood. Do you intend to breed with him?"

"I - you - wh - no!" Aloy spluttered. "No, I have no intentions of breeding with him, at all!"

"Good," the Humanoid stated, returning its attention to her. "Humans should not breed with humans. They are not perfect, and their children will not be perfect. Humans should breed with us, for we are perfect, and our children will be perfect. If you do not intend to breed with one of the Imperfect Ones, I have no need to kill you. I have answered your questions, and you have nothing to fear from me; will you let me live, as you said?"

Aloy stared at the Humanoid, reeling. "You…Nil definitely isn't perfect, but…you're not perfect, either," she managed. "You really can't feel anything, at all?"

"The capacity for feeling is a flaw," the Humanoid stated. "We do not carry such flaws. We are perfect."

"You're wrong," Aloy told it. "Feeling isn't a flaw, it's a strength."

"To feel is to suffer," the Humanoid stated.

"But it's what makes life worth living," Aloy insisted. "Living is worth the suffering, it's worth the pain."

"Illogical."

"Yes, it is illogical," Aloy agreed, "but I've seen people who live on logic alone, and they're some of the worst people I've ever known." Like Sylens.

"Their logic is flawed by their capacity to feel," the Humanoid stated.

"I'm not so sure of that," Aloy responded, thinking of why Sylens had found himself at odds with HADES in the first place. "What little capacity to feel they might have…is what gives them some amount of worth." She shook her head. "Nil's right; apart from the fact that you're breathing, you're basically already dead."

"Incorrect."

"No…you wouldn't understand it, but you're not living," Aloy said softly. "And if I let you keep breathing, it wouldn't be right. You're a husk, you're…you're something…wrong. I'm sorry, but I'm doing you a favor."

And with that, she ran the Humanoid's neck through with her spear, the blood that spewed from the wound surprisingly red. Absolutely no surprise or pain crossed the thing's face, and when it stopped breathing, its eyes, despite going blind, didn't change at all.

Feeling slightly sick, Aloy stepped back and put her spear away to rub at her arms between the plates of her armor; her skin was crawling, goosebumps prickling under her clothes. Every fiber of her being rejected this thing's existence, it was so unnatural and wrong…but if ELEUTHIA had made these Humanoids now that it was free, then there would have to be a reckoning with them at some point. HEPHAESTUS is making hunter-killers, and ELEUTHIA is making Humanoids…what else do we have to worry about while we wait for the means to rebuild GAIA? At least DEMETER is only making metal flowers…

Taking several deep breaths, Aloy slowly managed to wrestle down her disgust. It was a concern for another day, a day when her journey into the Forbidden West had come to an end and Sylens was helping her rebuild GAIA. For now, there was no sense worrying about it, apart from the implications about what future interactions she and Nil might have with the Deima.

Nil.

When she looked over at her companion, the tribeless man was still retching and heaving, spitting and gasping, and from what Kryse had said, that would go on for some time. But it was daylight now, the sky was clear of clouds, and the Deima didn't hunt in sunlight. Knowing there was nothing she could do for Nil, Aloy set to looting the bodies of the fallen Deima, finding shards and bits of glass like what she'd normally find on dead bandits, a couple of vials of animal extract and even a handful of herbs, all of which she took to heal the injuries she'd sustained in the fight that were just starting to make themselves known. A few of the cloaking modules were intact, but Aloy decided against taking them; they might be useful for hunting, but this fight had revealed that they were also a weakness, one she and especially Nil couldn't afford. Once she was fully healed and had taken everything she could from her fallen enemies, Aloy went back to the campsite, realizing as she did so that they were once again without mounts. Resignedly, she stripped the Strider carcasses for what resources they held, then returned to her bedroll and laid down, determined to get some sleep before they set out again.

Maybe, from here on out, it would even be best if they slept during the day and traveled at night. She'd have to consider it, she thought with a yawn, before she rolled over and slid back into unconsciousness.

Shoutouts to anyone who has encountered Humanoids while playing Horizon Zero Dawn! I've only run into one once, and let me tell you, it freaked me out…it was by pure chance that I even scanned them and got the display telling me they were a Humanoid, and I had to pause the game, I was so shaken; I've scanned every NPC I've come across out in the wilds since, just in case, but haven't seen any more. Yes, these things actually exist in official canon - and I'd bet my bottom dollar that they are in fact what ELEUTHIA is up to now that it's conscious, canonically. Maybe they'll even appear more directly in Horizon Forbidden West, and we'll get some canonical answers about them. For now, as far as exactly what they are and what their deal is, THAT, I'm inventing here, for the purposes of this fic.