Ikrie couldn't rightfully say when the great city began to loom ahead of them. There was the sense of something ahead. She reckoned that it came around about the time when the orange-brown earth began to give way to greenery. Greenery like Ikrie had never seen even in the warmest Banuk summer. There was a lush quality here which the cold of home must chase out, she thought.
Or maybe it was that the sun was kinder here, like the Carja maintained. The clan who raised Ikrie had always insisted that it brought weakness. The Carja were swaddled in warmth by their home, they said, even as adults. But Ikrie was long since tired of that talk. Not least as they always said the same about friendship – and look where that had got her and Mailen.
"Ikrie?" They'd slowed to a canter, and Aloy's eyes were on her. Damnit. Getting lax again.
"Sorry, Aloy. I got lost in thought."
Those bright eyes showed some glimmer of an emotion which Ikrie couldn't quite place, before Aloy assumed a reassuring smile. "You're far from home, Ikrie. I can understand you having a lot to think about."
She quirked an eyebrow. "Most Banuk think of that as absent-mindedness. Weakness." She couldn't lose that self-reproach, it seemed.
"A lot of Nora think the same," Aloy told her. "But I'm not most Nora, and unless I'm mistake, you're not most Banuk."
They passed a few trade caravans along the way. Those were also new to Ikrie; back in the Cut, trade was limited to what a shaman could strip from a Machine, and what the hunters could carry.
"There's a little market up ahead," Aloy explained, when they left their Charger with a herd a little way downhill from the road. "Entering the city doesn't take as long as it used to, but it still takes a fair while."
"So there are shards to be made just selling to the newcomers!" Ikrie shook her head. "How big is this city?"
"Well," Aloy said as they crossed a bridge over a small, fast river. There was a high arch opposite, and what looked like another, much longer gate stretching out of sight. In between, there was a grand sprawl of people, crates and barrels. This was already as large as a mid-sized werak, and Ikrie could only wonder what lay beyond.
Aloy seemed to want to take her mind off that and set her at ease. "How does the Carja stuff feel now?"
Ikrie waggled her hips a little. "I like the freedom of movement, even if it's still peculiar to feel a breeze on my belly. How long did it take you to get used to that?"
"A fair while, and I still need an hour or so every time I cross the border from a colder land. At least you know the armour's good, though. I wouldn't have kept it so long otherwise."
"Do I look as good in it as you?"
"Better, I'd say. You look quite dashing."
Ikrie's heart skipped a beat, and she bit her lip to restrain the eep which nearly burst from her lips. "Careful now. Much more praise from you, and my head won't fit under that arch."
Aloy put her spear away as they near the guards, and Ikrie followed suit. "You mentioned feeling a breeze. How about other people's eyes?" The Nora woman gave Ikrie a slightly guilty look. "I don't know if I shouldn't have said before."
"Well, what can we do at this point? Back up and I change back into my furs?"
"I've got some Carja silks," Aloy said. "They're not protective like the Blazon gear, but they'll give you more coverage."
"Thanks, but it's OK," Ikrie smiled. "I'm aware my belly's almost reflective, I'm that pale, but I can live with a couple of looks." She punched Aloy lightly on the arm. "If it gets too much, I can always hide behind the woman who led the battle for Meridian." Not to mention that she had Aloy's assurance that she looked good. That counted for a lot.
A long bridge brought them to… Huh, another bridge. And a temple, by the looks of it. A priest outside exchanged a wary look with Aloy, and seemed to be on the verge of cursing her, to judge by his venomous expression.
Ikrie caged her curiosity until they were well past him and out of earshot. "Is he an old friend?"
"An old pain in the butt," Aloy said. "That's Abiding Jahamin. I had a set-to with him over people having access to the temple. He had a problem with the relatives of Oseram visiting the place they died to build."
Well, that's as grim as I'd expected. Ikrie knew her history, and she couldn't help but linger on the sacrifices which the Carja were once known for. "He did look… old," she said, turning an unpleasant thought over in her head. "Was he involved in the sacrifices?"
"I'm afraid so," Aloy said, her face grave. "He's the last of the old guard here, for what that's worth. Avad would've got rid of him by now, were it not for fear of causing unrest. It's all a difficult balance, here in Meridian. Reform gradually, or drive the traditionalists over to the Carja in Shadow."
"Compromise." Banuk tended to make it a dirty word, and Ikrie says it as such now. "That man blessed the slaughter of my people and yours – as much as the Nora are your people," she added hastily. "He would've overseen them being cast into pits to be ripped apart by Machines, and called it holy."
Aloy halted, staring at her with a new tenderness. "Did you lose someone? Or more than someone?"
Ikrie hesitated, gritting her teeth. "No direct relatives… that I know of. But I never knew my parents, and every Werak lost someone to the Red Raids. For all I know, they or an uncle, aunt or grandparent were taken and sacrificed to the sun's thirst. Or maybe all of them."
"Oh, Ikrie," Aloy breathed. "I'm so sorry, I hadn't thought of that at all."
"It's alright."
"No it's not." Aloy moved closer. "Not alright at all, and of course you should feel that way." Her eyes were soft, and a little colour rose in her cheeks. "Can I at least give you a hug? For all the good it'll do."
"I think it'll do some good," Ikrie said, and managed to smile back at her. Her breath hitched a little when Aloy put her arms around her, and she let a couple of tears slip from her eyes.
There were Banuk sayings about tears, about how to cry was to be punished by the tears freezing on one's face. But they were a long way from the Cut and Ban-Ur now, and no Chieftain or Shaman had authority over her any longer. So she let the tears out.
Aloy patted her shoulders. "Just let me know when you're good to carry on, Ikrie."
With a sniffle, Ikrie moved her head to meet the Nora's eyes. "I think I'm good now, Aloy."
She still got a gentle squeeze before Aloy let go, and they started walking again. Now she saw the city rising before them, and the vineyards and fields which stretched out in the valley below.
"By the Blue…" she breathed. "This is unlike anything I've seen." The city seemed to spread its arms wide before her, ready to engulf and embrace her. Ikrie felt a strange urge to run towards it, to sink into this strange, fantastical new place.
One thing nagged at her though, and she had to bring it up before the city overwhelmed her and the thought was lost. "Aloy, if you don't mind me asking, you talk about the Red Raids very coolly. Strangely so, given how every Tribe suffered. How's that?"
"Well," Aloy paused to frame her response. "I wasn't raised in the Nora tribe, not fully in by any means. As an Outcast, my world was Rost and one or two Outcasts we ran into on occasion. And Outcasts are meant to hold themselves apart, even from their fellow exiles. The Derangement… coincided with my birth, and the Red Raids that came in response happened some years after that."
Why did she pause like that? Like there's something else under the words, but she's nervous to say them. But Ikrie let Aloy continue.
"What even Rost knew of affairs beyond the Embrace was limited, after he became Outcast. Before, even-" another plainly pregnant pause "-and he was on his own for years before I was handed to him. After that point, a baby Aloy rather dominated his life. So the first I really knew of the Red Raids was when I went to Mother's Heart and watched a Sun Priest dodging lobbed fruit. I had no idea why the Nora would be doing such a thing because back then, I wasn't really Nora. In a lot of ways, I'm still not."
Even more mysteries, Ikrie thought. You're like a Cauldron or a ruin. She shook her head. Alright, that last one's a bad comparison. But you've got depths that I can't see, and I wonder just what's down there. She let it lie for now. It wouldn't do to offend her lone guide and would-be sponsor in the Hunters Guild.
And more than that, she already thought of Aloy as a friend. Maybe, if she let herself get hopeful, not just a friend. Looking at her produced a feeling in Ikrie's chest, like someone tugging gently at her heart. She knew what that meant; she used to feel it when she saw Mailen, and the mere thought of her caused Ikrie a sharp pang.
All the more reason not to speak without caution, and offend the girl you like.
"Then you've lived the outsider life more than I ever have," she said. "I assumed that you'd lived in a settlement 'til something… happened."
"Like Rost was cast out, you mean? And I went with him as a child?" An enigmatic but sorrowful expression flitted across Aloy's face. "It really wasn't like that. Maybe, sometime, I'll tell you about it." For the moment, they pressed on.
/¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\
Meridian had seemed vast from a distance, and that was before they got into the packed, noisy streets. It was hectic enough that few enough of them even got a chance to recognise Aloy.
The thoroughfares were full of people stood by stalls and on top of crates, all bellowing repetitive cries. Priests? Worshippers? Then she managed to pick out individual words, and realised she had it wrong.
"Finest silks, gorgeously coloured! Your elegance will be assured!"
"Oseram plate, hard enough to stop a Sawtooth bite!"
"Weapons out of the Shadow, deadly as they come!"
"Potions, traps, arrows!"
These are vendors. People who live solely by buying or selling, maybe never even touching a bow or sling. Bizarre. She could well imagine the scorn, and the words which her people would've had for this, were they here to see it.
But Ikrie found it rather hard to begrudge them. Certainly not when it made for a spectacle like this.
Aloy caught the look on her face and grinned. "It overwhelmed me the first time. Quite a bustle, isn't it?"
Ikrie nodded, letting Aloy lead her through the crowded streets. Then her stomach rumbled, and that spurred her into speaking up. "Uh, Aloy," she said. "I'm rather aware that we didn't hunt anything on the way here, and my belly's feeling kinda hollow."
"Fear not," Aloy smiled over her shoulder. "There's a solution right ahead. It'll just take a few minutes and a handful of shards."
"Solu-" But then a sizzling noise impinged on Ikrie's hearing, and with it came the smell of roasting meat. Pork, goose, chicken, goat… and spices, so many and plenty of which she couldn't hope to put a name to.
"Three skewers each please," Aloy said, stopping at one stall where little chunks of meat and vegetable turned slowly over coals. "A mix, if you please."
"That'll cost extra, my lady," cautioned the vendor, though it was a rather half-hearted warning. Ikrie guessed that from her and Aloy's garb, they must look like they were doing quite well for shards. And besides, this was the woman who'd led the defence of Meridian against the armies of Hades.
"Fine by me. I've got a friend from the Banuk here, who's not experienced Carja cooking before."
The vendor looked past her to Ikrie, and perked up noticeably. "Oh, well then we must aim to impress indeed!"
Carja flamboyance was going to take some getting used to, Ikrie thought, but Carja cuisine was already to her taste. The meat was tender and spicy, but not unreasonably so, the vegetables pleasantly crispy.
"How is it?" Aloy asked.
"Good. Mm hmm, very good." She didn't say anything else for a while, devouring the meat and vegetables before Aloy found a bin for the wooden skewers. "Ah. So when do we get to the Lodge?"
"Not before we clean you up a little," Aloy told her, grinning amusedly. ""And you don't have a handy cloth on you, do you?"
"I may have neglected to pack one." Ikrie licked her lips and found that yes, there was a fair bit of sauce and juice there. "Oops."
Aloy drew closer. "No good just licking, it's halfway down your chin." She produced her own bit of fabric and delicately wiped around Ikrie's mouth, one eyebrow cocked in mock-exasperation. "Mucky pup."
Ikrie couldn't help but giggle, which made her feel deeply foolish until Aloy let out a chuckle of her own. "So, Hawk, am I presentable now?"
"I should think so." Aloy winked. "Follow."
