Horizon Loop Escape

by BbK2442

An Elster's dying story and a Bioresonant goddess's last wish results in a certain Eule and Star couple ending up seeing a new horizon very far from home in a world of primitive tribes and beasts of steel.

7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Off to See the High Matriarchs of Mother's Heart

Eule woke up to darkness. For a panicked moment, she thought she was still in the nightmare, with shadowed High Matriarchs screeching at her in the warped voices of the things that used to be her sisters. It quickly became apparent to her though, that the reason for the darkness was due to a warm, fleshy thing covering her eyes. A gentle feeling of the warm, fleshy thing with her free hand (i.e. the hand that wasn't holding Star's hand) led her to deduce that it was a Gestalt's foot, and that Gestalt had a very small foot indeed.

Eule smiled and carefully lifted the foot out of the way. This revealed that little Äloy in her slumber had somehow managed to rotate a full 90 degrees. The foot in Eule's face had been Äloy's foot, while Äloy's head was resting on Star's shoulder, with her left hand currently in the process of grasping a lock of Star's short, almost chopped plastic-laced black hair, clutching it almost like a favorite toy.

The sight was so ridiculous and adorable that Eule burst out giggling, unable to contain herself.

"I see that someone is awake now," said the very familiar male voice in an equally as familiar Kitzehian dry tone.

"Ah, good morning, Rost," Eule said as she pushed herself upright to look in Rost's direction, stopping as she watched Rost in the middle of cooking breakfast like normal…only to suddenly realize something. "Rost, did you do the laundry last night?"

"Yes," Rost simply said.

"And now you're cooking breakfast?" Eule pressed.

"Yes," Rost continued to simply say.

"…Rost, did you get any sleep at all last night?" Eule asked in a worried tone.

"Yes," was all Rost apparently had to say as he continued to stir his pot full of something delicious that was wafting its scent out to Eule.

"Let me rephrase that: did you get adequate amounts of sleep last night?" Eule pressed once more.

"…Yes."

The noticeable pause between Rost and his "Yes" made Eule look more closely at his eyes. She was sure she saw the beginnings of bags underneath his eyes from lack of sleep, and was now decidedly worried about his health.

Rost looked in Eule's direction at her scrutiny. "Eu-le, I appreciate the concern, but I am fine. I simply had many chores I needed to do last night, and there was simply not enough night for me to sleep in."

Eule grimaced at him. "Couldn't your chores have waited another time?" she asked.

"No, they couldn't," Rost explained, and simply left his explanation at that as he continued his cooking, before suddenly saying: "At least you look well. It would appear that salvebrush does work on Replikas as well as humans…or at least, it works on you."

Eule sighed. "Rost, you can't just avoid the topic by changing subjects like that–wait, what do you mean?" she asked in surprise when her cloned brain finally processed what he said.

Rost pointed up at his own cheek. "Your cut there has healed up well," he simply said.

Eule instinctively reached up to the scab on her cheek which she knew was there last evening. Except now that she was feeling that cheek, there was nothing. No scab. Not even the remnants of a scab. She recalled that it was flaking a bit, but it couldn't have flaked off that fast, right?

"No, not normally," Rost replied when Eule voiced her thoughts out loud to him, still stirring the contents of his pot. "But salvebrush and certain other medicinal plants have healing properties. As I said, I've known Braves to heal completely from serious injuries faster than normal after taking some salvebrush berries."

"But this quickly?" Eule asked incredulously.

Rost nodded. "Salvebrush is a potent medicine," he simply explained. "And thankfully, it appears to be a medicine that both you and Star can take advantage of."

As Eule marveled at this salvebrush and its seemingly magical powers of healing, a pair of yawns alerted Eule to Star and Äloy's awakenings, and she turned in time to see both of them sitting upright, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. With Äloy still clutching Star's hair.

"Good morning, you two," Eule said cheerfully.

"Morning, love," Star said just before another carbon steel teeth-revealing yawn.

"Murnin', E-lu-le," Äloy muttered, mangling Eule's name in the most adorable way Eule had ever heard anyone mangle her Replika model's name before she looked up at Star. "Did you sleep okay last night?"

"Hmm…mm-hmm," Star "said".

"No nightmares or anything?" Äloy asked further in a worried tone, gently tugging at the lock of Star unit hair she was still grasping.

"Nope," Star replied, finally feeling capable of whole words. "Had a weird dream about Vanguard telling me that I'd gone soft and was ordering me to run laps around B7 like she used to, and Eule was running with me for some reason, but I wouldn't really call that a nightmare. Guess you really are a good anti-nightmare countermeasure there, kid."

"I don't know what 'counter-measure' means, but thanks," Äloy said with a grin, before turning to a smiling Eule. "What about you, Eu-le? Did you have a good dream too?"

"Umm…"

Äloy suddenly developed a worried look. "Oh, no! Did you get a nightmare now too?"

Eule rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "It wasn't that bad a nightmare. It wasn't really scary. It was just mostly…sad." Upon hearing Äloy and even Star make questioning sounds, Eule elaborated: "I dreamed that I was putting on a ballet performance for the High Matriarchs, with Star doing all the music herself somehow. It was good enough for Teersa, but not enough for the other two, and so they drove us from the Sacred Lands entirely. Away from you and Rost, Äloy."

Äloy gave Eule a very worried look now. "That is a scary nightmare, Eu-le," she said with a nod of sympathy.

Eule took Äloy's free hand with her own. "It is, but this time, it's a nightmare I can do something about."

"We can do something about, dear," Star said warmly as she gathered both Eule and a giggling Äloy in a hug. "Uhh, just as long as I don't have to actually do any music like in your dream. I can't actually play any instruments."

Eule giggled and gave her lover a kiss on her lips. "That's okay. I don't think these High Matriarchs of the Nora will be swayed by my dancing either, no matter how well I perform. Except for likely Teersa, but even she admits that she's a bit of an outlier there."

Star laughed. "Yeah, Teersa's a good one. I honestly wish she was running Rotfront instead of our 'beloved' Daughter."

Eule grimaced, still unsure how to handle all this blunt criticism of her nation's leaders given how such blunt criticism usually resulted in…trouble.

"Eh, but that's all in the past now," Star said with a wistful smile. "Now here in the present: I smell breakfast by none other than Rost–whoa, what happened to you?"

"Nothing," Rost replied to Star's worried question.

"He's apparently been up for most of last night doing chores," Eule explained.

Eule had the pleasure of seeing Äloy pout at Rost in a most adorable manner. "Rost, you know you need to sleep," the now-responsible little Gestalt girl insisted.

"After today, Aloy," Rost countered just as insistently. "Especially after this breakfast."

Indeed, breakfast that morning was delicious. It was a sort of sweet and savory rice porridge made with chopped carrots, green onion…er, springbulb, and chunks of fatty boar belly with a distinct hint of honey in it. Still yet more strips of boar belly, rubbed with spices, were roasted on the kitchen fireplace, and served on Machine armor plates still impaled on their skewers. With more hot green, er, bitter leaf tea as a beverage and some dried blueberries as dessert, it made for a wonderful and very filling breakfast.

Which they finished just in time for a knock at the door.

Rost opened the door, and kneeled his customary kneel at High Matriarch Teersa.

"Didn't even wait for me to tell you otherwise, eh?" Teersa scolded in a playful tone. "Yes, please stop kneeling to me, and yes, for All-Mother knows how many times I've said so, you may speak. Both to me and my travel companion for this trip."

Eule was confused at Teersa's mention of a "travel companion". Her confusion was quickly resolved though when Rost stepped aside to allow Teersa to step in, followed closely by someone else Eule had never seen before.

That someone was a Gestalt woman, standing tall and unyielding. Her skin was several shades darker than Erika's skin had been, and her hair was as black as any Replika's hair. Her eyes were a very dark brown that was almost black, and Eule could see what looked like scarring on the exposed parts of her arms peeking out from her clothing: signs of a hard life of battle. That look was reinforced by the armor she wore, consisting of what looked like carved Machine armor stitched onto a leather and fur shawl plus Machine armor-plated arm and leg guards, and by the weapons she bore: a War Bow worn across her shoulders, and a spear like Rost's in basic design but differed in the details, from the exact bit of Machine steel that formed the blade to the bit of fox tail attached as decoration in place of Rost's preferred feathers.

All that would've already been an intimidating sight by itself, but then there was her facial expression. Eule saw a hard look in her eyes, and a face that looked like it could've been carved from stone. Whereas Rost was a soft mountain that you could hug, this Gestalt woman looked like a marble statue of a Falke standing high on a pedestal, distant and unapproachable.

Indeed, everything about the Gestalt woman's expression reminded Eule of Commander Falke, even though this Gestalt woman was nowhere near as tall. Somehow, her very being managed to make up for the lack of physical height.

It made perfect sense to Eule why Rost lowered his head to the Gestalt woman, even disregarding the outcast status. Indeed, Eule stood up in respect, and she saw Star do the same out of the corner of her vision. Even Äloy stood up, standing as tall as her tiny frame would allow.

The Gestalt woman ignored them at the moment, looking only at Rost. "Rost, you have done more than enough for this tribe to not have to bow your head to me in your own home," the Gestalt woman declared with the force of command, despite the kindness in the words themselves.

"And you have done more than enough for this tribe for me to not at least show some respect towards you, in turn," Rost countered, raising his head to finally look at the Gestalt woman with a slight smile.

The Gestalt woman snorted at Rost as a reply before casting her stern gaze onto Eule and Star. "So, you two are the strange outsiders who performed the impossible feat of somehow slipping past all of my Braves between the borders of the Sacred Lands and the Embrace without anyone noticing," she said to the Replikas in a voice that was almost but not quite an accusation.

Eule bowed respectfully low to the Gestalt woman, hoping to defuse the situation with politeness. "Good morning, I am EULR-S2324, or Eule for short."

"And I'm STAR-S2325, but you can just call me Star, since I'm probably going to be the only Star unit you'll ever meet," Star greeted in turn, before tilting her head at the Gestalt woman. "So uh, anything we can call you by?"

"You two will call me War-Chief Sona," War-Chief Sona declared in the tones of a god.

Eule gulped, standing stiffly at attention now. "Yes, War-Chief Sona," she said crisply, as though she was on parade in front of an inspection.

Eule had always hated those because she felt like she and her sisters were on display for the inspectors to admire, like toys in a shop window. Or as Februar had muttered darkly once: "Like meat in a butcher's window." Fortunately, while Sona's tone invoked that pose, her gaze was directly only at Eule's eyes and not certain other parts of her, which made only Eule uncomfortable in a less uncomfortable way.

"Hmph," was Sona's only response, which didn't tell Eule much at all, especially when Sona's face was as impassive as the aforementioned marble Falke statue. "Are you two ready for the journey to Mother's Heart yet?" Out of the mouth of anyone else, it would've been a question. Out of Sona's mouth, it was an order with only the barest hint of a question in it for politeness's sake.

Before Eule could reply though, Rost spoke first. "War-Chief Sona, I would like to give Eu-le and Star some things before they leave for Mother's Heat, if you don't mind? As well as give them some travelling clothing, since I doubt the clothing they brought with them is dry enough yet to wear."

"Oh, the laundry," Eule noted with a grimace.

Rost nodded with a frown. "I was hoping that we would have enough time for the dry mountain air and the spring heat to dry your clothes out, but I had also been thinking that we had a few more hours than this."

Eule gave a hopeful smile in reply to that. "Maybe it did have enough time to dry?"

Alas, a walk outside to the side of the house showed Eule's and Star's Protektor uniforms hanging on lines of braided Machine muscle wire being used as clotheslines along with Rost's and Äloy's clothes, with what looked like carved wooden clothespins. Not the ones with springs that she knew from Rotfront and Sierpinski, but elaborately carved U-shaped pins in the shape of what looked like various animals, from birds to goats, with the prongs of the clothespins being shaped like actual animal legs. They were so adorable that Eule almost didn't blush in embarrassment at the sight of her and Star's underwear hanging right out in the open for anyone to see.

Almost.

"Well, at least everyone now knows what color our bras and panties are," Star noted dryly.

"Your what and what?" Rost asked in a confused tone.

"Those," Eule pointed at the aforementioned articles of underwear.

"Hmm, I was wondering what they were, and I still wonder. What can possibly be the purpose of those small strips of clothing?" Rost asked with beard-stroking wonderment.

"…Wait, you don't know what they are?" Eule asked in surprise. Upon seeing confusion on not only Rost's and Äloy's faces, but also Teersa's face (Sona's face was as impassive as before), Eule blushed and she realized that she had to explain this to everyone. "Those pairs of cup-like clothing are bras. They're…meant to be worn over women's breasts to support them. The…triangles of clothing are panties, and well…they're meant to be worn over the crotch for women."

Teersa cocked her head at Eule and then the underwear in turn. "Hmm, what a peculiar custom you have there, Aula. To wear something specifically to cover your breasts and crotch only? How odd."

"And with such fragile-looking pieces of clothing too," Sona noted in a tone that Eule could only describe as dismissive.

Eule grimaced at hearing that confusion and dismissal respectively, but for the moment, she was only interested in feeling if her clothes are dry. Alas though, none of her or Star's clothing were remotely dry. They weren't exactly sopping wet, but they were clearly far too damp to wear without risk of getting a chill.

"Yeah, I don't think I want to wear these until they're a bit drier," Star noted as she felt her own uniform between her black robotic fingers. "And I don't think you want to wear your uniform either, since well, white cloth and wetness really doesn't go together well."

Now that Star pointed it out, Eule realized that her white blouse had indeed become a bit translucent given all the moisture still in it. She blushed at the idea of having to wear that, with her bra on full display for anyone to see.

Thus, she turned to Rost. But before she could open her mouth, Rost beat her to it.

"Yes, you may borrow those clothes, as well as suitable travelling clothes for the trip to Mother's Heart," Rost offered.

"You know, come to think of it, whose clothes are these?" Star asked, curiously fingering the rough cloth of the dark-colored animal skin shirt, decorated with blue stitching in circular patterns, she was wearing.

"That is a spare set of my clothes, actually," Rost explained. "As a hunter, I often get my clothes damaged in one way or another, so I like to keep several spare sets of my clothes just in case. I didn't explicitly keep those extra sets for guests, but it seems to be working out well that way regardless, especially due to your…height."

"Huh, are these your clothes too? They seem a bit…different," Eule asked, looking back and forth between Star's clothes and her own.

"Actually, your clothes are a set of clothes I'd made for Aloy to wear when she grows up," Rost admitted as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I'd intentionally made them much larger than normal so that I could stitch them tighter to fit Aloy no matter how tall she could reasonably grow. I used them instead of my spare clothes because even a glance made it obvious that I have a far larger frame than you do, Eu-le, so I was hoping that Aloy's adult clothes would better fit you. At least, I presume they do, hopefully?"

"Oh, they do indeed. It's very kind of you, Rost, to allow me to borrow Äloy's clothes for a short while. Thank you," Eule said with a warm smile at the soft mountain of a Gestalt man continually demonstrating just how big his heart was.

"Ooh, so that's what I'm going to wear when I'm big," Äloy said in a fascinated tone as she examined Eule now much more closely. "It's pretty on you, Eu-le."

Eule smiled just as warmly at the little Gestalt girl who'd found her way into her plastic-laced heart. "Thank you too, Äloy, for letting me borrow this for a short while."

Äloy grinned at Eule. "Nah, you can wear it for a long while, if you want. It won't fit me for years, so I'll have plenty of time to grow up into it."

Eule grinned at Äloy in turn. "And I thank you for that as well."

As Eule and Äloy's grins at each other turned into giggles, Eule heard Rost clear his throat to get their attention. "Perhaps then we might complete your outfits for the journey? We Nora would consider what you're currently wearing to be undergarments. Suitable for wearing in a home or lodge, but not quite suitable for travel."

Eule turned to look at Rost in surprise. "Wait, this is what you call 'undergarments'?" she asked in shock. When Rost nodded and made an inquiring noise, Eule blushed and continued: "Um, those bras and panties are our version of undergarments."

"Truly?" Rost asked as he looked back and forth between Eule and the aforementioned bras and panties hanging on the clotheslines. Upon seeing Eule nod in confirmation, he stroked his beard in another gesture of deep thought. "Wouldn't that be a bit cold though?"

"Very cold-looking," Äloy agreed, stroking her chin in an adorable mimicry of Rost as she also examined Eule and Star's underwear.

"Well, we are supposed to wear those at home anyways, so…," Star trailed off, a light blush decorating the biocomponent skin of her face.

"Hmm, then you must have very warm homes in this Eusan Nation tribe indeed," Rost concluded, much to Eule's blushing embarrassment. "Still, that's a topic for another day. For now: your travel clothes. Unless we might have time for your–what did you call them again, 'uniforms'–to dry out?"

Teersa waved a hand in amiable dismissal. "Oh, I'm sure we can spare the time–"

"With all due respect, High Matriarch Teersa, we don't," Sona interrupted, apparently treading a fine line between respectful and annoyed in her tone. "The trial is in only a couple of hours, and I do not want to be the one to explain to Lansra and Jezza why we're overly late."

Teersa breathed out in a resigned sigh. "Oh well, the War-Chief has spoken. Perhaps then you might want to hurry, Rost?"

Rost nodded in just as resigned agreement. "Yes. Come then, Eu-le, Star. We have clothes to put on."

---

A single question from Rost for the Replikas ("Do you value durability or comfort?") and a short time later, Eule and Star were dressed in their new travelling clothes.

Eule had answered "Comfort", and so now wore an animal skin "jacket" over the upper part of her "undergarments", with a multi-part "skirt" hanging from her hips to her upper knee. The jacket was unadorned soft leather, but the skirt had an alternating pattern of blue and red threaded into the rims of the leather in cloth threads. A length of thick, blue Machine wire held the jacket together, while the skirt was held together by a leather belt, which was also perfect for mounting her old Eusan Nation canvas ammo pouches (which Rost had returned to her and Star from his belts), her medical satchel (still with the pair of repair patches and the small pile of 4 Focuses in it), and her Type-75 "Protektor" pistol in its holster on. There was also a pair of what Eule could only describe as "leg warmers" wrapped around her lower legs, and was made of a combination of netted cloth and raccoon fur. Rost had explained that they were to help obscure the sound of footsteps, making them useful for hunting. Eule hadn't planned on going on hunting for this trip to Mother's Heart, but she did appreciate the look. Needless to say though, the moccasins that were supposed to be worn with this outfit did not fit on Eule's peg-like feet, and so were left off.

Examining herself in the side of a metal pot (still the closest thing Rost had to a mirror) also gave Eule a chance to examine the image of her face reflected in it. It was still the same face that looked back at her last evening, but now the scab was well and truly gone. There wasn't a scar or even so much as a mark left. Eule made a note to herself to gather more of these salvebrush berries later. If they're this potent, then they could be a good substitute to the repair patches once they've both been used up. At least, for their biocomponents. She was certain that their limbs would need something other than medicinal plants to repair, but that was something she could worry about in the future.

Meanwhile, Star had answered "Durability", and so she now wore a…mantle(?) made of bristly fur-covered boar hide that wrapped around one of Star's shoulders, fell down to her other side to cover the thigh there, before looping back around to her shoulder. Said mantle-like clothing was secured to Star with a cloth sash, and a pair of leather belts, from which a stiff rectangle of leather hung down to cover Star's other thigh in a half-skirt, as well as Star's own Eusan Nation pouches and her Eu-K508 S "Einhorn" revolver with its revolver. Really, the only things that were missing from Star's outfit were the armored parts of the outfit (including the plates of Machine armor that were normally sewn into the stiff leather half-skirt), and the boar head. Otherwise, Star would look like she was wearing a clone of Rost's normal clothes. Minus the leather footwear though. If they didn't fit Eule, then they definitely didn't fit Star.

"Huh, you look beautiful, Eule," Star said, look at Eule up and down. "Like a huntress stalking her prey in the wilderness."

Eule smiled at the compliment. "And you look most handsome, Star," she said, looking Star up and down in turn. "Like a warrior about to stride into battle against a mighty foe."

"And you both look so pretty!" Äloy said loudly. "Like, like…like pretty Nora wearing a bunch of new clothes and making everyone look at them and say 'Wow, they're so pretty!'"

Eule and Star stared at Äloy for a few moments before bursting out into laughter, with Äloy following suit shortly after.

A cough from Rost suddenly returned both Replikas and his little girl to reality with squeaks from all three of them. "I know you three are feeling playful, but I still need to give Eu-le and Star more things, starting with these."

Rost handed Eule and Star each a backpack: the framed backpacks from their "adventure" yesterday, in fact. The only difference though is that instead of being empty, the backpacks were stuffed full of something. Something heavy, from the feel of them.

"Hopefully, you won't need these for your trip, but…better to be prepared," Rost said. "Eu-le, I placed the Shards taken from 3 Watchers. 2 of the Watchers' Shards are from the ones Star slayed on that first day, while the third is from the Watcher you took down just yesterday.

Star, in your backpack, I put the bones, muscle wire, Sparkers, and other parts from those 3 Watchers. Eu-le can't carry the Shards and the parts, so I hope you don't mind that I distributed the parts to your backpack?" Rost asked.

"Ok, that I don't mind, but why all this right now?" Star asked.

"It's…just in case," Rost said.

Eule looked at Rost strangely, since he was most definitely avoiding her and Star's gaze. "Rost, what aren't you telling us?" she asked worriedly.

Rost breathed out a sigh before answering, which heightened already increasing Eule's anxiety. "I don't know what will happen at this trial. Something like this has never happened before among the Nora. Yes, we have allowed outsiders to enter the Sacred Lands and even here in the Embrace for the Carja and Oseram trade missions. But never before have we ever had to deal with outsiders who have somehow entered the Embrace without anyone giving permission or even noticing the intrusion, and yet have been peacefully living here for days without doing anything. It's unprecedented, so I have no idea how the High Matriarchs aside from High Matriarch Teersa will react to this, and so I want to prepare you two for the worst."

Eule gulped. "What is the worst?"

Rost sighed. "The High Matriarchs deciding that you and Star are too much of a threat to be allowed to stay, and so sentence you two to immediate expulsion from the Sacred Lands altogether."

Eule was starkly reminded of her nightmare from last night. To hear that it was a possible result of today's trial made Eule's plastic-laced heart sink into the pit of her reactor.

"That's the worst possible outcome though," Rost quickly said. "I highly doubt High Matriarch Jezza would just agree to a punishment that severe in a single trial, so there's no need to worry about it to what you're likely thinking of."

"Yeah, we're just preparing for the worst, is all," Star also quickly said. "Better to be prepared and not need it, than need it and not be prepared, after all."

Eule smiled at her lover and at Rost, even if a bit wanly. "I hope so. I truly do."

Thus, Eule accepted her voluminous backpack from Rost right after Star did…and then suddenly realized that once more, she was violating the Rule of Six with her 7 items now.

"Umm…," Eule muttered as she set down the backpack onto a table to bring her item total back down to 6 to try and sort out how to fix this conundrum.

"Eu-le," Rost suddenly said, making Eule nearly jump and look back at him with a questioning sound. "I know you have your tribe's custom and that you feel the need to follow it, but…would it be possible that you could overlook it just this once? Just temporarily? You might need some of the things you're carrying, and you being stuck with just your medicine pouch, your 'pistol', a single box of your 'ammo' for that 'pistol', a bow, a quiver of arrows, and a backpack might be inconvenient if you need anything."

Eule was so distracted by his suggestion that she overlook the Rule of Six that it took her a moment to register what he just said. "Wait, what bow?"

Rost's reply was to walk over to the table where his unfinished War Bow rested, pick it up along with a quiver full of Shard-bladed arrows, and walk back over to Eule to hand it over. "This bow. It's yours now," he simply said.

Eule immediately waved her hands in protest. "Wait, what?! I thought it wasn't finished?!"

"It is finished," Rost corrected. "It's just missing ornamentation: the things that make the bow feel like it belongs to the hunter. I can't put that on your bow, Eu-le. You are the one who must decide what to put on it. Or not, if you don't like such things. It's something that's free for you to decide. Otherwise, this War Bow will work perfectly fine."

"But…you're just handing it to me?" Eule asked. "How much is it? I can use those Shards to pay you back for it–"

"No," Rost said firmly. "Not this time. If the worst comes to pass, you will need every Shard you have. And if it doesn't, then we can talk about it after today. So please, take it for now, and don't worry about paying for it."

Eule looked at the War Bow Rost was still holding out, and sighed before taking it and the quiver. After attaching the quiver to her new leather belt, she examined the War Bow…or rather, her War Bow now. It was obviously much larger than her Protektor pistol, and it was also much heavier, but not as heavy as she thought it would be. Judging from the weight she felt when she hefted it, it was only just over twice as heavy as her pistol…while being nearly 4 times as long as said pistol, amazingly enough. For something so big to be so light was something that still amazed her even after handling and firing a War Bow very much like this just yesterday.

Eule ended up idly plucking the bowstring, both feeling the metal of the braided Machine muscle wire making up the bowstring as well as hearing the faintly metallic sound of it being plucked. Almost like a guitar, really, before something occurred to her and she stopped as a result.

"Um, Rost? Doing this won't damage the bowstring, will it?" Eule asked, thinking about her misconceptions around dry-firing her pistol that Star clarified.

"No, it shouldn't," Rost replied, before tilting his head in thought for a moment. "Although I would strongly advise against actually drawing the bowstring and releasing it without an arrow attached. That can damage or even destroy virtually any bow."

Eule nodded in acceptance along with Star.

"Okay, no dry-firing bows. Got it," Star noted.

"Oh, that reminds me," Rost said before climbing up the ladder to the second floor, and returning with the Sharpshot Bow to hand over to Star along with yet another quiver full of arrows. "You take this too, and again, don't worry about paying me back for it. It definitely suited you yesterday, and so may it serve you from now on."

Star also clipped the quiver onto one of her new leather belts before grasping that massive Watcher-limbed Sharpshot Bow. "Thank you, Rost. I won't forget this," Star said seriously.

Rost simply nodded in reply.

"Don't worry, Eu-le, Star," Äloy insisted with a determined look in her eyes before hugging both Eule and Star via their mechanical white bird-like legs. "It will be okay. Both the All-Mother and your Red Eye will be helping you. I know it."

Eule simply returned the hug in comforting silence. She didn't trust herself not to break down right now, so she instead used Äloy's warm contact to brace herself. Even when War-Chief Sona called from outside for them to hurry up, it still took a moment before Eule finally broke the hug along with Star and headed outside to join up with Teersa and Sona, and thus finally begin the long walk to Mother's Heart.

---

The journey to Mother's Heart didn't seem like it was going to take that long. Especially not when Sona insisted that they all go down the slope of the mountain instead of taking the road in order to save time. Eule at first had worried about Teersa's physical condition, but the elderly Gestalt woman soon proved that looks were deceiving in her case, since she weathered the trek quite well the entire time.

Still, even with that shortcut taken, Mother's Heart was still some distance away with their walking pace. Thus, there was still time for some calming conversations, as Teersa demonstrated. Eule didn't know if their friendly High Matriarch was genuinely interested in learning about Rotfront cuisine, but Eule and even Star were more than happy to participate in the conversation. Talking about the various dishes Rotfront produced, which included sausages of all kinds, Rotfront's red barbecued pork, and the innumerable varieties of seafood that came from deep beneath Rotfront's subsurface ocean helped alleviate a large part of Eule's stress and worries about this upcoming trial. A part of Eule did wonder if Teersa might've chosen this topic on purpose specifically to do just that, but even if that was the case, it didn't matter either way. It worked all the same.

Alas though, Eule got a significantly colder reaction when she attempted to make small talk with Sona.

"Attempting to sway me via conversation will be pointless, since I will not be the ones deciding the results of this trial," Sona replied, not looking at Eule and still with that Falke-like stoic face.

Eule looked down at the ground as she walked at that reply. "I wasn't, really," she said with a sigh.

It was some moments later though when Eule was surprised by Sona saying: "Actions tell a person's character more than any words can ever hope to. By your actions and your mate's then, you have already more than proved what kind of people you both are."

Eule stared at Sona for several moments trying to figure her out. The words alone could mean anything, and unfortunately, Sona's face was still the same marble Falke statue it's been since Eule saw her. Not even a Eule's power of facial expression reading could tell anything from that.

"What Sona means is that she likes the fact that you both risked your lives to save Nora children," Teersa interjected with a grin.

"Oh," Eule squeaked, surprised but happily so. She now peered even more closely at Sona's face to see what her reaction was to Teersa's comment.

Sona's face appeared to be as impassive as before, but now Eule could swear that she could make out a very, very, very faint blush darkening her chocolate-colored cheeks that she was fairly certain wasn't just her imagination.

"Anyone who would do such a thing for a child, much less a Nora child, is someone who has proven herself what kind of person she is," Sona said, her voice still sounding like a Falke's, but there was a subtle hint of softness to it.

"Heh, someone's feeling vague about her compliments now, isn't she?" Star teased.

Sona's only reply to that was a scoff, not even deigning to answer Star's teasing.

Eule smiled at Sona, but then something occurred to her. "By 'Nora child', do you mean Teb…or do you also mean Äloy?" she asked curiously.

It took several moments for Sona to answer; moments that made Eule worry about it before Sona finally spoke.

"The outcast child was named according to Nora tradition, the ceremony was conducted and blessed by a High Matriarch, and the name Aloy itself was blessed by the All-Mother. Thus, Aloy is a Nora. She may be an outcast, but she is a Nora outcast. She is just as much Nora as Teb is, and to believe otherwise is to go against the will of All-Mother herself," Sona said with the firmness of a Falke unit in full battle armor, before she at last turned to look Eule in the eye with her piercing gaze. Indeed, Eule could easily imagine that it was Commander Falke turning her gaze upon her instead. "Why did you risk your life for Nora children then, Eu-le of the Rotfront tribe? You are an outlander, with no connection to the Nora. No profit to be gained from it. So why?"

A small part of Eule wanted to shrink from that intense gaze, so Falke-like it was, but the rest of Eule stood her ground, gazing back with her a determination as fiery as the color of Äloy's hair.

"I did it because children were in danger, and also because she's Äloy," Eule answered. "She isn't just some Gestalt child to me. Not anymore. She is Äloy, and I will risk my life for her over and over again to keep her safe."

Eule kept up that eye contact with Sona for several moments as they walked along a surprisingly well-maintained dirt road, with mechanical blue eyes staring with dark brown organic eyes.

Eule was eventually rewarded with a very slight smile from Sona; the slightest smile she had ever seen on anyone, even on Rost. Nothing more, nothing less. Eule merely smiled back at Sona in reply, but more broadly and far more warmly.

Sona then broke eye contact with Eule in order to make eye contact with Star. "I would assume that you risked your life for those children because of your mate then?"

"Well, to be honest, my thoughts did go that way at first," Star admitted, prompting Eule to look at her lover with a bit of surprise and sadness before the Security Technician Guard Replika gave her lover a grin. "But now though? The kid's grown on me too. She's…a little ball of joy and sunshine, you know? I feel like I can forget my past around her, and really start living in the present with Eule. So yeah, I'll fight anyone who tries to harm a hair on Äloy's head, and if it means taking a hit or two? Well, we combat Replikas can take a couple hits if we need to."

To be honest, parts of what Star said made Eule worry a bit, but she could tell that her lover's plastic-laced heart was in the right place. Metaphorically and literally.

And judging by Sona's small nod before returning her gaze forward, it appeared that she agreed with Eule as well.

---

After only a 38-minute walk according to Eule's internal clock, the group came across a wooden archway flanked by wooden stakes driven almost haphazardly into the ground and bound by blue Machine wires. The archway itself lacked any door, and instead, seemed more ornamental in nature rather than defensive, judging by the intricate carvings on the base of the poles making up the archway, as well as the wooden figurehead above them, resembling the long-extinct deer Eule had seen in another of the nature documentaries she'd seen with Star.

The archway turned out to lead onto a series of wooden bridges lashed together by more blue Machine wires and secured by wooden railings lashed by a combination of blue Machine wire and rope so densely and in such intricate patterns that Eule wondered if it was also ornamental in nature in addition to being functional. The bridges were so narrow that only two people could walk side-by-side across it at any point, so Teersa and Sona ended up taking the lead while Eule walked next to Star. A look over those railings revealed a raging river far below, firmly indicating why the railings were there to begin with. A look further ahead revealed a pair of watchtowers in the distance overlooking the bridge, indicating that the Nora took their defenses seriously. Meanwhile, other wooden arches partially covered the bridges, seemingly as both a decorative measure and a practical one to provide some cover during rain.

The bridges eventually ended at another wooden archway, but this one was as different from the first archway as night was to day. It had a proper gate, and it had a pair of armored and armed Brave men standing guard on either side of that wooden gate, but they did little more than give a sense of scale to that gateway, for it was enormous. The doors themselves were at least three times the height of the Braves, with the arch above those doors towering higher still. The gateway was so big that Eule could easily see that a Mynah could've walked through it with plenty of room to spare, such was its size.

The massive wooden doors set in the gateway were standing wide open right now though. The Braves standing guard stood straighter as the group approached, slamming the butts of their spears into the ground and looking very much like Star units on guard, despite how short they were compared to the actual Star unit approaching them. Teersa waved happily to the Braves as she passed by, with Sona nodding at them in the same motion. Eule ended up bowing briefly to them out of politeness, while Star gave a jaunty wave to them. The Braves though didn't react, trying to look as impassive as their War-Chief as the group passed them by, and Eule and Star were now finally in Mother's Heart.

Immediately, Eule was struck by the appearance of Mother's Heart. The buildings were all wooden timbers resting on stacks of flat stones being used as foundations and lashed together with more of the blue Machine wire that the Nora seemed to love using for construction. A few of the buildings were single-story, but Eule was surprised to see that the vast majority of them were two or even three-story buildings, with baskets of plant foods lying on buildings' porches, and smoked and/or dried animal carcasses hanging above most of said porches. The Nora clearly valued building up large stockpiles of food, hopefully meaning that few, if any, ever had to go hungry.

Torches made of wooden stands with metal bowls on top stood everywhere along with fire pits, albeit unlit at the moment, suggesting that Mother's Heart was fairly brightly lit even at night. Other things also stood everywhere: strange Machine heads with a single eye and rotor-like antlers stood atop wooden poles. They looked exactly like the dummies of the Grazers Rost kept in the house's yard, which suggested that's what these were. Eule had no idea why these mounted Grazer heads were everywhere though. Totems, maybe? She couldn't even begin to guess.

Fortunately, there were far more understandable things around in Mother's Heart: people. Specifically, Gestalts all dressed in the manner Eule had come to know of the Nora through Rost and Äloy. They all wore clothing made of a combination of animal skins, cloth, and Machine armor sewn onto those animal skins. The crowd was also all staring at Eule and Star, chattering all the while.

Fortunately, Eule detected little to no hostility in many of those stares and voices. Just curiosity and excitement, as though the Replikas were the most exciting thing that had happened to Mother's Heart in a long while. Which, given how the Nora (and likely this land) had never heard of Replikas before, that might very well be the case.

Unfortunately, Eule could detect suspicion and worry in quite a few of those stares and voices. They were probably the ones either most worried by the presence of new outsiders in general, or by Eule and Star in particular due to how strange they were compared to what Eule presumed where the normal Gestalt outsiders. Those were the ones that made Eule the most anxious and worried. It was only Star's presence by her side that allowed Eule to remain as outwardly calm as she was.

So simultaneously entranced and worried was Eule by the sight of Mother's Heart and its people that she almost didn't notice the small blur dodge through the crowd and leap at Sona with a high-pitched cry of "Ambush!"

Thus alerted, Sona let her spear fall against her shoulder, and caught the small blur in a gentle hold, revealing said small blur to be a little Gestalt girl roughly Äloy's age. Unlike Äloy's pale skin though, this little Gestalt girl had skin as chocolate-dark and hair as Replika-black as Sona, and judging by the similarities in her appearance to Sona, Eule could hazard a guess that this was probably Sona's young daughter. The fact that the dark-skinned little Gestalt girl was grinning widely at Sona only added credence to that theory, as did her words.

"Aww, you defeated my ambush, mother!" the dark-skinned little Gestalt girl said in a similar lack of indoor voice to Äloy, still grinning all the while.

"Vala," Sona said in a chiding tone. "Remember: ambushes don't work if you shout 'Ambush' just before you do it."

"Ooh, okay. I'll remember that for my next ambush," Vala said happily.

"And for the record, don't ambush me while I'm escorting a High Matriach and her…guests. Mother is very busy with work right now," Sona said seriously as she finally placed her daughter back on the ground.

"Okaaay," Vala said in a tone that made Eule giggle, doubting the sincerity of her agreement. That giggle made Vala finally notice Eule and Star, her eyes widening at the same time as her mouth falling open. "Whoa, you're tall, and you're taller! Are you two the weird outsiders everyone has been talking about lately?!"

"Yes, I believe we are those outsiders, unless there are more of us?" Eule asked, maybe a bit hopefully.

"Nope, didn't hear anything about that," Vala said blithely, before pressing on as she darted around Eule and Star, examining them. "Wow, your legs really are weird, kinda like Watchers but kinda not? Oh, but you also have weird shiny black stuff on your face, nose, and ears too! What are they? Are you really part-Machine like what everyone's been saying–"

Whatever Vala has been about to say was interrupted by Sona picking Vala up under both arms, leaving Vala hanging from Sona's hands, looking like a cat being held by its forelimbs.

Sona then looked around, before catching sight of a dark-skinned Gestalt man approaching with a dark-skinned Gestalt boy of maybe no more than 13-14 years old. Sona held out Vala to the adult man. "Keep watch over Vala for me, Van. Make sure she doesn't get into trouble," she said sternly.

Van, presumably Sona's husband/mate, laughed. "You mean even more trouble than she's already gotten herself into?"

Sona snorted. It was the most amused sound Eule had heard Sona make so far, before she wordlessly handed Vala to Van.

"No, I want to talk to these outsiders some more!" Vala whined as she struggled and thrashed in Van's gentle but firm grip.

"Hush and behave, Vala," Sona said, with a tone of exasperation in her voice suggesting to Eule that Sona had given that lecture many times to Vala before, with seemingly little to no effect. "Why can't you be more like Varl? He's quiet and well-behaved."

Indeed, the young teenaged boy named Varl did appear to be the quiet and serious sort. Eule however noticed that his dark eyes kept darting over to Eule and Star, as though he was surreptously trying to get a look at them without his mother noticing. Eule's smile at him causing him to deliberately look away, as though trying to not to draw attention to himself, only confirmed Eule's amused suspicion.

Amidst Vala's pouting, Van gave Eule and Star his own curious look before turning to Sona. "I suppose we should let you get back to your duties then. Before Vala figures out how to break an adult's hold by herself," he joked.

Sona snorted once more. "I don't doubt that will happen one of these days, but thank you for managing Vala for me, Van," she said, with the faintest hint of softness to her voice that made Eule smile at her and Van.

Van in turn smiled warmly and broadly at Sona. "Love you too, Sona," he said, giving Sona a quick kiss on her cheek (and thus confirming Eule's assumptions) before walking away with a still-protesting Vala in his arms, and a silent Varl trailing behind him who still looked back curiously at Eule and Star. Eule gave Varl a goodbye wave, and her biomechanical heart was warmed by Varl giving her a wave in turn.

"Looks like someone's not as cold as she looks, eh?" Star noted, grinning at Sona.

"I have no idea what you mean," Sona said with as much dryness as Rost could put out, prompting a giggle from Eule that caused Sona to turn her dry gaze onto her in turn.

"Oh, believe me. When in private, Sona can be as warm and as loving as any mother," Teersa happily noted, earning her Sona's dry gaze as well, which Teersa happily shrugged off.

Sona sighed. "Now to the hall. Before any more interruptions plague us," she declared before walking off up a path that led further up into Mother's Heart.

Teersa, Eule, and Star ended up following Sona out of implied command. Funnily enough, a large portion of the Nora crowd also followed along, apparently eager to see what was going to happen next. Eule might've been worried, if not for the fact that much of the initial suspicion and worry of that part of the crowd seemed to have faded. It seemed that the little bit of street theater convinced most of the suspicious parts of the crowd that Eule and Star weren't of any threat, and so they now treated the Replikas more as potential sources of entertainment. Eule wasn't entirely certain about that, but at least it wasn't as stress-inducing as active suspicion and worry.

It helped that Eule recognized a few faces in the crowd. She spied a small face topped with braided blond hair peering out from the side of her mother's hosen: Minali, if Eule recalled correctly. A smile and a friendly wave to the little Gestalt girl gifted her a shy smile and small wave in reply, confirming that it was indeed that same little Gestalt girl who'd been brave enough to stay and admit what Bast did to them.

Speaking of Bast, Eule also spied him standing with that young Gestalt woman from their second day in the Embrace who she assumed was his mother. Said mother was staring with a curiously intrigued face, in stark contrast to the shocked look Bast was giving her, apparently not expecting to confront the target of his accidental rock throw so soon. Eule clearly remembered what Bast intended to do to little Äloy, so she only gave him a polite smile.

Eule did notice Star grinning at Bast though, exposing her carbon steel teeth, which caused Bast to instantly turn pale, turn around, and run as fast as his little legs could carry him; much to the puzzlement of his mother. Eule knew that she shouldn't be feeling satisfied at seeing Bast be terrified by her lover, but it was hard not to considering what he could've done to Äloy with his thrown rock.

The last face Eule recognized though was waving enthusiastically at her and Star, a wide grin on his youthful face. Eule waved back at Teb and replied to that grin with a bright smile of her own, happy to finish off the recollections with a happy one. And judging by the just-as-enthusiastic wave Star gave back to him, her lover was feeling the same.

The trek up into Mother's Heart gradually took the group higher up. Apparently, Mother's Heart was built on its own little mountain in the midst of all the mountains surrounding it. It was almost a climb up the log and stone-paved path to where this hall laid, but when they finally reached it at the summit of Mother's Heart, Eule thought it was more than worth the climb.

The hall of Mother's Heart was an enormous castle-like building. It was the same wooden construction lashed with blue Machine wire as the surrounding buildings, but on a much larger scale. It had to have been at least 4 or even 5 stories tall, with a watchtower built into the left side that towered over even the hall itself. Right in front of the hall was a raised wooden platform surrounded by short stairs that looked like it could function as a stage. Flanking that stage on either side was a pair of wooden sculptures of…something. Eule could not for the life of her tell what that something was. Only that these sculptures had too big a head and too many tentacle-like shapes to it to look like a natural creature. Finally, to the left of that leftmost wooden sculpture, there was a bit of building jutting out from the main hall that Eule couldn't really tell what it was for. At least, not yet.

Teersa beckoned for Eule and Star to follow her as she and Sona stepped onto the stage and walked towards what was presumably the front door of the hall. Eule and Star obliged by walking up to that stage, with the entire crowd of Nora that had been following them stopping at the stage, and then to the front door as Teersa opened it and walked through. Eule and Star stepped through after Teersa, with Sona holding the door open for them. Eule thought it was quite polite of her to do so as Sona finally stepped through herself when Eule and Star had done so, only for her to realize that maybe, possibly Sona was trying to keep them from running away? Eule hoped that it wasn't the case, but the thought still ended up making a small nest in her mind.

Fortunately, the sight of the interior of the hall's first floor was sufficiently distracting to keep Eule from ruminating on that thought. As far as Eule's eyes can see, that first floor was filled with nothing but food. Bags of grain laid in enormous bundles, sacks of root vegetables piled up against each other, while clay pots full of something (almost certainly edible) sat in clusters. Dried and/or smoked birds, rabbits, small game, fish, and even whole skinned boars hung from the ceiling and from wooden racks near the ceiling. Whatever the hall was meant to be as a whole, it's clear that the entire first floor was dedicated to essentially being a giant food warehouse for shelf-stable foodstuffs, with more constantly being added to it even as Eule saw, judging by the Nora who were busy hanging more animal carcasses or pouring more grain into a bag. If the sight of all the food being preserved through Mother's Heart didn't clue Eule in on the Nora caring so much about food security, then this would have.

However, Teersa wasn't interested in the food at the moment. Instead, she led the group past the foodstuffs, apologizing to any Nora she had to move the group past along the way, and to a door in the back of the hall. This door was guarded by a pair of Braves: an older Gestalt man and a younger Gestalt woman, but both armed with spears and armored in Machine armor-coated leather and animal skins in the typical manner of the Nora.

Teersa opened and walked through the door, greeting the Braves by name (which turned out to be Gran and Urani respectively) and beckoning for Eule and Star to follow her.

As Eule started to walk forward though, the two Braves suddenly blocked the way with their spears, making Eule take a step back in surprise and Star take a step in front of Eule in a protective stance.

"Weapons first," Urani said sternly.

"If you would please," Gran said more politely. "We don't like it when outsiders just walk in on our High Matriarchs armed."

"Oh, come now, if they wanted to hurt me, don't you think they would've done so already by now?" Teersa chided.

"With all due respect, High Matriarch Teersa, this would at least make us feel better," Gran insisted, still in that polite tone.

Eule looked to Star, mouthed "220 kH" to her, and thus they had a short discussion about it over radio. It wasn't long though before they came to an agreement, and thus Eule turned back to Teersa and said with a smile: "It's alright. It's not a problem for us to relinquish our weapons, provided that we get them back, of course?" That question, Eule aimed at Gran and Urani, wanting to know if their weapons were simply being impounded temporarily or if they were being outright confiscated.

Urani scoffed. "What do you take us for? Thieves?"

"What she means is 'yes'," Gran answered hastily, issuing a very brief and subtle look of exasperation to Urani that Eule just barely managed to catch. "Just put your weapons into this chest here next to me, and we will return your weapons to you once your business with the High Matriarchs is concluded."

Eule and Star nodded in agreement, and soon after, they'd put all their weapons and ammunition for them into the chest, including their new bows, the quivers for them, Star's Judicator stun prod–

"Don't touch the red end to anyone or anything metal while you're pulling this lever," Star instructed as she placed her EIG-2 into the chest. "Not unless you want whoever you're touching the red end into to feel a whole bunch of high voltage electricity."

Gran and Urani simply nodded, nothing more.

–before finally placing their firearms and their ammunition pouches into the chest. Eule unloaded the magazine from her Protektor pistol, and pulled back the slide to unload the chambered bullet before placing them all on the table. At the same time, Star opened up the cylinder of her Einhorn revolver, and depressed the ejection plunger to push out all six bullets before locking the cylinder back into place placing all on the table.

"What are those?" Gran asked.

"Also our weapons," Eule replied simply.

"They're called 'guns'," Star continued from where Eule left off. "They're basically…er, what did Rost call crossbows again?"

"Casterbows," Eule happily provided for her lover.

"These are casterbows?" Gran said with a disbelieving look on his face as he stared at both Eule's Protektor pistol and Star's Einhorn revolver, which the Replikas had placed pointing deliberately at the wall to keep them from harming anyone just in case they somehow went off despite their safeties and their unloaded nature. Star hadn't stressed the importance of firearms safety to Eule for nothing.

"Tiny casterbows," Urani said with a strange mixture of scorn and curiosity in her voice.

"They're like casterbows. They have a round loaded in them and ready to fire like them, but they're a lot louder and even more dangerous than them. So don't handle them, okay?" Star asked in a tone that sounded a bit more forceful than that despite her light word choice.

"Don't see how such a small casterbow can do much against me and my armor," Urani said, still with that mixture of competing tones in her voice that Eule found simultaneously amusing and worrying.

"Even a small casterbow can still hurt or kill you if it hits you right…or wrong in this case. Better to respect it then," Gran noted in a Star-like professional tone.

Urani scoffed, but ultimately said: "Fair enough."

Thus, with that out of the way, Eule and Star were finally able to join Teersa beyond that door. With Sona following behind them, having skipped this security check, of course. Eule figured that the War-Chief of the Nora wouldn't be required to check her weapons in like she and Star were.

The door turned out to lead into a stairwell, with stairs made entirely of wood spiraling upwards in the shaft above them. Teersa, of course, beckoned everyone up. Walking up them allowed Eule a closer look at the stairs themselves, which appeared to be planks of attached to the wooden walls of the shaft, with the inner central empty space of the shaft guarded by wooden beams that seemed to serve as both guardrail and support for the stairs overall. It felt very safe and secure to Eule, who had initially worried about the stairs not being able to support Star's weight, but it seemed to be bearing her lover's combat Replika weight without even so much as a creak.

The journey up the stairs took the group past all the floors at each landing, skipping all of those floors in the process, and stopping only at the topmost 4th floor as Teersa opened the door for them, and Eule and Star stepped into the room past another pair of Braves, both Gestalt women this time, but still one older with the other younger. Eule briefly wondered if this was a custom for the Nora to have their guards like that, or was it only for this place, but that thought was soon overshadowed by the room itself.

Like the ground floor, it was a wide open space of a room. Unlike that warehouse though, this one at least had dividers on the left and right sides of the room, with doors blocking the rooms from Eule's sight, so she could only examine the central open space.

Said central space consisted of an enormous rectangular wooden table stretching from left to right. Numerous wooden chairs sat around that table. Both chairs and table alike were carved in the intricately detailed design Eule had come to know of the Nora's more…artistic furniture thanks to Rost. The legs of both the chairs and the table were carved to have a twisting, entwining pattern to them, almost as if those legs were wood that had been somehow braided together into their current shape. Lengths of blue Machine wire, regular twine, and even lengths of ivy still covered in its distinct lobed green leaves complemented that carved braiding pattern, giving those legs an almost-festive look her sisters sure would've appreciated. Eule certainly did.

The solid wooden backrests of the chairs had a peculiar symbol carved into it, resembling a length of rope (or possibly Machine wire considering how much the Nora loved using them) tied together in an intricate knot. The chairs didn't have any kind of cushion as Eusan Nation chairs normally would. Instead, they had either fox skin or the skin of something with grey furred animal with a bushy striped tail instead, which judging by how Rost's fox skin blanket had grown on Eule, promised to be very comfortable indeed.

The table also had a similar-looking symbol carved into it, but on a level of magnitude far greater. A 5-pointed knot dyed red in the middle of the table was surrounded by a massive array of blue-dyed knots that filled the entire table's surface. It was hard for Eule to tell, but it appeared to be a single massively intricate knot that form a 10-point alternating pattern consisting of 2 designs: a braided set of 4 triangles that pointed outwards, and a series of inward-pointing chevron patterns with the chair's symbol dyed in more red embedded into their middle.

Frankly, Eule thought that carved pattern made that table practically a work of art, and even though she knew she probably shouldn't, she was entranced by that lovely design. Indeed, she would've happily admired that table for a while if not for the pair of elderly Gestalt women sitting at the table on the opposite side to them who were almost certainly the High Matriarchs of the Nora.

Sitting in a central seat was a Gestalt women who looked roughly the same age as Teersa. She had skin as dark as Sona's, wore so many wires, twine, and leather cords around her neck that said neck was invisible, and wore her white hair in braids like Teersa did. Unlike Teersa though, some of her braided hair was worn in a pile on top of her head, giving it the appearance of a hair bun made of braids, with a trio of braids emerging from the bun in an almost artfully haphazard pattern. She wore a headdress of metal and wood like Teersa did, but it was of a different design, and–

Now that Eule examined it more closely, it looked very familiar to her. It consisted of a rectangular piece of Machine armor that tapered down almost to a point at the bottom, with a loop of carved wood on either side of it at the top. It looked so familiar to her, but Eule couldn't quite put her mechanical finger on why, so she left it alone for now.

In addition, unlike Teersa's normally smiling face, this dark-skinned Gestalt woman had a face that looked decidedly neutral…no, that wasn't right. Eule would more describe it as calmly serene, like the kind of almost meditative face she'd seen on her eldest sister Januar as she was playing the piano. It was a face that promised to remain calm even in the face of a storm, and even if it couldn't, it was going to make a good try of it.

That calm face was in stark contrast to the other elderly Gestalt woman to the right of her. Whereas the dark-skinned Gestalt woman was serene, the other Gestalt woman was as pale as Teersa. But unlike Teersa or this dark-skinned Gestalt woman, this other woman had a permanent frown on her face, as though she was constantly sucking on a lemon. In fact, the only body feature she shared with Teersa and the dark-skinned Gestalt woman was that she was wearing her white hair in braids as well. It seemed that braids were the most popular hairstyle among the Nora, for both men and women.

She also had the most elaborate headdress Eule had ever seen, more elaborate than Teersa's or the dark-skinned Gestalt woman's by far. It was hard for Eule to tell due to how complex it was, but it looked like undyed Machine wire and silver Machine intestines woven together into a cap around a wooden skeleton and held together by numerous blue-dyed cloth twine. Parts of the wooden skeleton jutted far out into 4 intricately decorated "arms", from which dangled bronze coins tied to the wood by more blue-dyed twine.

The effect made the frowning Gestalt woman look like she was wearing a baby mobile, but Eule firmly clamped down on that thought to keep from giggling inappropriately at something this serious. Eule would've complimented that frowning Gestalt woman on her headdress due to how pretty it looked (without mentioning the baby mobile resemblance), but she wasn't sure how well that would've been received or even noticed, given how that frowning Gestalt woman was currently focused on Teersa at the moment.

"You're late," the frowning Gestalt woman said to Teersa in an accusing tone.

"Really? I was so sure it was still morning when I walked in. Must've been some strange magic that made it noon or night right now," Teersa said with a mischievous smile as she ambled her way to the left of the dark-skinned woman, taking her seat there.

"You know what I mean!" the frowning Gestalt woman snapped.

"You know, Lansra. For someone who despises outlanders as much as you do, you sure are as obsessed with time as any Carja," Teersa replied, her mischievous smile somehow growing even more mischievous with that statement.

Before High Matriarch Lansra (which Eule now knew who to watch out for) could react to that, the dark-skinned woman spoke: "Teersa, let's not provoke Lansra any more for now, okay? And Lansra, we never agreed on a strict time by which this trial of these two outsiders would take place, so there's no need to focus on something as inconsequential as the exact time, yes?"

Eule was surprised by the dark-skinned Gestalt woman's voice. She'd expected a voice as creaky as Teersa or even Lansra, but the dark-skinned Gestalt had a soft and lilting voice that didn't fit her wizened features, sounding more like the voice of a younger woman. Honestly, that voice reminded Eule of Januar's voice, making her sound even more calm and stable to Eule, in addition to giving her a brief pang of loss before she suppressed it for now.

Lansra grumbled a bit before finally replying: "Fine, Jezza. Let's get on with this trial then. Not that I think we'll need to deliberate for long to decide what we'll do with these…outsiders." Lansra spoke that last word as though it was a curse, which didn't bode well for Eule or her Star.

Jezza finally turned to Eule and Star. "Now then, we shall begin our introductions first and foremost. I am Jezza. To my right is Teersa, who I believe you two are already acquainted with. To my left is Lansra. We three comprise the current generation of High Matriarchs who lead the Nora tribe on behalf of the All-Mother. Now that our introductions are complete, may I ask for yours?"

Eule performed a formal bow to the assembled High Matriarchs, as though she was bowing towards a superior officer or civilian leader. "I am EULR-S2324. You may call me Eule for short. I am a Simple Universal Light Replika of the Eusan Nation."

Star replicated her formal bow. "I'm STAR-S2325, and you can call me Star for short. I'm just one of many Security Technician Guard Replikas, also of the Eusan Nation."

Jezza didn't say anything, and merely raised an intrigued eyebrow at the Replikas in reply.

"You'll get used to them," Teersa said cheerfully to Jezza, prompting Jezza to turn her raised eyebrow to Teersa instead for a moment.

Lansra meanwhile had her frown deepen, which Eule thought hadn't been possible. "What kind of names are those? Just a bunch of letters and numbers? Are you giving us false names to hide your identities?" she accused.

Eule stiffened in shock at the bizarre accusation, only able to maintain a polite smile in reply to that. It was so bizarre and outrageous that Eule was momentarily at a loss for words. Fortunately, Star wasn't.

"Look lady, those are our names. You don't like it, tough," Star said bluntly, giving her own unamused look down at the sitting Lansra.

As Eule watched Lansra sputter in her own shock at being addressed so (with Teersa snickering in the background), Jezza spoke up in her calmingly soft voice: "Lansra, outlanders can have names that seem strange to us. I'm sure our names must seem as strange to them as theirs is to us. There is no need to make such accusations towards…Eh-u-le and Shtar for that."

"…Fine," Lansra finally admitted after a moment, before waving the Replikas at the chairs in front of them. "Sit down. Your height is making my neck crick from looking up at you two."

Eule happily did so, despite the ill-tempered tone in Lansra's command as well as the fact that it was a command in of itself. She intentionally chose a fox skin seat, shrugging her backpack off and placing it on the floor next to her. As the fox skin promised, it was indeed very comfortable. Eule did feel bad for the foxes that had to die for this chair, but a small part of her was getting over that and desiring her own fox skin comfort for herself.

Star chose the seat next to her, and after putting her own backpack down, sat down a bit awkwardly on a chair covered in that grey-furred animal skin, having to bend her lower knee almost perpendicular to her middle leg, with her lower leg nearly resting on the floor due to the chair being far too short for her frame combined with the short height of the table, prompting Eule to give her lover a sympathetic look in response. At least while Star had the same problem with Rost's chairs and dinner table, it was in somewhere where Star felt comfortable.

Star constantly shifting her weight on said chair seemed to lend some credence to Eule's concerns, right up until Star opened her mouth.

"Huh, so this is what raccoon fur feels like," Star noted.

"Oh, so that's a raccoon?" Eule said in surprise, looking down at the grey fur.

"Mm-hmm. You can tell by the grey color and the striped tail," Star said, pointing out the features to Eule's fascinated look.

The sound of a throat clearing brought Eule and Star's attention back to the High Matriarchs, revealing Lansra's ever-frowning face frowning even more at them.

"Enough dithering, A…E…Oula and Shtar!" Lansra yelled, making Eule wince and Star frown at the tone.

"Lansra, calm," Jezza said, reinforcing the calm order with her own calming tone. Once Lansra no longer looked like she was in danger of having an aneurysm, Jezza turned back to Eule and Star and said: "Now then…yes?" she asked at the sight of Star raising a black robotic hand.

"So how does this trial work?" Star asked. "Are we just going to be tried without knowing how this whole thing works and what we're supposed to do?"

Jezza nodded. "Fair enough, I shall explain. The goal of this trial is to determine if you and Eh-u-le are safe enough to be allowed to be issued a trade pass, and thus be allowed to dwell among the Nora here in the Embrace. We High Matriarchs will be the ones who make that decision, and that decision will be based on your answers to the questions we will ask you."

"So no jury?" Star asked curiously.

Jezza blinked in confusion at Star's question. "Jury?"

"A jury is a sworn group of people considered to the peers of the defendant who are gathered to hear evidence in a court trial, and either given an impartial and fair verdict or set a penalty/judgement," Eule explained.

"Hmm, given that you are the first of your…people we have ever encountered, it would be difficult to find anyone we or even you could consider to be your peers," Jezza said, making Eule stare down at her peg-like feet, wiggling her four toes in anxiety, at the reminder that she and Star were quite possibly the only Replikas in existence here, before continuing: "As for an impartial and fair verdict, we High Matriarchs are supposed to provide that at trials, regardless of any emotions about the matter, whether positive–"

Jezza looked at Teersa for a moment, who gave her a caught-out smile in reply.

"–Or negative."

Jezza now looked at Lansra, who only "Hmphed!" in reply in turn.

Seemingly satisfied for now, Jezza turned back to the Replikas. "Does that satisfy your concerns, Shtar?"

"Uh, one more question: what about our lawyers?" Star asked. "You know, the ones who're supposed to be defending us on our behalf and arguing on your behalf too? Because they know the law?"

Jezza only gave Star a confused look. "That would be us High Matriarchs as well. How can anyone know Nora law better than we three right now?"

"Ah, okay. That's…fine," Star said with a hesitant nod of agreement.

As Jezza nodded back though, Eule heard through her REM-63 Longwave Radio Receiver Module: "So a trial where the judge is also the jury, the prosecutor, and the defense? Methinks this is going to be a…interesting trial, out," Star broadcasted.

"Well, at least one of our judge-jury-lawyers is on our side, over," Eule replied back in her own radio broadcast, with a brief smile to Star for emphasis and a bit of comfort. Star gave her own comforting smile to Eule before they both turned back to Jezza and the other High Matriarchs.

"Do you two have any more questions regarding the basic procedure of this trial?" Jezza asked. When both Eule and Star shook their heads in negation, Jezza continued: "Then–"

"Wait!" Lansra suddenly shouted, before grudging asking when Jezza gave her a Look: "If I may, Jezza?"

"You may," Jezza said, still with her calm and serene voice, but with just a faint hint of sarcasm in it that Eule could just about make out.

"What are those things on your faces?" Lansra asked, pointing a bony finger at Eule and Star's right temples.

"These?" Eule asked, reaching up to tap her Focus, which briefly brought up its translucent menu in front of Eule's vision before she tapped it again to make it disappear. "This is a Focus. It's a…device that lets me speak to you."

"Speak to us? What does that even mean?" Lansra asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Eule had to take a calming breath before speaking to this…Gestalt woman. "Star and I speak Eusan Standard Language: the national language of the Eusan Nation. It's a language that's almost completely incompatible with your language. In fact, we couldn't even speak to the Nora before we acquired these Focuses."

"Acquired? How? Where?" Lansra asked with even more suspicion.

Eule grimaced, since Rost's views of the Metal World prepared her for this possibility, but there was no way she could explain where she acquired these Focuses without having to lie, and she had no idea what kind of lie would be believable in this land. Thus, she decided that the truth would suit her best here.

"In a Metal World ruin," Eule finally replied.

Eule was prepared for some kind of negative reaction from Lansra, but the hiss of outrage and fury somehow managed to exceed her expectations.

"You brought Metal World relics here? Cursed things that should never see the light of day? How dare you?!" Lansra said angrily.

"We have to. We cannot speak to you without these Focuses. We can't even understand you without them," Eule said quietly, her own anger building at Lansra.

"Lies, I'll bet!" Lansra hissed. "Lies to try to trick us into allowing such tainted relics in here to–"

Now at the end of her wits, Eule reached up to her right temple, and pulled her Focus away, causing the ever-present reticule in the center of her vision and other assorted light patterns to fade with the loss of physical contact.

"Do you understand me now? Can any of you High Matriarchs understand a single word I'm saying?" Eule asked, barely able to keep her voice calm and level, her face practically frozen in a polite smile.

Eule saw a smile of amused bemusement, a blank look of incomprehension, and a frown of bafflement come from Teersa, Jezza, and Lansra respectively upon hearing her stream of Eusan Standard Language.

With that concluded, Eule returned her Focus to its usual place with the familiar light thump of it eagerly latching on with its plastic-coated smooth webbed side. "Now do you believe me when I say that we need these Focuses in order for this trial to be fairly conducted? Unless you wish for us to reside here in the Embrace for years as we and the Nora try to puzzle each other's languages out manually?" Eule asked.

Lansra sputtered, but no coherent words came out of her mouth.

"Hah! Good job there, Eu-le. I was getting tired of her speaking without a thought going through her head there," Teersa said with a smile, earning a grateful smile from Eule (and for more correctly pronouncing her name as well), and angry sputters from a now redirected Lansra.

"I believe you have made your point, Eh-u-le," Jezza said at last, halting the stream of angry sputters from Lansra. "We can all agree that this trial cannot go forward in a timely manner without those…'Focuses' aiding you and Shtar. Thus, I call for an exception to the law on Metal World relics for those Focuses. Are we agreed on this? Teersa? Lansra?"

"You have no argument from me," Teersa replied happily.

Lansra grumbled.

"Lansra?" Jezza pressed.

"…Yes," Lansra finally replied, with all the emotion of one having their teeth pulled.

Jezza nodded at her fellow High Matriarch before turning back to Eule and Star. "We are all agreed on the issue of these Focuses. We can now properly begin the trial.

The first matter we would like to address is how Eh-u-le and Shtar came to be in the Embrace. All of our Braves reported that they did not see you enter the Embrace at any point, or indeed, even enter our Sacred Lands from any of our borders. So our question to you two is this: how are you here?" Jezza asked of the Replikas.

Eule had to take another deep breath to steady herself. She'd actually been thinking about this the whole time before the trial. Her and Star's story of S-23 Sierpinski and the corruption that had swept through it, told completely unfiltered to Rost and Äloy, had required much in the way of stopping to explain every bit of detail that the two Nora had just not understood. It had taken hours to tell that story as a result.

Thus, over the course of their stay in Rost's house, Eule had been thinking of a way to condense that story down to not only more manageable lengths, but also in terms that the High Matriarchs and the other Nora by extension would understand. With Star's help, she felt like she had accomplished that when Teersa had understood their story without problems. Now it just a matter of putting it to the test against the other High Matriarchs, and praying to the Red Eye that it worked.

"In order to explain how we ended up here, we need to explain where we came from," Eule began. "Star and I come from a tribe called the Eusan Nation. It's a very large tribe made up of 4 tribes named Heimat, Rotfront, Leng, and Vineta. All of the tribes that make up the Eusan Nation consist of two races of humans: Gestalts like yourselves, and Replikas like us. Gestalts are entirely flesh and blood, while Replikas have both flesh and blood parts and…machine parts in place of our limbs, eyes, bones, and a few other vital organs. Not the Machines–the beasts of steel–of your land, but machine parts made by humans.

Both Star and I are Replikas born into the Rotfront tribe, but our leaders–our own High Matriarchs–sent us to the Leng tribe to live and work in a settlement called S-23 Sierpinski. It was…not a very nice place. It was essentially a prison: an underground settlement where people you would call outcasts would be locked in–Gestalts in our case, with Replikas housed in another such prison somewhere in the Leng tribe's territory–and be made…no, forced to work off their sentences. In Sierpinski's case that work consisted of digging out resources from the mines deep below Sierpinski, and making ammunition for our tribe's weapons in Sierpinski's munitions factory.

All of us Replikas at Sierpinski were either service staff–the ones responsible for cooking, cleaning, repair, maintenance, etc.–or Protektors, which are like your Braves, but exclusively for enforcing the law in settlements or as guards for prisons to keep the prisoners from getting out."

"We Protektors can also be called up as military reserve in an emergency," Star added. "It's not often that it happens, but it does happen."

Eule shuddered at the idea of being essentially conscripted to be a reserve soldier. If the emergency was so bad that even the Eules were being issued weapons to fight, then something had gone horribly wrong and everyone was likely going to die or worse.

Just like what happened in S-23 Sierpinski.

Eule suddenly saw and felt a warm black, metal-coated robotic hand gently take her own equally as robotic hand in a comforting grasp. She looked up to see Star giving her a comforting smile, and a nod of encouragement. Eule smiled back at her lover, and took another comforting breath before continuing.

"I was a member of the service staff along with my Eule sisters, and Star was a member of the Protektor force along with her Star sisters. We were all led by our Commander Falke, who was…something of a cross between our War-Chief and our High Matriarch. Sierpinski wasn't a nice place in the slightest, but…I met Star there, so at least we could be happy there for a while.

Then…something happened. I'm not sure exactly what, but I heard something happened in the mines."

"Same here. Unfortunately, whatever happened down in the mines was on a need-to-know basis, and neither Eule nor I were on the need-to-know list," Star added.

Eule nodded in agreement. "Commander Falke went to investigate, but when she came back, she locked herself into her room. Soon after, people started getting sick. They started feeling ill, and then they quickly started vomiting oxidant: what we Replikas call our blood. I saw some of my own sisters fall ill like that, and people started dying. It got bad enough that Adler, our second-in-command, ordered a quarantine, with everyone to shelter in place wherever they were save for if they had to make a run for essential supplies.

As bad as that was though, it became worse.

The illness…it wasn't just killing people. It was killing the Gestalts, yes, but the Replikas? It did something worse to us. It…corrupted the Replikas it infected. Made their skin and hair fall off, and their flesh grow in unnatural and impossible ways. Worse, they stop recognizing anyone, and attack everyone on sight. Basically: this illness made the infected Replikas as Deranged as the Machines of your land.

Sierpinski was overrun by our corrupted sisters. We had no choice but to try to flee, but we couldn't get up to safety on B1: the level closest to the surface. The way up was…blocked."

Eule still remembered the sight. She and her Eule sisters hadn't believed the Stars when they told them, so they had to go out see for themselves. Eule wished they hadn't after that. She remembered at the time that the sight of the elevator shaft filled with dead Replikas–Elster-class from the looks of them; Eule recognized them from seeing the Elster pilot of the passenger liner that had brought her to Leng and Sierpinski in the first place–was something that would forever haunt her nightmares. She still thought that even now.

Eule ended up squeezing her lover's hand a bit and taking another deep breath to steady herself before continuing once more back into the darkened halls of her Sierpinski memories.

"So once my Star had joined up with us, we decided to try to make for the mines deep below Sierpinski. There was supposed to be an evacuation point set up there, where the mines were supposed to open back up to the surface somewhere as an emergency exit. That was where the surviving Gestalts had been evacuated, and so that where we decided to flee to.

But there was no evacuation point. The mines were filled with corrupted Replikas, with not a safe zone in sight. If there had been an evacuation point at any time, it must've fallen to the corruption. We tried to fight through the corrupted Replikas anyways, but there were too many of them. We had already expended much of our ammunition just fighting our way down there, and we didn't have enough to fight through the mines as well.

So we had to flee. In the confusion though, we hadn't realized that we fled into a booby-trapped room. The room we ran into was filled with traps made of monofilament wires: wires like the ones you find in the Machines, but so thin that they're almost invisible, and so thin that they can inflict lethal wounds on you as easily as a hot knife through butter, er, boarfat.

Everyone in our group died. I was the only one to escape injury. I didn't have the medical supplies to save anyone. Not my sisters: März, August, or 18. Not Star's sisters. Not even Star. I was just left there alone, with the corpse Star left behind instead of her.

I couldn't take it. I couldn't take being alone down there, just waiting to die to the things that used to be my sisters. So I just pointed my weapon at myself, and ended it."

Eule felt Star lean against her for comfort, and she suddenly realized just how hard she was squeezing her lover's hand. If her hand had been a Gestalt's hand, she was sure that it would've been nearly white from the strain. Instead, her hand was just as black as it was before. Just as black as Star's hand. The only difference was Star's entire knuckles being covered in steel plating, rather than the bits of steel on Eule's knuckles, and that was it. The sight of Star's hand intertwined with her own, plus Star's comforting weight against her, gave Eule her determination back. All she needed was one last deep breath, and she could continue.

"But it wasn't the end as it should've been. It was nothing but black at first, but then there was light. All of a sudden, I woke up, and there was blue sky above me, green grass in front of me, and Star alive and well right next to me. It was like a dream at first, but now it feels more like I've…woken up? If that makes sense? It wasn't all fun though. If it hadn't been for Rost and Äloy at the start, Star and I might've been injured or dead from Watchers or even Striders. But even leaving that aside, I still feel like I'm in a much better place than before, and I have no desire to return to Sierpinski again."

"Same here," Star added in one last time. "I think we both would like our sisters back, but since that's probably not going to happen in this lifetime, this is the best we got."

Eule nodded at her lover before turning back to the High Matriarchs. "That is the story of how we ended up here, and all I ask is for you–the High Matriarchs of the Nora tribe–to allow us to live here in the Embrace. We won't bother anyone. We just wish to live here in peace for a while, and that's it. Please, will you honor our request, High Matriarchs?" she finished with a seated bow.

For several moments, there was only silence in reaction to Eule's and Star's story, which ended up ratcheting Eule's stress meter up a notch. Teersa smiled and nodded at the story, having heard it before, which brought Eule's stress down a bit. Jezza had a pensive and thoughtful look on her face, which Eule had no idea how to react to until Jezza actually voiced her thoughts. Lastly though, Lansra's face was seemingly stuck in astonished mode, with her mouth opening and closing like a fish as she struggled to come up with a reply to Eule's story. That reaction made Eule want to giggle at the inherent silliness of it, but she firmly clamped down on that desire hard to keep from drawing Lansra's ire…again.

"Well, it is a simple request," Teersa happily said.

"Simple? Simple?! What about that is simple?!" Lansra practically shouted, pointing a bony finger at Eule and Star, switching between the Replikas rapidly in a seemingly desperate attempt to point at both of them at once. "What about that story?! Do you two seriously expect me to believe that?! There's no way any of it could possibly be true! The dead don't come back to life, humans can't be Deranged, and there's no such thing as humans with Machine parts!"

"So what do you call this then?" Star asked wryly, raising her long white bird-like robotic right leg up, and showing off her peg-like foot with its synthetic and textured black grip pad on the bottom of said foot, and wiggling the four stubby mechanical toes set around that grip pad, retracting them in and out of their housings.

For a moment, Lansra was speechless amidst Teersa's guffaws. Lansra didn't seem to notice though, instead asking: "So you really are part Machine?" she asked quietly.

"Not Machine beast Machine. Just machine," Eule corrected. "As machine as the Chillwater containers you use, or…oh, the forged steel appliances and tools the Oseram use."

Eule was relieved that last comparison made both Teersa and Jezza nod in acceptance. What didn't make her relieved was seeing Lansra adopt a look of horror on her face.

"So you truly are Tainted!" Lansra accused with more pointing of bony finger. "Tainted in ways we never thought the Tainted could ever reach–"

"Oh, calm down before your heart gives out," Teersa chided. "You were perfectly fine with that Oseram trader's false leg. I don't see why you're getting so hot and bothered over Eu-le and Star's legs, if I'm saying your names right at last?" she asked Eule and Star.

Eule was delighted to see her nod and Star's thumbs-up bring a grin to Teersa's wizened face. Which was in stark contrast to the fish-like impression Lansra was performing as she tried to think of a reply to Teersa's words.

"That's different!" Lansra insisted.

"No, Teersa is making a valid argument," Jezza noted, before turning to look Lansra in the eye. "Lansra, what is the difference between that Oseram trader's false leg and the machine legs of Eh-u…Eu-le and…Star?"

"Wha-what? You can't be serious. Look at them! They're obviously so much more…Machine!" Lansra argued, perhaps not that cogently.

"That is a matter of degree then, but does it change the underlying principles? Is the basic concept of a false leg any different from another false leg, regardless of what each false leg looks like or how it functions?" Jezza asked, calmly but firmly in a way that reminded Eule almost of Februar.

"…No," Lansra admitted with, again, all the tone of someone having their tooth pulled.

"Then are we in agreement that Eu-le and Star's false legs and other false body parts are no different from any other false body parts on anyone else?" Jezza asked, partially to Teersa, but mostly to Lansra given how much Jezza stared at her.

"A false leg on someone is just as much false as one on another. I'm agreed," Teersa happily said.

"…Fine, I'm agreed," Lansra grumbled.

"Then we are agreed," Jezza said with a satisfied nod.

Personally, Eule thought that the comparison between a Replika's robotic limbs and eyes and any prosthetic limbs a Gestalt might have wasn't exactly a correct analogy. However, pointing that out right now wouldn't benefit her and Star's case here, so she kept quiet about her thoughts on the matter.

"Now as for your story, Eu-le and Star, I have questions for you two in order for clarification's sake," Jezza said to the Replikas. "First, both of you claim to have suddenly appeared in the Embrace, with no knowledge as to how you came to be here?"

"Yes," Eule replied at the same time Star did.

"Is anyone able to corroborate your story aside from each other? Were there any witnesses to your…appearance?" Jezza asked.

"Not unless you can question the birds," Star quipped.

Eule though thought about that first day, before a realization came to her. "Äloy. She was watching us for who knows how long when we were, um, celebrating our arrival here. It's possible that she saw what happened," she pointed out.

"Oh yeah, I didn't even notice the kid was there until she accidentally broke a twig. Wow, she's good at stealth," Star mused.

"Of course the only witness you claim to exist is one we can't call to trial," Lansra grumbled.

Eule tilted her head at the High Matriarchs. "Outcasts can't be called as witnesses to a trial?"

"Not normally," Jezza conceded. "But if the need is great enough, then we can call for an exception to that law, and allow Aloy into Mother's Heart to testify as a witness to your story."

"Even though she's only a child?" Eule asked in a worried tone for little Äloy.

Jezza nodded. "Unless you have any idea of who else might be witnesses to your sudden appearances in the Embrace?" When Eule and Star both shook their heads, Jezza continued: "Then I call for a vote to allow the outcast Aloy into this trial to testify as a witness as an exception to the law, as well as an exception for the outcast Rost to accompany her as her parent."

"What?! You're voting for him to be let into Mother's Heart as well? Isn't one outcast already enough?" Lansra raged.

"The law demands that a child cannot be called to testify in a trial without a parent present," Jezza stated with determination that belied her soft voice. "Unless you wish to vote to repeal that law now?"

Lansra shuddered. "Fine then. I agree to allow the outcast girl in as a witness, and for the outcast Rost to accompany her as her parent. Happy?"

Jezza nodded with that same neutral expression on her face as usual before turning to her other fellow High Matriarch. "Teersa? Your vote?"

Eule was surprised to see Teersa have a troubled expression for once. "Hmm, I'm not normally one for exposing a child as young as Aloy to such ugliness. But if Aloy is the only one who can speak for Eu-le and Star, then perhaps this is the All-Mother's doing here. In that case, I can only agree to it," Teersa said with a regretful sigh.

"Then we are agreed," Jezza concluded before turning to Sona. "War-Chief Sona, please send a trusted Brave for the oucasts Aloy and Rost. This Brave has our permission to speak with the outcasts for the duration of their duties."

"Yes, High Matriarch Jezza," Sona replied before she began issuing orders to the younger of the female Braves standing guard at the door, who nodded and ran off to either fetch another Brave to carry out that task or perform it herself.

"Now then, while we are awaiting our witness and her parent, I would like to address other parts of your stories, Eu-le and Star," Jezza said. "Starting with the most important: you claim that this…Derangement-like Corruption that spread through your settlement was able to infect both your people and humans?"

"To clarify: we Replikas consider ourselves to be just as human as the Gestalts," Eule corrected. "We just consider ourselves to be a different kind of human, but still human."

"And are fighting an ongoing war just to be able to keep calling ourselves 'humans'," Star added, maybe just a bit aggressively.

Fortunately, Jezza and Teersa nodded in acceptance, although Eule was both worried and frustrated that Lansra scoffed at her clarification. The only good news was that Lansra didn't actively say anything. Eule just had to count on the minor bit of good news there.

"Very well then about Replikas being human as well," Jezza noted. "But getting to my question now: are you sure you yourselves are not infected with this Corruption, since you have said that it can infect both Replikas and…Gestalts?"

Eule could have heard a pin drop in the silence after that question as Eule prepared her answer. She and Star had discussed this very topic over radio, and while their mutual worry had been very real, the conclusion they came to alleviated those worries.

"No, Star and I are sure that we're not infected with the illness…the Corruption, yes, that might be a better name for it," Eule replied.

"And you know this how?" Lansra asked testily…and with just a hint of fear in her voice.

"I have…had a sister named 18 who was with us at the end," Eule explained.

Talking about 18 made Eule remember her scared younger sister. EULR-S2318 had been younger than even Eule herself. Far younger. 18 hadn't even had her first birthday outside of her Replika-Werke yet, which only made her death in the mines all the more tragic to Eule.

Eule had to shake herself from the memories, gripping Star's hand all the while, to return to her explanation. "18 worked as a nurse/orderly in B3 and B4: our hospital wings, and she mentioned to us that the Corruption took hold very quickly. Once someone became infected with it, symptoms began appearing in less than a cycle, er, day. Said symptoms consisted of, as far as 18 knew: severe nausea and headaches, followed by abnormally low blood pressure, severe internal hemorrhaging, er, bleeding, causing the infected to vomit blood, or oxidant in the case of Replikas; high fever, and dehydration. According to 18, the infected would also experience severe cognitive loss within that first day as well.

Neither of us experienced those symptoms during our over 3 days here in the Embrace, and neither Rost nor Äloy have experienced those symptoms as well. I am certain we are not infected," Eule concluded.

Personally, Eule would rather have killed herself rather than allow the Corruption to spread to Rost and Äloy if she had been infected, but it was something she kept to herself to keep from worrying Star.

"Rost and Aloy certainly looked fine when I was there, both today, yesterday, and the day before yesterday," Teersa added. "And for that matter, if Eu-le and Star were infected with this Corruption, I would be too. I was eating at the same table at them, after all. Do I look sick to you?"

To Eule's relief, Jezza nodded. "Very well then. It is a relief to know that this Corruption will not be something the Nora will have to deal with, as was the case with plagues of generations past before the Nora learned to use the medicinal plants we know today."

Eule shuddered at those words. The idea of an epidemic sweeping through the Nora was disturbingly realistic to her, and she was glad that these medicinal plants, which presumably included the salvebrush, was able to combat those plagues.

"Now for our next question: both of you claim to have…died prior to your appearing in the Embrace?" Jezza asked.

"Yes," Eule replied, with only a hint of shudder in her voice.

"I am not going to insult your intelligences by asking if you understand the absurdity of that statement since you are both alive right now, so I am going to ask: is it possible that you were mistaken? Perhaps someone rendered you unconscious, and carried you to the Embrace somehow?" Jezza asked.

Eule vividly recalled watching the red pupils of her beloved Star's eyes dim and fade into darkness. She just as vividly recalled the prickling sensation of her Protektor pistol's barrel touching her robotic right eye, and the very brief intense pain as she pulled the trigger, before there was nothing but an eternal darkness.

"No, I am not mistaken when I said that I died," Eule said with firm finality.

"I know I can be wrong about a lot of things, but that cold sensation of bleeding out? I'm not wrong about that," Star added with just as much finality.

"Yes, just come up with obvious lies to hide how you snuck into here," Lansra muttered.

"You know, you could try coming up with proof for your claims of us lying for once instead of just accusing us without any," Star quipped.

"Well, you don't have any proof that you died either," Lansra shot back. "In fact, the fact that you are alive and speaking to us right now shows that your story is a lie, so there."

Eule…couldn't deny the logic of that argument, despite how nastily it was delivered. Even so…

"High Matriarch Lansra," Eule began, causing the ever-frowning High Matriarch to turn to her now. "Yes, I know people can…no, should only die once, and that we are alive right now. I have no proof that Star and I died, and I cannot offer any because of its very nature. However, all I can say on the matter is that the truth of how we ended up here is just as much a mystery to us as it is to you. We simply appeared in the Embrace, and we have no idea how or why. That is the truth that I swear to the Red Eye on, even if we have no evidence for it beyond Äloy's possible testimony. So until then, I ask that you suspend your disbelief for a moment, and accept our story as the truth unless proven otherwise."

Lansra stared into Eule's eyes for several long moments before she huffed. "Fine," she conceded, much to Eule's relief.

It was thinking about the issue during her speech that Eule realize that she did have a piece of evidence for her death. It was a long shot, but it might work.

"High Matriarchs, I just remembered something. May I submit a piece of evidence pertaining to my death? Eule asked.

Jezza raised an eyebrow momentarily, before lowering it back down to ask: "If you have evidence that confirms that you died, then please, by all means, explain this evidence."

"When I died by my weapon: a sort of casterbow that's called a 'pistol', I shot myself in my right eye here," Eule explained, pointing to the robotic eye in question. "In order to do that, I had to use a single round of ammunition for my pistol, which is called a 'bullet'. When I checked my pistol, it was missing a single bullet. That's the best evidence I have for my own death."

As Jezza and Teersa mulled that evidence over, Lansra spoke up with: "How are we supposed to know that this 'pistol' of yours is missing a bullet? And for that matter, how do we know that you didn't just take this bullet out of your weapon yourself to make evidence for your story?"

As belligerent as Lansra was, Eule couldn't deny that Lansra raised some very good points about this evidence she brought up. "I can offer up my and Star's ammunition boxes for my pistol as evidence for you to count the number of bullets, but again, you only have our word for the original number of bullets in them, and there's no way for us to corroborate that. I can also offer to allow you to examine my pistol, but I have not only already refilled the magazine–the part of the pistol that stores bullets for it to use–but I have also cleaned the pistol, so I can't prove that it was fired in the first place," she explained, surprising herself at the irony that the regular firearms maintenance so necessary for ensuring that her pistol functioned as intended would come back to haunt her like it.

"Well, not necessarily," Star began, giving Eule hope. "When any gun, including Eule's pistol, is fired, it leaves behind tiny scratches in the pistol's barrel–the part where the bullet flies through to get out–that can be seen. The problem though is that Eule fired her pistol a lot during our attempted escape, and we have no way to tell which scratches are from those firings and which ones are from her…last one," Star explained, dashing Eule's hopes in the same stroke.

"Hmm, a pity," Jezza noted with disappointment. "So with that piece of evidence not corroborated for now, I would like to ask about something else now: was there anything unusual that happened prior to your deaths that might have caused this…appearance to have happened? Even more unusual than what you described happened to your…S-23 Seer-pin-skee settlement already? Because unfortunately, we lack the knowledge and context to determine what is and isn't unusual for your people, so anything you can remember that happened could possibly be useful."

Eule shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry. I don't really remember anything from that time. I was a bit too…overwhelmed to notice anything but Star in front of me."

Star scratched the shell on her cheek for a few moments. "I was mostly focused on Eule too, but…I think I noticed someone? I think? Wait…hey Eule, do you remember that weird thing I told you about that happened to me in B1?"

Eule blinked in surprise. "You mean that Elster unit you said was looking for a Gestalt woman?"

"Yeah. She was there," Star said, before continuing to scratch her cheek shell. "At least, I think it was her. Unless there was more than one Elster at Sierpinski."

"I didn't even realize we had an Elster," Eule said, trying to rack her brain as to whether she'd heard of any Elster unit being Commissioned at Sierpinski before.

"I heard on the grapevine that there were plans to request that an Elster be assigned to Sierpinski," Star noted. "But that was just before everything happened, so I'm not sure if that ever got filed. Maybe that Elster was her, and she just arrived at the worst possible time?"

"Maybe?" Eule half-asked. "But then…why would she be looking for a…what did you say that Gestalt woman looked like in that photo that Elster showed you?"

"Short white hair with red eyes, wearing a People's Navy uniform with a Penrose logo on the shoulder, weirdly enough. Even more weirdly, half the photo was degraded, like that half of it got left out somewhere in rain or snow or something," Star said, looking up at the wooden ceiling in recollection. "I remember how really weird it was because not only did I not recognize that Gestalt woman at all among our prisoners, but because of that Gestalt woman's name too: Alina Seo."

Eule blinked in confusion. "Did you know her?"

"No, I didn't recognize the name or the face among our prisoners," Star said, before she frowned in consternation. "But the weird thing is…that name sounds familiar. I don't know where I heard the name Alina Seo before, but it's so weirdly familiar…"

"…Could it have something to do with your previous life?" Eule posited.

"I…have no idea, really," Star admitted. "I don't remember that face in those dreams. I think I would remember a woman with hair that white on a face that young. Never heard of Gestalt ever having those features before."

"I believe that's a condition called albinism. It's very rare among Gestalts, so I'm not surprised that you haven't heard of it," Eule muttered, before she suddenly remembered the High Matriarchs. She turned to look back at them, finally noticing their complete confusion. "I'm sorry, did you need me to explain anything of what we were talking about?"

"I would ask that, yes, but I think we would be here all day if I did," Teersa joked.

"Stupid outsiders and their indecipherable outsider talk," Lansra muttered testily.

"From what I can gather of what you were saying: do you think this 'Elster' was responsible for you being here?" Jezza asked curiously.

"Very unlikely," Eule immediately replied with a shake of her head.

"Elsters aren't known for being a Bioresonant class of Replika, and even if they were, I don't think even a Falke's powers would be enough to get us here," Star quipped, prompting even more confused looks from the High Matriarchs, save for Teersa, who at least knew was Bioresonance was…somewhat.

"I see," Jezza said in a tone that suggested to Eule she probably didn't. "But if this Elster isn't responsible, then perhaps this Aleena Say-o was?"

"I'm…not sure?" Eule admitted.

"Her photo didn't have the trio of red star tattoos on her forehead, so I would cross her off the list too," Star noted.

Jezza sighed. "Then we have no suspects, and can only await the outcast Aloy's witness testimony to see if it reveals any additional information about this, as well as confirm or deny your story."

Eule sighed just as heavily as Jezza did. She hoped they wouldn't be too hard on little Äloy. The poor little Gestalt girl has had enough trauma from the Nora already.

"In the meantime, since additional questioning will have to wait for our witness, I vote that we temporarily pause the trial for a short rest," Jezza suggested.

"Anything that involves a bite to eat and something to drink is something I can happily get behind," Teersa said happily.

"Finally, something we can agree on," Lansra said with a huff.

"Then we are agreed," Jezza said with a nod before turning to the older female Brave. "Iyani, could you please send someone for snacks and beverages for 5?"

Iyani scoffed. "Win the Proving and join the Braves, they said. Fight Machines and bandits, they said. Whoever 'they' were never said being a server was one of a Brave's duties."

Amidst Star's burst of laughter, Eule saw Jezza's normally neutral face crack into a slight but noticeable smile. "My apologies, Iyani. If this task isn't becoming of a Brave, then I will perform this task myself–"

"As if!" Iyani said with a laugh. "If being a server is what the High Matriarchs need right now, then a server is what I'll be." She continued laughing all the way out the door.

"So wait," Star said, after she finally managed to calm down enough to say that without bursting into more laughter. "We're getting snacks at this trial? Really?"

Eule was curious about that as well. She had never been in a trial before, whether participating or observing, but even she thought that was a bit…atypical.

"For the duration of the trial, you and Eu-le are our guests," Jezza said gravely. "Thus, we would be remiss if we failed to perform our duty as your hosts."

Star grinned at Jezza. "Well, this is already one of the best trials I've ever been at," she joked happily.

Eule also smiled at Jezza, but for different reasons. "It seems that the Nora take hospitality very seriously."

Jezza nodded. "Of course. It is one of the basic tenets of Nora law that if we invite someone into our home and lodge as a guest, then it is our duty as the host to provide food, drink, and bedding for them. It would shame the All-Mother if we fail in this basic a duty."

Eule giggled at the echo of Rost's words there. "It sounds like you and Rost have something in common there."

"Comparing the High Matriarchs to an outcast. Just what is this world coming to?" Lansra grumbled.

"Remember what Rost was and what he did for us before he chose to become an outcast, Lansra," Jezza scolded. Softly, yes, but it was still a scold. A scold that earned an unintelligible grumble from Lansra, but nothing more.

"I take it you are all bound by that oath of silence to not discuss why Rost chose that punishment?" Eule asked, still curious about Rost's situation.

Jezza nodded sadly. "Unfortunately, we are, and it's perhaps for the best that we are. It's…not a pleasant story."

Eule's curiosity was now thoroughly stoked, which made the extremely dim prospect of getting answers to her questions about Rost's past all the more frustrating. Fortunately, a distraction came in the form of Iyani returning with a couple of Nora in tow, all walking in with trays in hand.

Eule quickly found herself with a rounded wooden plate and wooden cup in front of her. Said plate contained a decent-sized rounded loaf of bread (to Eule's surprise) and several strips of dried meat. Meanwhile, the cup contained a dark brown liquid topped with foam, from which emanated a strong, pleasant scent of wheat. Everyone received the same refreshments, including Star, who peered curiously at the cup of dark brown, foaming liquid with an intense gaze.

"Hey, wait a second," Star said, lifting the cup up for a deep sniff before taking a small sip. Eule watched curiously as her lover smacked her lips after that sip, and pronounced: "This is beer. You're giving us beer at a trial?"

Jezza, Teersa, and even Lansra blinked at Star. "Yes, do you not like it?" Jezza asked with confusion in her voice.

"Oh, no, I'm all for a good beer," Star said with a grin, before that grin turned a bit lop-sided as she stared at the beer. "It's just that, well, giving beer to someone at a trial sounds a bit…odd, wouldn't you say? What with the potential to get drunk and all? Although I guess to be fair, this stuff doesn't taste very strong…actually, I can barely taste any alcohol in it at all. What in the Red Eye's name is this thing's alcohol content?"

Teersa surprised Eule and Star by bursting into laughter. "I'm sorry, did you think we would serve you the strong beer at a trial?" she managed to get out, before bursting into more laughter.

"This is weak beer that we normally drink as a beverage for regular meals," Jezza explained. "No one could get drunk on that. Not even a child. Is beer not something your Rotfront tribe normally drinks?"

"No, it is something we drink much of in Rotfront," Eule explained, now holding up her cup curiously. "It's just that we normally don't drink beer during a trial. Although…"

Eule took her own sniff of the beer, savoring the wheat scent before taking her own sip. Yes, it was indeed beer, but she could tell that it was essentially table beer. So low in alcohol that she doubted even Äloy could become intoxicated off of it. If she had to guess, this beer had an alcohol by volume level well below 1%.

"I suppose I can excuse table beer like this," Eule said happily.

"Yeah, bring on the table beer and snacks!" Star cheered just as happily.

Admittedly, a loaf of whole wheat bread (the closest Eule could describe it) and what turned out to be boar jerky were not the typical snacks Eule would pair with beer, but it made a nice difference from the usual because of that. The whole wheat bread was dark, sweet, and chewy; and the thinly-sliced boar jerky was still moist thanks to all the fat in the meat, which also gave it a wonderful umami taste. Combining the two into some rough sandwiches made for a perfectly delicious snack, with Eule only wishing that she had some cheese to complete the meal, and complete the table beer on top of it.

Incidentally, after several sips of that table beer, Eule noticed that once she tasted past the slightly sweet, slightly sour taste of the beer itself, she could now taste a hint of fruitiness to the beer. It took several more sips before Eule realized that the taste in question was that of blueberries. Eule giggled at the coincidence in sweetener choice, given how she and Star had blueberry jerky for breakfast that morning.

Thinking about that breakfast though made Eule remember Äloy and Rost. She hoped this trial went well, and that Äloy's testimony might reveal a bit more about how she and Star ended up here in Nora lands–

Eule's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door to this Nora courtroom opening. She turned to look to see who was arriving, and despite knowing beforehand, still found herself surprised to be looking into the just as surprised green eyes of little Äloy.

"Eu-le! Star!" Äloy shouted happily as she dashed over to the Replikas, giving them a hug that Eule was just as happy to return as Star was.

Eule then suddenly realized that if Äloy was here, then surely–

Yes, a look at the door again revealed Rost stepping into the courtroom, with the younger Brave woman stepping in and closing the door behind them both.

"Rost!" Eule said happily at the same time Star said just as happily: "Rost, buddy!"

Rost's only reaction to their greetings was a silent nod to them both before he kneeled to the High Matriarchs.

"Off of your knees, outcast Rost. You have permission to speak to us and the gathered Braves here in this court for the duration of this trial," Jezza proclaimed.

Rost did indeed rise back to his feet. "You have requested that I be present at this trial…in order for Aloy to testify as a witness?" he asked.

"Yes," Jessa replied with a nod. "We cannot question a child without their parent present, not even an outcast child. We entrusted Aloy to you, so you are the closest she has to a parent, and thus you must act as her guardian during her witness testimony."

Rost nodded, although Eule did catch a brief hesitancy to his nod. "Very well, then I will do this task. For Aloy's sake," he stated before taking the seat next to Eule.

"Hmph, remember what I told you of the outcast child, Rost," Lansra said in a warning tone that both worried Eule and infuriated her.

"I remember, High Matriarch Lansra," Rost said in the most neutral tone she'd ever heard him speak in.

Lansra glared at Rost, but without anything in Rost's words to find fault in, she merely fumed quietly.

Much to Eule's satisfaction, since she didn't like the way Lansra kept refusing to even call Äloy by name. It didn't help that Äloy seemed to be a bit stressed by all this, choosing to sit in Eule's lap instead of on a chair presumably for the comfort value, and not of the physical kind.

"Before we resume the trial though, Iyani, can you please bring the outcasts Rost and Aloy a meal?" Jezza asked.

Interestingly, the older Brave woman nodded and set out to carry that task out without a single complaint.

"A meal? For outcasts?!" Lansra said in outrage.

"For the duration of a trial, all participants are our guests, Lansra. All of them," Jezza said, with that soft yet firm voice Eule was starting to recognize as her angry voice. "Or do you mean to contest the sacred law of hospitality itself?"

Lansra reeled back, and then huffed, but said nothing more.

When Iyani returned, Eule was further surprised to see Iyani herself carrying the trays of food, with another Nora behind her carrying wooden cups of presumably more table beer, and placing them in front of Rost and Äloy. The latter was slightly problematic given how the little Gestalt girl was sitting in Eule's lap, but Eule was more than happy to shift her own mostly empty plate and half-full cup around to accommodate Äloy's meal, which Äloy dug into with relish.

"Have you ever had bread before, Äloy?" Eule asked curiously.

"Mweh," Äloy said around her mouthful of bread, before rapidly chewing and swallowing to not have her voice be filled with bread. "Yeah. Rost sometimes makes it. He doesn't like making it that much though. Grinding grain is hard work," she explained.

Eule had never ground her own flour before, but she can easily imagine the kind of effort it would take to turn whole wheat berries into that white powder so essential to baking. Especially in a world without blenders or some other kind of electrical grinder.

Eule then watched just as curiously as Äloy took a sip of the table beer, stopped, and put the cup back down while making a face.

"This your first time drinking beer, Äloy?" Star asked. When she received a nod, Star then asked with a grin: "So what do you think of it?"

"It's…weird. It's kinda sweet, but kinda sour, and kinda bitter?" Äloy said, her voice filled with an unsure opinion of the offending beer. "It kinda tastes like bread, but weird, and you can drink it…and it has that white stuff on top that pops in your mouth? So weird."

"That's called beer foam, kid," Star said, savoring her own sip of her table beer. "This is basically a kid version of what adults drink. You'll like it when you grow up."

Äloy's response was just to make another face at Star, before she looked up at Eule. "Do you drink this beer stuff too, Eu-le?"

Eule nodded happily. "I've drunk it on many occasions, since our Rotfront tribe really likes beer. This beer is what we would call table beer, and I'm actually quite fond of beer this dark and flavorful."

Eule giggled at the continued face-making Äloy was engaged in. The little Gestalt girl took one more sip of her beer before sticking her tongue out, and pushing the mug away, apparently not ready to be an adult yet.

Their little repast didn't take long at all to finish, and at long last, Jezza called for the trial to resume.

"Outcast Aloy," Jezza began. "E-u…Eu-le claims that you might have witnessed her and Star's appearance in the Embrace. Did you in fact witness that?"

Äloy waved her legs as she looked to the side with a troubled expression that worried Eule.

"Outcast Aloy?" Jezza asked.

"…Yeah," Äloy admitted.

"Well, go on! We don't have all day here!" Lansra shouted.

Äloy winced, making Eule wrap her arms around the little Gestalt girl in a comforting hug, and for once, her polite smile slipped off of her face, leaving a coldly neutral look as she glared at Lansra in a glare that her lover shared with finger-drumming-on-chair levels of anger.

"Lansra, do you shout at your own children too? How many answers do you think you get out of them, I wonder?" Teersa asked with a bite to her sarcasm.

As Lansra returned to grumbling, Jezza said in a tone even softer than the one she usually spoke in: "Aloy, there's nothing to be afraid of. We wish only to know what happened when Eu-le and Star appeared to prove their story. Will you please tell us?"

Äloy looked up to meet Jezza's eyes, and nodded. "Okay. It's just…it was really weird. It was so weird that I didn't even tell Rost, and…Eu-le, Star, you don't remember anything before waking up, do you?"

Eule shook her head along with Star, while Rost peered at Äloy curiously, giving her an encouraging nod to continue.

"Okay, so here's what happened," Äloy began. "On that day, I was with Rost, looking around for blueberries since they're in season, when I heard…music. It was really weird music too. It sounded creepy, but also pretty, and…sad? Yeah…it sounded sad. It's like…someone wanting to cry, but with music.

Anyway, so I went towards the weird music and that's when I saw Eu-le and Star in that clearing. You were both lying there on the ground, so still that I thought you were both dead at first. Then I saw your chests, well, Eu-le's chest moving, and so I realized you were sleeping. But I was still worried because…because…well, you weren't alone.

There was a woman standing over you both. She was standing with her hands put together almost like she was praying. She had white hair even though she looked young, and her skin was covered in white patches, and oh, it was pale. Really pale. It was almost as white as her hair. So white that…I thought she was a ghost. Then I realized that the weird music was coming from her, and I thought she was one of the Forgotten that Rost told me about.

But…she didn't look evil. She looked sad. Really sad, and…she looked like she was waiting for someone. I wanted to go up to her and give her a hug, and tell her that someone was going to come, but then she just…disappeared. She faded away like…like…a ghost. It was so weird and creepy and…weird. But then that's when Eu-le and Star woke up, and when you saw each other, you were laughing and smiling and…you looked so happy that I wanted to just stay near you. I just wanted…to be maybe a little bit part of that happy.

And then I maybe stepped on a twig when I was trying to get closer, and that's when you saw me, and you know what happened next, so…yeah, that's it," Äloy finished.

Eule knew that Äloy had just dropped a massive bombshell on her. A "ghost woman" had saved her and Star? How? Why? But despite that, all she did was embrace Äloy in another hug. "Were you that lonely here? With no one but Rost to talk to, since no one will talk to you? For being an outcast for reasons no one will explain to you?" she asked.

Äloy was silent for a moment, before she took hold of Eule's arms and hugged them back. Her only reply to Eule's question ended up being a silent nod.

Star's joined Eule in Äloy's personality stabilization by rubbing the little Gestalt girl's head. "It's okay, Äloy. We're here, and hopefully, we're not going to go anywhere far," she consoled.

Even Rost reached out and joined Star in the head rubbing. He didn't say a word, but he didn't need to.

Teersa sighed. "Now do you both realized why I argued against making Aloy an outcast, my sisters?" she asked of Jezza and Lansra.

Jezza kept her neutral expression as she gazed at Äloy, but Eule could hear a noticeable sigh of regret coming from her as she nodded. Lansra though, as Eule expected, simply huffed and looked away. Whether Lansra didn't want to face the consequences of her actions or she was refusing to acknowledge Äloy's emotional pain was something Eule didn't care about. All Eule knew was that Lansra was now one of the few people she can firmly say that she didn't like. Not in the slightest. She could even say that she liked this mysterious "ghost woman" a lot more than Lansra right now.

Actually, that made Eule realize something. "Äloy, did you not mention this before…because you thought we wouldn't believe you? Especially about this 'ghost woman'?"

Äloy squirmed a bit in her hug before she finally gave a nod. "Yeah. It was so weird that…I think I wouldn't believe me if I told it to me, so I didn't think anyone would believe me either."

Eule smiled down at Äloy. "Given everything Star and I have been through, your story is just as believable as ours. I think we can sympathize."

As Äloy looked up at Eule and smiled back, Star asked: "Hey actually, about this 'ghost woman': you said she had white hair, right? Did she have short white hair, red eyes, and was she wearing a black uniform a bit like ours? But with long sleeves, red patches on the shoulders, and a blue and white triangle on the left sleeve?"

Eule suddenly realized who Star meant: this mysterious Alina Seo person that just-as-mysterious Elster unit was looking for. Could this be her?

But to Eule's disappointment, Äloy shook her head. "Her hair was long. Really long. It was even covering a lot of her face. She looked like she hadn't cut her hair for a really long time. Her eyes were closed, so I couldn't see what they looked like, but she was wearing a…it looked like a white-colored shirt, but it was really long, like down past her hips long, and was really thin. So thin that I could see her chest through the shirt, and it only had two thin bits holding it up on her shoulders. It looked like it would be really cold to wear at night. I kinda want to give her a real shirt to wear, so that she won't be so cold."

"Umm, I think that would be a dress you're describing, not a shirt," Eule corrected, blushing a bit at Äloy's description. "Although with how thin that dress is…it sounds like a nightdress, to be honest."

"Or a cryosleep outfit," Star posited. "I've read that those who don't want to go into a cryopod naked would wear really thin clothes like that."

Eule looked at her lover in surprise. "You think this 'ghost woman' is this Alina Seo?"

"I think so. There's just too many coincidences here. I mean, how likely is it that there are two different…what did you call it, albinism? Albinism women that are involved with this?" Star asked.

"The term is albino if it's being used as an adjective," Eule explained, before thinking on what Star said. "Although that is a good point…but why would this Alina Seo help us? We don't even know her."

Star shrugged. "Maybe she's just nice? I don't know. I'm just throwing theories out and hoping some of it makes sense here."

A cough from Jezza got their undivided attention. "It would seem then that this Aleena Say-o woman is responsible for your being here, but given the circumstances, it seems unlikely we will be able to obtain her testimony about this to explain her reasons. And given that a witness has now vouched for your stories, Eu-le and Star, I vote for your stories to be accepted by this trial as evidence that you did not enter the Embrace of your own free will, and thus cannot be judged as intentionally trespassing into Nora Sacred Lands. Are we agreed, sisters?"

"Definitely a yes from me. If someone gets knocked out cold and dragged into someone's lodge, how can that person be tried as an intruder?" Teersa asked as part of her reply.

"Urgh…fine. I agree as well," Lansra said with the now-familiar tone of pulling her own teeth out, before she suddenly turned to Äloy and asked: "Now to clarify: this…'ghost woman' had white hair even though she was young, and her skin was nearly as white?"

Äloy's only reply was a nod of affirmation.

"So what are you getting at now?" Teersa asked with a wry yet morbidly curious expression.

Lansra somehow managed to frown even more deeply than she already was. "I don't like it. It sounds like this 'ghost woman' is the ghost of a Forgotten-Touched."

Amidst Eule's confusion, Teersa scoffed. "You seriously believe those old fireside stories? I suppose next you're going to say that you believe in the Skyscreamer?"

"That's different!" Lansra snapped, with Teersa smiling wryly in spite of that.

"Forgotten-Touched? Skyscreamer?" Eule asked curiously, if a bit disbelievingly as well.

"Both of them stories parents use to scare children to bed with," Teersa happily explained. "The latter is just some old and possibly drunk hunter's story of some invisible screaming thing that only comes out at night, but the former is far more relevant to this 'ghost woman'. You see, a very few Nora over the generations have been born with exactly the features you describe on this Aleena Say-o woman: white hair from birth and skin nearly the same color."

Eule nodded. "Sounds exactly like albinism."

Teersa returned the nod. "If that's what your tribe calls it, which is probably much friendlier than what we call those people. All they have from what our stories tell is that they burn in the sun much more easily and they tend to see poorly. Unfortunately, some fool Nora long ago decided that the spirits of the Forgotten have cursed them somehow, and thus have named them 'Forgotten-Touched'. It's been a story among the Nora ever since, with a few foolish members of our tribe still believing it and thinking that they attract bad luck to them."

"Well, how else do you explain that white hair and white skin?" Lansra argued.

"Yes, because that's a fine excuse to bully them," Teersa replied in a voice so dripping with sarcasm that Eule didn't need to be a Eule to hear it.

"Enough!" Jezza said in a voice an angry notch above her usual softness. "This is completely irrelevant to the issue of Eu-le and Star, so we will bring the trial back to them and continue discussing not on either this Aleena Say-o woman or the Forgotten-Touched in general. Are we understood?"

Teersa happily agreed with that conclusion, while Lansra, as usual, dropped the subject only with a grumbling agreement.

"Very well then," Jezza said with a sigh before turning back to the gathered party. "Now that we have determined that Eu-le and Star did not willingly intrude into Nora Sacred Lands, we will deliberate on their request to live here. Teersa has previously advanced the argument that we issue them trade passes, which for Eu-le and Star's explanation: are tokens we give to merchants visiting the Sacred Lands and the Embrace in particular to allow them to conduct their business here. Now Eu-le and Star, do you agree to being issued trade passes?"

"Yes," Eule replied at the same time Star replied with the same.

"Then we must determine if you are trustworthy enough to be issued trade passes," Jezza said. "Do you have any witnesses who can speak for your character?"

Eule was about to suggest Rost and Äloy, but before she could do so, someone surprised her.

"High Matriarchs, may I offer my testimony to speak for their character?" Sona asked.

"You may, War-Chief Sona," Jezza replied in a surprised yet interested tone.

"Thank you," Sona thanked with a nod. "I have collected several witness testimonies about the incident of 2 days ago: when the child Teb sustained an injury in the course of Brave training and was nearly killed by a Strider herd and its Watcher guards. According to a trio of witnesses, including Teb himself: Eu-le and Star, along with outcast Rost, risked their lives to not only rescue Teb, but also rescue outcast Aloy who attempted to rescue Teb in her eagerness to help. If that does not speak to Eu-le and Star's characters, I don't know what would."

"But–" Äloy started to protest before Eule placed a black robotic finger over Äloy's mouth to shush her.

Eule knew that Äloy had played a large role in rescuing Teb, but for the sake of this trial, it was better to not to contradict Sona. Fortunately, Äloy did seem to understand and didn't say a word after, even if she was clearly not happy about it.

Eule whispered to Äloy: "I'll make it up to you after, okay?"

To Eule's relief, Äloy nodded in acceptance.

"I accept that as adequate testimony to Eu-le and Star's character. What say you, sisters?" Jezza asked.

"Adequate testimony is really putting it mildly now, Jezza," Teersa remarked wryly. "Anyone who would do that gets my vote."

"Wait! What about the other witness testimony?" Lansra argued.

Sona looked like she was about to raise an eyebrow, but it stopped partway and lowered itself back down in remembered respect. "If I may ask, High Matriarch Lansra: what other testimony?"

"The one that said these outsiders attacked Teb and injured him in the first place," Lansra explained.

For a moment, Eule could only stare at Lansra in disbelief, her polite smile having slipped off her face and turned into a neutral expression once more from shock…and to Eule's own surprise, fury as well.

"Now that's a bald-faced lie if I heard any," Star joked, with an edge to her voice belying her anger.

"High Matriarch Lansra, that sole witness testimony runs counter to three other witnesses' testimonies, with the Brave in question being drunk at the time of his supposed testimony," Sona explained, with Eule sure she heard an edge to the War-Chief's voice that matched Star's. "In light of those facts, I chose to disregard it as mere drunken ramblings, not to be taken seriously."

"In that case, then I vote to call this Brave to this trial to clarify his testimony," Lansra further argued. "After all, even drunkards can be correct, and a sober testimony from him should clarify matters, should it not?"

Jezza nodded. "Very well then, then I agree that this Brave should be called to trial to testify. Teersa?"

Teersa sighed. "If that will finally convince Lansra to drop the subject, then yes, I agree as well."

"Then we are agreed." Jezza turned to Son and nodded.

Sona nodded back and turned to Iyani. "Iyani, with me. We shall bring Jasp here to 'clarify' his story, whether he likes it or not."

Iyani chuckled. "Now this should be fun," she said, still chuckling as she followed Sona out the courtroom door.

It didn't take long for them to return, with a certain familiar Gestalt man in tow that Eule had the unfortunate pleasure to recognize from their misadventure with Teb.

Even more unfortunately, the feeling was mutual.

"You!" Jasp said with an accusing finger.

"Us," Star said with a mocking wave.

Before Jasp could say anything else though, Jezza said in her softly firm tone: "Brave Jasp. Sit down."

Jasp closed his mouth before he could say whatever he'd been about to say in response to Star's taunt. He walked up to the table, and took a seat that was a seat away from Star, leaving an empty seat in between them as an impromptu barricade.

"Now then, Brave Jasp. Your testimony from two days ago claimed that Eu-le and Star attacked and injured your son Teb. Do you still hold to your testimony?" Jezza asked.

"Uh…" Jasp replied, if you could call it as such.

"You need to think about that?" Teersa asked wryly.

"Uh, yes! I do!" Jasp finally said, or rather, shouted angrily. "These outsiders attacked my son, my own son! With…Machines, yes! They called their Machine brethren to attack him! You saw how they have Machines for bodies! They are clearly in league with them and can command them like the Metal Devil himself!"

"Wow, very convincing performance there," Star drawled. "How long did it take you to come up with that? A minute? Maybe two?"

"You shut it, Tainted!" Jasp now fairly screamed. "Or I'll–"

"Or you'll what, Brave Jasp?" Sona asked, low and dangerous, her hand firmly grasping her long-bladed spear.

Jasp's face turned pale. "I-I mean no disrespect, War-Chief," he said quickly.

"Star, I would rather not have our witness's testimony be interrupted, if you would please?" Jezza asked in a tone somewhere between request and command.

"Yes, ma'am," Star replied with a salute in the Eusan Nation style: with her left hand and her palm slightly facing outwards at an angle, even if the salute was done sitting instead of standing as per normal.

Personally, Eule wasn't entirely certain about Star's taunting of Jasp. It was pretty clear by now that Jasp had a temper so short that it made the stereotypical Storch look calm and reasonable. A part of her worried that Jasp might be angered enough to try something drastic and possibly harm Äloy in the process, but given the sheer amount of threat Sona posed, she felt a bit more secure, and that wasn't even going into Star and Rost being right there to help if need be. She earnestly hoped it wouldn't come to that though.

"Now back to your testimony, Brave Jasp," Jezza continued. "Do you have any witnesses to support your story?"

If Jasp looked pale before, now his skin looked practically as albino as this mysterious Alina Seo's. "W-Witnesses?" he asked.

"Yes, witnesses. As in: someone else who can tell us if you're telling the truth?" Teersa drawled in a Star-like fashion.

Alright, as much as Eule had worried over Jasp's temper, there was a part of her that was just a teensy bit satisfied to see Jasp sweat and squirm as he tried to make up witnesses to his patently false testimony.

"Teb! Yes, Teb!" Jasp suddenly shouted. "He was there! He can be my witness!"

"Even though his testimony is in complete contradiction to yours?" Teersa drawled once more, dripping with just as much sarcasm as before.

"He what?! Why that little–er…" Jasp suddenly stopped in the middle of what he had been about to call Teb, just as suddenly realizing that what was about to come out of his mouth might not have done well for his credibility. Or rather, what little remained of the credibility he had. When next he opened his mouth though, he said: "He's confused, you see. What with his injury and all, he clearly wasn't in his right mind when he made his testimony."

"I wasn't aware that a foot injury could affect one's mind," Iyani quipped from the doorway.

Eule could actually think of numerous ways a foot injury could affect one's thinking process, but all of them involved complications from infection leading to fever, which would mean that Teb shouldn't have been in good enough shape to give any witness testimony at all, which didn't seem to be the case judging from Sona and Iyani's attitudes.

"Very well then," Jezza said in the flattest tone Eule had heard her speak in thus far. "If you claim that Teb can act as a witness for you, then are we agreed that Teb is to be brought in to give his testimony?"

"I don't like an injured child being made to give witness testimony. Not in the slightest. Especially not one with a foot injury combined with all those stairs," Teersa noted.

"War-Chief Sona, what is the current condition of Teb's foot injury?" Lansra asked.

"Teb was still walking with a limp when I saw him today," Sona reported.

Eule's worry meter shot up a notch upon hearing that. On one hand, it was good that Teb was moving around on his own power without need of a crutch. It suggested that miraculously, his foot didn't sustain any serious injury despite that high fall. On the other hand, the fact that he was still limping even 2 days after still suggests some degree of injury severity. She can only hope that Teb was okay, and that he wouldn't be made to exacerbate his injury.

Fortunately, Lansra nodded and said: "Very well, since Teb is still injured, I vote against his being called in for testimony, and instead, the other two witnesses should be called in to provide their testimonies."

Teersa barked out a laugh. "The first sensible thing you said all day, Lansra! Very well, I agree with that vote."

"As do I," Jezza agreed. "War-Chief Sona, can you bring those other two witnesses in?"

Interestingly, Jasp looked extremely nervous at this sudden change in witness-bringing. Eule had some sinking suspicions as to why Jasp had been so insistent on Teb being the only witness for his testimony, but at least now he wouldn't be getting his wish.

As for Sona, she simply nodded and marched off, notably without asking another Brave to come with her. It seemed to Eule that she expected those other witnesses to arrive with no trouble at all.

Indeed, that was the case, with a pair of very familiar-looking young Nora men walking through the door. That didn't surprise Eule. What did surprise her though was those two young Nora men helping Teb walk into the courtroom.

"Teb?!" Eule blurted out.

"Heh, hello," Teb replied shyly, even as he limped over to a free seat next to Rost with the help of one of the young Nora men, who presumably were his friends.

"War-Chief Sona, why did you bring Teb here?" Jezza asked in a softly worried with a tinge of anger in it.

Sona sighed. "Teb insisted on coming here to provide his testimony when I explained what was happening. He wished to support Feld and Sal's testimonies," she explained.

Eule watched Teb lean forward to look at her and Star past the bulk of Rost, who simply raised an eyebrow at the young Nora man but said nothing.

"When I heard that my…my father was claiming that you both attacked me when that was obviously not the case, well, I knew that I had to speak up against it," Teb explained, looking scared but also determined.

"Shut up, boy!" Jasp yelled out.

Teb flinched, but Eule noticed that the determined look in his blue eyes didn't falter in the slightest.

"Brave Jasp," Jezza said in a soft-sounding declaration that nonetheless made Jasp flinch and look at her. "You will remain civil and quiet during a witness testimony. If you do not, then we will throw out your own witness testimony, and order you out of this courtroom. Is that clear?"

Jasp gulped. "As glass, High Matriarch Jezza."

Jezza nodded and turned to Teb and his friends Feld and Sal, who had both taken free seats next to Teb, and had noticeably placed them the furthest away from Jasp.

"Now then, Teb. Please recount the events that led to your injury," Jezza commanded in that soft voice she normally used, but somehow even softer now.

Teb did indeed recount those events, starting from his fall from the cliffs and ending only at the point where he had been led away by his father. He began haltingly, but his voice became clearer as he gained more confidence in the retelling. And of course, it was entirely accurate to what Eule remembered. Indeed, it was actually fascinating, if a bit harrowing, to hear that day's events from Teb's point of view.

Except…Eule also noticed that Teb neglected to mention how his father threatened Äloy, or that his father cuffed him hard on the back of his head as he was being led away. Whether it was accidental or intentional, it made Eule worry over what was going through Teb's mind on that bit.

When Teb finished with his testimony though, Jezza nodded at him. "Thank you, Teb. Your witness testimony was most helpful in clarifying matters. Feld and Sal, you witnessed the same events, did you not? Could you please give us your testimonies of that day?"

Sal scratched his head. "But can't I just say that I saw the same thing Teb did?"

Feld (and Eule didn't fail to notice the similarity there with the Eusan Standard Language word for "field") turned to look at Sal with a look of sheer disbelief. "You lard-brain! Of course you can't. That's the whole point of a witness testimony. So that the High Matriarchs can get details that that the other witnesses might've missed."

"Ohhh, okay," Sal said, nodding. But then he looked thoughtful. "But then can't I just say the things that Teb missed, like how his dad hit him on the way back to Mother's Heart?"

"He what?" Jezza , Teersa, and Lansra all asked in outrage, all at the same time.

"Yeah, his dad's a chuff," Sal continued blithely, completely unaware of the impact his testimony was making. "He hits him over the smallest things during training. Me and Feld thought it was just tough love at first, but it was getting just really plain tough to watch."

Feld sighed. "High Matriarch Jezza, is it okay if we make this witness testimony together? This lard-brain wouldn't understand proper procedure if you hit him over the head with it."

Jezza broke her intense glare at a visibly sweating Jasp to nod at Feld. "You may do so, Feld."

"Yes, please do," Lansra said, a cold fury in her voice that surprised even Eule and apparently even Teersa, judging by the surprised look she gave her fellow High Matriarch.

With that permission given, Feld and Sal launched a joint testimony of that day's events. For the most part, it was more or less identical to Teb's testimony. As it turned out, both of them had been watching from the top of the cliffs while one of their fellow Brave trainees ran off to find Jasp.

Admittedly, Eule was a bit amused to hear and see Feld and Sal spend a good percentage of their testimony bickering with each other. Or rather, Feld trying to correct Sal on various minute details while Sal just blithely ventured forth with his testimony regardless. To Eule, they seemed like a pair of very good friends having a familiar one-sided argument with each other, and it made her worry meter drop down a notch.

At least, until Feld and Sal reached the part where they finally entered the scene themselves and arrived at the part that Teb missed.

"Jasp was being really scary and creepy," Sal explained. "He was basically making like he wanted to hit that outcast girl there."

"Yeah, I mean, who does that?" Feld added. "Making threats against a little kid like that? I mean, yeah, she's an outcast, but who does that to a kid half their size? I thought Jasp was supposed to be an adult?"

"Yeah, maybe he actually does got a tiny dick after all," Sal noted, chuckling as he did so. "That was good right there, uhhh, tall outsider lady?"

Star gave him a wave and a friendly smile. "The name's Star. Don't forget it," she replied cheerfully.

Eule giggled at seeing Sal blush and rub the back of his head in embarrassment, finding the young Gestalt man's obvious crush on Star to be absolutely adorable. "Um, I won't, er, Sh…Star," he said, suddenly very shy.

Feld sighed in exasperation. "Anyways. Yeah, after Teb's dad finished threatening a little kid–oh, I'm sorry, talking to us in a way that just 'happened' to be threatening to the kid because he can't get caught directly talking to an outcast–he ordered us all back to Mother's Heart, and that's when he hit Teb…again. You know, on top of the time he hit him during the Brave training, and while Teb was limping too." He then suddenly looked thoughtful. "Actually, come to think of it, Teb, how many times did he hit you during that solo training he gave you just before this all happened?"

Teb looked uncomfortable upon receiving that question; even more uncomfortable than he already looked to Eule. "Umm, I…don't remember," he replied quietly.

"Solo training?" Jezza asked.

"Yeah, Teb's dad told us all to go away for a while so that he can give Teb some 'solo training'," Sal said dismissively. "Honestly, I think the guy just didn't want us to see him hit Teb. At least, more than he already did while we were watching."

"Yeah, I mean, come on. Teb had just come back from climbing practice, and that's rough," Feld added. "The least his dad could do after something like that was ease up so that Teb doesn't fall or some…thing…"

The entire courtroom suddenly became very quiet as everyone processed Feld's comments, including Feld himself.

"Wait, Teb. Did he…make you fall?" Feld asked very carefully.

Teb said nothing. He only looked down at his feet, and didn't reply either way. Still, Eule could read his face perfectly well, and it only confirmed the building horror, disgust, and anger…no, rage that she was feeling.

And apparently, it was the same rage that Star was feeling too.

"You fucking piece of shit," Star growled as she glared at Jasp, the wood on her chair's armrest creaking as her robotic hands gripped it.

At the same time, Eule heard a similar creaking of wood coming from behind her, and she now knew for certain that Rost was just as furious as all of them. Even little Äloy was glaring at Jasp in Eule's lap, growling at him in a way that Eule would normally find adorable if not for how utterly furious she was feeling right now at this abhorrent being who dared call himself a father to Teb.

"I didn't! I deny it all!" Jasp shouted. "Look! Teb isn't even saying anything! No testimony mean that it's all a story!"

"Stories tend to have a grain of truth to it," Teersa noted seriously, all of her usual cheer completely absent from her voice as she continued: "Except, this story looks like it has a grain of truth the size of one of the Carja's maize."

"Teb. Teb?" Jezza asked softly, making Teb look up at her. "Look at me. It's okay. No one can hurt you here. So please answer the question: did Brave Jasp make you fall from that cliff?"

Teb looked back down at his feet, looking as scared as 18 was during those final days, making Eule feel a strong urge to reach past Rost to hug Teb.

"Teb," Rost rumbled, making Teb look up at him in surprise at hearing Rost speak at long last. Rost simply reached out a hand to him, and gently patted him on the head. No further words. Just a gentle patting that wordlessly offered to comfort Teb.

"It will be okay. I promise," Äloy insisted from Eule's lap.

"Indeed it will, Teb," Eule added with a hopeful smile to Teb. "We're all here. There's no need to be afraid, especially with Star around."

"As well as a certain Eule," Star added with her own smile to Teb in the process. "This is a Replika who singlehandedly took down a Watcher on the first day she learned how to use a bow, after all. Jasp doesn't stand a chance against her."

"Oh, stop it, love!" Eule said with a laugh.

To her relief, Teb laughed as well. Indeed, he looked much better now, much more confident, and with a look of determination slowly creeping into his eyes as he turned to face Jezza.

Teb took a deep breath, and finally spoke. "He…father…he did. I…I don't think he meant to. I really don't. I think he just meant to…to teach me a lesson, and he…he pushed me a bit too hard, and–"

"Shut your mouth, you brat!" Jasp yelled, getting up from his seat and raising a fist.

Eule watched Star start to get up from her seat, while she heard the sounds of Rost starting to rise up behind her. Meanwhile, she herself started to wrap her arms around Äloy, shielding her from what was going to happen.

But before anything could happen, Sona happened first. Eule had never seen a Gestalt move so quickly before. Sona was a dark blur as she dashed forward, planted a hand on Jasp's shoulder, and forced him back into his seat one-handed. She then took the shaft of her spear, and pinned Jasp to his seat, preventing him from rising again.

"You will remain seated, Brave Jasp," Sona said in her most intense War-Chief voice. "If you dare to attack anyone in this courtroom, you will find out firsthand how I defeated my predecessor, and earned the title of War-Chief of the Nora for yourself."

All of Jasp's rage seemed to vanish, and instead, it was replaced with fear as he whimpered, staring at the long, sharpened piece of Machine armor that made up the blade of Sona's spear less than a centimeter from his face.

Sona then turned to everyone else in the courtroom. "You may all sit down now. This one will not be troubling you anymore."

Star, frozen in the act of getting up, reversed her course and sat back down, whistling in admiration as she did so. "Now that was as fast as any of my sisters. Go, War-Chief Sona."

"Indeed, we High Matriarchs thank you War-Chief Sona for the intervention," Jezza said, before she turned a glare onto the quivering Jasp. "Although we deeply regret that such an intervention had to be necessary in the first place."

"Agreed. I think we can safely throw the 'Brave' Jasp's testimony out. Are we agreed on that?" Teersa asked.

"Agreed," Lansra immediately replied. "And I propose that we begin a new trial after we conclude this one. This time, against the 'Brave' Jasp for attempted murder and child abuse, among any other crimes he might've committed against young Teb."

Eule was surprised at first, but then she saw the look in Lansra's eyes. Lansra was furious at Jasp. Granted, it seemed to Eule that Lansra was always angry at something or other, but now there was a cold fury in the belligerent High Matriarch's eyes as she turned her glare onto still-pinned Jasp.

"On that I am agreed as well," Jezza said, her soft voice now tinged with the fury of a Rotfront blizzard. "However, before we can do that, we have to conclude this trial with Eu-le and Star. Since we now all agree that Jasp's witness testimony is no longer to be considered viable, then the witness testimony from Teb, Sal, and Feld stands. Eu-le and Star have proved themselves to not merely be not a threat to the Nora, but indeed, have proved themselves a great help to the Nora. Enough so that I now believe that they are worthy of having trade passes be granted to them, and thus by extension, their request to live in the Embrace be granted as well. Are we agreed?"

"Now this is something I've been waiting for since this trial began. I most certainly agree," Teersa said happily, her cheer finally returned to her to Eule's relief.

Jezza started to turn to Lansra, but Lansra spoke first with: "I still don't like the idea of outsiders being allowed into the Embrace: the heart of our Sacred Lands. Especially not these strange half-Machine outsider women. But…at least…Eh-u-le and Shtar show that they don't intend to harm the Nora. Fine! I agree. Happy?"

Jezza merely nodded at that before turning back to the assembled and eagerly awaiting audience. "Then I pronounce this trial is concluded in favor of Eu-le and Star. Go now, and may the All-Mother grant you peace and plenty here in her Embrace."

Eule admitted that she didn't quite hear the last few words Jezza spoke, since it was mostly drowned out by the sounds of Star and Äloy cheering (with Teb, Sal, and Feld joining in the cheering) and hugging her, with Rost celebrating by smiling in his usual silent way, but it was okay. Eule now knew that she would have more than enough time to clarify matters with Jezza later in case it was important.

For now though, there was only celebration at Eule's nightmare scenario being defeated, and thus their new life in the Embrace can truly begin.