hey, my favorite babe! 💕 i know we got off on the wrong foot and all, yknow, with the stabbin and everything… but how about we give things a fresh start! second time’s the charm, right? 🥰
[ She's never been one to concern herself with her looks— the world had maybe tried to level the playing field by letting her look the way she did with minimal effort. It had not done that however, and had perhaps contributed to her maligned personality.
It feels weird to be here so late in life— big, bloated, and unable to see the jungle growing just a few inches under her gigantic, bulbous stomach. Her hands instinctively reach for that spot 'She' always kicks (because Zero has definitively decided it's a girl). ]
I better bounce back after you.. stupid little bastard.
[ But despite that, a love so strong and sudden that it nearly cripples is her is what she feels when She kicks back. Still, It doesn't change the fact that this is the worst she's ever felt about her looks— her hair had grown down to her hips from the supplements Aloy forced down her throat, and in that time she could not be bothered to trim her hair but also refused to trust anyone else with the task. Her chest had already been the source of slight pains, but even moreso now that they were swollen and sensitive.
Her ass was huge now too, and Zero can't help but lament the lines and hanging weight of stretched skin; it was carved onto her skin forever now that the flower was gone.
And the most ironic thing of all: she's somehow she's hornier than she's ever been in her life. What a fucking joke.
Zero had not uttered a word of it, and Aloy had not touched her once in nearly 6 months. And for the first time in the time they've known each other, Zero was overly conscious of her body— concerned suddenly with modesty and never letting herself be seen naked.
When the door to the room opens (wood bending underneath a boot gives her a head start) she is quick to tie her robe. ]
You wanna' learn to fucking knock? All it takes is one surprise and then it's piss city.
[ The silence between them is the first flash of lightning that night.
They both move as fast as they can without running to find shelter for the night, though Zero doubts either are desperate for cover because of the weather. It is a long walk to the shelter about a mile and a half away (if it can be called that- Zero had complained, it was basically just a tent pitched up where no one can hear you) but they make it in record time. When they both stumble in (rain patters against the hyde and canvas roof above them - it is barely much taller than Aloy herself) they are sopping wet from the storm. Zero's teeth chatter as she pulls off her outerwear, all of it ten pounds heavier and requires more backwards force than she is capable of. The alien bond between them chooses a perfect time to glitch and cut short, pulling Zero backwards as she tries in vain to pull her tunic off.
Zero falls toward Aloy unintentionally; any other time it wouldn't be anything of note, in the time they've spent together a strange familiarity had developed between them. Never had they embraced, or held hands, nothing two lovers would do. However they had no qualms sleeping beside one another, often pressed up against one another or tangled together. They groomed one another- not really in the way female friends might primp one another- but like mated animals, performing some bonded ritual.
It was alien, and it was fucking weird. But Zero embraced it, maybe even started it.
(It made her feel insidious. Like she was stealing something.)
Zero stands there silently, half out of her clothes, and when Aloy sounds like she has moved on, she finally speaks. ]
I'm not getting out of the way until I get out of this.
[ Their blankets and sleeping bags were on the other side of the tent, just past Zero. ]
[ There was a sense of foreboding the days before- growing pains, nothing either of them thought couldn't be resolved. So that's why Zero had thought very little of the fact that Aloy left before it was resolved. She'd almost made the mistake of looking away as Aloy left, attentions focused elsewhere, dismissive. And Aloy did what Zero assumed she would do the next time this happened: Aloy had sighed, marched to her side to plant a kiss on her temple before she really left.
'We'll talk about it later, okay? Pickup when I call.'
Zero'd spat 'Whatever.' but she'd at least had the sense to turn around in time to see Aloy's withering smile.
Hours, and then half a day- the others had not heard from her, and the tracking of Aloy's focus had been spotty, darting nervously around the map projected in front of her. The two of them left not very long after that but they should have left sooner. Days and days of surveying the same area, calling in favors and broadcasts from every source and acquaintance imaginable- only then did they finally find her things and no trace of Aloy.
She remembers very little of the days between that and when they'd received the distress signal from the Nora temple-the very same had birthed Aloy. Beta explained most of it to her in between struggling breathes (her face growing increasingly red), but truthfully Zero hadn't listened and didn't care. Aloy stood before them, a replica of herself age 5. Beta struggles to gulp behind her and Zero holds her breath, caught between elation (the intensity and ecstasy the same as if she'd birthed this child herself) and anguish (because she understood now- she'd lost her reason for being). The two things together net 0, and Zero swings between misery and mania in one full swoop only to end back where she was before Aloy had left them.
Zero holds Aloy's hand, and presses her prosthetic palm to Beta's cheek knowing the cool material will be a balm to her miserably warm face.
'Get a fucking grip.' ]
Got a second?
[ Zero hang's in the corner of Beta's lab, hip resting on the door frame- half in and half out.
She enters fully, and removes something from between her shawls with the utmost care. ]
I'd say I forgot I had this, but that'd be a lie. I took it, but it's yours.
[ It's Elisabet's necklace, the world on the end of a silver rope.
ENCLOSUREυ - MEMORIAL GROVE Tenakth Lowlands were beautiful and lush when you were flying overhead. Walking or riding in them was something altogether different, and the both of them are in a state by the time they push their way into yet another densely packed cospe of trees and winding undergrowth, guaranteed to make even sure-footed travelers lose their balance. Aloy’s not seen this part of the Lowland jungle, and GAIA’s periodic updates had begun to go spotty the deeper into it that they went.
Besides that, she’s gotten them woefully lost and had been too stubborn to admit it, and Zero had given her an earful about being a know-it-all before going quiet, as if in defiance, which in turn made Aloy terse and sullen. This was supposed to be their first little foray out together since the baby, and it had already taken forever and a day to get her out here to begin with, the journey plagued with incidents like this due largely to her pride. As they travel, she stops being annoyed at Zero and more annoyed at herself. She’d had to call in every favor she had under the sun to make Zero feel secure enough to leave their child alone in the first place. Luckily, she’d gathered a number of them even while she’d been at home. Even Sylens is involved — having conspired some way of keeping Mother's Embrace free of anything but the most docile of machines for about a ten mile perimeter until she and Zero returned from their sabbatical. He does not tell her how he manages this, and she doesn't ask, ignoring the prickle of discomfort at seeing him talk over it with Beta later, their voices lowered.
She's finding that she's gained a lot in having a family, more than she had dreamed, but there were parts of her adventures that she missed, and had felt the loss acutely in her time building them a home. So, some of those instincts, honed after years of training, they don't come as easily after more than a year of… of just being normal. Doing normal things. That's how they'd gotten lost, she reasons. She had to admit it to herself now: she’s way off her game. She'd been sure the clearing she’d been looking for to camp in had been around here, and she’d wanted enough distance between them and a Tenakth settlement to properly surprise her with the gift she'd been working on for ages, in secret and with very little feedback.
This part of the jungle is so unfamiliar though, that for a moment she forgets they're in the lowlands at all. The first thing she’s aware of before she even notices the faint magenta haze that seems to surround the area, is that the temperature goes from oppressively humid to cool. That would have to be from the massive, interwoven network of tree branches that arc overhead, obscuring most of the sun’s rays and allowing her to see only patches of darkening blue sky between their laced roots. The earth under her feet is a little damp, soft without giving way to mud and cold water, and she glances down to see veiny lines of lichen and moss pushing up through dark brown earth. It almost seems to glow.
She kneels to take a closer look. There were flowers growing there, powder pink, magenta, electric blue, and almost too small for her to see right away, dotting this network of mossy veins like starbursts. The air smells… wonderful. She has no idea of what kind of flower could be making it, but there’s… life everywhere. More than she’s expecting, even. Besides whatever massive tree was responsible for this nature-made enclosure (trees? a network, she thinks? she’d had an astounding amount of time to read about these subjects during her. well. maternity leave), she can see hanging vines in the distance, a burst of tropical flowers here, the drooping and enormous leaf of a pitcher plant hanging overhead there. Birds with feathers every color of the rainbow. From one winding vine, bellflowers in virginal shades of white and pale pink bob their heads. She can hear the trickle of a stream a few meters ahead, and she’s certain the distant roar of a waterfall as well.
“Incredible… this haze, and that smell. Pollen, I’m guessing?”
Whatever disappointment and frustration that had overtaken her during their convoluted travel is quickly replaced by awe. The wonder on her face is almost childlike as she looks around, trying to take all of it in. “…What is this place? GAIA?”
A garbled, sputtering message follows: ”Apologies — loy. You’re — beyond — current range.”
“Beyond your range?”
”—Areas - are being built — facilitating introduction — propagation - ARTEMIS…”
“GAIA?” She spares a glance to Zero over her shoulder for a moment, concerned. “Hey, GAIA, can you hear me?”
Aloy taps on her Focus, then removes it altogether, frowning at the strange color emanating from it. She'd never seen that light before, on any machine or Old World detritus. It's a vivid pink, and the light pulses in time like a heartbeat. More urgently, she repeats herself: “GAIA. Come in.”
A few tense seconds pass. Eventually, GAIA’s voice returns after a burst of fuzzy static from both her Focus and Zero’s own. “I apologize, Aloy.” If a machine could sound sheepish, GAIA’s certainly sounding close to it. “You’ll return to proper — range once you pass through your current location. — Environment is safe. — an offshoot of earlier - proposed design by ARTEMIS - DEMETER. This is the reason for any overgrowth you see. - area’s original purpose was for the — propagation of new animal and plant species, much like - Cauldrons. — Repurposing design for further — evolutionary — development. - normal Focus range will be implemented when - area is completed.”
“So, a biological Cauldron? That would explain the megaflora. And it’s safe? We’ll be fine if we wait out the evening here?”
”Area - is meant to reintroduce - to Earth’s ecosystem without danger. You and Zero will be safe.”
“Okay.” Aloy breathes out slowly, and then with more assurance repeats: “Okay.” Finally she turns to Zero again, her expression sheepish and apologetic. “Shadows are getting long. This is as good of a place as any to stay ‘til morning. And GAIA says it’s safe. She’s been working a lot since we’ve been gone.”
[ Her cough hasn't quite gone away, but she stands out in the early spring chill anyway- the snow is half-melted leaving puddles of mud and splotches of yellow green grass all around Mother's Heart. Ivy, with her incredibly limited vocabulary and Zero's own intuition, had worked together to discover that this evening's migraine inducing tantrum had been because Aloy would be coming home soon and she absolutely needed to greet her outside.
She knows Aloy will scold her for it. But if she had to choose between a toddler's screaming and a compromised immune system, she'd choose the latter ten out of ten times. They spent the cooler months at the base usually. The scar's of Zero's sickness had never truly gone away and she was prone to illness.
But again she'd been brought to a crossroads: Take care of two children under five by herself, or suffer through a winter out east but with help. Often when Aloy was gone for this long Zero would accompany her or travel to Meridian with Alana. Traveling with one infant had been doable, traveling with a child and an infant was panic inducing.
Ivy will not allow Zero to hold her, but she demands they hold hands. When Aloy's figure is finally visible from further down the hill she raises her hand and flexes her fingers- the prequel to an actual wave. Zero almost forgets this infant has been the bane of her existence for the last two months.
Ivy tugs and whines, again not wanting to let go of Zero's hand but very clearly wanting to propel the both of them forward. She gives in, and once they're in talking distance Ivy fights Zero's grip and Zero concedes.
Ivy hobbles toward Aloy. ]
Well you're a sight for sore eyes.
[ With age their reunions have become less fraught, much warmer. ]
[ In the summer women are sent to the sea to refrain their senses.
That's why the brothel was always busiest during the hottest time of the year. She remembers her patrons smugly claiming their wives were hysterical and would be momentarily cured by the smell of salt and crashing of waves. And in that voice that they loved, Rose would remark she'd never seen the ocean.
Zero's room is dark. It had been decorated in a fashion that her husband and master (as the vows had called him— she had of course been sedated by magic and medicine both to get through the ceremony) had deemed suitable for a bride and tool of her status and stature. It mirrored her suite in his main home— a castle passed down from tyrant to tyrant, the very same girls her age had once dreamed of visiting, hoping to be saved from their miseries by becoming a courtesan to someone who mattered. The only difference between this room and that one was the sea breeze and distant sounds of waves crashing against cliff and sand.
Zero sits underneath the canopy of her bed, covers drawn over her head like a silk tent. The smell of herbs and smoke pervade through the room and the earthy smoke is already billowing up toward the vaulted ceiling.
She's been at this for while, when her watchdog and designated companion enters the room. She's not supposed to be doing this, but she doesn't seem to care. After all, what was the worst she could do? Tell her mother?
Of all of the king's advisors that woman was the most unsavory. All of this had been her idea after all— that man otherwise wouldn't have the gall or brainpower to trap her like this. ]
Miss Rose, I hope that you're having a wonderful day! If not I hope that this will cheer you up. Ehe, it's cute, isn't it? It's like she's dancing! Is the hotel suite OK? I didn't have the time to check in yesterday. Our staff is very good, but I usually take a look myself for special circumstances like this. Please accept my apologies. Oh, do you prefer Zero? I'm sorry. I wasn't sure. ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ) Is it confusing to have a stage name? Thank you again for agreeing to the performance on such short notice. The children will be so excited! Please let me know if I can help with any other arrangements for your stay. *(*´∀｀*)☆
In the starless dark of night they travel quickly, creating stark and exaggerated silhouettes as they pass briefly through the orange sodium glow of streetlights. She remembers most of this in fragmented pieces: being led in the rain until the little town turned to dirt roads. Mud that caked in the creases of her jeans. A woman grasping her numb fingers, then yanking with a grip like iron, her palm as pale and cold as new frost. The rain grew more aggressive, became needlelike and freezing, though this cold was nothing compared to the cold that made Allison tremble like there was no blood in her veins. The stranger is of little comfort: when Allison falters, she tugs her with sharp finality, refusing to let her stop. Was something after them? No. They were looking for someone. For something, and it was close enough that the hairs on the back of Allison's neck stood at attention.
Or had that been a few evenings before?
When they'd arrived at the graveyard was when her memory began to go fuzzy, become tattered at the corners. Indistinct. She knows they must have dug up the coffin, because in the morning (?) after her nails had hardened dirt under them, gray muck that crumbled easily beneath the pressure of her fingertips, and her shirt was streaked with mud. She remembers being handed the crowbar, the metal so cold that it almost stuck to her hands. She remembers the eyes of that thing opening, as bright and as unnatural as the sodium lamps they'd traveled beneath. The whistle of air behind her ear as the woman drove something sharp into the heart of the creature, and the horrible noise afterward, high and agonizing enough to make her ears pop, as if she were in the pressurized cabin of a jet.
She remembers thinking: good.
After this, she remembers very little at all. Pain most often, which ruled her, a pain like dying. Being cold all the time, feeling empty. Feeling hungry. She thought she should go home, though she could not remember where that was in her current state, because the only place she did know was this old and poorly lit house, where all the furniture was covered in white sheets that reminded her of funeral shrouds. Funny: she could remember those, little snippets of fact and memory, but any attempt at grasping a more substantial thought brought with it more pain, a feeling like hands digging into her skull and pulling it apart. She existed in this state for hours? Days? Weeks, perhaps, the only constant beyond the hunger, pain and confusion being the woman, who would sometimes sit beside her in unsettling quiet, or leave in the night, only to return late in the evening, sometimes dragging something heavy behind her.
In the days before, Allison had refused whatever this was, had been repulsed, but when the woman shakes her awake tonight, her throat is so dry that she can't force out much of anything but a dull death-rattle. She's tired and thirsty, she wants to say. She wants to be left alone. When she tries to push back, she is struck by the sight of what she begins to realize, in a slow-growing dread, is her own hand. Her skin, desiccated,, bruised gray and bone white, the veins beneath her near translucent skin blue-black. It trembles in the moonlight like an old woman's.
Allison lets it fall to her side. Even this slight movement takes incredible effort on her part. When had she ever been this weak? This cold and frail? Had something happened? She tries to ask the woman this, though again the sounds crackle and die in her throat.
[ This is the first time in some time that she hasn't been able to travel with Aloy. Alana was easy to bring along, she'd found, as long as she stayed strapped to someone's back. If they stayed behind it was by Zero's choice.
She debates calling Aloy, but in the end decides the dread is easier to hide via text. ]
Your kid is mad you wouldn't take her with you.
She misses the city.
[ Alana is three and for better or worse, talkative and has a vocabulary larger than most adults.
Genius genes, she supposes. But unfortunately all that brain hasn't kept her from wetting the bed. That combined with the fact that she was more prone to tantrums when alone with Aloy meant that she was probably better off not following her mother along to a political summit that decided the fate of thousands of people. ]
Over the decades she's learned to find fulfillment in things more minute than survival. Her self-expression, her music, being a mother most of all.
But the house was up there. Zero had an affinity for the water, the ocean especially. It was nostalgic and oddly calming. It'd been a months long process, the blueprints themselves a gift from Aloy to commemorate their many years together.
The floors were made from shiny blue tile imported from the Quen mainland, walls washed in plain neat white making it stick out among the many ornate Quen structures. Every piece of furniture was purchased over time, some were even gifts - she'd become something of a stylistic tastemaker.
The problem however is that it was small. There was only one bedroom and their daughters had been (begrudgingly) assigned pallets on the floor.
She was kind of pissed at them, so she doesn't feel bad about it in this moment.
Zero is already cocooned in their bed, scrolling mindlessly through stupid videos on her Focus, when Aloy enters she peaks out from under her blankets.
Age, or her new lifestyle has softened her features some. The angles of Zero's face are rounder now, and the intimidating aura she'd once projected has worn away like a knife turned blunt from years of overuse.]
Did they let you have it again?
[ She's been trying to avoid her own spawn now that they've settled in their sleeping spots.
The lack of proper beds had only made them grouchier about the news. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i already hate this
i know we got off on the wrong foot and all, yknow, with the stabbin and everything…
but how about we give things a fresh start! second time’s the charm, right? 🥰
*zero voice* zdaddy
i refuse to imagine her saying that
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So I did something a little impulsive.
[a moment passes.]
Very impulsive.
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It feels weird to be here so late in life— big, bloated, and unable to see the jungle growing just a few inches under her gigantic, bulbous stomach. Her hands instinctively reach for that spot 'She' always kicks (because Zero has definitively decided it's a girl). ]
I better bounce back after you.. stupid little bastard.
[ But despite that, a love so strong and sudden that it nearly cripples is her is what she feels when She kicks back. Still,
It doesn't change the fact that this is the worst she's ever felt about her looks— her hair had grown down to her hips from the supplements Aloy forced down her throat, and in that time she could not be bothered to trim her hair but also refused to trust anyone else with the task. Her chest had already been the source of slight pains, but even moreso now that they were swollen and sensitive.
Her ass was huge now too, and Zero can't help but lament the lines and hanging weight of stretched skin; it was carved onto her skin forever now that the flower was gone.
And the most ironic thing of all: she's somehow she's hornier than she's ever been in her life. What a fucking joke.
Zero had not uttered a word of it, and Aloy had not touched her once in nearly 6 months. And for the first time in the time they've known each other, Zero was overly conscious of her body— concerned suddenly with modesty and never letting herself be seen naked.
When the door to the room opens (wood bending underneath a boot gives her a head start) she is quick to tie her robe. ]
You wanna' learn to fucking knock? All it takes is one surprise and then it's piss city.
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They both move as fast as they can without running to find shelter for the night, though Zero doubts either are desperate for cover because of the weather. It is a long walk to the shelter about a mile and a half away (if it can be called that- Zero had complained, it was basically just a tent pitched up where no one can hear you) but they make it in record time. When they both stumble in (rain patters against the hyde and canvas roof above them - it is barely much taller than Aloy herself) they are sopping wet from the storm. Zero's teeth chatter as she pulls off her outerwear, all of it ten pounds heavier and requires more backwards force than she is capable of. The alien bond between them chooses a perfect time to glitch and cut short, pulling Zero backwards as she tries in vain to pull her tunic off.
Zero falls toward Aloy unintentionally; any other time it wouldn't be anything of note, in the time they've spent together a strange familiarity had developed between them. Never had they embraced, or held hands, nothing two lovers would do. However they had no qualms sleeping beside one another, often pressed up against one another or tangled together. They groomed one another- not really in the way female friends might primp one another- but like mated animals, performing some bonded ritual.
It was alien, and it was fucking weird. But Zero embraced it, maybe even started it.
(It made her feel insidious. Like she was stealing something.)
Zero stands there silently, half out of her clothes, and when Aloy sounds like she has moved on, she finally speaks. ]
I'm not getting out of the way until I get out of this.
[ Their blankets and sleeping bags were on the other side of the tent, just past Zero. ]
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'We'll talk about it later, okay? Pickup when I call.'
Zero'd spat 'Whatever.' but she'd at least had the sense to turn around in time to see Aloy's withering smile.
Hours, and then half a day- the others had not heard from her, and the tracking of Aloy's focus had been spotty, darting nervously around the map projected in front of her. The two of them left not very long after that but they should have left sooner. Days and days of surveying the same area, calling in favors and broadcasts from every source and acquaintance imaginable- only then did they finally find her things and no trace of Aloy.
She remembers very little of the days between that and when they'd received the distress signal from the Nora temple-the very same had birthed Aloy. Beta explained most of it to her in between struggling breathes (her face growing increasingly red), but truthfully Zero hadn't listened and didn't care. Aloy stood before them, a replica of herself age 5. Beta struggles to gulp behind her and Zero holds her breath, caught between elation (the intensity and ecstasy the same as if she'd birthed this child herself) and anguish (because she understood now- she'd lost her reason for being). The two things together net 0, and Zero swings between misery and mania in one full swoop only to end back where she was before Aloy had left them.
Zero holds Aloy's hand, and presses her prosthetic palm to Beta's cheek knowing the cool material will be a balm to her miserably warm face.
'Get a fucking grip.' ]
Got a second?
[ Zero hang's in the corner of Beta's lab, hip resting on the door frame- half in and half out.
She enters fully, and removes something from between her shawls with the utmost care. ]
I'd say I forgot I had this, but that'd be a lie. I took it, but it's yours.
[ It's Elisabet's necklace, the world on the end of a silver rope.
It has been a year now. ]
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making up hzd lore for [redacted]
Tenakth Lowlands were beautiful and lush when you were flying overhead. Walking or riding in them was something altogether different, and the both of them are in a state by the time they push their way into yet another densely packed cospe of trees and winding undergrowth, guaranteed to make even sure-footed travelers lose their balance. Aloy’s not seen this part of the Lowland jungle, and GAIA’s periodic updates had begun to go spotty the deeper into it that they went.
Besides that, she’s gotten them woefully lost and had been too stubborn to admit it, and Zero had given her an earful about being a know-it-all before going quiet, as if in defiance, which in turn made Aloy terse and sullen. This was supposed to be their first little foray out together since the baby, and it had already taken forever and a day to get her out here to begin with, the journey plagued with incidents like this due largely to her pride. As they travel, she stops being annoyed at Zero and more annoyed at herself. She’d had to call in every favor she had under the sun to make Zero feel secure enough to leave their child alone in the first place. Luckily, she’d gathered a number of them even while she’d been at home. Even Sylens is involved — having conspired some way of keeping Mother's Embrace free of anything but the most docile of machines for about a ten mile perimeter until she and Zero returned from their sabbatical. He does not tell her how he manages this, and she doesn't ask, ignoring the prickle of discomfort at seeing him talk over it with Beta later, their voices lowered.
She's finding that she's gained a lot in having a family, more than she had dreamed, but there were parts of her adventures that she missed, and had felt the loss acutely in her time building them a home. So, some of those instincts, honed after years of training, they don't come as easily after more than a year of… of just being normal. Doing normal things. That's how they'd gotten lost, she reasons. She had to admit it to herself now: she’s way off her game. She'd been sure the clearing she’d been looking for to camp in had been around here, and she’d wanted enough distance between them and a Tenakth settlement to properly surprise her with the gift she'd been working on for ages, in secret and with very little feedback.
This part of the jungle is so unfamiliar though, that for a moment she forgets they're in the lowlands at all. The first thing she’s aware of before she even notices the faint magenta haze that seems to surround the area, is that the temperature goes from oppressively humid to cool. That would have to be from the massive, interwoven network of tree branches that arc overhead, obscuring most of the sun’s rays and allowing her to see only patches of darkening blue sky between their laced roots. The earth under her feet is a little damp, soft without giving way to mud and cold water, and she glances down to see veiny lines of lichen and moss pushing up through dark brown earth. It almost seems to glow.
She kneels to take a closer look. There were flowers growing there, powder pink, magenta, electric blue, and almost too small for her to see right away, dotting this network of mossy veins like starbursts. The air smells… wonderful. She has no idea of what kind of flower could be making it, but there’s… life everywhere. More than she’s expecting, even. Besides whatever massive tree was responsible for this nature-made enclosure (trees? a network, she thinks? she’d had an astounding amount of time to read about these subjects during her. well. maternity leave), she can see hanging vines in the distance, a burst of tropical flowers here, the drooping and enormous leaf of a pitcher plant hanging overhead there. Birds with feathers every color of the rainbow. From one winding vine, bellflowers in virginal shades of white and pale pink bob their heads. She can hear the trickle of a stream a few meters ahead, and she’s certain the distant roar of a waterfall as well.
“Incredible… this haze, and that smell. Pollen, I’m guessing?”
Whatever disappointment and frustration that had overtaken her during their convoluted travel is quickly replaced by awe. The wonder on her face is almost childlike as she looks around, trying to take all of it in. “…What is this place? GAIA?”
A garbled, sputtering message follows: ”Apologies — loy. You’re — beyond — current range.”
“Beyond your range?”
”—Areas - are being built — facilitating introduction — propagation - ARTEMIS…”
“GAIA?” She spares a glance to Zero over her shoulder for a moment, concerned. “Hey, GAIA, can you hear me?”
Aloy taps on her Focus, then removes it altogether, frowning at the strange color emanating from it. She'd never seen that light before, on any machine or Old World detritus. It's a vivid pink, and the light pulses in time like a heartbeat. More urgently, she repeats herself: “GAIA. Come in.”
A few tense seconds pass. Eventually, GAIA’s voice returns after a burst of fuzzy static from both her Focus and Zero’s own. “I apologize, Aloy.” If a machine could sound sheepish, GAIA’s certainly sounding close to it. “You’ll return to proper — range once you pass through your current location. — Environment is safe. — an offshoot of earlier - proposed design by ARTEMIS - DEMETER. This is the reason for any overgrowth you see. - area’s original purpose was for the — propagation of new animal and plant species, much like - Cauldrons. — Repurposing design for further — evolutionary — development. - normal Focus range will be implemented when - area is completed.”
“So, a biological Cauldron? That would explain the megaflora. And it’s safe? We’ll be fine if we wait out the evening here?”
”Area - is meant to reintroduce - to Earth’s ecosystem without danger. You and Zero will be safe.”
“Okay.” Aloy breathes out slowly, and then with more assurance repeats: “Okay.” Finally she turns to Zero again, her expression sheepish and apologetic. “Shadows are getting long. This is as good of a place as any to stay ‘til morning. And GAIA says it’s safe. She’s been working a lot since we’ve been gone.”
She’s working her way up to apologizing.
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She knows Aloy will scold her for it. But if she had to choose between a toddler's screaming and a compromised immune system, she'd choose the latter ten out of ten times. They spent the cooler months at the base usually. The scar's of Zero's sickness had never truly gone away and she was prone to illness.
But again she'd been brought to a crossroads: Take care of two children under five by herself, or suffer through a winter out east but with help. Often when Aloy was gone for this long Zero would accompany her or travel to Meridian with Alana. Traveling with one infant had been doable, traveling with a child and an infant was panic inducing.
Ivy will not allow Zero to hold her, but she demands they hold hands. When Aloy's figure is finally visible from further down the hill she raises her hand and flexes her fingers- the prequel to an actual wave. Zero almost forgets this infant has been the bane of her existence for the last two months.
Ivy tugs and whines, again not wanting to let go of Zero's hand but very clearly wanting to propel the both of them forward. She gives in, and once they're in talking distance Ivy fights Zero's grip and Zero concedes.
Ivy hobbles toward Aloy. ]
Well you're a sight for sore eyes.
[ With age their reunions have become less fraught, much warmer. ]
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That's why the brothel was always busiest during the hottest time of the year. She remembers her patrons smugly claiming their wives were hysterical and would be momentarily cured by the smell of salt and crashing of waves. And in that voice that they loved, Rose would remark she'd never seen the ocean.
Zero's room is dark. It had been decorated in a fashion that her husband and master (as the vows had called him— she had of course been sedated by magic and medicine both to get through the ceremony) had deemed suitable for a bride and tool of her status and stature. It mirrored her suite in his main home— a castle passed down from tyrant to tyrant, the very same girls her age had once dreamed of visiting, hoping to be saved from their miseries by becoming a courtesan to someone who mattered. The only difference between this room and that one was the sea breeze and distant sounds of waves crashing against cliff and sand.
Zero sits underneath the canopy of her bed, covers drawn over her head like a silk tent. The smell of herbs and smoke pervade through the room and the earthy smoke is already billowing up toward the vaulted ceiling.
She's been at this for while, when her watchdog and designated companion enters the room. She's not supposed to be doing this, but she doesn't seem to care. After all, what was the worst she could do? Tell her mother?
Of all of the king's advisors that woman was the most unsavory. All of this had been her idea after all— that man otherwise wouldn't have the gall or brainpower to trap her like this. ]
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calling this au how suletta got her groove back
Miss Rose, I hope that you're having a wonderful day! If not I hope that this will cheer you up. Ehe, it's cute, isn't it? It's like she's dancing!
Is the hotel suite OK? I didn't have the time to check in yesterday. Our staff is very good, but I usually take a look myself for special circumstances like this. Please accept my apologies.
Oh, do you prefer Zero? I'm sorry. I wasn't sure. ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ) Is it confusing to have a stage name?
Thank you again for agreeing to the performance on such short notice. The children will be so excited! Please let me know if I can help with any other arrangements for your stay. *(*´∀｀*)☆
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Or had that been a few evenings before?
When they'd arrived at the graveyard was when her memory began to go fuzzy, become tattered at the corners. Indistinct. She knows they must have dug up the coffin, because in the morning (?) after her nails had hardened dirt under them, gray muck that crumbled easily beneath the pressure of her fingertips, and her shirt was streaked with mud. She remembers being handed the crowbar, the metal so cold that it almost stuck to her hands. She remembers the eyes of that thing opening, as bright and as unnatural as the sodium lamps they'd traveled beneath. The whistle of air behind her ear as the woman drove something sharp into the heart of the creature, and the horrible noise afterward, high and agonizing enough to make her ears pop, as if she were in the pressurized cabin of a jet.
She remembers thinking: good.
After this, she remembers very little at all. Pain most often, which ruled her, a pain like dying. Being cold all the time, feeling empty. Feeling hungry. She thought she should go home, though she could not remember where that was in her current state, because the only place she did know was this old and poorly lit house, where all the furniture was covered in white sheets that reminded her of funeral shrouds. Funny: she could remember those, little snippets of fact and memory, but any attempt at grasping a more substantial thought brought with it more pain, a feeling like hands digging into her skull and pulling it apart. She existed in this state for hours? Days? Weeks, perhaps, the only constant beyond the hunger, pain and confusion being the woman, who would sometimes sit beside her in unsettling quiet, or leave in the night, only to return late in the evening, sometimes dragging something heavy behind her.
In the days before, Allison had refused whatever this was, had been repulsed, but when the woman shakes her awake tonight, her throat is so dry that she can't force out much of anything but a dull death-rattle. She's tired and thirsty, she wants to say. She wants to be left alone. When she tries to push back, she is struck by the sight of what she begins to realize, in a slow-growing dread, is her own hand. Her skin, desiccated,, bruised gray and bone white, the veins beneath her near translucent skin blue-black. It trembles in the moonlight like an old woman's.
Allison lets it fall to her side. Even this slight movement takes incredible effort on her part. When had she ever been this weak? This cold and frail? Had something happened? She tries to ask the woman this, though again the sounds crackle and die in her throat.
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She debates calling Aloy, but in the end decides the dread is easier to hide via text. ]
Your kid is mad you wouldn't take her with you.
She misses the city.
[ Alana is three and for better or worse, talkative and has a vocabulary larger than most adults.
Genius genes, she supposes. But unfortunately all that brain hasn't kept her from wetting the bed. That combined with the fact that she was more prone to tantrums when alone with Aloy meant that she was probably better off not following her mother along to a political summit that decided the fate of thousands of people. ]
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Over the decades she's learned to find fulfillment in things more minute than survival. Her self-expression, her music, being a mother most of all.
But the house was up there. Zero had an affinity for the water, the ocean especially. It was nostalgic and oddly calming. It'd been a months long process, the blueprints themselves a gift from Aloy to commemorate their many years together.
The floors were made from shiny blue tile imported from the Quen mainland, walls washed in plain neat white making it stick out among the many ornate Quen structures. Every piece of furniture was purchased over time, some were even gifts - she'd become something of a stylistic tastemaker.
The problem however is that it was small. There was only one bedroom and their daughters had been (begrudgingly) assigned pallets on the floor.
She was kind of pissed at them, so she doesn't feel bad about it in this moment.
Zero is already cocooned in their bed, scrolling mindlessly through stupid videos on her Focus, when Aloy enters she peaks out from under her blankets.
Age, or her new lifestyle has softened her features some. The angles of Zero's face are rounder now, and the intimidating aura she'd once projected has worn away like a knife turned blunt from years of overuse.]
Did they let you have it again?
[ She's been trying to avoid her own spawn now that they've settled in their sleeping spots.
The lack of proper beds had only made them grouchier about the news. ]
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