Horizon: Echoes

by Wandergirl108

Months after the battle for the Spire, Aloy is still struggling with her identity. Desperate to find herself, and maybe her mother, she leaves for a new quest, unaware of the new threats she'll find…and, begrudgingly, she lets herself be accompanied by the only person she knows who understands what it is to not belong. Canon now, will be AU when HFW happens. M-rated as of Ch.20.

15. The Past Resurfaces

Nil spent the remaining daylight hours tending the chores he'd set himself to. He scrubbed the rags and Aloy's severed garments as clean as he could in the river and then boiled them the rest of the way clean, he changed out several pots of water and kept the fire burning under the racks so the wet cloth and leather would dry, he hunted food for the day and then some to spare. When it was too dark to go out, he had already taken care of everything he would have had to leave Aloy's side to tend to. Which was just as well, because her condition only got worse.

As the sun set, she started shivering and curling in on herself, as though trying to keep the copious amounts of heat pouring off her body from escaping her flesh. Not wanting her to spend energy she couldn't spare, he dug through their packs for a suitable blanket before finding the heavy coat she'd bought off Kryse for him. He hadn't worn the uncomfortable thing since they'd traded for it, but it was long enough to reach his ankles when he did; on Aloy's petite frame, it covered her completely, and she seemed to settle down under its weight, clinging to it even as sweat poured from her forehead, looking so small. Though he was taller than her, he had never thought of her as 'small' - her radiance had always made her seem so much bigger than she was. But now, struck down by infection, her radiance had dimmed, and huddled under his coat, she looked slight, tiny, fragile like a child. Nil felt sick at the sheer wrongness of it.

Then came the fever dreams. Barely had he finished eating when she started writhing and crying out, moaning names and pleas and apologies he couldn't make sense of. Quickly, he went to her side and shook her awake, but her eyes were unfocused even when they opened, glassy and cloudy with sickness. When at last he calmed her down, he quickly set to cooling her brow again, then grabbed his bedroll and dragged it as close to hers as he dared, not wanting to be too far away from her. Aloy was strong, but this wasn't the Aloy he knew.

Sleep came fitfully; Nil didn't dare rest for more than an hour at a time, and any time she made even the slightest noise, he snapped back to consciousness, prepared to help her in some way. By morning, she was fully delirious, incoherent even when she was awake. When he set to cleaning and redressing her wound, her whimpers and moans only seemed to be slightly more agitated, she almost didn't seem to notice, which was both a relief and a cause for concern. The swelling had flared up even further, and pus oozed in globs from the punctures when he tried to scrub them. He blotted as much of the poison away as he could, unable to help the little niggle of doubt he was beginning to feel that she really would pull through.

Mercifully, her condition seemed to stabilize around then - it was bad, but at least it didn't appear to be getting any worse. After tending to her for two hours to be sure she at least wasn't about to suddenly stop breathing, he dared to go out and clean the rags again, change out the water, come back and boil everything clean, change out the water again…

…and then, suddenly, he had nothing else to do.

Nil blinked at the realization once the fresh water was on the fire: there was truly nothing else for him to do for the time being. His only option was to wait, to sit at Aloy's side and try to keep her fever from getting too high. Even as he set to work with the cold water towel, though, he knew he couldn't just keep that up for hours. He couldn't wake her - she needed rest - and he couldn't leave her, either, but…he desperately didn't want to have to sit here and just stare at the mighty Aloy reduced to a helpless little waif, pale and weak. Everything in him rejected the sight.

Sitting back, he again noticed the little displays in the corner of his vision that had been there since Aloy's Focus had attached itself to his temple. Glyphs…he was no expert, but he knew the basics of glyphs. A small group of three caught his eye, those would be easy enough to decipher…One by one, he sounded them out under his breath, careful not to wake Aloy.

"Map"

She'd said her Focus had a built-in map. But how did she access it? Imitating the motions she always made, he tapped the device, then reached out to where the word was suspended in thin air, not really expecting it to work - somehow, the Focus was displaying the word in his vision directly, not in the air where he was seeing it, right? But when his finger reached it, though he felt nothing, the glyphs flashed, and suddenly, a vast image was painted across the web of light that surrounded him, green and brown blotches and shapes, dotted with little white icons.

A map. An incredibly detailed map, far more so than any he'd seen during his days in the military; it was as though he was a Glinthawk, viewing the land from high, high above. Maybe that was what Glinthawks were for…? No, if anything, that was what Tallnecks were for, based on what Aloy had said…

Reaching out a hand, as Aloy always did, he tried tapping the imaginary icons that dotted the map. Glyphs appeared, presumably describing what each one marked, but he didn't have the patience to decipher them all right now. He swiped his hand, another gesture he'd seen her make, and the image moved, as though he was shifting a piece of paper under a lens so that it focused on a different section. Most of the icons, he noticed, looked like small, simple drawings of various Machines, though there were others: a couple like the ancient buildings that still stood, and one angular oval with a spiral in the middle. That last was at the end of a long trail surrounded by a void - an area outside of the Tallneck's range, he guessed. Curious, he tapped it, and started sounding out the glyphs that appeared beneath. S…oh…b…eh…k…k…Soh-bekk? Sobeck! It clicked, and he didn't have to work to decipher the second word.

"Sobeck Ranch"

Nil felt himself smile slightly; Aloy would never wonder where to find her mother again.

Moving the map back to the thick glob of green that could only be the Oasis, he started searching it for something far more important. Among all the pictures of Machines, a little cluster of crudely-drawn houses caught his eye, and he tapped it. More glyphs, curse them…His mother had had the honor of knowing how to read glyphs, and she'd forced him to study them every day as a child, desperate to distract him from his mission to model himself after Janeva; he had resented those lessons, fought them with everything he had, yet now he found himself wishing he'd paid more attention. When Stefan had sent him a missive in prison, he'd had weeks to decipher it, grateful only that Janeva was even less capable of reading than he was, but time wasn't something he had much of to spare right now. Frowning, he concentrated, one glyph at a time, until he felt certain that the first word was "Bacchan".

That was all he needed; it could only be the Bacchan settlement they'd come from. All that remained was to figure out where he was, but he had a hunch about that; shifting the map upwards, he brought back the sight of a little arrow that the display had been centered on when he'd first opened it. When he turned his head, the map disappeared on its own, and he grunted in annoyance as he shifted his position, then brought up the map again. Sure enough, the arrow was pointing in a different direction now - the map didn't just tell him where he was, but also where he was facing.

Incredible. And, potentially, very useful.

Tapping the device at his temple, he dismissed the map and turned back to Aloy. She was sleeping, her eyes darting back and forth under her eyelids and her breath rattling but otherwise peaceful. She couldn't travel like this, of course, but Nil could, and while navigation had never been his strong suit - he'd simply followed his generals, then followed Stefan, then wandered aimlessly with only vague suggestions he picked up from travelers he passed on the roads as a guide, and now he followed Aloy - her Focus would lead him where he needed to go. But…just getting there would take time, longer than it had before - he had no Machine to ride, and he would have to stop every few paces and check to make sure he was going the right way, it would be too easy to get lost in the thick forest. In all, the trip there and back might take as long as half a day, and there was a chance the Bacchan wouldn't be able to help anyway - though they'd sworn to repay their debt, they had also said that they had no herbs to offer to aid in the fight with the Annihilator, and there was no guarantee that had changed. Maybe they wouldn't share even if they did have herbs, not even to repay their supposed debt - the Deima had them cowering in terror, and not without good reason, and Nil had realized long ago that very few people cared about honor as much as he did. On the other hand, Aloy was in worse shape than he'd thought, and he had a feeling he didn't know nearly as much about taking care of an infection as he needed to if he wanted to save her life. She needed a healer, needed medicine, and if there was even a chance he could get some…

As he weighed the options in his mind, the sick warrior began moaning and twitching in her sleep. "Vala," she mumbled. "No, wait…stay back…Vala…!" She started jerking, gasping, eyes still closed. "Varl! Varl, I'm sorry!" she cried. "I'm sorry, I couldn't save her! I tried, I couldn't do anything! Vala!"

"Aloy!" Nil shouted, grabbing hold of her before she hurt herself further and slapping her face gently. "Aloy, wake up! Aloy!"

Giving one final spasm, Aloy opened her eyes, but they were unseeing, completely glazed over. "Varl?" she asked, her face turned to him, looking like she was trying desperately to focus.

"No," he said gently. "No, it's Nil."

"Hmmmh…" she mumbled softly, her eyelids sliding shut, and then she was unconscious again.

I can't leave her like this, Nil thought, nudging her into place on her pillow and pulling his coat back over her before reaching for another cold rag. Even if I didn't have to protect her from Scrappers and Deima and whatever else might come, she can't be alone for the hours it would take for me to get to the Bacchan and back. "You're strong, Aloy," he murmured out loud, needing to hear the words himself as he replaced the cool wetness on her forehead. "You'll win this fight."

Sighing, he sat back again. The damn map was useless. If only she'd given it to him a day sooner…! No, no sense wasting energy on "if only"s, a man did what he could with whatever he had at his immediate disposal. There was nothing for it but to tend to her and wait. She would survive, that was what she always did, he just had to help her do it. And in the meantime…

Tapping her Focus again, he reached for another cluster of glyphs, this time going for the largest group he saw - no need to decipher them, he'd figure out what they meant by triggering them. New images were painted across his vision, this time a set of the same icons he'd seen all over her map without the map as a backdrop. He pretended to touch his finger against one, and a fully detailed image of a Longleg came up, columns of boxes of glyphs beside it. Tapping the boxes, he found that different ones caused different pieces of the theoretical Machine to glow, and presumably, the glyphs that appeared beside them described either how the indicated components worked or how to break them, maybe both. It was just interesting enough to catch his attention, and he tried swiping his hand quickly to the right, hoping to shift back to the full list of Machines that had seemed to disappear to the left, the display obeying the suggestion of his movement. It was already starting to come a bit more naturally, commanding images that didn't really exist with his fingers, and he brought up another image, this of a Charger, which had fewer boxes of glyphs. Next a Tallneck, which had very little in the way of information, though of course, Tallnecks were untouchable. Then, curious about something unfamiliar, he tapped on one of the icons at the bottom of the list and was met with the sight of a Machine he'd never encountered before. It was bulky, and covered with large reservoirs of chillwater; sounding out the glyphs of the label, he eventually managed to decipher the word "Frostclaw". Wondering where she'd encountered such a beast, he returned to the main catalog and tapped on the very last icon listed, already suspecting what he would find: the Annihilator.

Even in a picture, the Machine was fearsome, and Nil blinked at the number of glyph boxes that appeared next to it. One even appeared to be half-hidden at the bottom, and he swiped his hand on a hunch, bringing into view even more boxes, and more and more…Slowing down, he started tapping on them, seeing various weapons and components light up under the monster's thick armor. No wonder Aloy had been so intimidated by this thing before the battle - the number of tools and tricks at its disposal was truly staggering. Somehow, though, they'd managed to get a handle on it, and Nil felt the corners of his lips quirk upwards. As terrifying and powerful as this Machine had been, Aloy had figured it out in the heat of battle and killed it, and survived. She would survive this, too.

Bored of looking at Machines, he tapped her Focus again, dismissing the display, and turned back to check on her. Seeing that she was still peaceful, he reached for another set of glyphs, bringing up a new menu of icons, these entirely unfamiliar to him. Unlike the list of Machines, these were grouped in small clusters, though why the clusters would all be under separate labels, Nil couldn't guess. Picking out one of the small groups, he tapped on one, and was rewarded with a small figurine drawn in light, not just a flat image but a full recreation of sorts, of a strange animal. Hadn't Aloy said she'd seen images of animals from ancient times up in the Cut, big ones? There were a few glyphs, too, but he ignored them for now, examining the carved creature. It looked almost like a Broadhead, vaguely, but its horns were far larger, and misshapen, like the branches of a tree. Had it been as big as a Broadhead? An animal with horns like that, and the size of a Broadhead…Nil would very much have liked to hunt such a creature. Part of the problem with animals, after all, was that they were too small for his taste, too helpless…

Dismissing the image as he had the individual displays on Machines, he returned to the menu and tapped on an icon from another cluster, this time rewarded with an image of a rock filled with colored crystals. Strange. Another group gave him a vessel of much finer make than could be found anywhere in the Sundom, clearly ancient in origin. Still another revealed a different figurine, and this one actually looked like it was of modern make - Banuk, if he had to guess. Eyeing the glyphs, he managed to decipher the word "Banuk" in the title without much difficulty, confirming his suspicions; the second word took him a moment, before he realized it simply said "figurine". There was a huge clump of glyphs attached to the figurine as well, but he ignored them for now.

Back again, he tried the biggest cluster, and the result was a strange flower with designs and patterns on it. The label wasn't hard to read, as the words were actually fairly familiar, two of the first few his mother had taught him: "Metal Flower". Nil recalled that Aloy had mentioned one of GAIA's subordinates making metal flowers; this must have been one of them. These were all strange things she'd found in her travels, he realized, recorded forever on her Focus. Looking over, he saw a mess of glyphs attached to the metal flower that didn't look like they were organized in any way - there were thick clusters of lines he was fairly certain weren't glyphs at all, with words grouped erratically among them, as far as he could tell. Not willing to even try to decipher that jumble, he returned and sampled one of pieces of the final group, finding, not another object, but an image, of a strange place, perhaps some ancient landscape, next to which was a long, long list of glyphs. No way was he going to bother with any of that either.

Not particularly intrigued by anything he'd found, Nil tapped the device again, returning him to reality. Aloy was still asleep, but the fire was burning low, and, grateful to have something else to do, he went out to restock on firewood. When he came back, she was moving again, if only slightly, murmuring for water; he helped her swallow a few sips, cooled her forehead again, and she fell back asleep. Her condition had stopped changing, at least, and that was a good thing, right? She was in the thick of the battle, fighting hard, but not weakening or tiring further.

Telling himself for the dozenth time that she would win this fight, Nil tapped the little device on his ear again, then triggered the final set of glyphs. What he got was an enormous wall of little white icons, all separated into a few groups that ranged from just over a dozen in number to nearly countless. He tried one of the icons in the smallest group, but was met with only another seemingly-incomprehensible mess of glyphs and lines, like what had accompanied the metal flower. Frowning, he tried other icons from other groups, but was met with glyphs, and more glyphs, some more coherent-looking than others…and then a smaller set of glyphs, along with some odd shapes. A triangle in a circle, a line, some glyphs he was fairly certain were numbers…reaching out a hand, he tried touching the shapes. A few taps, and nothing happened, until his finger met the triangle.

Suddenly, another image appeared, made of light, but this one was moving. It was a man, down on one knee, his hands working quickly as though trying to assemble something, and Nil thought he could hear quick, frantic whispering, though he was too alarmed to make sense of it. Then something changed, and the man made of light looked up, directly at Nil.

"Hi!" the man exclaimed, a little too cheerfully, a forced-looking smile splitting his face. "Happy birthday, Isaac! Daddy sure does love his little big man!"

Nil stared.

"Look," the man went on, standing up, "daddy can't be there with you and mom, but we can still have a party right? Haha, sure we can!"

The man vanished, and Nil was still staring. A spirit? he thought. No…no, a memory. Aloy said the Old Ones had ways of recording memories, not just in written words, but sounds and images. Lifting his hand, he swiped back to the display of icons. All of these little icons…is each one of them a different memory?

Tapping the icon he'd tried before, he brought up the same little cluster of glyphs. If the memory was in the form of images and sounds, then what were the glyphs for? Setting his jaw, he started sounding out each word one by one, trying to understand what he was missing here. Halfway through, there was a break in the glyphs, and then more, three words into which Nil suddenly thought he understood. Quickly, he tapped the triangle again, this time listening carefully, ignoring the sight of the long-dead man whose actions in those moments were preserved through ancient technology, all his attention on the sound and the glyphs. The mutters made more sense now, and though he couldn't be sure at first, when it got to the part where the man was wishing happy birthday to someone, he found he was right: the glyphs simply wrote out the words that were being spoken in the recorded memory.

Now that was useful.

Nil returned to the menu again - even without tribal superstitions, the image of a person who'd died hundreds of years ago moving and talking was still an unsettling spectacle, yet maybe there was something else he could use. Digging through the lake of icons, he randomly tried one near the top of a group he hadn't sampled yet, and was rewarded with a small cluster of glyphs and another triangle in a circle. When he tapped this, there was sound, but no images drawn in light, and Nil settled back to listen, doing his best to follow along with the glyphs.

"I saw them lining up in the community room…like cattle in a slaughterhouse, but smiling at each other…Chana handing out meds like being alive is some kind of…pain, to be eased. Well…not me." The voice slowed, enunciating every word. "I don't want to go quiet. I don't want to trail off. I want a period at the end of my life sentence, not an ellipses. Hell, an exclamation mark. So if that upsets whoever finds this, too bad. I don't owe anyone anything anymore."

A sound echoed across time then, not unlike the noise that little gun Kryse had sold Aloy made when she'd used it to finish off the Annihilator, but something told Nil it was part of the memory. There were two words at the end of the group of glyphs, penned in by little semicircles; he couldn't make sense of the first one, but the second one only took a little effort before he realized it said "gunshot".

It didn't take much effort beyond that to understand exactly what this memory was of, and Nil smiled. You died on your own terms, he thought. Whatever 'meds' are, whatever an 'ellipses' is, you didn't want to just fall asleep and not wake up. You gave yourself a proper death, with bloodshed and snapping bones. Why would that upset whoever might find this? It's admirable. And thank you, whoever you were, for speaking so slowly - your last moments will definitely help me recall my lessons on glyphs. It'll be like reading along with my mother, only with someone I actually care to think about.

His grin widening, Nil played back the sound again, reading along with the words. The bit at the end, the final noise that marked the end of a man's life, gave him a thrill, the anticipation of which distracted him slightly, but he couldn't help it. To listen to someone die over and over again…well, it wasn't nearly as much fun as killing them himself would have been, but there was definitely some satisfaction to be had in it, almost on par with killing a boar. Maybe there was partly even some satisfaction on behalf of the man who'd chosen to respect and embrace death head-on.

Another pass through, and he dismissed the display to check on Aloy. She was still asleep, and he returned to the memory again, determined to practice with this one dead man until he could glean at least the beginnings of understanding from a glance at the befuddling symbols. Every few times, he sent it all away to see if Aloy's condition had changed, but though she was still in a dire state, there wasn't much he could do for her but let her rest. Time passed quickly, only a fraction of it spent enduring the sight of a crippled Aloy, and by nightfall, he'd started moving on to other memories from this cluster, voices without images, though he always went back to his first and favorite.

Suddenly, the sound of a distant explosion caught his attention through the echoes of the past, and he sent it all away, returning to reality once more. Another explosion came, this one seeming much closer - did the Focus muffle nearby sound? Frowning, Nil tapped it again, turning in the direction the noises had come from, and was met with the sight of four or five orange figures, human in shape. He focused on one, and the device scanned it, a box with glyphs popping up. Deciphering them still didn't come easily, but he felt he could get a handle on them a bit more quickly, and soon realized the first line read, "HOSTILE HUMAN".

Nil didn't need more than that.

Grinning, he drew his bow, the Focus deactivating on its own. Irritated, he tapped it again, then tried reaching out and tapping one of the orange figures it revealed; a little white arrow appeared over the distant person's head, but nothing else happened, so he deactivated the thing, already crawling for the back of the shelter where the Annihilator's faceplate rested. In doing so, he discovered that even when it wasn't on, the Focus still displayed that little white arrow that marked where his target was, and he grinned, edging the metal plate out of the way of his bow. It was, incredibly, entirely dark out now, sunset was long past, meaning these hostile humans were probably Deima, but Nil didn't particularly care; trusting the device, he fired an arrow, putting a finger to the jewel at his temple as his bowstring gusted a tiny puff of air across his face. The orange shapes returned, and then one of them winked out, along with the distant death-cry of his prey, replaced with a shimmering purple haze. A new display of glyphs came up, but Nil ignored them; he didn't need to know what they said to know what they meant.

Through Aloy's Focus, even from a distance and in the dark, he had just witnessed the exact moment a person's life left their body by his hand.

A rush surged through him, his hands shaking with euphoria, teeth bared in a savage grin as he targeted another of the would-be attackers, lifted his bow, and fired, tapping the Focus again so he could watch them die. He didn't even have to look them in the eyes; he heard them, and he saw them perish, go completely vacant of light as they fell. By the time the last one was extinguished, the last bit of orange snuffed out, he was chuckling to himself. This device was a marvel, a gift he hadn't known he'd craved. Emerging at last to loot the bodies marked by the wondrous little item, he looked to the sky and saw the half-moon glowing overhead.

Oh gentle Moon, I am not a praying man, he thought; your brother, the Sun, forsake me long ago, and I do not miss Him. But if there is any force I ought to thank for this gift, it would surely be you. Thank you. I am not deserving of this incredible boon I've been given…and though I'm not glad that it comes at the cost of Aloy's strength, and I certainly don't want it to come at the cost of her life, I am truly grateful.

It wasn't until he'd knelt down by one of the lifeless shapes and started searching the corpse that he realized that a Deima hunting party might mean herbs. That in mind, he started searching the dead hunters carefully but frantically, eager to find a way to quickly heal Aloy - a lesser man might have wanted her to not recover, so he could keep her incredible little tool all to himself, but Nil wasn't so petty. But, unbelievably, none of the four people he'd slain seemed to carry any herbs on them at all, not even when he went back over each of them, scouring them in the moonlight, patting down every bit of their bodies and coming up empty.

Frustrated, he sighed. "Fine," he told them. "You don't have herbs? She doesn't need them, and neither do I. The pleasure of slaughtering you was its own reward, so thank you for walking straight into my arrows."

Getting up, he turned and headed back to the shelter where Aloy still lay, intending to grab her weapons so he could replace the traps that had been spent alerting him to the Deima threat. As he walked, his boots crunching in the exposed dirt, he thought he heard another sound, footsteps that weren't his own.

In a flash, he turned around, bow in hand and an arrow nocked, but saw no one in the light of the night. To be doubly sure, he tapped Aloy's Focus, but it revealed nothing and no one. But he trusted his ears and his instinct more than any old-world technology, as marvelous as this device had proven to be, and he tapped it again.

"I know you're there," he growled. "Show yourself and face me."

All was still.

Taking a step back, closer to where Aloy was lying essentially helpless, all his senses on high alert, Nil spoke again. "Show yourself, coward," he called to the night. "Don't hide from me."

Nothing.

Getting a little uneasy now, Nil quickly backstepped into the shelter, only slightly comforted by the walls and the low-burning fire, and shifted the faceplate back into position. Again, he tapped the Focus, but saw nothing but the occasional blue shape of an animal through the structure that protected Aloy.

Still frowning, but deciding there was nothing for it, he set back to making sure Aloy was okay. As he quickly gulped down a few mouthfuls of leftover meat to quiet his own stomach, she stirred, and he poured her another cup of broth, shifting closer to her.

"Eat something," he murmured. "Can you do that? Here…"

Groaning slightly, she lifted her head, and he propped her up on his knee as he tried to pour some nourishment down her throat. She would choke if more than a few drops came at a time, but she complied, at least, and he managed to get the whole cup into her. Her breath was coming hard as he settled her back down, but her eyes were open, more focused than they'd been all day.

"Aloy," he murmured, "is it possible for someone to be nearby without your Focus sensing them?"

"Hmm? Yeah," she replied, her voice soft and weak but at least coherent. "The cloaking module does that. Stalkers, too."

"Of course," Nil sighed softly. The attackers had been Deima; one of them must have been hiding with a cloaking module. Maybe the one with herbs…

Suddenly, the connection snapped together in his head. The Deima wanted control of all the herbs in the west because only Humanoids were worthy of medicine; any Deima who carried herbs on them would be a Humanoid. His taunts hadn't worked because Humanoids couldn't feel anything, and so were immune to that kind of manipulation…which meant herbs had been within his grasp, and he hadn't been able to claim them.

It also meant he could either have fun, or get medicine for Aloy. Not both.

"Nil?" Aloy whispered. "What's wrong? Why…did you ask that?"

"Everything's fine," he assured her quickly, going to cool her forehead again - he'd have to get more water in the morning. "Don't worry. Just rest."

Her eyes were going glassy again in the firelight; she mumbled a response, but he couldn't make out what she said.

"Go to sleep," he told her, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Keep fighting, and heal. You'll be fine."

More whimpered nonsense; her eyes slid closed, but she didn't seem to fall back into sleep. Racking his brains, another forbidden memory surfaced in Nil's mind, and he didn't even think about it. Taking a breath, he began to hum what he remembered of the lullaby his mother used to sing to him, hoping to provide comfort somehow.

"Nil?" Instead of relaxing, Aloy opened her eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," he sighed. "My mother used to sing me that song when I couldn't sleep, that's all. I don't remember the words."

"Your mother sang you to sleep?" she asked, her lips turning up in a dreamy smile. "Mothers…do that?"

Of course; you never had one. "Yeah," he replied softly. "They do. You want me to stop?"

"No…" she murmured. "It's nice…"

Doing his best to remember the melody, Nil started humming again, trying to keep it up until Aloy's breathing deepened and she slipped back into unconsciousness. Something about the exchange had unsettled him.

Aloy had never had a mother. She thought of Elisabet Sobeck as her mother, but that woman had died centuries ago; the only family Aloy had known growing up was the man who raised her. Did she…wish she'd had more? Was it possible that under all her radiance and incredible power, there was a sad, lonely little girl who just wanted to have a mother?

…Of course there was. Who in this world was nothing more than what they appeared to be on the surface? Even Nil had his layers, his other sides, his losses and things he couldn't help but wish had been different. But to see through all of Aloy's armor and incandescence to the frightened child beneath…well, it bothered him. Aloy was a warrior-queen, a goddess of the hunt, unbreakable and unstoppable and all-powerful, and Nil had never really wanted to think of her as anything else, but now he had no choice.

Desperate for a distraction, he sat back and brought up the wall of memories again, diving back into the voices and records of the past, of people who had once lived in an entirely different world, and focused all his energy on deciphering them, coming up every few minutes to check on Aloy but otherwise turning all his attention away from what he didn't want to see.

Maybe he was just as guilty of evading reality as everyone else, after all.

~o~

Days passed, and Aloy didn't get better. She didn't get worse, either, but that was of little comfort when she seemed to be teetering on the edge of life and death. Tormented by pain and fever dreams, her body wracked with fever and sickness, Aloy was utterly helpless, even fragile, and for all his efforts, Nil couldn't help but think he might be doing something wrong. He worked hard, hunting and cooking and washing and cleaning and dressing her wound twice a day, trying to keep her fever down and make sure she was as hydrated and nourished as she could be given that she was rarely conscious, but it was hard seeing her like this, with no sign that she'd made any progress in the war being raged under her skin. What was more, the Deima didn't come again, though Nil did put a bit more effort into the parameter traps - shock wires now ringed the camp, with proximity bombs and detonator traps buried just on the inside, so that anyone who stepped carefully over the tripwires would unwittingly step on something that would explode and knock them right into the electrified cables, which would hopefully disable their cloaking modules. It was a clever setup, but it never came into play; the camp was left entirely alone. In all, things would have been unbearable if not for Aloy's Focus.

Every day, when there were no more chores to tend to and Aloy was asleep, Nil plunged himself into the memories she had saved to her device, working his way through the data points one by one. He started with the audio data points, trying to get a firm grasp on the glyphs with so much single-minded effort it gave him headaches at times, but it was well worth the struggle. After a couple of days, he'd been through enough sound-based memories that he was able to start looking into the memories that didn't have any sound at all attached to them, and though this was difficult, he found understanding coming faster and faster with every passing hour he spent studying. Some of the sets of glyphs were more comprehensible than others - it was beyond aggravating when Nil was faced with a casual exchange between friends who apparently understood each other well enough that they didn't have to bother transcribing words correctly - but he was stymied less and less often, and sometimes he went back to previous data points he'd been over with fresh levels of understanding. Slowly, very slowly, he started piecing together an image of the past, and when at last he dared face the holo data points, some very crucial pieces started falling into place - each hologram sent him back through other records he'd been puzzled about before, their meanings now revealed to him. The absolute worst one by far was the Omega Override Event; the outrage Nil felt upon seeing the arrogance, cowardice, and overall despicable nature of Ted Faro sent him charging into the Oasis, where he tackled a boar with his bare hands and bashed its skull in with a rock, unable to effectively vent his rage in any other way without running the risk of disturbing Aloy's rest. As disgusting as Ted Faro was, though, the picture Aloy's Focus painted of the Old Ones as a whole was the opposite of flattering.

It was a picture of people who had forgotten what it meant to be alive. The Old Ones had always been almost revered as gods to most of the tribes, great and powerful people who fell victim to some unknown force, but for the most part, that didn't appear to have been the case; on the contrary, the Old Ones had been rejecting their own greatness, replacing themselves with robots bit by bit - first soldiers, then common workers, then their own selves. Why have a cozy meal with your family when technology could let you pretend to be dining on fine delicacies in the company of renowned scientists? Why accept that you lived in a small abode in a crowded city when technology could let you pretend you were in a palace on top of a mountain? Why eat real meat when you could grow fake stuff that tasted like any type of meat you could ask for? Living, feeling, existing…all of it seemed to be shunned by most of the Old Ones, their society following this strange desire to avoid reality itself, until it was built on that nonsensical goal. Oh, sure, there had been some people of value - the scientists of Zero Dawn and Firebreak, the girls of Concrete Beach Party, General Herres and Bashar Mati - but from what Nil gathered, there had been a lot of people in ancient times, more than he could wrap his head around. The word 'billion' was not one Nil had ever encountered in his life - as far as he'd known, 'million' was the largest possible number - but he had a hunch that it meant 'a thousand million', and there had been several times that many people in ancient times…but only a couple dozen he knew of had really lived. In a way, the Faro Plague had been inevitable, the way their civilization had been going - if it hadn't been Ted Faro who doomed the world, it would have been someone else.

Nil couldn't help but feel almost let down by it all. When he'd looked out on Dry Bones, he'd imagined a huge swarm of great and dangerous people he could have hunted, an endless supply of worthy prey, but would they have been any fun to kill at all? If he'd held his knife to the throat of the average person of ancient times, would they have been just as listless and empty as a Humanoid, so unpracticed in the art of feeling that they wouldn't have even been able to understand what was about to happen to them? Or was there a chance they would feel, and in doing so experience more emotion for those fleeting moments before their deaths than they'd felt in the entire rest of their lives combined? Perhaps killing them would have been doing them a kindness, giving them a moment of enlightenment in which they actually understood what living meant before it was torn away from them…Either way, they had been a pitiful people by the end, clearly incapable of putting up a fight without their war machines; they must have been godlike once, to have ever built the city that would crumble into Dry Bones, but that had been long past by the time they had fallen. Maybe the knowledge they'd amassed over thousands of years wasn't a disease in and of itself, but they had started using it like one - a disease that had eaten away at their ability to truly live.

There were other memories to be found among it all, of course, modern ones - audio logs of Helis, of Sylens and HADES, even one of the Oseram Dervahl, the would-be assassin whom Nil had heard a great deal about in passing in the weeks leading up to the battle with the Eclipse. An entire category was dedicated to records written by Carja hands, and there was a sort of comforting familiarity to these, though they didn't provide much of a distraction. Those Banuk figurines even contained a story of a disgraced Banuk who had fathered a child with his chieftain's wife, which was mildly interesting, to a point. But the best distractions came from the ancient past, and without them, Nil wouldn't have been able to stand taking care of Aloy. The mighty huntress, the most radiant person in the world, sick and frail…it didn't get easier to see her like that, no matter how many times he resurfaced from the reservoir of memories to tend to her.

She will survive, he told himself. She always does.

She has to.

~o~

"…Happy trails, Travis, you no-good punk…We love you."

The image of Roger Bauman vanished, leaving Nil sitting where he was, his heart beating painfully in his chest.

It had been a week since Aloy had slipped into her feverish delirium, and he'd been through every other bit of knowledge to be found on her Focus, most of them more than once. He'd been taking the holograms slowly, not moving on to the next until he'd pieced together everything he could from the last, and Roger's last message to Travis Tate had been the final data point in that category. The road here had been long and hard, and the reward was…pain.

Nil gritted his teeth; the hole that had been left in his chest when his sister had stripped his name from him throbbed painfully, and for the first time in over a year, he couldn't bury it. Not when he'd just been faced with another wayward soul being granted the very thing he hated himself for wanting.

Forgiveness.

Travis had earned the forgiveness of his family, despite…doing something, something that had tarnished his family's legacy in some way. The words Roger Bauman had left for his great-nephew were, agonizingly, the very words Nil would have wanted to hear from his own family - that they were proud to call him one of their own, that what he'd done was irrelevant and they still loved him.

But that wasn't possible. Not for Nil.

I cannot be forgiven. I am a shadow.

Yet the pain in his chest only built.

Clenching his jaw harder, Nil drew his knife and wrapped his hand around the blade, allowing the edge to dig into the uncovered ball of his palm, squeezing tight until he felt his skin split open, letting the sting drag him back to reality. I'm not like Travis Tate; I cannot earn forgiveness or love from those I share blood with. The House of Lakshar can never forgive me, and I don't want them to. There is no escaping who I am.

A drop of blood started to gather at the bottom of his hand, and he focused on it in the firelight.

Blood and death are my purpose. There is no place for me in any family, any home, any tribe. This is who I am, and I wouldn't give it up even if I could.

The crimson droplet splashed onto the dirt, and he squeezed tighter, focusing on the pain until two more drops followed the first.

I know who I am. Those words…they're not meant for me. I will never be loved, or forgiven, and I cannot ask for either. I don't need either. All I need is my bow and my blade, and blood I can spill. So…stop wishing they'd say something similar to you, damn it! he silently shouted at himself. Stop it! It's not who you are!

Slowly, very slowly, inner peace returned to him, the pain of being nameless ebbing back into that constant dull ache he had learned to live with. With a last, deep breath, he let go of his knife and put it away, eyeing the gash in his hand.

Going to have to fix that, he thought. Can't have an open wound around Aloy.

It was nighttime, and he didn't want to leave her when the Deima might be prowling, but a tap on the Focus told him there probably weren't any threats nearby, and since they were right on the border of the Oasis anyway, he didn't really have to go too far.

Carefully, he shouldered his way out of their shelter and made for the treeline, already marking one of the blue silhouettes of a boar - hunting at night was easy when he had a Focus at his disposal. The comforting weight of the Voice of Our Teeth helped him finish coming back to himself, the song of arrows piercing the air followed by the last squeal of a dying animal almost meditative. He wasn't like Travis Tate - Travis had been a good man who acted out for personal reasons, but Nil was a killer, and always would be. There could be no forgiveness for him, because he felt no remorse, nor would he ever stop, to kill was the meaning of his life and he was proud of it.

I'm not the same. And no one will never forgive me.

Though a single boar, combined with the leftover meat still waiting back at camp, would almost certainly be enough for a basic extract, Nil killed four more, just enjoying the hunt, as always, the longing and despair ebbing in the wake of bloodshed until it was gone. If he hadn't had to tend to Aloy, he might have kept it up all night, but with five kills to harvest, he stopped and set about gathering them up, tying them together with a loop of wire.

Then, suddenly, a voice shattered the night.

"Who are you?"

Nil leapt to his feet, bow in hand, arrow nocked, looking around and prepared to fire as soon as he saw the speaker. "Who's there?" he asked guardedly.

"Answer me," repeated the same, deep voice. "Who are you?"

That voice…it sounded vaguely familiar, now that Nil thought about it. And there was no one here, certainly no one close enough for their voice to be so loud.

Frowning, Nil lowered his bow. "…Sylens?" he asked the empty air. "Is that you?"

"So you know of me." Aloy's Focus activated on its own, and an image of a man was woven from light. Unlike the data points, though, this hologram was looking directly at Nil, his face a displeased mask. Sylens was bald, as it turned out, his skin dark, and sure enough, there were cables threaded into his skin, like any Banuk.

Nil put away his weapon and folded his arms. "Well, well," he said, "look who finally decided to show his face. Where have you been the last four months?"

"You're not in a position to be asking questions," Sylens stated. "Who are you, and why are you wearing this Focus?"

"Aloy's Focus, you mean?" Nil asked, and he smirked, his mind already racing. "She let me borrow it."

"Forgive me if I find that extremely unlikely," Sylens remarked. "Aloy would never leave her lifeline in the hands of another."

"How would you know?" Nil retorted. "You've been ignoring her for months."

"I know that Aloy values her Focus and her life far too highly to just hand it over to some insignificant Carja," Sylens responded coolly.

"Well, maybe I'm not insignificant," Nil smirked. "Not to her, at least."

"That is neither here nor there," Sylens stated. "Where is she?"

"Back at camp," Nil replied. "We're traveling together."

"I don't believe you," Sylens informed him. "Aloy travels alone."

"Not anymore," Nil said.

"Is she alive?" Sylens asked, a note of urgency to his voice that Nil thought might border on panic.

"Oh yes," he replied. "Very much so." Part of him wanted to add that she was alive and well, but even if he had to play games with this unscrupulous bastard, he wasn't going to stoop so far as to outright lie.

"Then take me to her," Sylens ordered. "Return this Focus to her immediately. I need to speak with her."

"The funny thing is, Sylens, I don't think she particularly wants to talk to you right now," Nil said. "Something tells me she's tired of calling for you and getting no response, and doesn't want to hear from you at the moment."

"I don't much care what you think," Sylens hissed. "I need to speak with her about subjects far more important than you can begin to imagine."

"Oh really?" Nil smirked, folding his arms again. "It wouldn't have anything to do with rebuilding GAIA, would it?"

Sylens blinked in surprise.

"That's right," Nil said, "I know everything. She told me."

"Aloy wouldn't do that," Sylens said. "More likely, you've been going through the information stored on her Focus."

"You're right, I have," Nil shrugged, "but she told me the basics long before that."

"I find that hard to believe," Sylens said. "From what I can tell, the most likely explanation for this situation is that you either killed her or found her dead, then stole her Focus."

"She's not dead," Nil stated firmly. "Of that much, I can assure you."

"Then prove it," Sylens spat. "Take me to her. Now."

"I don't have to do anything you say," Nil pointed out. "My loyalty is to Aloy, not to you. And I really don't think she wants to have anything to do with you right now. If you wanted to talk to her about GAIA so badly, you should have answered her calls in the last few months."

"Who are you?" Sylens demanded. "Tell me this instant."

"Call me Nil," Nil told him; that much was only fair, he supposed, considering he already knew the title Sylens went by.

"You expect me to believe that's your name?" Sylens asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Well, do you expect me to believe 'Sylens' is your name?" Nil retorted. "At least I don't try to pretend I go by a name my parents might have actually given me. 'Nil' is who I am, and that's all you need to know."

"I can assure you, I need to know a great deal more than that if I'm going to believe your relationship with Aloy is anything other than nefarious," Sylens said.

"I don't really care what you believe," Nil shrugged. "Funny thing about beliefs: No matter what someone believes, reality is what it is. Aloy is alive, she and I are traveling together, and she doesn't want to talk to you. So go back to whatever it is you've been doing that's kept you from answering her calls all this time."

"I'm not going anywhere," Sylens stated. "Whoever you are, I need to speak to Aloy, and you need to take me to her."

"I don't need to do anything," Nil pointed out.

The two of them stared off for a minute, unflinching; it was all Nil could do not to laugh at the idea that this manipulative liar really thought he could intimidate him. On the other hand, he really couldn't let Sylens find out about Aloy's condition, and he needed to make sure he had privacy before he went back to camp. His mind racing, Nil decided to use one of the simplest of the manipulative arts.

"I don't know you, Sylens," he said, only half-lying, "so I have no reason to do anything for you. But maybe you can explain something that's been bothering me about this little device Aloy let me borrow, as a show of faith?"

Sylens's eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Nil realized he might have been a little too obvious to open with this.

"Don't look at me like that," he said calmly, "I don't understand how it works. But I'm kind of uncomfortable about using it…or letting Aloy use it."

That got Sylens's attention. "How so?" the dubiously-Banuk asked.

"Well, like I said, I have been going through the information on this thing," Nil went on. "I don't understand a lot of it, but…I've seen a lot about the Faro Plague, how they ended life on Earth. They ate…biomass, was it? And that's…living things?"

"Correct," Sylens said slowly. "All living things are composed of biomass."

"And they ate it," Nil went on, doing his best to play the part of a clueless tribesman. "For the same reason we eat things, right? For fuel?"

"Yes," Sylens confirmed, still clearly puzzled about where Nil was going with this.

"Was that a common thing in ancient times?" Nil inquired, and he gestured at the device on his ear. "Is it maybe how this thing keeps itself going? Should I worry that it's going to eat my face, or hers?"

"Of course not!" Sylens scoffed. "Don't be absurd!"

"Doesn't seem absurd to me," Nil shrugged. "I've never had to power it with anything, and it's too small to have any sort of fuel source. Why shouldn't I worry about letting Aloy wear it, knowing that it might be eating her just to do what it does?" Wondering if he might be pushing things too far, he smiled at Sylens and said, "Maybe if you put my mind at ease, I'd be a little more inclined to give it back to her."

"Your concerns are ridiculous," Sylens stated. "Of course Focuses don't eat biomass."

"Then what does power them?" Nil argued. "Something has to, considering everything they can do. You expect me to believe that the power to talk to you from wherever you are doesn't take any energy?"

"No," Sylens admitted. The enigmatic man frowned, putting his fingers to his chin thoughtfully.

Nil let him think.

"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how Focuses are powered," Sylens said at last, "but I do have a theory. It's my belief that every Focus is equipped with a small battery, a backup power source, that charges while it's attached to a main power source, which allows it to maintain whatever information it has recorded on it even when it's not being powered, if only for a time. This would explain why every Focus I've ever found has been completely empty of information, but Focuses I've stored information on have managed to retain that information even in transit."

"Okay," Nil said. "So what's the main power source?"

"Again, it's only a theory," Sylens said, "but the shape and intended placement of the device on the body might be the key. The Focus is intended to be sealed to a person's temple, where blood vessels close to the surface of the skin provide immediate access to their body heat, and the wide, flat shape of the device would allow it to absorb that heat quickly."

"Are you saying…this Focus is powered by my body heat?" Nil asked.

"Possibly," Sylens replied. "It's the most plausible explanation I've managed to come up with for how such a small device can perform such incredible tasks without ever needing to be given any sort of fuel, and I've yet to encounter any information that disproves the hypothesis."

"Huh," Nil remarked, unable to hold back a grin. "Well, if you're right, then…that makes this pretty simple, doesn't it?"

And with that, he grabbed the jewel on his temple and yanked it off his skin, tossing it into the undergrowth beside him. Sylens didn't even have time to react.

For a minute, Nil just stood where he was, chuckling to himself. As much as he hated playing games, to be able to win one against such an infamous game-player felt oddly rewarding, especially considering how Aloy felt about the man. It wasn't unlike the satisfaction of felling a Machine with a single arrow - not his kind of thrill, but he could understand the appeal. Granted, the trick wouldn't work twice, but at least he'd bought himself and Aloy some time.

Eventually, still proud of himself, Nil got down and fished around in the vegetation until his fingers found the metal triangle, which he grasped by the edges and slid into his quiver for now, making sure not to put it somewhere it might get enough heat to be accessed by the unwanted interloper. That taken care of, he finished tying his kills together and returned to camp, glad he'd chosen not to wander far enough that he could have gotten lost without a map.

Back inside, Aloy was still asleep, and he set to harvesting his kills, easily getting enough meat for a couple of basic extracts, one of which he started brewing up right away - his hand was still bleeding. Just as he was finishing the rest of the job and downed the little potion that quickly eased the pain, Aloy started mumbling in her sleep.

"Ourea," she groaned. "No, Ourea, don't…don't use it…it's my override, it should be me, don't…"

Nil eyed her, ready to step in if she started thrashing.

"Stop!" Aloy cried out. "Ourea, don't do it!" She jerked, rolling under Nil's coat. "It shouldn't be you! It should be me! It should have been me, Ourea, it was my spear!"

"Aloy!" Nil called, reaching over and gently slapping her awake. "Aloy, wake up!"

"Hmh?" Aloy moaned, her eyes fluttering open, and to Nil's surprise, she actually seemed to be able to focus on his face. "Aratak?"

"No," he told her, "it's just me, it's Nil."

"Nil…?" It had been a while since she'd actually recognized him, and she still looked bleary and confused, but maybe this was progress.

"That's right," he said, "it's me."

"Nil…" Her head rolled back onto her pillow. "What was I saying? I was…saying something really important…"

"You were talking about someone named Ourea," he informed her, pouring more chillwater into the dish that kept her wash water cool and grabbing a rag.

"Ourea," Aloy repeated as he wiped her brow with cold water. "She…she died saving CYAN from HEPHAESTUS. Using my override. It was my fault…"

"Hush," Nil told her gently. "Calm down, Aloy. It wasn't your fault."

"It was my override," she insisted weakly. "I tried to do it, but…HEPHAESTUS knocked me back, me and Aratak. She picked it up and jammed it against the core, she didn't even know what it would do, but she was so determined to save her friend, thinking CYAN was a lonely Spirit…"

"If she was trying to help her friend, I doubt she regrets dying to save it," Nil stated.

"But it should have been me!" Aloy sobbed. "I was the one who knew what was happening, and it was my spear!"

"If it had been you, there would have been no stopping HADES," Nil reminded her, still wiping her forehead with a cold rag, over and over. "This was before the battle for the Spire, remember? All life on Earth would have ended if you'd died saving CYAN."

"But…" Aloy mumbled. "But Aratak…he had to watch his sister die in his arms, all because I insisted she had to go in there…" She shook her head slightly, her movements still weak. "He forbade her from going in because he wanted to protect her, and I took the werak from him so I could override his command, but…he was right. He was right to think she'd die if she went in there, because she did. And it was my fault. I was the one who took his place as chieftain away. I took everything from him…"

"You gave his position back," Nil reminded her. "Aloy, it's over. Don't worry about it now, what's done is done. Just relax, and go back to sleep."

"Took the werak," Aloy muttered. "I became chieftain…of the werak…"

Suddenly, she jerked, her lidded eyes flying open as something sparked in their depths. Nil lunged forward to keep her from hurting herself, but her expression was wild as she looked directly at him.

"Nil," she gasped, "I just realized something."

"What?" he asked patiently.

Out of nowhere, she suddenly giggled. "I just realized I'm an idiot."

"Uh…" Nil blinked. "No, Aloy, you're not an idiot," he said slowly.

"You won't say that when I tell you what I remembered," she grinned, looking half-insane. "Nil…I became chieftain of the werak. When I won the title, I got the equipment of a werak chieftain - the weapon, and the armor. Armor…that's treated with medicinal oils." She giggled again. "Armor I kept."

"Medicinal oils…?" Nil repeated in a whisper.

"Yeah," she snickered. "We have medicine. We've had medicine this whole time, and I completely forgot…"

Nil sat back, shocked. "Are you…sure?" he asked her. "Are you sure you still have that armor?"

"Mm-hmm," she nodded. "After everything I had to do to earn it, selling it felt wrong. It's in my pack. It's blue-green and soft and cushy, nice and warm for when you're marching through the Cut…"

Before she trailed off, Nil was already diving into her supplies, searching for a set of cold-weather armor. It took a couple of minutes - the set was at the very bottom of her pack - but eventually he managed to pull out a thickly padded outfit, clearly not Nora or Carja or Oseram in make. "Is this it?" he asked her, holding it up.

"Yeah," she croaked. "That's it. Inner lining's treated with medicinal oils. We had it all along…"

Still dubious, Nil brought the neck of the outfit to his nose and sniffed. There was an odor of old sweat in there, but also, incredibly, a sharp tang that could only be herbal in nature.

There really was medicine in this armor. Medicine they'd had from the start.

He turned to her. "Aloy…"

"I know," she said. "I'm an idiot."

"I'm not going to say that," Nil said carefully. "But…it would have been extremely helpful if you'd remembered this a lot sooner."

"I know."

Scooting over to her, he eyed her bandaged leg. "Well, we can't get it on you like this anyway," he said; "your leg's too swollen."

"Just cut it up," Aloy told him. "I don't care."

"Um…" Nil blinked. "Are you sure? It sounds kind of important-"

"Cut it up," she repeated as firmly as she could through the fever-induced slur. "Medicine's in there, gotta use it."

Eyeing the fabric, Nil thought fast. "Tell you what," he said, "I'll turn it inside-out, then remove the inner lining and cut that. The rest of the armor can still function as intended."

"'Kay," she mumbled.

In short order, he did as he'd suggested, stripping the very inside of the armor and cutting it up into squares, which he quickly boiled clean just in case. The steam that came off the pot also smelled faintly of herbs, and Nil quickly decided he wouldn't throw out this water - any amount of medicine they had couldn't be wasted. There were already fresh bandages at the ready, and it wasn't hard to quickly clean Aloy's wound with the medicinal rags, then tie one against the oozing holes with clean strips.

"How does that feel?" he asked when he was done. "Is it working?"

"Not sure," she replied. "Gotta give it time."

"Right," he murmured, setting aside the old bandages. He took the pot off the fire, but set it aside, herb-infused rags and all.

"Nil?"

"What?" he asked, turning to her.

"Nil, w…where's my Focus?" she asked, trying and failing to lift her head. "You're not wearing it…and I'm not wearing it…"

"Don't worry," he told her quickly, turning his quiver upside-down and catching the tiny device before holding it up to her. "It's right here. I had to take it off." He planted it in the dirt between their bedrolls.

"Why?" she asked, her sweat-slicked brow furrowing.

Moving over to resume his ministrations with the wet rag, he replied, "We have an…unwelcome visitor. Someone you haven't heard from in months."

"Sylens?" she rasped, blinking.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Couldn't have chosen a worse possible time to resurface, could he?"

"No," she agreed, looking troubled. "What'd you tell him?"

"Not much," Nil assured her. "I told him you were alive, and that we were traveling together, but I made it very clear that you don't want to talk to him right now. He doesn't know you're hurt, and he doesn't know where we are, or at least I didn't tell him where we are…Can he figure that out through your Focus?"

"Yeah," she replied, and Nil couldn't help but feel a faint squeeze of concern constrict his chest. "Not sure how easily or accurately, though…"

"Well, maybe he didn't have time before I took it off," Nil offered. "I managed to trick him into telling me how it has enough power to do the things it does, so I could come back without him seeing anything."

"Trick?" she repeated, blinking, a spark lighting in her eyes. "You tricked Sylens?"

"It wasn't hard," Nil smirked. "He thought I was just a clueless tribesman, and I…let him. One of the oldest tricks in the book: only let them see your worst, and they won't judge you for your best."

"I thought you didn't play games," Aloy remarked.

"I don't like playing games," he admitted, still smiling. "But you can't be a decorated soldier in the Carja military for years without at least learning how it's done."

"So…how does the Focus work?" she asked.

"He's not sure, but he thinks it's powered by the body heat of the person wearing it," Nil answered, refreshing the cold rag.

"Body heat," she mumbled. "Heh…bet I could power five of them like this…"

"Maybe so," Nil chuckled. "Let's hope that's not the case for much longer."

"Hmm…"

"Anyway, once he told me it was the warmth of my skin that was allowing him to talk to me, I just took it off," Nil went on.

Aloy giggled again, and this time it was with genuine amusement. "Wish I could've seen the look on his face," she said. "I bet he was so proud of being able to answer your question, having knowledge, like always…"

"He's cocky, because he knows so much more than anyone else," Nil agreed. "But often times, a man's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness."

"Like Thunderjaws," Aloy smiled. "Their disc launchers are their most dangerous weapons, but they're also their biggest targets, and they really feel it when you fire arrows at them…and, if you can knock them off intact, you can pick them up and use them against their previous masters."

"People and Machines aren't so different, in that sense," Nil smirked. "It was certainly satisfying to hit him where it mattered, I bet his ego took a blow from being outsmarted by an insignificant Carja."

She giggled again. "Careful, Nil," she smiled; "keep it up and I might actually start to like you."

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" he bantered, wiping her forehead again.

Another chuckle…and then a snort, and she was laughing uncontrollably.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Oh, it's just…now I'm thinking of Sylens, but with all his knowledge coming out of his shoulders like disc launchers," she replied, still snickering. "And how satisfying it would be to take my spear and just start smashing one to bits…" Her smile twisted dreamily. "But you're the one who did that, not me. Wish I could've been there…"

"I don't think I smashed it," Nil shrugged. "Just landed a solid blow, that's all."

"If you see him again, land another," she told him. "Hit it as hard as you can. Cracking any part of that bastard is worth the effort."

"You really hate him," Nil noted, shaking his head in amazement.

"He deserves to suffer," Aloy stated. "So make him suffer, okay? Hurt him."

"Even if it might make you like me?" Nil asked.

"It'd be worth it," she said. "Very worth it…"

"Then, as you wish," Nil told her, refreshing the rag again. "Now, go to sleep, Aloy. Let the medicine work, if it's going to."

When she didn't immediately calm, he started humming the forgotten lullaby again, and that seemed to soothe her. Within minutes, she was asleep, and Nil allowed himself to lie down on his own bedroll and rest his head.

With any luck, she'd be well on her way to a full recovery by morning.