For some weeks she felt like she was some kind of other version Randall Clark; hiding in his cave and helping the tribesmen from the shadows.
Per usual, she crafted some healing powder, traps, and improvised grenades for the Sorrows. She didn't want to leave them exposed in the open and hoped they collected the items themselves; there was always a chance that White Legs snatched them instead. She had been asking Waking Cloud's help to deliver it to their camp.
Waking Cloud might not be as close to her as Follows-Chalk had been, but she was willing to leave a little sympathy for her. She thought her kindness might have come from her tribe elder's teachings about Randall, or maybe it was Daniel's influence, from his guidance on his religion.
"You bring so many!" The shaven-haired woman cried as she came closer.
"Yeah, I got a bit carried away. But you guys can't have too many of these—whoop, careful now." Alix moved all the weight of the supplies onto her arms. "Surely you're strong enough to carry all these alone?"
"Of course." She smiled. "Paz patasooba. Thank you aga—oh!" The tribal woman bumped into Daniel. They talked in the Sorrows' language and she took off.
"Alix." The brown-eyed man greeted.
She began shifting her weights and glanced to the direction of Cueva Guarache, but remembering that he was the only person who rescued her from an angry group of tribesmen, she decided to look away, thinking how she couldn't avoid him forever anyway. Her chest tightened as she steeled herself against the inevitable sermon, her thoughts spun for a way to defend herself.
She felt his presence in front of her, still as stone, and reluctantly glanced up. The New Canaanite didn't cross his arms, his face didn't twist, his eyes didn't show disappointment. She sighed. "Yes, I'd seen the light but hadn't yet felt the heat. Well guess what? I did. Twice, actually. I ask that you save your I-told-you-so speeches."
"I honestly have none."
Surprised, she pressed her lips as soon as she parted them. "I suppose I should apologize to you too, considering how much you cared about Bishop Mordecai." Her body grew warmer and sweat began to bead on her brows. "You know, you have every right to be furious. Your family was destroyed before your eyes and I let the one responsible for it live. I didn't bring your God's justice."
He drew a long breath. "I take it you're well, then?"
"Punch me if you like, or shoot me anywhere with your machine gun."
"Quit it. I'm not Joshua." His sharp remark drove her to silence. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have known the other courier you were meeting was the one behind all this. And you wouldn't have foreseen to end up in Zion for a long time and involve yourself in our struggles. You didn't know, just as I hadn't anticipated that White Legs would be a greater threat to New Canaan and my new family here." He rested his palms on his waist.
"But... I intended to keep the truth to myself."
"Listen," he took a step forward. "I've come to a conclusion. You didn't arrange these things on purpose. God has a plan for you... for us all. And who am I to condemn a very capable person who's been helping us plenty?" He stared into the horizon before turning to her. "Besides, I believe the one truly responsible is Caesar, not the other courier. I've told him this, but you know him. Once his mind's all clouded, it's gonna take a while. A long while, since you're not around to remind him."
"My help won't bring your family and the fallen tribesmen back. And probably all this time you were right—we shouldn't fight back and all."
"You're right, it won't." Daniel said, his voice steady. "And I'm glad you see how I grieve our loss this far. But what's done is done. God says 'For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and inequities will I remember no more.'" Her breath hitched as his hands rested on her shoulders, the warmth of his touch grounding her. "I forgive you Alix, and you need to stop feeling like this."
A lump rose in her throat. Daniel's words had never meant that much for her, but as the weight of his words sank in, the stubborn tightness in her chest loosened, and for the first time in days, maybe months, she felt a weight lift off her shoulders. She took deep breaths to calm herself.
Daniel released her and readjusted his hat. "What we need to do next is getting the map and, according to your plan, attack White Legs before getting some of our people out of this valley."
She nodded and hummed. "That leaves finding the map to be the last thing to do."
"Well not quite. We need your help in fighting the White Legs." He shrugged indifferently. "It's your idea, after all."
She turned her head away, covering any expressions that might reveal her current scheme. "Y-yeah, but I mean for now, the map matters more."
"I suppose it does. Find me the second you have it. Let me analyze it."
"Got it." She turned around and began walking to Randall's cave, but stopped midway. "Thank you, Daniel."
A thought filled her mind. Daniel was right. She couldn't have known, yet every day she told herself Joshua's wrath was bound to happen since she had kept the truth from him. Keeping the truth to herself had been a mistake, but letting Ulysses go? Even though she wanted to give him a form of punishment, knowing his role in wiping out New Canaan, she shouldn't have received such a harsh treatment.
Another thought then came forward: she should forget whatever there was between them. If she could get over The King, she could Joshua. It hadn't been easy then and it wouldn't be easy now, but she reminded herself that desensitizing herself from him, her tribesmen friends, and this breadth of view she deemed nonpareil compared to anywhere else she had been, needed to be done.
She had heard stories from Joshua and Daniel about the Scripture so many times that she understood why the Sorrows had mistaken Randall for New Canaan's God. Both men had been capable of ruthlessness, but they were also capable of showing mercy. And that was the part she struggled with—why had Joshua only embraced the wrathful side of his teachings when, like Randall, he could show mercy? Why hadn't it crossed his mind despite receiving it when he had returned to New Canaan?
When she went back through Randall's entries, she wondered if Daniel's solution was in fact the right one, and her judgment had been obscured by her endeavours and losses in the valley. She fixed her eyes on the last words in Randall's final entry,
It's been a gift to me, at the end of it all, to behold innocence.
"Randall... what have I done?"
After all the pain he had gone through all his life, the one thing that made him go on with life and be at ease at long last was the Sorrows' innocence. White Legs had tainted it, just as they had Zion's, as Joshua had said. And if anything, she thought Randall would've supported the idea of fighting the enemies back. But as she thought of his words and training, she wondered if the kindness she had seen in the tribe before had been buried under layers of war training—could Randall's legacy still exist?
Remembering how hungry they looked when they chased after her that night, a shiver ran down her spine. Both tribes meant to hunt her down and brought Joshua's justice on her. She was thankful that only Follows-Chalk didn't care about the taboos, and that she didn't bring him with her to Randall's caves so he never knew where she stayed.
The Sorrows and Dead Horses were no longer tribes that fought only when they needed to defend themselves. She realized that now they actively tried to pin White Legs down whenever they can, joining forces. Dead Horses, who had always been a fighting tribe, had started mounting more heads on pikes and plundered White Legs camps. The tribes had now adopted their own storm-drummer and light-bringer, as well.
She lay back, swiping her hair off her forehead. Losing innocence or not, her decision had become irreversible anyway. There was nothing further she could do, and she wanted to run away from everything in this beautiful valley, including the troubles she had made for herself and others. In her mind, she believed she could detach herself from Zion faster if she got out of there, returning to New Vegas as soon as she could.
Her search for the map began immediately. Day after day, she retraced her steps to every pre-war places she had visited and rechecked their surroundings. She kept her vigilance to keep herself out of sight, flitting her eyes back and forth as she had done in the Divide. Every now and then, she remained still behind shrubberies and not move forward for some time to avoid detection, friend or foe.
"Oh, you morons!" Her voice clamoured throughout the cave walls when she found White Legs corpses by the entrance of Morning Glory Cave. The savages had busted all the traps she had set. This was the third time she had seen this happening in Randall's hideouts. "Idiots just don't learn," she grumbled.
Once she finished looting the dead White Legs, she dragged the corpses one by one and piled them on some place where the wildlife would likely scavenge. Doing it while crouching, she stumbled under the weight of cold bodies, each step a reminder of her own exhaustion. Her legs gave out, her shoulders and back burned from exertion. Under her breath she cursed, but the weight of her task didn't allow her to stop.
She sank onto the bedroll after dealing with the traps and locked the door. Tapping her head with a fist, she frowned, thinking how she had sleuthed all the places she had gone to before and found nothing. The thought gnawed at her: what if she couldn't find anything? What if Daniel and the others were stuck here, trapped in this valley, and she had no way out? Nobody could know how long it would take for caravans to visit Zion, or for Mr. House and her friends to start looking for her. She and the others could end up being locked in until Caesar began his second attempt to take over the dam at full throttle.
She cursed, wondering if she should just try mapping the area all by herself and risking her own death. Waving a hand over her head, she slumped by the fire and thought her death would be meaningless here.
As she crafted ammunition next day, she decided to revisit pre-war places one more time, although this time she wanted to dig the ground—maybe the map's buried somewhere around there. Beginning her search in Morning Glory Cave, she looked for soil around the room that might've hidden a stash.
She saw what now looked like a peculiar row of stones under the ramp and dug right away. When her makeshift trowel clanged, she gasped and took a tin box out. Rubbing the dirt away, she read, "Emergency" on the lid. Inside, she found pre-war money, a hand-held radio, small tools, a whistle, a gas mask, and a holotape.
Her heart raced. Hoping the holotape wasn't empty, she loaded it on her Pip-boy with a quick hand. A small yelp escaped her lips. "Randall!" She kissed her wrist gadget.
The sky bled shades of orange and purple as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows over the Sorrows camp. The fading light made her movements more cautious as she darted her eyes in every direction, glancing over her shoulder until she spotted Daniel.
"Found it." She knocked on her Pip-boy with a finger.
"Oh good." He walked over to her and peered through the device around her wrist. "Can you lend me this for a while? I mi—"
"No." She shook her head. "Sorry, but this thing's invaluable. I'll be here until you're done."
"It's gonna take a while, you know."
She hesitated for a moment before extending her wrist, the weight of her Pip-boy heavier than it should've been. "That's fine. Just tell The Sorrows to not let Joshua or Follows-Chalk or any of the bloodthirsty tribesmen come here."
"You know that's impossible. I can't control everybody." Daniel gestured to one of the Sorrows, speaking in their language. Alix didn't understand but the tribal went away, alertness on her face. He turned to her and spoke flatly. "I told her to tell me if she sees them. That's the best I can do."
After getting paper and a pencil, Daniel began copying the map and reading the details Randall had recorded on the holotape. He mumbled about locations and areas, drew arrows and circles, and scribbled some notes. Her chin rested on her hand. Each time her arm went numb, she asked him to pause and shook it.
"Someone who had or made this map really knew their way around this region... Where'd you find it?"
She glanced sideways. "Remember about the Father in the Caves? Well, he was a real person from the old world." She briefed him about Randall and the beginning of The Sorrows tribe in hushed tones. "I found the map in one of his caves."
"I see. Huh..." The narrow-eyed man squinted and tilted his head upwards. "Well, now everything makes sense."
"Hey." Alix grabbed his arm. "You can't tell The Sorrows about this just so that they'll believe in your God."
"And who are you to tell me what to do?" He pulled his arm away. "Besides, didn't I tell you that I allow them to make their own choice?"
They went back to the map. The breeze and the warmth of the setting sun started to make her eyelids heavy. She almost dozed off when the man in leather hat caught her attention. "So have you been hiding in his caves all this time?"
She slid her palm forward to cover her face. "Please. Please keep this just between us." Her stomach churned. She didn't just ask him to keep quiet—she asked him to keep her safe from the others.
"I'll try my best."
"Daniel."
His eyes still held the weight of responsibility, but they softened. "Look, I understand you've got personal things to work through, but right now, we've got bigger problems. If sharing your location helps us move forward, I'll do it—but only if it's necessary. Pray I won't have to do it, my Gentile friend."