Warmth and softness surrounded Aloy as she woke: a feather mattress, silk-lined furs, and soft cloth, all perfectly balanced out by the solidness of Nil's muscled embrace, and it was hard to say which of those things was the most luxurious. For a few minutes, she didn't open her eyes, simply lying peacefully, feeling almost disconnected from her own body. When at last she cracked her eyelids, a few rays of light penetrating the log walls informed her it was probably late morning.

Groaning, she lifted her head to look up at her partner, finding his silver eyes already open, his lips curled into a lazy smile.

"Good morning, my love," he murmured.

"Hey," she responded sleepily.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"Fine, why?" she responded, blinking.

"You seemed troubled," he murmured, loosening his embrace to stroke her arm slightly.

"Just…tired," she mumbled.

"Hmm." His smile widened, his teeth flashing. "What did you think of last night?"

"It was…" Aloy swallowed, not needing to ask for clarification. "…nice. Good, even. But I would have liked to be able to kiss you."

He chuckled, almost ruefully. "I'm starting to think my studies were a waste of time," he remarked.

"I told you as much when you asked to take them," Aloy pointed out.

"Well," he sighed, shifting closer to her, "we'll see. I have more…interesting experiments I'm saving for the right time."

"I won't ask," Aloy muttered, and she moved to pull away. "Come on, we need to get going."

"You're always in such a rush," he chuckled, tightening his grip. "When's the next time we'll have a chance to rest in a bed this nice?"

"Probably never," Aloy admitted. "But we can't stay. I…need to find a waterfall."

"A waterfall?" he blinked.

"My birthday's in four days," she explained. "There's something I do every year on my birthday, and to do it, I need a waterfall."

"Why?"

"It just makes it easier," she answered evasively. "It's…private, Nil. But it's something I've done every year since I was little, it's the only constant I have in my life, and I need that more than ever this year. We won't find a waterfall in Dry Bones, our best bet is Deima territory, and it'll take us a couple of days just to get there…to say nothing of the chance of us running into a hunting party while we look…" She shook her head. "We can't stay."

Nil sighed, sitting up beside her. "There are plenty of streams and hills between here and Sobeck Ranch, I doubt it'll be too difficult to find a good place," he remarked. "We have that road, and with only one mount left to worry about, I'm sure we can reach the end of the ruins within two days - the Machines might chase us, but I can shoot while you steer. Let's take a moment while we can." He flashed his teeth. "Desire and regret, my radiant one. I think you'll regret not making the most of this luxury."

"Radiant one?" Aloy groaned, flopping back on the bed from where she'd half sat up. "That's new…"

"You are," Nil told her, and she cracked her eyes to shoot him a halfhearted glare that didn't diminish his grin at all. "After what you did last night, you can't pretend you aren't a wonder."

"I don't want to be a wonder," Aloy sighed. "I just want to be a person."

"You're both," Nil shrugged. "You're a wondrous person. Is that so hard to understand?"

"But am I?" Aloy asked, her heart sinking, and she let her eyes slide shut. "Or am I a tool created to fight off rogue sub-functions and maintain and restore the balance of life in this world?"

"This again?" Nil laughed. "Aloy, you are no one but you - not a tool, not a copy of someone else, just an incredible and powerful warrior who happened to come into being under unusual circumstances. Don't start thinking that being amazing makes you less of a person." She opened her eyes again, and he pulled away the sheets and furs, baring her naked body, before shifting to kneel between her legs. "You are extraordinary, just as you are. A person, a wonder, and all the more incredible for the fact that you're only human."

Aloy pursed her lips, wishing she could believe him.

Seconds passed, and slowly, the silence grew awkward. Nil didn't move, he was just gazing down at her, his silver eyes gleaming in the low light that made it into the cabin.

"…What?" Aloy finally asked him. "Why are you staring at me?"

"You're beautiful," he stated, smiling. "You know that, right?"

Her breath caught.

"All these medallions," he went on, a passionate edge lacing his tone, and he reached out and brushed his fingers along her body, tracing over a few of her scars. "Stories carved into your flesh…truly glorious."

"Wait," Aloy exclaimed, "you think I'm beautiful because of my scars?!"

"Of course," he chuckled. "Why else?"

"You are so backwards!" she groaned.

"I'd rather be backwards than sideways," he bantered, caressing more of the marks that covered her skin.

"What does that even mean?" Aloy sighed, exasperated.

"Well, in order to be completely backwards, I have to at least know which way forward is," Nil shrugged.

"Whatever," Aloy muttered.

Suddenly, for a brief moment, she thought of Helis, and wondered why Nil didn't make her think of the Terror of the Sun more often. His brutality, his single-mindedness, his adoration of her scars and contempt for her pretty dress, even the color of his eyes was so similar, yet she'd never felt haunted by a shadow of the man who had murdered her father while traveling with Nil. Why was that? Gazing into his eyes, she steeled herself and really tried to see Helis, only to quickly find that she couldn't, because even though Nil's eyes were almost the same color, there was nothing else in them that was like the vicious kestrel. Helis's eyes had been cold and dead, empty of all feeling, only showing enough that she knew he hadn't been a Humanoid; Nil's eyes had a constant sparkle to them, always burning with heat and passion and life - varying in intensity, but always vivacious, in ways Helis hadn't been. For all their similarities, there was something in their cores that made them drastically different.

Maybe it was the same with her and Elisabet.

That thought made her smile in spite of herself as she moved to sit up and pull away from her partner's touch. In response, Nil placed his palm on her shoulder and pushed her back down; his grip was gentle, telling her that he would let go if she insisted, but she gave up and lay back, sighing with irritation she didn't really feel.

"Scars are tougher than unmarked skin," Nil told her. "Every battle you've fought has made you stronger. And they all tell a story. Like…" He ran his eyes over her body slowly, then reached out and touched her forehead. "…this one here. How'd you get that one? It looks old."

"A Nora boy named Bast threw rocks at me when I was a child," Aloy told him. "Well, a rock. I caught the second one, and another child stopped him from throwing a third."

"Did you throw the one you caught back at him?" Nil chuckled.

"No," Aloy sighed. "I was tempted, but…I didn't want to validate him." Meeting Nil's eyes, she added, "But that was the day I decided that I would win the Proving and find out why I was made an outcast."

The tribeless hunter smiled at her, almost tenderly, before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to the old wound. Warmth poured through her from his lips, and she couldn't entirely withhold a pleasured sigh. "And…" he murmured, leaning back and assessing her again before touching a finger to her throat. "What about this one? That looks like it was close."

"Helis gave me that when he attacked the Proving," Aloy answered. "Until Rost got him to let me go."

Her partner's smile dropped at that, and he bent down and kissed the cut, then sat back up. "What about…hmm…this one here?" he asked, touching a thick ridge on her left upper arm. "How'd you get that one?"

"Some Lancehorns came past a brave trail when I was eleven, and Rost brought me to hunt them, for practice against a different kind of Machine," Aloy replied. "We were outcasts, so we didn't know about the Derangement; as far as Rost knew, Machines would only run away when they noticed a human nearby. I stumbled and alerted the Watcher guarding the herd, and tried to fire some arrows at the Machines before they ran, but instead of running away, they charged. I didn't quite manage to get out of the way." She smiled ruefully. "That was when I started learning to dodge."

Smiling warmly, Nil lifted her arm to his lips, kissing the old scar sweetly. "How about this?" he asked, tapping a mark under her shoulder. "Looks like an arrow wound. How'd you get that one?"

"I think you were there for that one," Aloy answered, craning her head to try to take a closer look. "That was one of the first arrows I ever took, I'm pretty sure…but I can't remember if I got it at the Proving, or the first bandit camp I cleared. If the latter, you were there for that."

"What a glorious day that was," Nil chuckled, kissing the rounded spot, and Aloy suppressed a shiver. "Hmm…Say, your right arm is a little bent," he noted, caressing her upper arm. "I never noticed before…"

"It wasn't like that before," Aloy told him. "That happened last night."

"How?" he inquired.

"To break the fabricator module, I had to dig my way inside the Leviathan's body," Aloy explained; "there was a tiny chamber around the module that I managed to squeeze my way inside. The box was designed to resist any damage, and to break it, I had to use my Icerail. Mine's modified by an Oseram tinker named Varga who works up in the Cut - it doesn't just freeze things, it also shoots freezing spikes. The spikes are powerful, but the knockback from shooting them is powerful, too, and as I said, there wasn't much space inside the Leviathan, I could barely position the gun just to shoot it. Even with my armor, the recoil hit my shoulder hard enough to break my bones." She softened and added, "If it wasn't for the dawn's omen mushrooms you found in the Cauldron, I wouldn't have been able to heal enough to keep fighting."

Nil blinked.

"Those herbs are powerful," Aloy said, "as powerful as Rost once told me they were. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough room inside the Leviathan to craft a splint for my arm to hold the bones in place while they healed, I had to just hold them in more or less the right position." She smiled ruefully. "It wasn't a perfect job. And now, firing arrows is a little trickier."

He chuckled. "Shame it was your arrow arm," he remarked. "If your bow arm was bent like this, it would be easier to keep it out of the way of your bowstring."

Aloy blinked, looking down at her slightly crooked arm. "Huh," she mused. "Maybe I should start teaching myself to shoot left-handed."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be fine," Nil smiled. "You always are. There are plenty of Machines in Dry Bones to practice on, you'll get the hang of shooting like this."

"I'll have to," Aloy murmured.

"You will," he assured her, flashing his teeth, and he leaned down and kissed the slight bend in her arm. Turning back to the rest of her body, he picked out a discolored patch on her chest. "What about this? This blotch here, what's the story behind it? It looks like a burn mark."

"The first Fire Bellowback I ever fought was corrupted, in a Corrupted Zone," Aloy told him. "I'd never fought anything like it before, and I wasn't prepared to avoid getting shot with fire. I was lucky to win that fight."

"More than luck," he remarked, kissing the reddened skin that hadn't faded back to her pale complexion in the months since she'd gotten it. "How about…this here?" he inquired, running his finger along a thick set of claw marks just below her left breast.

"I…" Aloy looked, thinking hard. "I…don't remember. Looks like a Sawtooth or a Ravager, but…I can't remember exactly when I got that one."

"You've fought so many battles they all blur together," Nil laughed, but he kissed the scars all the same, another spark striking the blaze in her veins. "What a life you've had. What about this one?" He tapped a ragged mark on her thigh.

"Oh." Aloy felt heat prickle her cheeks. "That one's not so impressive…"

"Tell me," Nil encouraged. "Tell me your secrets and I'll tell you mine, that was our deal, and I told you a secret last night."

Aloy sighed heavily, choosing not to point out that she'd told him one in return at the time, not to mention that she was telling him plenty now - at this point, the deal was more of a formality than anything, sharing with him just felt right. "My training wasn't just about hunting," she informed him; "I also had to learn to climb, rappel, slide down slipwires, balance on ropes, that sort of thing. Hunting's only half of the Proving, after all. It took some work to get the hang of it, but one day, when I was fourteen, for the first time, I was about to complete a brave trail perfectly, without any mistakes. I…got cocky, and jumped off the end of the slipwire a little too soon; I ended up thrown off balance, and my leg hit a jagged bit of wood sticking out of the final gate, it punched right through my leathers and my skin." She gave a rueful chuckle. "Rost was not impressed."

"And did you make a mistake like that again?" Nil inquired.

"No," Aloy replied. "It took me a couple more tries to get my first perfect run, but I learned that day never to assume success until the trial's over, no matter how certain it seems."

Nodding, Nil kissed the mark. By now, Aloy's body felt warm and tingly, heat pooling between her legs, but she still tried not to let on. "What about this?" he asked, touching a trio of lines on her stomach.

"Got that in my first encounter with a Scrapper," Aloy answered. Thinking back on it, something occurred to her. "I remember when I thought Scrappers were dangerous…"

"Hard to imagine now, huh?" Nil chuckled, and he kissed the old wound. For all her efforts, Aloy couldn't help but whimper as his warm lips pressed to her skin, and she felt the hot air of a laugh puff against her flesh. "And what about…this?" he asked wickedly, reaching down and caressing the thick scar on her left calf - a scar, she realized, that she hadn't thought about in over a week, it had stopped bothering her sometime during their exploration of Dry Bones and hadn't strained even under the stress of fighting the Leviathan. But what it meant was as vivid in her mind as ever, as it marked the turning point that led to this appraisal under her mate's eyes and hands and lips.

"Nil!" Aloy laughed. "You know how I got that one!"

"Remind me?" he smirked.

"You gave it to me," she smiled, shaking her head slightly.

"Did I?" he asked teasingly, his eyebrows raising. "Why would I do that?"

Heaving a tired sigh, Aloy relented and said, "We fought our first Annihilator almost two months ago; it was a hard fight, and we both ran out of medicine. The Swan Song function caught us off-guard, and one of the spikes managed to hit a weak spot in the left knee of my armor. I had nothing to heal the injury with, and it got infected. You took care of me for a week, trying to get me through it without medicine, but when I remembered the medicinal oils in my werak chieftain armor, you offered to cut the wound open and clean out the sickness. And you did."

He flashed his teeth, his eyebrows quirking almost expectantly.

"You cut me open, but only to heal me, and that was when I knew I could trust you," Aloy finished softly. "When you proved I had nothing to fear. That we were partners. That was when…I started to let you get close."

"I think we were close before that," Nil remarked, but he lifted her leg and kissed the thick scar he'd left there to save her life all the same. Then he kept kissing her, slowly trailing a line up her leg to her stomach, over her breast, her shoulder, her neck, then finally kissed her on the mouth, and Aloy reciprocated immediately, tasting him - their mouths both held traces of that slimy residue that seemed to result from eating sweet things, but Aloy was too far gone to care, and underneath it was still the honeyed-poison taste of Nil, sweet and noxious, addictive and dangerous. She already yearned for him, and she could feel he felt the same.

"Nil," she moaned, "not here…the mess…"

Growling, Nil wrapped his muscular arms around her and rolled under her, then sat up and turned, lifting her over to the wall opposite the one they'd used the previous night, pressing against her, his hands running down her thighs as she clutched him with all her limbs, allowing him to slide into her, groaning as his manhood filled her, spearing apart her inner walls and sending waves of bliss crashing through her body. Their mouths came together again, and she let Nil set the pace, thrusting his hips up slowly at first, then faster, harder, wilder, while Aloy worked to keep up, clenching her inner muscles around his length and gripping with her legs, head thrown back and slamming against the wooden wall as she lost herself in the ecstasy of her partner's touch, their closeness, the wild, dangerous passion of him, his love for her.

And as for danger, Nil released her mouth so she could heave for breath, then ducked down to her throat and bit into her pulse point, digging his teeth into her flesh as he kept going faster, plowing into her with all his strength. Aloy roared, waves of heat pulsing from where he bit her and slamming against the ecstasy reverberating through her core from his hardness inside her, colliding and exploding tenfold, destroying her gloriously from within. Blind, deaf, and dumb, Aloy cried out again and again, taking as much of him as she could and it was never enough, this would never be enough, nothing could make her feel like this. When she shattered, Nil was still moving inside her, and she rode it out, helpless to do anything but clutch him and scream, until what little awareness she had left was wiped away, leaving her in nothing but bliss.

In time, she came to, gasping for air against Nil's chest, feeling his heartbeat thundering against hers. As much as she would have liked to just revel in the aftereffects for a minute, she could feel his seed oozing out of her, and she grumbled and pushed him away, already prepared for her boneless legs to collapse as she hit the floor, dragging herself to her packs and pulling out another antidote - the one she'd taken last night would have worn off by now. Resignedly, she glanced back where she had been, seeing the residue left behind.

"So messy," she rasped when the bitter liquid had soothed her raw throat, still getting her air back, as Nil crawled over to her and pulled her against him. "Why's it gotta be…so messy…?"

"Kryse won't complain," Nil panted. "He said himself, he knew what we'd do here."

"Ugh…" Aloy shook her head, but pressed herself into Nil's embrace for a long minute.

While they sat there together, Aloy remembered dancing with him at the festival, how right it had felt to be with a bloodthirsty lunatic even when she was relaxing and celebrating in what she had believed was a safe place, and a thought crossed her mind. Nil was dangerous, but exposing herself to him felt right, because of that danger. Maybe she really couldn't live without it…maybe danger was part of who she was. But did that make her a person…?

"…Let's go," she sighed at last, when she finally felt like she could stand. "I need to find a waterfall, and you need to find more people you can kill."

He laughed and released her, rising by her side. "I love you," he told her as she went for the washbasins.

Smiling, Aloy glanced back at him, and as their eyes met, she felt an urge to say the same, stronger this time, words forming in her throat for a moment before she swallowed them, remembering again what he'd told HADES. I can't feel that way about him, she told herself firmly. "Come on," she said out loud, "let's clean up and get dressed."

It took three squares of woven grass for Aloy to feel clean enough to put her clothes on comfortably, and on a sudden inspiration, she used a fourth to scrub her mouth out, too. Once she was refreshed, her armor and packs all in place, Nil fully geared up behind her, Aloy opened the door to the cabin, only to find a small bag at her feet, along with a leaf of parchment covered in glyphs. Frowning, she bent down and picked up the page.

"Dear Hero Aloy and Champion Aren,
Thank you again for all you've done, we can never repay you for your deeds here at this year's Festival of the Harvest. From removing a dangerous man from the running for our tribe's leadership, to felling the new Leviathan before it could wipe us out, we are indebted to you endlessly. While stripping the Leviathan for parts, we found a number of powerful weapon coils and armor weaves; we will use most of these ourselves, of course, but we agreed that the best should be given to you, that you may continue fighting the good fight. Thank you again. On behalf of my tribe, the Corsair, may your seas stay calm, and your horizons clear of storms.
-Deputy Lanida, first mate of the royal ship"

"If she was really grateful, she could at least have called me Nil," Nil muttered in Aloy's ear, and she glanced back to see he'd been reading over her shoulder.

"She doesn't know why you call yourself that," Aloy pointed out, "and 'Nil' isn't really a name; you can understand why she wouldn't want to call you by that kind of title, don't you?"

His only response was an irritated grunt, and Aloy shook her head and bent down to open the small bag that had come with the message. Five weapon coils and a weave were tucked inside, and she took a coil out and tested it.

"These are strong," she remarked, struggling to pull it. "More powerful than even the ones we got from the Annihilators."

"You can have them," Nil told her. "I'm perfectly satisfied with the Voice of Our Teeth as it is."

"We don't know what else HEPHAESTUS might be making," Aloy pointed out, but she took out her weapons and started fitting them with the stronger coils, making sure each one went to its best use with the advantages they provided and which weapons she used most often. "And I can't incorporate weaves into this armor, old-world suits don't work with those." She smirked. "Guess we'll have to work it into your coat."

Another grumble met this statement, and Aloy straightened up, done with her work, the leaf of glyphs still in her hand. "Hey, your parents read glyphs, don't they?" she asked, already walking out into the space that was all but clear of any trace of the tribe that had celebrated there the previous day, save the blackened ash left behind by everything the Leviathan had burned.

"My mother does," Nil confirmed, following her. "She was my first teacher."

"I thought so." With a smile, Aloy dug into her pack of valuables until she found the wooden box holding the flower, which seemed undamaged, to her relief. Opening it, she nudged aside some of the packed grass to check on the carving, which also seemed safe, then folded the parchment until it was small enough to fit in the box and tucked it inside.

"What are you doing?" Nil asked.

"I think your mother would want to see a tribe thanking you for helping them," Aloy answered, stowing the box away again.

"My mother should not see any tribe, or any person, referencing me at all!" Nil snapped. "I'm not her son anymore, Aloy."

"Curse or no curse, a mother is a mother," Aloy stated. "She can't just forget you, Nil, she brought you into this world and raised you."

"And I'm sure she's ashamed of both of those things," he retorted.

Sighing, Aloy shook her head and chose to drop the argument, deciding instead to look around at what had just been a Corsair settlement. Very few traces of the tribe remained past the southern edge, even the marks in the dust were minimal, leaving the space feeling eerily empty, especially with the wall still standing.

"Did you ever find something to spend that last bag of coins on?" Nil asked as they reached the gap in the northern wall - a gap, Aloy realized, that the tribe would probably seal next time, open spaces like this were dangerous at this point in the Derangement.

"No, but I found another use for them," Aloy answered: "I dumped them into the Leviathan's fabricator module to sabotage it."

"Clever," Nil chuckled.

"But that reminds me," Aloy remembered out loud, and she glanced back at him. "What did you spend your winnings on? You never told me."

"I'm just waiting for the right time," he answered lightly.

They had reached the camp, with the one remaining Strider, and Aloy set to packing up her bedroll while Nil did the same. "Now is a good time," she told him.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "It could wait for your birthday."

"Nil," she growled, turning on him with a glare, "what did you spend your winnings on?"

Nil gave a heavy sigh as he finished stowing away his things, then stood and turned around, squaring his shoulders as he met her eyes. "Fine, then," he said; "I spent it all on you."

"On…me?" Aloy blinked, completely baffled.

"If you recall, I thought our time traveling together ended after the fight," he said, reaching into his bag. "So, I…had an artisan make this, something I could remember you by. I told myself that if I ever saw you again after that, I would give it to you, but…" He flashed his teeth. "Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that." And he held out his fist and opened it, revealing a round object in his palm.

Aloy stepped closer. "What…is it?" she asked, eyeing the shimmering disc tied to a length of knotted leather cord.

"It's a necklace," he answered.

"I can see that," Aloy snarked. "But after the fuss you made about my dress, there's no way you'd have a necklace made for me just as a decoration. This means something."

"It does," he nodded.

"…Okay," Aloy pressed after a moment, "and? What does it mean?"

"That's for you to figure out," Nil shrugged.

Scowling, Aloy narrowed her eyes at her partner. "You aren't asking me to marry you, are you?" she asked.

"No, no!" he assured her quickly. "Nothing like that! It has nothing to do with me at all. Just take a closer look; I promise you aren't agreeing to anything by taking it."

Still somewhat apprehensive, Aloy hesitantly reached out and picked up the pendant, lifting it into the light to get a better look.

Three or four lengths of leather cord knotted around each other, forming ropes that seemed like they'd been made rough-looking on purpose, before the knots ended and two single, thin lengths of cord protruded from either ends, obviously where they were supposed to be tied together to hang around a person's neck; at the exact midway point, the knots loosened slightly to thread through a metal loop attached to the pendant proper. Two small, silver swords curled around a convex disc of glass, point to hilt, forming a circle, parted only just enough at the top to leave room for the hook that attached to the cord. The glass itself was thick, and slightly tinted with shifting hues of color, like one of the oddities mentioned in the Carja healer's account of what doomed travelers had managed to find in the Forbidden West; when it caught the light just right, little flecks inside would flash a brilliant orange, as though sparks of fire itself had been captured in the material. Within the glass were a lot of other shapes, too, most of them metal - around the outside, tiny gold bits gleamed, which Aloy eventually managed to make out as being little sculptures of arrows and weapon coils. Closer to the center were fragments of typical Machine metal, and these were arranged as though they were being cast off from an explosion caused by the centerpiece of the pendant: an indigo blossom of night bloom, as if the flower had forced its way free of a metal casing just to unfurl its petals. It was beautiful, staggering in its intricacies and the amount of work it must have taken to get just right, and Aloy couldn't begin to guess why Nil had had it made.

When she turned to look at him questioningly, he flashed his teeth. "I worked hard with the artisan on the design," he told her, "and he had to drop all his other projects and work on it tirelessly for days, he barely managed to finish it before the Leviathan attacked. If I hadn't gotten tens of thousands of coins for killing Shands, I wouldn't have been able to afford it. But I think it turned out perfectly, and very much worth the price. Don't you?"

"What…is it?" Aloy asked. "It's beautiful, but…I don't understand."

"As I said, it was meant to remind me of you," Nil shrugged. "And I wanted to give it to you because we've been out here for a while, and you were getting frustrated with your progress on figuring yourself out. It's everything you are, in one work of art."

"Everything I am…?" Aloy looked over the pendant again, but only found herself even more confused. "But…why a necklace?"

"Your necklace of keepsakes inspired me," Nil admitted. "I was going to wear it until I had a chance to give it to you, for the same reason."

"I…" Aloy swallowed hard, blinking back a sting in her eyes, touched that she meant so much to him. "That's…sweet of you, Nil. But I don't understand how it's…me."

Nil sighed. "I'm starting to think you don't want to know who you are," he remarked.

It took everything Aloy had not to flinch. "I do!" she insisted defensively. "I just…Never mind." Shaking her head, she grasped the thin ends of the cord where the knotted lengths ended and tied the jewelry around her neck, leaving the pendant loose enough to hang just below the hollow of her throat, where she tucked it under her armor. "Thank you. It's beautiful."

"You know I don't care about that," he chuckled, but he was grinning.

"We should get going," Aloy sighed, feeling Nil's gift hang cool against her chest. "And yes, I know how you feel about that word, but I really do need to find a waterfall in the next four days."

"You're in charge, Aloy," Nil assured her. "I'm only here to have your back."

"Thanks," Aloy told him with a small smile, and she walked over to her single remaining Strider.

The metal beast pawed at the ground and snorted, then lifted its head, and when Aloy saw its blue-lit eye, she remembered the malice in the red glow of the Leviathan's gaze, the genuine hatred she'd thought she felt. Could HEPHAESTUS really be watching through the eyes of his children?

She felt her smile fade. "I'm…sorry about your sibling," she told the Machine, thinking of the Strider she'd used to get back to the Leviathan. "I really don't like having to fight your kind…I'll try to get you back to your herd now, okay? In one piece. Will you…be free again, if I get out of range back on the other side of Dry Bones?" It occurred to her that she was being silly to ask a Machine a question, and she shook her head and vaulted onto its back.

"Everything alright?" Nil inquired, hauling himself up behind her.

"I just thought…When the Leviathan looked at me, I thought I could feel HEPHAESTUS's hatred," Aloy admitted. "It…I need to repair GAIA so this fight with the Machines can end."

"Not yet," he told her. "You can't face her until you can tell her who you are, so she doesn't call you Elisabet."

"That's…" That really was the heart of the matter, but as much as she didn't want to have to face her maker without the kind of inner peace Nil had, she knew that was selfish. "I need to end the Derangement. We got lucky last night, that my idea worked and that everything happened like it did. The Corsair won't be so lucky next time, to say nothing of the other tribes. What will HEPHAESTUS make now that he knows even Annihilators and Leviathans can be taken down by human hunters? This can't go on."

"Sylens is working on it," he reminded her.

"Yeah," she murmured, guiding her Strider around where they'd camped to follow the wall back to the road. "And…we did get something useful out of the Leviathan."

"What's that?" Nil asked.

"Once I had the working fabricator module in front of me…"

While they were free of attacking Machines, Aloy explained to Nil everything else about the Leviathan fight, though the fact that the fabricator modules Sylens would work on were still in her possession weighed heavy on her. Nil pointed out that other Cauldrons might make more Annihilators to strip for parts, so maybe Sylens could find another module, but that was far from comforting.

For better and for worse, though, they didn't get much time to talk on the road through Dry Bones - it seemed like there were more Machines around than there had been before the festival, and since Aloy didn't have time to waste on fighting them all, she and her partner set up a system for fending off the attacking metal beasts without losing their mount: Aloy kicked her Strider constantly, urging it to run as fast as possible, while Nil sat turned around behind her and fired arrows at the Machines that gave chase. When Aloy glanced back to see how bad their pursuit was, she discovered that the Voice of Our Teeth really was as powerful as Nil had claimed before they'd fought the first Annihilator, felling Ravagers in three arrows at most, and the Machines that chased after them didn't manage to gather that many numbers. She felt bad about all the unused parts that were being left behind, but there simply wasn't time…

When night fell, they were still a good ways away from the edge of the ruins, but not so far that Aloy felt like giving up on her mad dash, and she pressed on into the night, keeping her mount going as fast as she could, even though her whole body was getting sore from the rough ride, especially her legs. They made it back to the influence of ARTEMIS and DEMETER under the light of the mostly-full moon, which wasn't too alarmingly high behind the thickening clouds, with only four Machines still keeping up their pursuit. The hunter-killers thinned out once the ruins proper were past, and Nil was able to fell their last foes and give himself a moment to breathe.

"Are we going to stop tonight?" he asked her after he fired the last arrow.

"Of course," she replied. "I just wanted to at least get back to GAIA's domain so we can let this Strider go."

"Won't it be attacked by any Machines that come across it as long as it's overridden?" Nil questioned.

"Yeah…" Aloy had stopped kicking her Strider once the last hunter-killer was down, and now she pulled back on the cables until it slowed to a walk. A few trees stood here and there, but it would take a little work to find a suitable camp. "Let's just leave it here," she sighed, bringing it to a full stop and sliding off its back, stumbling a little as her aching legs hit the ground. "I doubt there's a camp within range, so hopefully it'll go back to its herd now that it's back inside GAIA's domain."

"Does that - oof! - really matter?" Nil groaned, grunting with pain as he also climbed off the Machine to stand on his feet.

"I don't know," Aloy answered, feeling slightly miserable. "I just want to hope it's not cut off from its herd forever." She couldn't help giving the Strider a pitying look as she patted its long nose. "I'm sorry," she told it. "I hope you can go home."

"It doesn't feel anything," Nil laughed.

"Well, it's part of something that does," Aloy stated. Sighing, she turned away. "Come on, let's find a good camp and set up. We're back in Deima territory, so we'll need to be ready for them."

It took an hour of walking to find a copse of trees that could provide a reasonable shelter given lookouts and enough traps. They hunted fresh meat from ARTEMIS's children and cooked it themselves, just like before the festival, and Aloy found that it was comfortable to fend for herself, though she did miss the exotic foods she'd sampled with the Corsair. Over dinner, she asked Nil about what sorts of foods the Carja made, and he offered descriptions of things that sounded vaguely similar, leaving Aloy with the resolution that she would buy food from Brightmarket when she had to go back east.

Since it was her turn, Aloy took first watch, and she waited out the hours while Nil slept, feeling alert and, oddly, at home. Safety and luxury weren't things she resented, but this sense of danger was just…familiar. And there was comfort in that, in its own right.

~o~

The following morning dawned cloudy and gray.

"Looks like rain," Aloy remarked to Nil as she got up.

"Shame it's not your birthday now, you wouldn't need a waterfall in that case," he teased. "Or would you?"

"No," Aloy mumbled, offering a halfhearted laugh, and she packed up the camp and all the traps she'd set, then tapped her Focus and brought up her map. "Okay…it looks like there are some streams a little ways northwest of here," she said. "That might be a good place to start. If nothing else, I can make do with a river if I have to."

"What exactly is it you need a waterfall for?" Nil inquired as they started walking.

"It's…" Aloy hesitated. It was silly, but Rost hadn't particularly approved, told her most of the tribe didn't do that sort of thing unless it was a special occasion, and even if a Carja-born probably wouldn't feel the same way, it just felt embarrassing to talk about. "It's private," she managed at last.

"If you say so," he chuckled.

As the first drops of rain fell from the sky, Aloy thought about why she couldn't just tell him. Certain things felt so inherently personal to her, and yet…surely, it was just because of who'd raised her, the circumstances of her upbringing. How much did Rost's teachings define her identity? Not at all, she reminded herself, Nil's parents' teachings had directly contradicted his identity and he'd still grown up to be who he was. But then…how much did her own identity really matter, if it didn't influence everything she did and thought and felt? Nil always made it seem so simple, but, of course, nothing was ever simple for her…

Suddenly, a dart whizzed out of the now-pouring rain and struck her armor, knocking it out with one blow, the whine of the disabled shield ringing in her ears. On reflex, she dove behind a tree, narrowly avoiding more bolts that came flying towards her from under some nearby bushes that were hard to see in the downpour. Rain…of course, the Deima hunted in the rain, as well as at night. Already snarling with ferocity, Aloy tapped her Focus, but only a couple of orange shapes lit up - the rest must have still been using their cloaking modules to hide. Getting as good a read as she could on how far away they were, she drew her Sling-

"Aloy."

A hand on her arm made her turn to Nil, and she saw blood dripping down the front of his right arm.

"Medicine," he spat out through gritted teeth.

Alarmed, Aloy fumbled for her pack, pulling out a vial of night bloom and a sprig of limberweed; Nil took both, downing the former first, and with some consolation that he would survive, Aloy dove out from behind her cover, dodge-rolling twice before lobbing a shock bomb towards the attackers. A couple of exclamations met her ears over the pounding rain, and more shapes than the sound implied flickered into existence.

Humanoids. Disgust rose in Aloy's chest, and she drew her Stormslinger and started firing blasts, hoping to reveal as many of the unnatural husks as she could, remembering what Orns had said about how the abominations could use cloaking modules better than people capable of feeling pain. It was almost funny, how both HEPHAESTUS and ELEUTHIA were waging war on humanity in their own ways despite being created to nurture life - at least HADES had the excuse of being the extinction protocol.

More arrows came flying as Aloy dodged around, trying to just upset the elusive hunters' disguises more than actually do damage, glad she'd kept her usual Deima-hunting weapon set handy - Sling, Blast Sling, Champion Bow, Stormslinger. No need for regular arrows against people who moved so swiftly, precision would be of no use here. Precision is not enough; survival demands perfection. That lesson, ingrained into her since childhood, kept her moving, lobbing more shock bombs into the fray wildly, trying not to even aim in hopes of catching her attackers off-guard.

A sudden lobby of bolts knocked out her armor, and one got through, immediately releasing a numbing sensation as it buried itself in her flesh. "Damn it!" she hissed, diving behind some cover to gulp down a vial of night bloom. This did nothing, and with a groan of irritation, she bit three leaves off a sprig of limberweed and swallowed, feeling a blossom of warmth that washed away the numbness, though she kept in mind that she would only be able to keep fighting for so long. Hoping that at least most of the hunting party had been revealed, she started lobbing regular bombs at the flickering shapes in the gray haze of the downpour, adding explosions to Nil's arrows as the Deima at last began to fall. When Aloy dared to tap her Focus to check on the number of hunters still present, she saw a good few shapes, much to her surprise - maybe she'd upset the cloaking modules of the entire group. Tagging them now, she started firing shock arrows at where the cloaking modules were usually situated, but aiming so precisely with her slightly-lame arm was too difficult to figure out in the heat of the fight, and she soon gave up and drew her Blast Sling again, flinging more bombs instead.

Arrows flew, not all of them from the Deima, and then there was a sudden stillness save for the rain. Panting, wondering how much time she had left before she got sick, Aloy stood up from where she'd been half-crouched and tapped her Focus. One orange shape lay on the ground; everything else seemed to be dead. The last Deima started to rise, and a blue shape passed Aloy by - Nil, about to take out the last hunter. But then Aloy scanned the lone survivor.

"HOSTILE HUMAN
Deima Hunter"

"Nil, wait!" she exclaimed, running forward, and she grabbed the hand in which he gripped his blade. "Stop! They're human, I can use them!"

When Nil hesitated in surprise, she turned and drew her spear, then slammed the butt of it into the chest of the rising Deima, knocking them back to the drenched ground. Holding out a hand to keep Nil back, she walked over and crouched down beside the dazed hunter, who seemed to be a boy.

"You," she said, trying not to sound too harsh. "Deima hunter. What's your name?"

The blond youth's eyes widened, and he shied away, lips pressed together.

Aloy sighed. "Can you at least understand me?" she asked. "I know you're human. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

A moment's hesitation, and then the boy nodded once, almost fearfully.

"Okay," Aloy said, and she drew her hunting knife and reached forward, grasping the tough blue material of his shirt. Not waiting for anyone to ask, she started sawing open the cloth to reveal the cloaking module on the boy's chest, then cut the wires. "I'm taking this so you can't play any tricks on us," she told him, palming the device for a moment before tucking it into her pack. "I'm going to let you live, and in return, I need you to do something for me."

Her captive had gone almost entirely still, but something sparked in his blue irises, and Aloy felt a sliver of hope.

"I need you to pass on a message to your tribe, the Deima," she stated, trying to speak clearly, raising her voice to be sure she could be easily heard over the rain. "Tell them to stop sending hunters after us - we've killed too many of your people already, and I don't want to have to kill more. I would like to extend an offer of parlay; if there is some way I can meet with your people peacefully, there's a lot I'd like to discuss with them, with no more bloodshed." She raised her eyebrows. "Can you tell them that?"

Another nod, sharp and quick, was her answer.

"Good," she sighed, and she stood up and stepped back. "Then go tell them. Now."

For a moment, the boy just lay still, right where he was. Then, all at once, he scrambled to his feet, turned away, and dashed off into the storm, quickly fading from sight.

A little niggle had started brewing in Aloy's stomach, but she turned to Nil and said, "I'm sorry for ruining your kill, but I needed-"

"I understand," he assured her. "This is something you've intended to work towards for a while now, and he was your best chance of achieving it. Pursuit of a goal is something I can respect."

"Thanks," Aloy told him gratefully. "And hey, at least there was a clear winner before I stopped you this time."

"True," he chuckled, flashing his teeth, though his expression was pained.

"Limberweed?" Aloy asked.

He nodded.

"Me too," she admitted, pain already building in her gut.

"I'm gonna-"

"Go!" she told him quickly.

Nodding once, he turned and lunged into a bush, the sound of him voiding his stomach barely rising over the hiss of the rainfall, for which Aloy was grateful. Gathering her hair and braids in one hand, she knelt down in another bush, breathed against the building sickness, then finally followed suit, prepared to pay the price of taking limberweed.

But for the chance they'd gotten to send a message to the Deima, a few hours of throwing up was worth it.