The Preserve, Sunday Morning

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy was still unclear on how she'd gotten roped into that-- night, last night. And while at least the night had ended productively, it had still left her with this strange, itching sense that she wasn't... doing enough.

That just being here was indulging in something they didn't have time for.

It was the thought of Beta that kept her from giving in to that feeling. Instead, she took it with her into the woods around the school, the first time she'd been there since she'd been a student. Her practice range might not be done yet, but here with the trees around her, the quiet, she could at least keep herself sharp.

Maybe even bring home some dinner for tonight.

She set a little course for herself-- up the trees, from tree to tree, down on the ground, into the pond, out of it, shoot a few makeshift targets she'd pinned up on the trees. It wasn't much, but it would do.

And so she poured all of that itch into her hands and feet as she grasped the branches of the first tree and pulled herself up.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[no_missing_piece]

The scenery here was completely different from out west, and it hadn't stopped being odd yet to see buildings and roadways and vehicles that were intact and functional, instead of millennium-old ruins. (For real, anyway. The paintings and holos Tilda had shown her weren't the same thing.)

And Beta still found being able to come and go as she pleased, without needing anyone to escort her anywhere, overwhelming in a good way.

She'd been out on her own walk through the Preserve, absolutely fascinated with the wildlife and scanning everything that her Focus would let her; she spotted the targets and froze, putting her hands up. Kotallo had given her a lecture on range safety, which was to say he'd wanted to make sure she wasn't going to blunder onto the range while anyone else was practicing.

"Um. Hello?"

[not_of_the_nora]

Up in the treetops, Aloy froze.

"Beta?" she called.

[no_missing_piece]

Beta turned in the direction of the voice and ended up squinting up into the trees.

"Aloy, is that you?"

[not_of_the_nora]

There was a rustling of trees and branches-- and then a familiar woman, clad in Utaru garb in a grudging capitulation to the weather, landed on the grass.

"Hi," she said. "I didn't realize you'd make it out here."

Aloy... should be more careful about where she practiced, she reflected.

[no_missing_piece]

Beta hesitated, looking around nervously.

"Was I not supposed to?"

It might take her a while to let go of the immediate 'am I in trouble' instinct.

[not_of_the_nora]

"... No, I just didn't expect you," Aloy said slowly. "You can go wherever you want to go."

[no_missing_piece]

Beta seemed to relax at that, nodding -- and then brightening a bit, because it was one thing to know that she could go wherever she wanted to, and another to hear it out loud.

Also, knowing it was Aloy up there in the tree made things 100% less weird than if it had been anyone else.

"I just wanted to take a walk," she said. "I... really like it out here."

[not_of_the_nora]

"It's nice," Aloy allowed, looking up at the sky between the trees. "Quiet. But... alive."

[no_missing_piece]

"One of my classes had us come out here to observe the wildlife," Beta said, smiling at the memory of it. "It's... very different from home."

The radio squirrels, for one thing.

[not_of_the_nora]

"I guess there's less danger," Aloy allowed. Quite a lack of robot panthers trying to maul your face off, for once. "It's... the way it was for the Old Ones."

[no_missing_piece]

Significantly fewer giant metal moles equipped with far too many lethal grinder discs, too.

Beta reached out to trace her fingertips along the bark of a tree. "Was it hard to get used to that the first time you were here?" she asked.

[not_of_the_nora]

"It was... definitely odd," Aloy said slowly. "But... I was already used to dealing with strange new-- worlds of knowledge on my own. So I looked to the few things that felt familiar, and dealed with everything else as it came to me."

[no_missing_piece]

"This is the world that Elisabet tried to save," Beta said thoughtfully, "or close to it. It seems worth getting to know just for that, even if it is a little overwhelming."

[not_of_the_nora]

"I guess so," Aloy said, and she looked up at the sky. "I wasn't really thinking about it like that, the last time I was here... now it feels like a waste."

[no_missing_piece]

Beta tilted her head thoughtfully. "The last time you were here. How much did you know about Zero Dawn then?"

[not_of_the_nora]

"Nothing," Aloy said, shaking her head. "I was still training for the Proving. Hoping to get some answers."

[no_missing_piece]

"Which was then interrupted by you suddenly being somewhere else entirely," Beta replied, nodding. "All of your work on hold, momentum stalled."

They'd both inherited a share of Elisabet's workaholic tendencies, though Beta suspected Aloy had a larger portion than she did. (Or maybe she was just too busy enjoying not being put to work by the Zeniths all the time right now.) In any case, she had a pretty good idea of how frustrating that would have been.

"You didn't know, then. The details of the project, or how hard she tried. It was just the world of the Old Ones."

[not_of_the_nora]

"Yes," Aloy said. She looked up at the school. "But it would've been helpful if I'd paid more attention."

She'd spent her entire life having to prove herself, searching for answers. It had stoked those workaholic tendencies to a fever pitch; work, in many ways, felt like it had been the answer to all of Aloy's existential questions.

She knew - grudgingly, with Varl's voice in the back of her head - that it shouldn't be. But she was better at remembering that with Beta than with herself.

[no_missing_piece]

"Of course it would have," Beta said with a little shrug. "But you had no reason to think you needed to factor that into an efficient approach to being here."

Overthinking things and accounting for possibly too many variables was her own specialty as much as having immediate concrete things to do was Aloy's.

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy took a deep breath.

"Well," she said. "Let's just hope our time here is more useful than my first visit."

For work, and for-- right.

She cleared her throat. "Uh, how's school? Is it helping?"