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.

13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Night's Approaching End

By now, a massive group of Nora men, women, and children had gathered around the stage in front of the hall of Mother's Heart, where an essentially large leather tent roof had been erected over the stage to keep the snow out. In fact, there were so many of them that Eule was fairly certain that a large portion of the entire population of this small village had arrived to be an audience to what was going on.

The "what" in this case being Eule (with Star as her assistant cook) formally introducing ramen to the Nora, and recording the whole experience with her Focus's video camera-like screenshot feature for Aloy and Rost to enjoy later as well. Starting with the High Matriarchs.

First, Eule brought out some of her ramen noodles from one of her Chillwater containers, premade the day before in a fit of noodle-making all in preparation for this.

Eule had made the dough by slowly adding water with mixture of wood ash (in lieu of sodium carbonate) and salt in it into flour, all the while stirring with a pair of homemade long chopsticks. It had resulted in quite a bit of water needing to be used though. The mix of wild grains (many of which Eule struggled to even identify) the Nora (including Rost) preferred to make their flour out of tasted heavenly, but it required significantly more water to make into soft dough fit for noodle-making than the plain flour she used back in the Eusan Nation did. Once that was done though, she then hand-rubbed it all together to mix the water into the flour properly, and then let it rest before pressing it flat into a sheet.

Then she had undertaken the next step, which was to roll the dough flat with a homemade rolling pin on a floured surface, fold the dough, and then roll it flat again. The process of rolling, folding, and rolling the dough was the most time-consuming step, made even more so by the fact that she most definitely did not have access to a ramen-making machine to speed up the process. It was what it was though, and fortunately, there had been a meditative quality to the process that made it almost…relaxing for Eule.

The very next step after that had been to roll the dough out one final time in a single, long, and very thin sheet, dust it with flour, and then very carefully cut it into very thin strips with her Oseram knife (Red Eye watch over Torvund for its quality) for the noodles. Without a ramen-cutting machine, that had been the most difficult process of the job, and even with her mechanical arms, she was 100% certain that her noodles were definitely not uniform in width. However, the important thing was that despite that, she was also sure that they were still 100% noodles, and that was enough.

That was all in the past of yesterday though, so with that momentary trip down memory lane concluded, Eule was finally ready to make the ramen.

Eule held out a deep wooden bowl to Star, who had been womanning a large Oseram cauldron, loaned by Teersa for the job, filled with boar bone broth. Star fulfilled her task admirably by expertly ladling broth into the bowl.

Next, Eule added a serving of ramen noodles into it. This would give the noodles time to cook a bit while she prepared the other ingredients.

That started with slicing some of her special Rotwurst sausages into the bowl, covering half of the noodles in a semi-circle. Then she chopped up vegetables to complement the meat on the other half of the bowl. Alas, it was the dead of winter, so there wasn't much growing. What was in season though were greatbulb (which looked like some kind of leek to Eule) and tendergreens (which Eule was almost certain was spinach, or at least a very close relative). However, Eule had another trick up her white sleeves: bean sprouts. All she had to do was just let quite a bit of wild beans sprout out and grow in a cloth-covered clay jar the week before, and now she had bean sprouts to put in with the rest of the vegetables.

She had even gotten a thumbs-up from Teersa for it, since apparently, sprouted grains were already in use by the Nora to make beer. Sprouted beans sprouted expressly for the purpose of eating them in their sprouted state wouldn't and shouldn't violate the Nora laws against farming any more than the sprouted grains would.

All this, she repeated three times: once for each High Matriarch, placing a bowl of ramen in front of Teersa, Jezza, and Lansra respectively.

Lastly, she plated smaller Machine armor plates with pickled strips of ginger (dyed red with crimson bloom dye) and Rotkraut as side dishes to complement the ramen. Each High Matriarch received two plates of these side dishes, as per custom in Rotfront ramen restaurants.

And with that done: the ramen was complete.

"So this is the 'ramen' we have been hearing about?" Jezza asked curiously as she stared at her wooden bowl full of steaming ramen.

Eule formally bowed to not only Jezza but also to Teersa and Lansra, who were all sitting at a long wooden table, each with a bowl of ramen in front of her.

"For this meal in the depths of middle winter," Eule began. "This Eule and–"

"This Star," Star continued from where she stood next to the giant Oseram-made cauldron: one of the last things Torvund sold to the residents of Mother's Heart, making a bow just as formal as the one Eule was making.

"Presents to you: Rotront-style ramen made with mixed grain noodles, fried and sliced smoked boar sausages, winter vegetables, and optional servings of pickled ginger–er, spiceroot and Rotkraut to accompany the dish," Eule finished.

As Eule expected, Lansra peered suspiciously at her bowl and its contents. "What is this supposed to be? The only things I recognize are the soup and the greens. What are these string-like things, and these oval things? And for that matter, why would you pickle spiceroot and why are these greens here red? Wait, did you just say that these red greens are rotten? Are you trying to sicken us with your outsider things?"

Eule had to hum a bit, both to buy herself time to think and to steady herself against Lansra's usual bile before explaining: "These are just foods from my tribe. The string-like food are called 'noodles' in my tribe, and are a critical component of ramen. They're just strings of unleavened dough, currently cooked in boar bone broth. The thin oval foods are just sliced sausage, which is just meat–boar in this case–that has been ground up with salt, herbs, and spices and put into turkey intestine. The pickling helps preserve the spiceroot as well as giving it a palate-cleansing taste, and the Rotkraut is merely vegetables preserved in salt, with herbs and spices for flavoring. Nothing more."

Lansra opened her mouth, likely to rail against all of the foods Eule mentioned in some way or other. Surprisingly though, nothing came out. Lansra kept closing her mouth and opening it back up, as though she was trying desperately to find some way to criticize the ingredients legitimately, but finding that she couldn't think of any.

To Eule, it looked like a fish breathing water, and she had to invoke the spirit of Februar in order to avoid bursting out into some very inappropriate giggling.

"Oh, give it up, my strong-willed sister," Teersa called out, instantly making the object of her insult turn to her instead of continuing to make fish faces at Eule. "It's just food. There's nothing you can do or say to make it not food, so why not just enjoy it while it's still hot, like I am?"

Indeed, Teersa emphasized it by taking her pair of chopsticks, picking up some strings of noodles, and happily slurped them up, chewing with great relish.

"Well, how do you know it's not poisoned?" Lansra countered.

Eule merely continued making her most polite smile at Lansra, not letting how much she was bothered by the poisoning accusations show on her face in the slightest.

"Oh, stop being silly," Teersa waved off after she'd swallowed her noodles. "You literally just watched Eule prepare the food in front of you, and then you watched Sona eat a bowl because she insisted on taking the poisoning accusation with some seriousness. Personally, I think she just wanted to try ramen ahead of us, seeing as how she's on her second bowl by now."

It was true. Sona was indeed standing there, leaning against one wall of the village hall, eating her second bowl of ramen with a pair of chopsticks that were wielded with surprising skill and delicacy considering that this was the first time Eule had ever seen Sona even pick up a pair of chopsticks before.

"If this was poisoned, I would be dead at least twice over now," Sona drawled in a tone as dry as Rost's would be in the same situation, before returning to her bowl of ramen.

Teersa hummed happily letting Sona speak for her as she sampled a bit of the sausage.

Lansra, for her part, returned her suspicious gaze to her bowl of ramen. "It's still strange outsider food. Not fit for a Nora, in my opinion."

"I believe I will have to disagree with you on that issue, sister," Jezza said suddenly.

It was only now that Eule noticed that there were noticeably fewer ingredients in Jezza's bowl, with a wooden spoon in the bowl explaining what utensil she used to scoop that food up with. When had Jezza sampled the ramen? Eule had looked away for mere minutes at most. Clearly, she'd underestimated the High Matriarch's eating speed.

"This ramen is an interesting food," Jezza began. "Combining different foods, both strange and familiar, into a unique combination. The noodles are basically a form of soft boiled bread, while the sausage is simply a new way to preserve meat. Interesting texture the meat of this sausage has though: very light and almost fluffy. This 'Rot-kraut' though…why is it sour?" she asked Eule.

"The sour flavor of Rotkraut is due to lactic acid generated by bacteria during the fermentation process in order to…," Eule began to explain, only to notice the blank looks on Jezza and Lansra's faces. Teersa was busy eating her ramen, and merely gave Eule a mischievous wink when she noticed Eule looking at her. Eule could only laugh nervously in response before humming as she thought about how to modify her explanation, before she began once more: "The sourness of Rotkraut is because I've had to let the vegetables sit in a buried jar with salt for a day or two. It's basically the same process that makes beer, but for a much shorter time span."

"Ahh, so it's essentially pickled vegetables," Jezza said with a nod. "Interesting that you would use it in a soup though. We would normally eat such things on their own or between sliced bread. Although, I suppose using it in soups with this boiled bread, this 'noodles' as you call it, would be what one would call a logical next step to that."

Eule nodded eagerly at Jezza's musings. "So does that mean you like it, High Matriarch Jezza?"

Jezza nodded back in reply, if a bit more sedately, and amazingly, smiled at Eule. "It's a very interesting food to introduce to the Nora. It seems like a rather appropriate food for winter. Indeed, I feel very pleasantly warm from this already. I will give this ramen my blessing."

Eule beamed at Jezza, giggling in happiness amidst the excited collective "Ooh" from the surrounding Nora. Her beaming gaze then turned to the only High Matriarch who hadn't sampled the ramen, turning into an eager look as Lansra grimaced at Eule.

"Well, I've already given my blessing to this ramen even before this tasting," Teersa said happily as she gave a mischievous smile at Lansra. "You're the only one here who hasn't even tried it yet. Perhaps you have trouble using those chopsticks? I'll be happy to teach you if you ask for it."

"That's not the issue here, and you know it!" Lansra snapped, pointing a finger at Teersa. "For that matter, how do you even know how to use these two sticks?"

"Why, practice, of course! It makes perfect, after all. All those times sampling Eule's ramen at a private location–"

Eule had to firmly clamp down on the urge to giggle when Teersa winked at her. She knew perfectly well just what this "private location" was. After all, Rost and Aloy lived there with herself and Star.

"–to work out the perfect recipe really did wonders for my chopsticks handling," Teersa replied cheerfully, clacking the two points of her chopsticks together for emphasis. "Although if your real issue here is the ramen itself, then I can finish that off before it gets cold if you don't mind?"

Lansra glowered at Teersa before turning her glower at the ramen. "Fine," she said before taking her spoon, dipping it into the bowl to scoop up some noodles, and biting into them.

Eule watched Lansra chew on the noodles with no small amount of intensity. Her intensity only heightened as she watched Lansra sample the other elements of the ramen, one by one, wordlessly chewing each one carefully before swallowing, pausing between ingredients only to sip a spoonful of the broth.

Eule was further excited by the sight of Lansra sampling some of the pickled ginger/spiceroot, as well as the Rotkraut, even dropping pieces into the broth to stir the flavor in, despite seemingly being disgusted by them earlier. Clearly, the old High Matriarch had some amount of curiosity left in her…or maybe she was trying to see if it was poisoned or not? In either case, Lansra still chewed the toppings just as wordlessly, without a single change of her usual Storch-like frown.

Until at long last, Lansra had an empty bowl in front of her.

Eule looked expectantly at Lansra.

Most expectantly.

So expectantly that Lansra started grumbling like an engine before crying out in frustration, and jabbing a finger at Eule. "Alright, fine! It's delicious and…arrgh, fine! It has my blessing, so stop staring at me like that!"

Eule felt like she wanted to jump for joy, but that would be most undignified of her. So undignified that she could almost see Februar staring sternly at her, and hear Februar admonishing her for even considering acting in a behavior most unbecoming of a Eule.

So instead, Eule bowed politely to Lansra, and calmly said: "This Eule is most grateful to receive your compliments for the food," leaving only a hint of the joy she was feeling to flavor her words.

Alas, Star was not so reserved, and Eule let a smile onto her biocomponent face as she heard her lover whoop and cheer. "Alright! We got them all to bless your ramen! Even Lansra!" Star cried out.

Lansra merely grumbled in response, twirling her wooden spoon on the bottom of her empty bowl as she did so.

Eule wondered at that gesture, and with a mixture of curiosity and hope, asked Lansra: "Would you like a second helping?"

Lansra continued grumbling for a few moments more, before finally, in the tone of someone having their teeth pulled out with each word, said: "Yes. Please…and give me more of that rotten greens stuff. Just a bit."

That last line was what finally made the entire crowd of Nora break into curious and excited discussion as Eule and Star worked to serve up another bowl of ramen and another serving of Rotkraut to Lansra, who accepted it with just as much grumbling as before. Even her request for more Rotkraut was accompanied by yet more grumbling, but it still filled Eule's biomechanical heart with joy at seeing Lansra dig into a second helping of her ramen colored red with the salt and chili powder-pickled vegetables.

Teersa grinned. "Well, I would call that an unspoken second blessing from Lansra there, wouldn't you agree, Jezza?"

"I do," Jezza noted with an approving nod. "This ramen seemed to have stimulated her appetite well enough, so I would say so with quite a bit of relief."

"Does she not normally have an appetite, High Matriarch Jezza?" Eule asked respectfully.

Jezza slowly shook her head. "This is the first time I've seen her ask for a second helping of anything, especially in winter. Her appetite seems to slow down in the cold, and I've worried about her weight on occasion."

"I don't need you to mother me, sister!" Lansra snapped before returning to her ramen, grumbling along the way.

"Umm, if you like, High Matriarch Lansra," Eule began. "I can–"

"And I certainly don't need you to baby me either, you half-Machine outsider!" Lansra snapped at Eule just as angrily.

Eule had to take a moment to take a deep breath and hum a bit to calm down before speaking again. "If you would just let me finish speaking: I can offer to teach you to cook ramen for yourself. It would save you the trouble of having to ask for someone to cook it for you."

Lansra glared at Eule for several. Long. Moments…until she finally huffed, and grumbled: "Do what you want…but not now. I'm busy."

Lansra spooning a slice of sausage into her mouth indicated just what she was "busy" with, which was at least something Eule could appreciate along with Lansra's acceptance of her offer.

"Oh hey, can you teach me how to make that 'ramen' too?" a Nora man asked from the watching crowd.

Eule started to open her mouth to answer–

"Oh, teach me too?" a Nora woman asked from the same crowd, just from a different direction.

"Hey, I want to learn how to make those 'noodle' things too! They look tasty and fun!" a Nora woman, or rather girl from her looks, shouted excitedly.

"Wouldn't mind trying to make those 'sausages' myself," another Nora man pondered out loud. "Seems like it's a nice break from jerky and smoked meat."

"Hey, teach me about those pickled greens too? I want to see if it's any better than how I make it," another Nora woman asked eagerly.

All at once, Eule seemed like she was being bombarded with requests to teach the secrets of her ramen from seemingly everywhere at once. Attempts to reply to even one requester were almost instantly drowned by requests from others. Eule almost felt like she was being drowned under the tide of very eager questions from the Nora crowd. She knows that she should be happy about this, but this was starting to get to be a bit too much!

And that was when a CLAP echoed through the air.

Everyone, including Eule, turned their gazes towards the source of that clap: an irate Star who had almost Bioresonantly materialized by Eule's side with her hands pressed together just post-clap.

"Alright, that's enough!" Star shouted in her best officer voice. "One at a time, people! One at a time! Form a line and ask your questions to my Eule one at a time, or else no one gets their questions asked! Understood?!"

Much to Eule's relief, the muttering among the Nora was quite amiable and agreeable despite Star's aggressive stance. Even more of a relief was the immediate aftermath, in which the parts of the Nora crowd that were interested in how to recreate ramen themselves lined up. Really, the only daunting thing was just how much of the crowd was now in that long, meandering line, but at least it was a manageable kind of daunting.

The line though reminded Eule of something from her past, just in that short period of time between her birth and her assignment to her new home of S-23 Sierpinski, when her home had been briefly Rotfront. Lines hadn't been uncommon there. Rotfront couldn't produce everything on its own, so the lines tended to be for things the moon either couldn't produce period, or couldn't produce in sufficient quantities to meet demand. Everything from tropical fruits to the rare recovered Vinetan media that the Nation's censors deigned to approve for public consumption could all be things that people would line up for, often with a furtive air to them, as if even the approved material could still get them into trouble.

There was none of that with this line though. Every Nora Eule spoke to was quite cheerful about the whole matter of how to replicate ramen, and the atmosphere of the whole line was fairly jovial, with people chatting excitedly with each other even as they lined up for their turn at the questions.

Soon though, it became apparent to Eule that the line format was too inefficient, and so instead, with Star's help once more, she basically set up an impromptu classroom on the stage, with some very lucky members of the portion of the audience interested in cooking (which to Eule's surprise, included the familiar faces of Teb, Rana, and Jan) participating directly in the ramen-making process, making experimental batches of ramen for the audience to taste-test.

And if the appreciative reactions from the audience were anything to go on, Eule was sure that the ramen was becoming a hit among the Nora.

Then tragedy struck.

"Uhh, Eule? Our broth is running low, and I think we're out of boar bones," Star mentioned, disappointment evident in her voice.

"Already?" Eule said in dismay, before looking over the Nora crowd to see who was still interested in ramen cooking lessons and who hadn't gotten a bowl yet.

To her further dismay, there was still a substantial number of both.

"On the one hand, I suppose this is a good thing," Eule said with a nervous giggle, before sighing. "On the other hand, this is my fault. I underestimated the amount of broth that we would need for this."

"Hold on, did you say you needed boar bones?"

Eule looked up to see the sight of Rana looking at her with a thoughtful look, having been one of the ones who'd been interested in cooking ramen.

"Yes, we do," Eule began to explain. "The marrow in the bones is the critical ingredient for making a good ramen broth. At least, that was the way Februar taught me."

"Hmm," Rana hummed thoughtfully, before asking: "Do you need boar bones specifically, or will any bones do? Jan and I have some smoked turkey bones left over from breakfast earlier today. Will they do?"

Eule hummed thoughtfully herself as she considered it. Technically speaking, turkey bones weren't a traditional ingredient in Rotfront ramen…but then again, neither were boar bones. The recipe Februar had taught her called for pig bones, and it was just that boar was the closest thing to that available in the Sacred Lands.

But…if that was an acceptable substitution, then why not other bones? Especially if her broth was in desperate need for bones anyways?

"Yes, yes! Please, as long as they're not gnawed on! If you don't mind?" Eule asked, perhaps a bit desperately on her part.

Rana laughed. "Relax, it's fine! We were planning on breaking open the bones to suck out the marrow anyways. This is just a more fun way to do it. Wait here, I'll go get them," she assured Eule right before dashing off into Mother's Heart.

Fortunately, Eule didn't have long to wait before Rana came back with Jan and even little Minali in tow, with all of them carrying large leather sacks, save for the smallest member of their party, who was carrying a leather sack far more appropriate for her size.

Following them though were even more Nora: apparently the rest of Mother Heart's population. They weren't carrying any sacks, but still looked very curious and interested as to what Rana's family were doing with them, with Eule herself just as curious as to what was inside them.

The contents of the sacks became quite obvious when Rana, Jan, and Minali plopped them down in front of Eule and opened them up, revealing both of them to be full of bones, with bits of raw meat still attached to them.

"That's a lot of turkey bones," Eule noted with confusion. "I thought you said it was 'some'?"

Rana grinned and laughed even more loudly than before. "Funny story there: when everyone heard that you needed bones for soup for this 'ramen', everyone just chipped in what they had on hand. It's not just turkey bones in here now. There's rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, fox, and even some boar mixed in."

"Don't forget the jay, crow, and who know what other bird bones are in there," Jan pointed out.

Minali nodded for emphasis. Emphasis of exactly what, Eule didn't have a clue, but Minali was so adorable that she didn't care.

Rana laughed once more. "True there! All left over from smoking, drying, and everything a Nora could do to preserve them for the winter going on right now. Think this is enough?"

Eule was speechless for a moment before she burst out laughing herself. "Enough? I think I have enough ingredients for broth for the entirety of Mother's Heart now, and even some left over for a few seconds. Thank you, Rana. Thank you. Now come on! Let's cut them open and, oh, Star! Can you go fetch us some more water for that broth?"

Star bowed gracefully. "Your wish is my command, my beloved Eule," she said just as gracefully before running off to do just that amidst Eule's giggling.

Sometime later, the Oseram cauldron was once more full of simmering broth, skimmed of its scum. Eule carefully put an Oseram-made ladle in, poured out a small measure of broth into a wooden bowl, and just as carefully sipped that broth, with Star and every one of her Nora assistant cooks/students watching excitedly.

Instantly, the rich umami taste of the broth struck Eule's biocomponent tongue. However, it wasn't the same kind of umami taste as the broth was when it had been just boar bones, with some chopped spiceroot and even heartleaf root to balance out the gamey taste of the boar. Those herbs had still been added to this broth, but the addition of that veritable menagerie of animal bones into the broth gave it a complex umami flavor that even Eule was struggling to describe. However, she could say one thing for certain.

"It's delicious," Eule declared. "Perhaps…even more delicious than boar bones by their lonesome."

Indeed, Star and the other Nora helping to cook all agreed once they too had a sip, including a very important member of that group of Nora who Eule knew for a fact had tasted the pure boar bone broth before.

"Yeah, you're right," Teb commented as he smacked his lips after sipping the new broth. "It does taste better than before. I can't exactly tell you why, but it does taste better, I think."

Eule giggled. "That makes the two of us, yes?"

Thus, the new broth, when combined with the rest of the ramen ingredients, was equally a hit among the gathered Nora. In fact, with so much food going around, the atmosphere turned almost festive, with groups of adults chatting amiably with each other and even children running around playing to work off the energy they got from the ramen.

Honestly, if Eule were to close her eyes, she could almost imagine that she was back in a Rotfront Sektor during Mondfest, listening to the sounds of New Year's festivities playing around her during one of the few moments of each season where the Nation permitted anything of the sort for the people.

But then Eule opened her eyes again to see her current reality…and the sight was far better than even her nostalgia-flavored memories could ever offer her. She supposed that was the magic of All-Mother's Embrace at work here, which was better than the magic of Bioresonance by far.

"See?" Teb asked, causing Eule to turn to make a questioning sound at his grin. "Told you we would love that ramen."

Eule giggled before smiling at Teb. "You were right about that. Very much so."

"Maybe we could try introducing Rotbrezel to the Nora next time?" Star asked. "Might make the bread look a bit more interestingly twisty."

Teb grinned even wider. "Honestly, if Eule will tell me just how she manages to get that tasty brown skin on her 'twisty' bread, I'll gladly introduce it myself."

Eule's smile turned into an excited grin. "Oh, I'll gladly teach you myself! Just tell me when, and I'll be more than happy to!"

Teb gave her a chuckle in reply, rubbing the back of his head as he blushed a bit. "Actually, about that." When faced with Eule's questioning sound, he continued: "If you don't mind, is it okay if perhaps…you could teach me to cook like you do? I've rather enjoyed your cooking, and it's making me realize that…I want to try that. Cooking up dishes like you do. I still want to be a Stitcher, of course, but I wouldn't mind adding Cooker to the list of things I can call myself."

Eule stared at Teb for a bit, getting more and more excited the more she processed Teb's words.

Star chuckled. "Going by Eule making that whine in the back of her throat and her bouncing, I'd say that's a definite 'Yes' there."

Eule stopped what she was doing, very suddenly cognizant of the sounds and actions she was making thanks to her lover. She coughed to clear her biocomponent throat, and hopefully clear the blush on her biocomponent cheeks as well, before replying more seriously: "Yes, I would be more than happy to instruct you on the basics of Rotfront cuisine. Under my tutelage, you'll be able to cook with the best of us Eules." Then Eule suddenly thought of something after reviewing Teb's words. "Although, may I ask something of you as well?"

Teb spread his arms out. "Go ahead. I'm already asking a lot of you. I'll be more than happy to grant anything you ask for, just as long as it doesn't involve fighting. There's a reason why I dropped out of Brave training, after all."

Eule giggled. "Fair enough there, since my request asks absolutely nothing of the sort from you. I was merely asking if while I teach you cooking, you can teach me how to Stitch as well? I recently had a…reminder that our clothes won't last forever, and I would like to be able to either mend our existing uniforms and underthings, or sew new ones as needed."

"Oh yeah, you mean that…well, that?" Star asked.

Eule nodded with a wince and a sigh.

Both were the result of the recent memory of attempting to put on her bra, and then came the click of snapping plastic and a suddenly very uncomfortable jabbing sensation on the underside of her right breast. Removal of her bra revealed that the plastic underwire of that right cup had snapped, rendering the bra more or less unwearable.

Eule supposed that this was an inevitable consequence of cheap plastic combined with over five years of wear and tear, not helped by how much physical activity she and Star have done in this world for nearly a year now. It still didn't do much for the disappointment at seeing her only bra in that state, and for the embarrassment that she was currently experiencing at having to go bra-less outdoors, with only layers of Nora cloth and Nora leather in between her breasts and everyone else.

Granted, it was plenty enough layers to conceal her breasts' shape, but still.

"'That?'" Teb asked, confusion evident in his tone.

"'That' would be…er," Eule trailed off, a blush rising in her face at the thought of trying explain her situation to Teb.

Eule then suddenly felt someone take her by the mechanical hand, and turned to Rana being the one doing it.

"Come on," Rana beckoned. "Off we go to somewhere a bit more private. Come on, Star, you too. I want to get all the details from you both if need be."

Naturally, Minali followed after them as Rana led Eule and Star to a grassy area behind the lodge that used to house the Carja and Oseram combined trade mission. Rashaman, Bashid, Torvund, and even Bora were long gone and the grass had long since died off and dried into straw, but at least it was a very private place now.

"Now come on, Eule. What's getting you all so knotted up that you can't even tell Teb?" Rana asked in a kind and patient tone.

With but a single sigh of relief, Eule quickly told Rana her tale of her underwire bra giving up its ghost.

To Eule's surprise, Rana's reaction was to blink slowly at her for a few moments, and then suddenly burst out laughing.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Rana said in between laughs amidst Eule's confusion…and growing embarrassment rising up anew.

Fortunately, Rana calmed down enough after a few moments to take a deep breath and explain, still with a grin on her face: "I'm really sorry, but it's just…I didn't take you to be the shy type." When Eule just stared blankly at Rana in even more confusion, Rana continued: "You're acting like how Minali here acts when she wants to talk about women things, and all because of some small band of cloth that's supposed to go over your breasts under your underwear? I know I shouldn't laugh, but well…heh, okay, okay! I'll stop! Just stop pouting, Eule! You're going to make me laugh again!"

Eule huffed. She was just annoyed that feminine undergarments was apparently not a sensitive topic among the Nora, even to men. She was most definitely not pouting.

"Well, I mean, in our tribe, women don't really talk to men about things that only concern women," Star explained. "It's just kind of…embarrassing to do so?"

Rana blinked up at Star. "Really? You too? Now paint me surprised to hear that." Rana then gained a determined look on her face. "Okay, the problem here is that you need a Stitcher for this job, but you can't talk to a male Stitcher about it? That's going to limit your choices here, and it sounds like you want the best Stitchers for this, so you can't afford to be choosy. Not to mention, this is Teb you're talking about. I know the boy, and you do too. Does he seem like someone who would bully or hurt you over something like this?"

Eule didn't even need a moment to consider it. She just sighed and replied with a firm: "No."

Rana's grin made its return then and there. "Well then, maybe you could try talking with Teb then? Give him a chance?"

Eule then felt a tiny hand clutch her own mechanical one, and looked down to see that it was Minali's hand doing the clutching. "Do you need me to hold your hand for this, Eule?" Minali asked.

It seemed that Rana's cheer was as infectious as whatever it was that plagued S-23 Sierpinski. It and Minali's adorable kindness was the only reason Eule could come up with for why she smiled along with Rana, and replied: "I'll do that then, yes, and thank you for that, Minali. I appreciate it."

Thus, the group walked back to the stage, and back to a Teb who somehow managed to look even more confused than before.

"So…did I miss something, or…?" Teb asked in bewilderment.

After a calming hum, Eule proceeded to finally explain her bra problem to Teb, with the Nora boy rubbing his chin in contemplation the whole time.

"Hmm, fascinating clothes, or rather, underclothes you're describing," Teb commented after Eule finished her explanation. "Two circles of cloth with a half-circle of hard material sewn underneath them connected by a strip of cloth, and it's meant for women to wear over their breasts? But…why?"

Eule had to take a deep breath both to try to get over her embarrassment, and because Teb's question was genuinely making her think about why it was needed. The answer appeared in the form of a memory once in S-23 Sierpinski when in her haste to get to work, Eule had forgotten to put on her regulation bra, and so had to jog to the B7 kitchen braless. The experience had been memorable, but not for any particularly good reasons.

"Well, when a woman has…particularly sizable…chests, then running or even moving fast without a bra can cause them to, er…slap uncomfortably," Eule managed to stammer out, with only a mild blush on her biocomponent cheeks.

"Ohhh, now that makes sense," Teb said with a nod. "Okay, leaving that aside for now, what you said about your 'bra', hmm…honestly, I think that broken…underwire, you said, might be fixable. Or rather, replaceable."

Eule was silent for a moment, staring blank-faced at Teb, before she thumped her fist into her open palm in realization. "Oh, you're right! I can just carve a new underwire out of Machinestone!"

"That…or maybe wood or even bone," Rana suggested. "Whichever suits your tastes."

"If this underwire is sewn into the bra though, then you'll have to cut it open to remove that broken part and replace it with a new one though," Teb noted with a rueful smile. "I suppose that part is why you want to learn some Stitcher skills."

Eule merely nodded in agreement.

Teb grinned and held out his hand. "I think we have ourselves a deal then, although I must warn you: I'm still just a Stitcher in training right now. If you want to learn even more about Stitching, then I can introduce you to my teacher."

Eule grinned back and took that hand, shaking organic Gestalt hand with her own mechanical Replika hand. "If your teacher exceeds you in skill, then I will be more than happy to meet him…her?"

"Him," Teb replied. "And if he seems kind of sketchy to you at first glance, don't worry about it. He only likes to seem sketchy for some weird reason. Honestly, he's one of the more honest merchants I've ever met."

The metaphorical gears in Eule's biomechanical mind turned as she put those facts together.

Star must've done the same thing, because Star chose that moment to ask: "By any chance, would your teacher happen to go by the name of Karst?"

Teb chuckled. "I take it you two are acquainted with my uncle?"

"Your uncle?!" Eule and Star asked at the same time.

"My mother's younger brother," Teb explained with a wry grin. "And one of the best Stitchers among the Nora."

Star whistled. "Man of many talents there, yes?"

Teb laughed. "Surprisingly! And well, he's a lot nicer than he seems, so I think I can get him to teach Eule a bit of his Stitching skills."

Eule smiled back. "No worries. We already know that he's a bit of a Mynah, although given the last time he helped us out, I think some Shards and Machine parts might work to grease the pan here," she noted, before something occurred to her upon remembering that. "Actually, I wonder if he offered those discounts back then…because we helped Teb?"

"Can't think of any better reason why Karst would go out of his way to do all that for us," Star mused, before grinning at Teb. "Guess he must really like you, kid."

Teb chuckled, a faint blush rising on his cheeks. "Can't imagine why. I'm just a dropout Brave now trying his hand at being an apprentice Stitcher. Can't see much there to like."

"Well, this apprentice Stitcher also Stiches even better than Rost already," Eule insisted with a smile. "It's why I'm asking you to teach me instead of Rost."

"Honestly, I'm still kind of in shock that Rost isn't good at everything," Star quipped.

"He did admit that not all Braves are good at everything," Eule replied with a giggle.

"But he is! Which is why Rost turning out to be not so good at Stitching was like having an Ara pop out in front of your face," Star countered.

The sudden memory of a thing that used to be an Ara crawling out of a wall vent to ambush Eule momentarily made her freeze in place, and then shudder. "First, please don't remind me of that."

Star rubbed the back of her head, grinning sheepishly. "Whoops. My bad."

Eule smiled and waved off the apology. "Now secondly, Rost did mention that not all Braves are good at everything, and it just seems that his Stitching is…adequate."

Teb started to nod, and then stopped before he could complete it, before replying: "Yes, that does sound bad. Not that I've seen it before, but…yeah, I'll just stop talking now."

Eule merely held up a single mechanical digit up to her mouth in reply to that. A Nora talking to an outcast was still a crime after all.

"That said, I'll be willing to take cooking lessons from you, Eule. Wherever you like to have them," Teb said, putting extra emphasis on that one word.

Eule giggled in reply to that, and then, feeling a bit naughty, winked at Teb. "I'll be more than happy to do so, wherever that wherever might take us."

Eule then felt a familiar Star unit arm give her a hug, and a just as familiar Star unit mouth give her a kiss on her cheek. "I see we have ourselves a budding dissident here," Star purred.

Eule giggled before planting her own kiss on the mouth that Star kissed her with. "Then that makes the two of us, love," she purred right back.

Star chuckled in reply. "Wait until I get to dye my hair and do yours up in braids, and then we'll be proper dissidents together."

---

"Hmm, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be," Star muttered, fiddling around with a lock of Eule's hair all the while.

Eule said nothing, and simply smiled politely. Honestly, Star thought that was the most damning condemnation of her hair braiding skills she could ever get from her lover.

"That doesn't look like a good braid," Aloy pointed out with all the brutal honesty of a small child.

"Hold on, hold on," Star muttered, continuing to fiddle around with Eule's hair until she was satisfied and announced: "Done!"

Silence greeted Star's announcement, which immediately proved her previous thought to be utterly wrong. There was indeed something worse than Eule's polite smile.

Star sighed. "Yeah, I know it sucks."

"It's…not that bad, love," Eule consoled.

Star stared at what she'd created with Eule's hair: a rough ball of black plastic hair, with strands sticking out at complete random. It looked less like a braid and more like a bizarre tumor made of Replika hair.

"No, it's that bad," Star replied with a sigh. "How is braiding hair this difficult? Why can't it be as simple as hair dye?"

Indeed, a quick look at her reflection in Eule's mirror, held by Eule herself, showed the locks of her own black hair were now stained the same pale blue color as Rost's beard, courtesy of a dye made from yet another cliff-loving flowering plant the Nora called "Azure Bloom". It was just as hard to get as Crimson Bloom, but it made just as lovely a dye for many things, including hair.

Now if only the ease of just rubbing the dye into her hair could be transferred to making lovely braids of her beloved Eule's midnight black locks.

Star then heard a cough from behind her, and turned around to look at Rost, who had been sitting on a chair and watching the whole affair. Judging from all the beard rubbing he was doing coupled with his intense gaze, he had just as low an opinion of Star's braiding skills as Star did.

"Star, Eule," Rost began. "Would either of you mind if I braided Eule's hair first, with you, Star, watching so that both of you can learn how to braid hair the next time?"

Star looked at Eule, who looked at her in turn. Star shrugged by way of reply to Rost's suggestion. Eule thought for a moment before nodding as her reply to the same.

A bit of movement in the bottom of Star's vision revealed that, amusingly, Aloy was nodding along with them, as if agreeing along with them that Rost's help would be of, well, help here.

Thus, Star turned to Rost and said: "We're up for it, yeah."

"A demonstration would quite useful here," Eule added.

Rost nodded as his reply before getting up and stepping towards them, stopping just before getting in between Star and Eule.

"Star, move over a bit so that I can work and you can watch. Here, just to my right," Rost instructed.

Star did so, watching in nervous trepidation as Rost grimaced at Star's attempt at braiding Eule's hair. The only thing that reduced that nervousness was Eule right in front of her, and Aloy right next to her, hugging her upper knee.

"First though, I will need to undo what you have done, Star," Rost said with a sigh before getting to work, tugging at misplaced locks of hair to undo the chaotic jumble of knots Star made in Eule's hair.

Star gave a nervous laugh, feeling no small amount of remorse for getting something as theoretically simple as braiding hair wrong.

"Honestly, I'm genuinely curious as to how either of you can't even braid hair," Rost commented as he worked. "Did neither of you ever braid your hair before? Did none of your sisters teach you how?"

Eule hummed, and it was a slightly stressed hum judging by the tone. Star could tell.

"Not really," Eule admitted.

"Mostly because we weren't allowed to," Star added.

Rost raised an eyebrow even as he worked. "Your tribe doesn't allow you to braid your hair? Why?"

Eule hummed some more, and Star could tell that it was even more stressed just from the tone. "It's somewhat complex to explain in full, but the simple answer is that hair braiding is against regulations regarding Replika hairstyles."

"It's basically one hairstyle per Replika model," Star added with a sigh. "No more, no less, and if you go against that one allowed hairstyle, then you risk the Nation labelling you as having a 'degraded persona'. I mean, sure, it's probably not likely that the Nation will do that just by having a slightly different hairstyle than the norm, but well, no Replika wants to risk being Decommissioned over something like that."

Rost's eyebrow once more rose up. "That word again. I've noticed that you two seem to use that same word, but in two different ways: 'decommission', and then 'Decommission'. Such a strange word to use to reference yourselves, and I keep getting ominous feelings from the strange emphasis you put on the latter. So if I may ask: what do they both mean?"

Eule hummed yet again, and this time, Star could tell this is one of the most stressed Eule has been in a long, long while. Star responded to that by reaching down, and taking Eule's hand, currently glovelessly black. Eule squeezed Star's hand in comfort…and then Aloy added her own tiny organic hand to the pile, gripping with a determined yet worried expression on her equally as tiny face.

Star chuckled at that, giving the kid a warm pat on her head, with Eule giggling at the series of events, much to Star's relief.

Thus, with that worry resolved, Star watched Eule take a deep breath, and explain to Rost: "You're right. The meanings of that one word does change depending on the context. The form of the word without that emphasis on the 'a', or rather, 'd' in your language, refers to a Replika succeeding in working off their Nation-mandated Commission, and becoming a free citizen. The latter though is a euphemism. That is to say: it's an inoffensive way of referring to a Replika being taken out of service…no, my apologies. That too was a euphemism. If I have to be blunt here: it refers to a Replika being put to death."

Rost's hair unbraiding efforts ceased, and his eyes narrowed down at Eule. "Put to death?" he asked incredulously.

Star grinned without a trace of humor, taking her right hand and making a finger gun, before pointing it at the side of her own head, and finalizing Eule's explanation with a simple: "Bang."

Rost's mouth hardened into a disturbed line. "Your Eusan Nation tribe would put you to death…simply for braiding your hair? Is your tribe insane?"

Star looked up at the ceiling, staring at the roof of straw and mud braced by wooden supports that she and her Eule have lived in for about a Rotfront season now, and have come to love. That roof of materials taken from the verdant earth seemed to represent everything about the Embrace that the Eusan Nation wasn't.

"Honestly, I've wondered that myself during my time as an officer of the law in Rotfront," Star wondered, before lowering her gaze to look down into Rost's eyes. "Not sure if I can use the word 'insane' to describe the Eusan Nation. That would imply that, on some level, the Eusan Nation is unaware of all the fucked up shit it's doing to its own people. As a STAR unit who enforced the Nation's laws for…Red Eye, has it really been 6 years that I was an officer in Rotfront Block Sektor C?"

A memory flashed into Star's mind, clear and vivid, of a particular arrest she had made in Block Sektor C during her sixth year as a Protektor there. She had been a young Gestalt girl, no more than maybe…11, 12, or 13 seasons old? Star had caught her drawing graffiti on a section of concrete wall that hadn't been covered by the seemingly innumerable motion-tracking security cameras. She had just meant to tell the girl off with a lecture, but then the girl had fled.

That was a crime in of itself to flee from a Protektor, but then as Star had given chase and ran her down, the girl pulled out a…calling it a "knife" would've done far too much service to it. It had been just a small screwdriver, with the tip sharpened to a point to make a shiv…if you didn't mind that the shiv effectively only had a two-centimeter long "blade".

It certainly hurt…or at least it would've if the girl had any aim whatsoever. Instead, she'd swung and missed, and Star had quickly snatched the arm holding that shiv, and then forced it out of the girl's grip.

Star had no choice at that point. She had to arrest the girl for attempted assault of a Protektor with a weapon, but she had also been curious as to why the girl would make it so much worse for herself like this, so she had asked the girl "Why".

The girl's answer shocked her. The girl replied that since she was going to die just for drawing graffiti, then she might as well take at least one "dog of the Nation" with her too.

Star had been shocked, but had laughed it off and even joked about it. Even leading her by her hands all the way to the local station, she'd tried to console the girl that she wasn't going to be Decommissioned just for drawing some stupid graffiti on a wall somewhere. She'd just be given some time off for a few hours in a cell, and then she can go home. That was what was according to the Nation's own laws, and that would be the end of it.

And then shortly after that, when she'd looked up the girl's file in the National database via her PKZ number, Star discovered that the girl had not been given what Star had promised according to Eusan Nation law. Instead, she had been sentenced to 10 years of hard labor at a Sierpinski colony. The reason? She had been found guilty of "counter-revolutionary activity".

"Counter-revolutionary activity"? The girl had just been drawing graffiti on some wall. Star had seen it herself. It had just been some blocky, spray-painted letters that said "Fuck you, pigs". It was just the words of some angry kid. Not even remotely deserving to be called "counter-revolutionary activity"…and yet, she got 10 years just for that? Where was the justice in that? Was the Nation really so afraid of a little kid that they would sentence her to hard labor and possible death just for some graffiti?

All those questions and her investigating them had eventually led Star to be reassigned to S23 Sierpinski, but the memory of that kid still remained with her.

"But yeah," Star said when she emerged from her memories. "I would say that it feels like the Eusan Nation is more evil than insane, just more concerned with grinding down its citizens into weapons and tools to toss away after they break than with doing anything actually good with their laws. Heck, when they can sentence a little girl to 10 years of hard labor in a Sierpinski colony for drawing on a wall, then you know that the Nation is fucked up beyond repair."

Rost made a slight frown and huffed a disapproving sound before returning to his task. "It sounds as if you disapprove of your tribe just as much as I do," he commented as he worked.

Star barked out a laugh, devoid of any humor but the dark kind. "Now that's putting it mildly!"

Even Eule grimaced and then carefully nodded. "I'm afraid to admit it, but…our Nation does seem to be going down that path, yes."

Star looked down at the sound of disapproval coming from Aloy. "Your tribe keeps sounding more and more horrible every time you say something about them," the kid proclaimed with a decisive nod. "If I get the chance, I'm going to go up to this Great Revolting High Matriarch, and kick her in the crotch, and tell her what a horrible High Matriarch she is."

The image of Aloy doing just that played through Star's mind like a video cassette tape playing on a TV, playing the Eusan Nation's most shockingly funny movie of all time, and Star couldn't help it. She just burst out laughing, patting Aloy on her head the whole time.

"Good one, kid!" Star managed to get out in between laughs. "I would pay Rationmarks to see that!"

"Star, don't encourage Aloy to assault High Matriarchs, er, National leaders, er…you know what I mean," Eule protested, if a bit weakly.

"I mean it," Aloy insisted with another firm nod. "It sounds like your Eusan Nation tribe is even worse than the Nora."

That made Rost twitch just enough for Star to catch it. "Aloy, our tribe isn't that bad," Rost insisted.

"It is to me," Aloy insisted right back.

"To be fair, your tribe did make Aloy an outcast when she did nothing that could be reasonable grounds for that sentence," Star pointed out.

"…This is not a normal application of the outcast law," Rost countered.

"But the Nora did apply it here, and unjustly so," Eule countered in turn in continuation of Star's argument, a fierce light in her normally calm blue eyes. "Unless you're going to argue now that it's reasonable for a baby to be made outcast?"

There was a few moments of silence from Rost as he froze in place, not even working anymore as he paused in thought. Finally, he sighed and continued his undoing of knots, saying: "I'm not. This is an unjust application of the outcast law. I can't deny that, and remain in good conscience."

Star responded to that in what she thought the most appropriate way possible: by patting Rost on the shoulder. "Welcome to our merry band of dissidents, comrade Rost. Together, we will counter the counter-revolutionary oppression with our own counter-counter-revolutionary rhetoric," she said in the most dramatically serious tone she could muster.

"…Truly, Star, you and Eule sometimes sound utterly and completely incomprehensible," Rost said with a sigh and shake of his head

All amidst the sounds of Eule giggling, which was a delight to Star's biomechanical ears.

"I do understand your sentiment though, and I thank you…I think. Now then though, just one more tug, and…done. Now I can properly braid Eule's hair," Rost finished proudly, before staring at Eule's locks, now back to what was more or less a EULR standard hairstyle. "Although honestly, with such short hair, braiding it is going to be a challenge. I still find it amazing that you Replikas can't grow your hair out, but I also can't deny that in the nearly one year I've known the both of you, neither of you have so much as grown a centimeter of your hair."

Eule nodded with a mournful sigh. "Such is the inorganic nature of our hair. In your language: it's basically just very thin strands of Machine skin. And no, for various reasons, we can't make more of it. It doesn't fall out either though, so there's that at least."

"I suppose that's why I never found any black hairs in my bed after I cleaned it," Rost commented, before nodding to himself. "Still though, Eule, I believe I can make your hair work in terms of braiding. This, I will show you."

And show Eule he did, along with a fascinated Star and Aloy as Rost got to work.

First, he plaited the two locks of long hair on either side of Eule's face with the slightly shorter hair behind it in an alternating pattern until he ran out of shorter hair to braid with.

"Left, right, left, right, one over the other," Rost instructed as he did so.

Then he took a pair of dark brown wooden beads out of a small box he'd brought with him, and inserted them into the longer locks sticking out until they reached the base of the braided section, effectively sealing the braid in place.

"You can also use string or wire to tie off the braids if you wish," Rost added.

Then amazingly, Rost managed to take the shorter hair on the side and back of Eule's head, and braided those as well. They were very short braids, true, but they were braids nonetheless, into which he also inserted beads of white bone and blue-dyed Machinestone.

The result was that Eule now sported a grand total of six braids hanging from her head, each adorned with three pairs of different types of beads as decoration. Something that was most definitely not EULR standard hairstyle, but was most definitely very pretty and eye-catching in Star's book.

"There," Rost said with a satisfied nod as he stepped back.

Star watched as Eule used her mirror to carefully examine her new braids, her facial expression slowly morphing from astonished to a grin of utmost delight that warmed Star's biomechanical heart and made it flutter anew.

"It's perfect, Rost," Eule said, with the delight on her face reaching her voice as well. "I can't thank you enough for showing me how to do this. For showing us how to do this."

Rost merely nodded. "Now hopefully, you two will be able to braid your own hair, with practice, of course."

"Oh, oh! Maybe you can practice on me?!" Aloy suggested, hopping up and down in place.

Eule and Star both looked down in surprise at Aloy.

"You still want me to practice on you, kid?" Star asked with a self-deprecating grin. "You saw how much of a mess I made of Eule's hair, yes?"

"That's because you didn't know what you were doing before," Aloy insisted. "But now you and Eule do. So please?"

Star looked to Eule at the same time Eule did with her. Eule's reply was to smile and nod happily, nay, excitedly. So excitedly that Star couldn't help but grin and nod back just as happily.

Thus, Eule turned to Aloy and said: "We would be delighted to, Aloy."

Aloy gasped so excitedly that Star thought the kid would pass out, but instead, she quickly climbed into Eule's lap and sat there, vibrating gently as she awaited the braiding experiment, shouting: "Come on, let's go! Right now! Please?!"

Both Star and Eule burst out laughing at this before commencing their braiding experiment with Aloy's hair. All with Rost sighing, but smiling at them in one of the happiest smiles Star had ever seen him smile as he watched them experiment.

Which ended up going surprisingly well as between them, Star and Eule braided Aloy's hair into numerous braids almost lost amidst a sea of flowing flame-colored hair.

Somehow, for reasons Star could not explain, that seemed to be a perfect hairstyle for Aloy's hair.

---

Aloy was confused when she stirred from slumber. The reason for her confusion was that she felt like she was no longer lying on fluffy fox fur, but rather, she was lying on dry sand. For some reason that she couldn't name even if her life depended on it, that dry sand made her very uneasy and more than a bit nervous. The confusion was just the spice rub on this weird meat skewer of a situation that Aloy woke up in.

However, there were more things adding to that confusion. Two things, to be precise:

1. There was a strange sound coming from the direction of her feet. It was one of the weirdest sounds Aloy had ever heard. It was like…like…like something very big was being washed by the world's biggest bathtub. There was no other way Aloy could describe it.

2. There was another strange sound coming from behind her head, but it was strange in a different way from the enormous washing sound. It was a weird…wet squelching sound. As though something moist was constantly throbbing in regular intervals like the beat of a wet drum, which not only confused Aloy but also unsettled her in a way somehow even more than the sand.

Now thoroughly unsettled by the weird noises, Aloy finally opened her eyes.

The first thing Aloy saw was darkened rock, as though she was in a cave. The rock even looked perfectly natural, so it wasn't some kind of Metal World place. Just some ordinary cave.

Sitting up, Aloy looked ahead of her to where the washing sound was coming from. As it turned out, she was lying right by the entrance of the cave, and there was a dim light illuminating the scene, which explained why Aloy could see anything at all. There seemed to be a big lake just meters away in front of her, with white sand in between her and the water, which explained the washing sound.

However, Aloy now also realized that the wet squelching sound was coming from right behind her. Slowly…and nervously…she turned around.

In front of her was meat. It was the only word Aloy could use to describe it: a huge mass of what looked like the meat of some…thing, bulging out like some kind of especially gross-looking creepslime. She couldn't even begin to identify the meat. There was no fat or marbling on it like normal meat, and it didn't even have the fibrous appearance of muscle. It was just…meat, as far as Aloy could tell, with no way of telling what animal it came from, or even where in that hypothetical animal it came out of.

Not only that, but it was also…pulsing, beating like some kind of giant misshapen heart. Aloy knew that meat wasn't supposed to do that out of a body, but that's what this meat was doing. The why and how were utterly beyond her at this point.

A glint of light then caught Aloy's eye, and she looked down. There, sticking out of the bottom of the pulsing mass of meat and almost buried amidst some bleached human skulls, was a hand. A black hand, with the familiar steel bits on the knuckles that Aloy knew from much experience looking at and clutching Eule and Star's hands belonged to a Replika of some kind.

Aloy reacted without really thinking about it: she immediately reached down and took the Replika's hand. "Hold on, are you alive? I'll get you out," she insisted quietly, hoping to not wake up the meat…just in case that was possible.

Alas, Aloy knew from the moment her hands made contact with the Replika's hand that this poor Replika was long dead. The black hand was cold and utterly lifeless, with only the steel bits being even colder.

Still, some part of Aloy desperately tugged at the hand, hoping beyond hope that she could save whoever this was. Tugging and pulling, tugging and pulling, tugging and–

Suddenly, Aloy fell back on her butt amidst the sound of a very wet slurp. When she recovered from her fall, she looked down at her hands.

There they were, still clutching the Replika's hand. Only, now that could see the hand more clearly in the dim light, not only was it splattered with blood or oxidant, but when Aloy looked further down that hand, she also discovered that although it was connected to an arm, and that arm went down to an elbow, that then abruptly ended just above that elbow.

Suddenly, the wet squelching sound getting louder made Aloy look up. Her eyes widened as she saw the mass of meat growing, creeping towards her as though it wanted the severed arm back to finish its meal.

Clutching the severed arm to her, Aloy immediately turned around and ran out of the cave, wanting nothing more than to deny that hand and arm from becoming that thing's meal. So keen was she to keep an eye on that meat, that she didn't notice what she was running in until she felt the splash of cold water on her feet, and then stopped to finally look around.

In front of Aloy was water. A lot of water. Water that spread all the way to the horizon, and seemingly beyond that. Aloy had never seen so much water before, and wondered if this was the "sea" that Eule and Star talked about. Although, they didn't mention anything about the sea's water being black. Admittedly, it could be the darkness, but to her, the black sea, broken only by the white foam on it, looked weirdly ominous because of that expanse of black water.

Looking to the right, Aloy saw tall, sheer cliffs lit by the wan light of…dawn? Dusk? Aloy couldn't tell, but it made her want to climb those cliffs just to find out.

Below it was the beach of white sand, upon which sat even whiter lumps and what looked like square white leaves occasionally splashed with dark red. Aloy had no idea what either the lumps or the leaves were, but both made her uneasy in a way she struggled to describe.

However, it was the object just immediately to Aloy's right that caught her attention: a small red…thing. Aloy didn't quite know what to make of it. It almost looked like a bathtub, but it was long and pointed at one end, with a tall, curved pole sticking up out of that pointed end that had a small box emitting a weird red light hanging from it. Maybe it was a bathtub made for a lot of people? It was the only theory Aloy could come up with to explain that thing.

And then Aloy looked to her left.

She could see a beach of white sand, stretching out into the distance until it terminated at some more sheer cliffs that looked perfectly climbable to Aloy's eyes, with yet more rectangular, white leaves scattered over it as though they fell from some strange tree.

However, what really drew her eye was the person.

Standing there on the beach, staring out into the distant horizon, was a Replika woman in white armor. Aloy could tell she was a Replika because of her pointy, birdy legs, not unlike that of Eule and Star, but colored black with blue bands, and she could tell that the Replika was a she because…well, of her armor. There was something about how it came to a shallow triangle at the chest that made Aloy think of Star's armor.

Not just that, but the Replika woman's face itself looked weirdly familiar to Aloy. As though Aloy had seen that face before, but couldn't quite recall where she'd done so.

It was that familiarity thanks to the armor that made Aloy walk towards this Replika woman, wanting to ask her what this weird place was.

Aloy managed to get within a couple meters of the Replika woman before she suddenly snapped towards Aloy, pulling out a gun–

'An Einhorn revolver!' Aloy mentally noted in shock.

–and pointing it right at Aloy with the most intense and scary look Aloy had ever seen on anyone.

Aloy's first instinct was to immediately throw herself to the side in a roll, hoping to dodge the impending gunfire.

…But no gunfire came.

A quick glance showed that the Replika woman had lowered her revolver down into the sand, and was just staring at her now.

Aloy sprang back up onto her feet when her roll allowed her to, and looked back at the Replika woman. Nothing about her facial expression changed. She was just now staring silently at Aloy, not saying a word.

"Hello?!" Aloy called out to the Replika woman.

The Replika woman didn't say a word back in reply. However, she did tilt her head at Aloy. That combined with her not pointing her revolver at Aloy was a good start …at least, Aloy hoped it was.

"Do you know what this place is?!" Aloy called out.

The Replika woman gazed silently at Aloy for a few moments, before she slowly shook her head.

"Oh," Aloy said, more to herself than to the Replika woman, looking down at the sand for a moment before returning her gaze to the figure still meters distant away. "Is it okay if I get closer?! So that I don't have to shout everything?!" A pause came as Aloy thought. "Also, please don't shoot me?!"

The Replika was silent and still for a few moments, before she finally nodded, much to Aloy's relief. Even more relieving to Aloy was the distant figure putting her revolver back in her holster, thus alleviating Aloy's fears as she walked up to the now not-so-distant Replika woman.

It was only now that Aloy was right in front of the Replika woman, Aloy finally noticed that she was tall. Really tall. Not Star tall though. Aloy thought she was more Eule tall…maybe just a bit taller now that she looked closer, but only a tiny bit. Star was still a lot taller though.

It wasn't just the height though. This Replika woman…she had the scariest face Aloy had ever seen on…well, anyone. Even War-Chief Sona didn't quite look as scary as this Replika woman. She looked like her face, framed by short black hair with a bit of hair going down the front of her face, was glaring down at Aloy at all times.

Aloy wasn't sure what she did to make her this angry. Maybe she didn't like being snuck up on? But Aloy wasn't even trying to be quiet…but Eule had also mentioned that she was normally really quiet like she was sneaking around all the time, and that sometimes surprised her even when Aloy hadn't been meaning to. She decided that was probably the reason why this Replika woman was so angry at her then.

"Umm, I'm sorry?" Aloy apologized up to the glaring face.

The glaring face blinked at her.

"For sneaking up on you and scaring you? I didn't mean to," Aloy explained.

The glaring face blinked once more.

Aloy finally blinked back in reply, now wondering…was she actually wrong about this Replika woman being angry. "Uhh…are you angry at me?" she asked up at that glaring face.

The glaring face continued with the blinking yet again…before she finally shook her head.

Aloy gaped up at the face she now knew was not made in anger. "Whoa! Really? But you look so scary that you look like you're angry all the time!"

The Replika woman's eyes widened just a bit, enough for Aloy to tell that had surprised her, before she then lowered her gaze to the sand at a point between their respective feet.

Aloy continued gaping at the Replika woman for two reasons:

1. That lowered gaze was just enough for Aloy to tell that this Replika woman was sad.

2. Aloy could tell that because Rost was a similar kind of person.

Both reasons combined together, but especially the resemblance to one of her favorite people in the whole wide world, was what made Aloy reach up and pat the Replika woman on her shoulder…or at least, she would've if she could reach it. Alas, the highest she could reach up to, even standing on tiptoe, was her upper arm, which she gently patted.

"It's okay!" Aloy consoled. "There's plenty of people who look scary on the outside, but are actually nice! Like Rost and Son, er, War-Chief Sona!"

The Replika woman looked at Aloy, meeting her eyes once more, before nodding exactly once.

Aloy smiled up at the strange Replika woman, now liking her a bit more. She was like Rost in his quiet moments, but just a bit more Rost than even Rost was. It was an impression that made Aloy lean around the Replika woman, looking over at where she had been staring out to before.

"What were you looking at?" Aloy asked up at her.

The Replika woman turned to follow Aloy's gaze back out to that vast expanse of dark, frothing water. "Nothing," she finally spoke. "Nothing but memories of a life that isn't mine, and memories of a life I wish I could've had forever."

Aloy looked back up at the Replika woman, staring in shocked fascination. Mostly due to her voice. The Replika woman had the deepest voice Aloy had ever heard come from any woman. Even deeper than Star's voice, which was the deepest Aloy had ever heard…until now.

"Whoa, your voice is amazing!" Aloy declared with the enthusiasm of an over-excited child.

The Replika woman's only reply to that was to stare down at Aloy, blinking rapidly all the while.

"Because it's so deep!" Aloy continued. "It's like a man's, but still woman! I like it, er…"

It was then that Aloy realized that she had no idea what this Replika woman's name was.

But before she could ask, the Replika woman beat her to it with: "Are you Aloy?"

Aloy's jaw fell open in shock. "How do you know my name?!"

"Isa asked me to look for you, but couldn't find you," the Replika woman explained.

"Isa…Isa?" Aloy asked, tilting her head in confusion. "Who is…why does that name sound really familiar?"

"Itou, Isa. PKZ: ITISLD-V-560524. Type: Gestalt. Homeworld: Rotfront Sektor C," the Replika woman stated, with each separate point precisely belted out.

All while Aloy stared at her, blank eyes completely not comprehending most of the things that were coming out of her mouth.

In turn, the Replika woman stared back just as uncomprehendingly, before she sighed and continued: "Hair color: Dark auburn. Eye color: Green. Skin color: Moderate brown–"

"Oh, ohh!" Aloy spoke up, hopping up and down as memories of a unpainted Nora-like woman moving with fluid speed and a flashing knife suddenly poured into Aloy's mind like a flood. "Isa! I just fell asleep and…and…wait, you said she was looking for me?! Is she okay?!"

"…She is conscious," the Replika woman replied after a worrying pause, before continuing: "She assisted me, and preserved my functionality. I…feel obligated to return that assistance."

"Ooh, yeah, I think I understood that," Aloy said with a nod. "Isa helped me too. She saved me from…one of Eule's sisters, so I want to help her too. Just like she helped you…oh, wait! I almost forgot. So uhh…what's your name?"

"LSTR-512," the Replika woman stated, before after a pause, she then said: "You may refer to me as Elster for brevity's sake."

"Who's 'Brevity'?" Aloy asked, scratching her head. "But wait, Elster…Elster…ohhh! Elster!" she shouted, grabbing Elster's hand and tugging on it in her excitement. "I was looking for you for, uh…someone."

Elster looked away from the tiny hand clutching hand, and looked Aloy in the eye once more, but a bit more quizzically than before. "Someone?" Elster asked.

"Yeah! But…umm…I can't remember," Aloy said miserably, swinging herself on Elster's arm as she tried to knock the memory loose. "Why. Can't. I. Remembeeeer?"

"…Why would someone be looking…for me?" Elster asked in a whisper that Aloy only barely heard. Elster then looked Aloy in the eye once more, and said: "Give me intel on this person's appearance."

"Oh, so you speak Star-speak too," Aloy noted with a nod, remembering the odd words and phrasing that Star used sometimes. Then she closed her eyes, and swung herself a bit harder on Elster's arm. "Umm…what this person looked like…ummmm…"

For several moments, nothing came to Aloy in persistent quantities. Absolutely nothing.

Then suddenly, something flashed through Aloy's mind.

"White hair. Pale skin. Bright red eyes the color of wild ember," Aloy recalled as the memories slipped into her mind.

Aloy then heard a sharp gasp above her, and she then looked up to see Elster's scary face break into a look of wide-eyed shock. "Ariane," Elster whispered.

Suddenly, as that name came out of Elster's mouth, the memories came back to Aloy. Just like with Isa, the memories of Ariane Yeong came back in a flood, like how Searcher's Course flooded during a rainstorm.

"Oh, oh, ohhh! You're the Elster Ariane wanted me to find!" Aloy shouted excitedly, hopping up and down, lifting Elster's arm up and down with each hop. "I found you! I knew I would! Just like I promised Ariane! Oh, Ariane! She really wants to see you! Really!"

Elster's eyes widened, and then her scary face came back as she nodded. "I…I want to see her too. Thank you, Aloy, for giving me this intel."

Aloy grinned up at Elster. "No problem! A Brave always keeps her word! Well, future Brave, but it still counts!"

Elster nodded. "You seem brave already…unlike me."

Aloy made a questioning sound up at Elster.

Elster took a deep breath, and the intense glare she had turned into a pained grimace. "I'm scared. What I remember scares me. I want to see Ariane again…but I'm afraid of that too."

Ariane looked up at that pain, and then reached up to pat Elster on the upper arm again. "It's okay. Braves get scared too. Rost said so, but Rost also said that we can't let our fear make us freeze, or else that can kill a Brave."

Elster stared down at Aloy for several moments of thoughtful silence, before she nodded firmly. "Good advice," she said, before taking a deep breath. "Thank you again, both towards you and this Rost."

Aloy grinned again, and nodded up rapidly at Elster.

Who then looked down from Aloy's eyes, and stared with a furrowed brow. "Why are you holding an arm?" Elster asked.

"Huh?" Aloy said as she looked down at where Elster was looking…and suddenly remembered that she was still holding that severed Replika arm. "Ohhh, this! I was trying to save this arm from the weird scary thing in that cave…which sounds kinda silly when I say it out loud."

Elser's eyes narrowed. "'Weird scary thing'? Explain."

"It was…weird and creepy. It was like meat, but it was like no meat I've ever seen before. It was in that cave," Aloy turned around to point back at the cave she came out of–

Only for her to gasp as she saw the meat had grown out of the cave, extending tendrils out onto the sand, pulsing all the while as it continued to grow with each pulse.

"It's following me?!" Aloy squeaked in shock.

Aloy squeaked again as she was suddenly lifted into the air, and then was tucked under Elster's arm as she ran for the weird pointed red bathtub as fast as her black and blue-banded bird-like legs would allow her. Once there, she immediately planted Aloy onto a plank on the bathtub that Aloy now knew functioned more or less as a seat, while Elster then sat down behind her, took two long sticks with wide blades at the end, and began swinging it into the water.

To Aloy's relief, Elster's weird movements with the sticks were making the bathtub move. To her further relief as she turned around to look back at the beach, the meat wasn't able to grow fast enough to catch them, and indeed, seemed hesitant to grow into the water.

Thus, Aloy felt safe enough to stick her tongue out the meat, and made a face at it. "Go fuck yourself, stupidhead!" she shouted at the steadily shrinking meat.

Aloy then heard a surprised sound from above, and looked up to see Elster raising an eyebrow at her.

"Star taught me that," Aloy explained. "She said that they're words you use to say to people and things that make you really mad. Eule then got mad at Star for teaching me that though, so maybe I shouldn't use it a lot?"

Elster stared at Aloy for all of maybe three seconds, before she suddenly did something Aloy never expected her to: laugh.

To Aloy: Elster's laugh sounded like they came from her very core. They were full-throated and made Elster start to bend over, with tears forming at the corners of her eyes from how much she was laughing. To Aloy: it was one of the happiest sounds she'd ever heard come out of anyone, save for hearing Eule and Star laugh.

To the point where when Elster finally ceased her laughter with a deep breath and a sigh, Aloy was actually a bit disappointed to see and hear it end.

"My apologies," Elster said. "I did not mean to laugh, but…"

"You should laugh more," Aloy said, ignoring Elster's words entirely with a smile. "You sound really happy when you do, and you don't look nearly as scary when you're laughing."

To Aloy's further surprise, Elster then smiled at her. True, it barely qualified as a smile. All Aloy saw was the corners of Elster's mouth twitch up, but it was also the kind of smile she would see Rost make, so that only reinforced her opinion of Elster being Rost-like in her mind.

"Ariane once said something similar to that to me," Elster said with a happy sigh. "Thank you, again."

Aloy then made a thumbs-up at Elster, just like Star would. "No problem!" she cheerfully said, before looking around at the dark water around them. "Wait, is this…the sea?"

"…Indeterminate," Elster replied after a moment of hesitation.

"Hmm…," went Aloy as she stared down at the water.

Part of her wanted to cup some water in her hand and take a taste to find out if the sea really was salty like Isa said, but the black water made her nervous about doing that for some reason. It looked…more like a black moonless and starless night in liquid form than it did mere salty water, honestly. Something that Aloy did not want to put into her mouth in the slightest.

Which made Aloy turn her attention away from the foreboding water and to much less foreboding Elster. "Thank you for saving me," she said.

Elster merely nodded in reply.

Aloy then looked around Elster once more at the meat thing, which seemed to have given up on chasing them, and was now content to spread across the beach just like a big blob of creepslime.

"Do you know what that creepy meat thing is?" Aloy asked with a look on her face that combined both disgust and disturbance.

Alas, Elster's reply was a silent shake of her head.

"I wish I had my bow," Aloy muttered. "I don't know if it would do anything, but at least it would feel better to hold it."

Elster silently nodded once more in reply.

Aloy crossed her arms in a huff, feeling miffed that she couldn't fight off that weird meat thing. "One day, when I'm big and a Brave, I'll be able to take something like that down. Probably with a whole lot of Blaze."

Elster cocked her head at Aloy, before finally nodding just as silently as before.

Aloy smiled up at that silence. "I think you'd like Rost if you ever met him. You and Rost are pretty Rost-y people."

Elster shrugged. "I will concede to your report until I can confirm that intel myself."

Aloy's smile turned into a grin. "I think you'd like Star too. You and Star talk funny like that sometimes, like with that 'intel' word."

"A STAR unit?" Elster asked.

Aloy nodded.

"Perhaps it would be pleasant to meet a normal one for a change," Elster commented. "The only pleasant experience I've had with a person so far is Ariane and Isa."

Aloy sat up in startled realization. "Oh yeah, Isa! I wanted to ask before, but…what does 'conscious' mean?"

"It means that she is awake," Elster explained.

"…That doesn't tell me a lot," Aloy countered. "Is she really okay?"

Elster was silent for a moment, before she replied: "She has sustained several bleeding injuries since I last observed her, and she complained of feeling 'sick' and of a 'fog in her head'. Current status is unknown."

Aloy groaned and pressed her lips together. That didn't sound good. She then decided: she reached into her medicine pouch, and pulled out six pink salvebrush berries, wrinkled from their dryness, and a pulled off a piece of dark-colored hintergold sap from her lump of it, before holding it out to Elster.

"Could you please give these salvebrush berries and hintergold sap to Isa when you see her next?" Aloy asked. "The berries are to help her cuts, and the sap is to help with pain. Tell her to eat two if she's kinda injured, and all three if she's really badly injured. If she's still hurting the next day, then take the other three."

Elster briefly ceased swinging her sticks in order to take the medicine and put it into one of her black pouches. "I will do so the next time I encounter her, I promise," Elster said with a determined nod.

Aloy nodded back, and then promptly sat down in Elster's lap in a huff. "I hope Isa will be okay. And Ariane. And…Falke! Yeah, I can't believe I almost forgot her too. Oh here!"

Aloy reached up to her hairband, plucked one, and then two, of her magpie feathers off of it, and put them both into the same pouch that Elster put the medicine into.

"If you see Isa and Falke, can you give them a feather for me? It's to show that we're friends!" Aloy insisted. "Especially Falke. She really needs a friend."

Elster stared at Aloy for a length of time that worried her a bit before finally nodding. "If I get the chance to, I will."

Aloy grinned up at Elster, before frowning. "But…now I don't have anything I can give you since you saved me…oh, I know! Can you bend down a little?"

Elster blinked down at Aloy before pausing her stick swinging and complying with Aloy's request.

Aloy then undid the little loop of thread with a wooden bead that helped hold her hairband together, and then reached over to tie up that bit of Elster's hair that was covering her face so that it was no longer in the way, securing it to the hair on the left side of Elster's face with a neat little knot.

"There!" Aloy proudly declared after she finished. "Now you look pretty, and that hair won't get in your way!"

Elster slowly reached up to the bit of thread and wooden bead now tying some of her hair together, gently feeling it as she blinked several times in rapid succession. Elster then nodded down at Aloy, and smiled. "Thank you, Aloy."

Aloy giggled, both at the compliment coming from someone who obviously didn't give them out a lot, as well as hearing Elster pronounce her name correctly on her first try. "You're welcome!" she said before sitting back down in Elster's lap, clutching the severed arm to herself, and happily humming that "Eulenlieder" song that Eule taught her.

Elster's chuckle from above her only made Aloy all the happier.

It was then though that Aloy heard something.

"Elster? Do you hear that?" Aloy asked as she looked around in confusion.

"Hear what?" Elster asked, sounding just as confused.

"I don't know…," Aloy trailed off as she tried to make out that sound.

Aloy didn't know how to describe it though. It was like…somewhere between a warble and…a shriek?

"Aloy."

Aloy looked up at Elster. "Did you say something?"

Elster merely stared down in confusion in reply.

"Aloy."

There it was again. Someone was calling Aloy's name, but now she realized that it wasn't Elster. The voice was too familiar and too deep. It sounded like…like…

"Aloy."

"Rost?" Aloy asked, now recognizing the voice.

But why? Why was Rost calling her? And what was that other weird sound Aloy could hear? It even had a weird tone to it that made a cold chill go down Aloy's spine. A tone that rang of steel and lightning. Like–

"A Machine?" Aloy said as a cold fear gripped her now.

"Aloy!"

---

Aloy's eyes snapped open again, just as a large and familiar hand covered her mouth, and the familiar face of Rost reached up to his mouth with the index finger of his free hand, and shushed.

For a very brief moment, Aloy was confused, and then the sound of that weird warble shriek, tinged with that familiar Machine echo, reverberated throughout the house, and her confusion turned into fear as she nodded at Rost.

Rost then plucked his War Bow from the floor by his feet, making not a sound in the process, and just as silently beckoned for Aloy to follow him.

A quick trip down the ladder, making as little noise as possible, led Aloy down to where Eule and Star huddled in the main room next to the now-doused fireplace with their bows in hand. Aloy just as quickly but quietly went over to them to hug, starting with Star because she was closer and then ending by pressing her face into Eule's soft chest, just as another Machine warble-shriek resounded through the air.

"Okay, big guy, what Machine is this now?" Star asked in a low voice.

"…I don't know," Rost said after a pause. "In all my years, I've never heard the cry of this particular Machine before."

Aloy felt Eule's hug tighten just a bit around her in fear and worry, and her own hug around Eule tightened for the same reason.

"That's…worrying," Eule commented just as yet another warble-shriek came. "Anything at all you can tell from it though?"

"…It sounds like a large Machine to be making that kind of cry," Rost stated. "I'm not entirely sure, but I would bet on it."

"Would like to know what kind of gambling games you Nora play, but–" Star cut herself off as another warble-shriek came in the middle of her whisper. "I think I'll save the questions for when we're not about to be attacked by some mystery Machine."

"If it does," Rost pondered. "I'm hoping that because it can't see us directly, it might just leave."

A warble-shriek came seemingly to contradict Rost's words.

"At least, I hope," Rost said, his mouth setting in a grim line even as Aloy watched.

"…Aloy, can you go over to Star for a moment?" Eule asked.

Confused, Aloy did so.

"Star, can you hold onto Aloy?" Eule continued.

A just as confused Star did just as she was bade. "Okay?"

"Star, if that Machine attacks us, I want you to take Aloy, and run somewhere safe," Eule ordered.

Aloy's eyes widened just as much as Star's surely did.

"Eule, but–"

"Please, Star," Eule begged. "You're the fastest of us, and Aloy wouldn't last long in a fight against a large Machine like that. So please."

"Eule speaks the truth," Rost added. "Please, Star. Do as she says."

Aloy felt fear upon hearing that…and shame. Shame that she was still too little to help fight whatever that Machine was. She can easily see the logic and reason in it, but…it still hurt. So much so that she buried her face into Star's chest, even as Star's arms enfolded her in a hug.

"Okay," Star said quietly. "But I'll come back for you and Rost. I promise it. You hear that, Aloy? I'm not going to just sit by and let this dumb Machine try to tear our family apart."

Aloy nodded at Star's words, rubbing her face against that Nora shirt Star (and Eule too) liked to wear to bed.

Then suddenly, there was a distant thump, and then the warble-shriek came once more…before it then turned into a roar that grew quieter and quieter until it faded from earshot altogether.

"…Is it gone?" Eule asked.

"I don't know," Rost said, before taking up his bow. "But we need to find out. Carefully."

Just as Rost promised, he crept to the front door, and opened it up a crack to peek out. He then let the crack widen bit by bit as he peeked out even more until the door was fully open.

From where she was, Aloy could see the yard, still with those Grazer dummies standing in place, as well as the wall around the house. What she didn't see were any Machines though.

Rost beckoned for everyone to follow him. Eule was the first to walk silently after Rost, her own War Bow in hand with an arrow already nocked to the bowstring, before Star followed after Eule, leading Aloy by the hand.

Even as they stood in the yard, nothing seemed out of place to Aloy. Everything was as it should be even down to the snow covering the ground, just lit by the light of the Moon overhead instead of the rays of the Sun.

"I don't see anything," Eule said.

"Me neither," Aloy added.

"Me three," Star continued.

"Hmm," Rost concluded as he peered around some more. "It must have concluded that there were no humans to hunt, just as I'd hoped."

Aloy breathed out a sigh of relief. "So it ran away?" she asked.

"More like flew away from how it sounded," Star noted. "I would swear on the Red Eye though, that roar at the end sounded like a jet. Do Machines normally fly using jet engines?"

"What's a 'jet'?" Aloy asked at the same time Rost did.

"It's…uh…," Star struggled to explain.

"It's basically a cart that can fly," Eule tried to explain as well. "And admittedly, not that important right now."

"That seems to be the case," Rost said with beard-stroking thoughtfulness. "Regardless, it looks like it's safe to go back to sleep now, and hopefully investigate what that thumping noise was in the morning, when we can have a better chance of seeing…whatever it was."

With that said, Aloy breathed out a sigh of relief along with Eule and Star, before they trudged back into the house along with Rost to continue their interrupted slumber.

Only, when Aloy returned to her bed on the second floor, she noticed a lump in the covers. A big lump. She thought it was some kind of animal that had snuck into the house somehow and was now taking shelter in her bed, so she quietly took her unstrung bow from where she kept it next to her bed, and thwacked the lump hard.

The lump didn't react though, much to Aloy's puzzlement.

"Aloy? Are you alright, dear? What was that noise?" Eule called out from below.

"I hit something in my bed, but it's not moving," Aloy called back.

Seconds later, Eule had climbed up the ladder, and clip-clopped over to where Aloy was crouching over the lump.

"Huh, what could that be?" Eule asked curiously.

Just as curious now, Aloy reached over, and carefully pulled her fox fur blanket off of the lump–

Aloy could hear the cutoff squeak from Eule at the sight of what was there: a severed arm complete with a hand attached. Aloy could tell, because she covered her mouth too to keep the squeak of surprise from coming out.

"Eule, love? What was that?" Star called out from below.

"There's a…there's a…arm!" Eule managed to get out.

Some moments of chaos and confusion later, everyone in the house was staring at that severed arm, now lying on the dinner table.

"Is that…a Replika arm?" Aloy asked, her voice brimming with a combination of confusion, horror, and fascinated curiosity.

"It is," Eule said with a disturbed nod. "But…why is there a severed and oxidant-stained Replika arm just lying in your bed, Aloy?"

Aloy opened her mouth to answer…but then closed it again when she realized that she could not. Thus, what came out of her mouth was instead: "How do you know that it's oxidant and not blood?"

Eule sighed, and pointed at the crimson stains on the fingers and back of the hand, bright as wild ember.

"When Gestalt blood dries, it always turns a very dark, almost black color, as I'm sure you have noticed from all the butchering of animals we've been doing. Replika oxidant, on the other hand, will stay bright red even long after it has dried," Eule explained.

Aloy nodded. It was a good thing to remember.

"I would assume that you have no idea where this came from as well?" Rost asked, with just a hint of dryness to his voice.

Aloy shook her head. "I didn't sneak out at all, and there's no way that Metal World place would have something like this anyways."

Rost sighed. "Fair enough. Eule, you said this is a Replika's arm. Can you tell whose arm is it?"

"Umm," went Eule as she gently picked up the arm, and just as gently turned it over to look at it. "I can't tell just from this much of the arm…hold on." Eule then reached up to her Focus, and pressed on it to scan the arm. "Hmm…my Focus is telling me that there's…aramid fibers in the skin? Wait, is this a Star unit's arm?"

Star then leaned over to peer closely at said arm. "Hrm…not enough left to tell. It could be a STCR or LSTR arm just as easily as it could be a STAR arm. We all use the D-14 model nowadays, with only the insignia on the shoulder to tell each model apart, and well, there's no shoulder."

"Hmm, that's a pity," Eule said with a sigh. "I suppose we'll just have to bury this without knowing who it is."

Rost nodded. "Sometimes that happens among the Nora too. I can carve a gravestone for whoever this was. Perhaps one fitting for a Brave, since you seem to be implying that."

Even as Eule and Star nodded, Aloy was confused. "Why not just use it as a spare arm?" she asked.

Eule and Star both looked at Aloy with surprise, while Rost just blinked rapidly at her.

"Spare arm?" Rost asked, sounding just as confused as he looked.

"Yeah. Eule and Star can take their arms off, so why can't they just use that arm as a spare?" Aloy explained and asked all at once.

Said Eule and Star gave each other a look.

"I…guess?" Eule replied nervously. "But it just feels like…"

"Disrespecting the dead," Star finished.

Aloy looked down at her feet. "But…I just want you both to have a spare arm. Just burying it is like throwing it away."

Eule and Star looked at other once more.

"To be fair, Aloy has a point there," Star pointed out.

"Hmm," went Eule as she tilted her head. "I suppose it would be better for you to have a spare arm just in case something happens, yes?"

"True," Star replied with a nod. "But I was also thinking that it could be a spare arm for you too. You know, for when you're going hunting so that you have a tougher arm to use."

"…Oh, huh…would that work?" Eule asked with another tilt of her head.

"Dunno," Star replied as she scratched her cheek shell in thought. "I was hoping you knew."

"Unfortunately, my skills surrounding Replika maintenance issues like this are somewhere between basic and nonexistent, since I was a cook, after all," Eule said with a sigh. "Still though, it might be worth a try, at least. The Nation does like to make a lot of our parts cross-compatible."

"Wait," Rost said, no, ordered, holding up a hand for attention. "What's this about you two being able to take off your arms? Am I mishearing Aloy, or…?"

Eule shook her head. "No, you didn't mishear anything. Star and I can indeed detach and reattach our limbs at will for maintenance purposes…," She trailed off upon seeing Rost's disbelieving look being directed at her. "Perhaps it would be better to show you instead of explaining."

Aloy watched, wide-eyed with excitement, as Eule first undid the "maintenance latches" of the severed arm's elbow, pulling it open with a twist and a pop. Then she began undoing the maintenance latches on the elbow of her own right arm. The moment she did so, the fingers of her right hand suddenly spread out, going slack as though Eule lost all ability to move them. Then with the same ease of the severed arm's elbow, complete with that twist and pop, Eule was now holding her own right arm.

Aloy still thought that and the other weird Replika things Eule and Star could do were all so amazing, no matter how many times they did it. Just as amazing as their weird pointy feet with their little steel toes that she liked to poke whenever Eule and Star let her. Really, she didn't understand why Rost looked so disturbed about it.

"This is…normal for your people?" Rost carefully asked. "It doesn't harm you in any way?"

Eule shook her head, making the hand of her detached arm wave along with the fingers on it as she did so. "It's just the way the Eusan Nation built us Replikas. It's just something we can do in case we need to."

"I…see," Rost replied with a very deep sigh. "Honestly, I feel like life has become very strange ever since you two entered it."

Star patted Rost on his shoulder. "Now you know how we feel," she said with a grin.

"But on a much smaller scale," Eule said amidst her own giggling, before she calmed down enough to look at the severed arm once more. "Well, time to see if the D-14 is compatible with Eules."

Aloy watched in even more fascination as Eule placed her arm on the table next to the severed arm. Eule then took that severed arm, and with a deep breath and a hum, placed the elbow joint into her own empty elbow socket, twisted, and then began redoing the maintenance latches. When Eule finally redid the last latch, the fingers of her new hand sprang open, and she carefully raised her brand new right arm.

"Huh, so it does fit," Star said in a fascinated tone.

"Amazing that they would just use all the same latches and joints for all Replika models…or maybe it's because the D-14 was designed to be compatible with Stars and Storchs despite the generation gap between us?" Eule wondered, carefully turning her arm and flexing her hand.

"How does it feel?" Aloy asked, hopping up and down in her desire to know more.

"Hmm," Eule hummed, clenching her hand into a fist and unclenching several times, before tapping each finger to her thumb in rapid succession. "Honestly…it's hard to tell, but…it feels like I have a significantly higher grip strength than before…but I also feel like…my overall precision has gone down? I'm not sure, but…" Eule tapped her fingers to her thumb even faster than before, making them appear to be almost a black blur to Aloy. "No, I'm not imagining it. These new fingers are less precise than my C-15. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not used to this new arm, or if it's a problem with the software not properly interfacing with me, but…hmm…I might need some practice with this before I can use it properly…as well as a cleaning to remove these oxidant stains."

Star grinned. "Well, at least we know that you can practice with it, so that solves that problem! It's all yours now, love."

Eule grimaced up at Star. "Are you sure? It's a nice spare arm for you. I don't want to deprive you of–"

Suddenly, Star dipped down, planting a kiss on Eule's lips, and stifling whatever Eule was about to say. Much to Aloy's increasing levels of excitement. She always loved seeing Eule and Star kiss. It just made her feel that everything was going to be alright every time she saw that.

"You're not depriving me of anything, love," Star said after she finally, slowly, carefully broke the kiss. "I already have a good pair of D-14 arms. I'm just sharing the love around."

Eule smiled, reaching up with her new right arm to pull Star down for another long, passionate kiss that made Aloy hop at an even faster pace before saying: "I suppose that's fair…and thank you, love."

Rost chose that moment to cough, breaking the lovey-dovey air in a way that disappointed Aloy, but only slightly. She managed to catch Rost's smile just before he did so.

"I still have a few empty chests just big enough for you to fit that…spare arm of yours, Eule. Perhaps you might be willing to take one to have a place to store it in so that it doesn't get dusty?" Rost offered.

Eule grinned up at Rost. "I would be very willing. Thank you, really."

Aloy knew what was going to happen the moment Eule and Star looked at each other and grinned. It was why Aloy managed to tackle her way into the group hug that Eule and Star gave Rost. Rost sighed, but Aloy could easily see the smile he wore. The smile that Aloy hadn't seen much of before Eule and Star entered their lives, and became a part of their family.

And that was the biggest indicator to Aloy that truly, everything was going to be okay.

Then suddenly:

"Hey kid, what happened to those feathers in your hairband?" Star asked.

Thus started a chaotic and confused search for the missing feathers, which turned out to also include a missing bit of beaded string that previously helped to hold her hairband together. It ended with Rost once more assuring Aloy that he still had a few magpie feathers to replace the missing ones, and even some string and wooden to replace the missing beaded string, with Rost wondering how Aloy managed to lose those items in her sleep.

Aloy herself wondered how.

And in the wondering, the details of her dream completely slipped away from her back into the dark seas.

---

Elster stared at her own face reflected back at her.

She was back in that bathroom, staring into that mirror like before after kicking the bathroom stall door down. She knew that she had no time for doors when Ariane was on the line, but she had no idea why she was drawn to that one mirror with the working light above it, almost highlighting it like a neon sign (Elster didn't know where that came from) just like before.

Especially when there was everything else about the bathroom that could've caught her attention.

Like the red fleshy veins covering the floor like moss covering stone (Elster had no idea how she knew that when she'd never seen moss in her life), bulging and pulsing as though they were tumors growing out of control in a body.

And like the countless flies buzzing through the bathroom, filling the entire room and conducting an auditory assault on Elster's biomechanical ears with the ceaseless droning of their massed flight, feasting on the fleshy veins and laying just as countless eggs in it, which would explain the swarms of thin white maggots squirming on and into those veins.

This was clearly the same bathroom she had been in before…but it was all wrong.

And after it had been going right just a short while ago.

Elster remembered the small child named Aloy. The one who'd provided her with a little joy in her journey. A small flame flickering in the darkness as she slept in Elster's lap…and then she was just gone. Elster had fallen asleep for just a moment out of tiredness, and Aloy had vanished in that moment, with the very seas around her suddenly being replaced by the interior of that bathroom stall.

Elster sighed. It must have been an audiovisual hallucination, or an especially vivid dream. She'd been having quite a bit of those. This one was new, but it could've just been an especially weird hallucination/dream in this bloody sea of chaos she had found herself in. Something that her overloaded biomechanical brain came up with in a desperate attempt to escape the events around her.

Thus, Elster had no choice but to assume that everything was the same–

No. Elster peered more closely at her own reflection. No, there was something different. Something off. Something…

That was when Elster realized.

She reached up, and felt what she saw on her hair reflected back on her: a bit of string with a bead made of wood, colored red, holding up the lock of hair that formed the bangs on her LSTR standard hairstyle.

As her mechanical fingers and their somatosensors registered the tactile information from that bit of hair decoration, Elster felt something warm rising up in her. That feeling grew in intensity when she opened a certain pouch on her person, and found the pair of feathers within.

Elster reached in and carefully pulled out one of those feathers. Aloy had mentioned that it was a feather of a magpie, but she hadn't really processed that until now. It was the first time she'd ever seen a feather of the bird her model was named after, and…it was beautiful.

She carefully examined the feather, turning it over in the light, watching the feather transition from its normal deep blue, to a glinting green edged with metallic violet. She had only ever seen something this beautiful…when she was watching Ariane paint.

'Ariane would love to see this,' Elster thought, and then…she smiled. 'Thank you, Aloy.'

Now she had two promises to keep…three if you counted the strange pink berries and the dark-colored lump of what seemed to be pure opium sap as a separate promise to Isa. It was more promises to add to her promise to Ariane…but she can handle it.

Elster moved to exit this corrupted bathroom, ready to face what was ahead now that she was filled with determination.

She was ready.

…She hoped.