The Park, Thursday Afternoon

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy was taking her Sunwing out for a walk.

Or rather, she'd taken it for a flight around the island, just to make sure none of its joints rusted up and it got enough sunlight to fully recharge. They weren't quite done yet, but she'd gotten hungry. Eating in flight on top of an electrified bird-machine... well.

It didn't seem completely safe.

The Sunwing landed not far from the pond, planting its metal talons firmly in the grass. Aloy slid off its back, and stretched her arms. "I have definitely been in the air too long," she sighed.

Her knees felt wobbly.

[[ open ]]

Comments

[pun_king]

Graham had definitely been feeling like he was neglecting some very important training and bonding time with Triumph, especially after learning about sand seals earlier in class, but, thankfully, there was a pretty good solution to that: saddle up and hit the park! Of course, his usual rounds of racing about and working on the mighty leaps of his best friend/trusty mount were quite a bit interrupted when he saw Aloy and her big...bird...thing swooping down, and of course he had to hurry Triumph over for a closer look.

"Zoooounds!" he gushed, when he discovered that it looked even more interesting and fascinating up close. "What is that?"

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy's hands were busy finding her lunch in the Sunwing's bags, but she looked up briefly. "A Sunwing," she said. "It's a flying machine."

He probably got that.

[pun_king]

Graham was pretty proud of the fact that, yes, he had already guessed as much, but that didn't make him any less impressed.

"A Sunwing," he repeated, with a sense of awe as he took the whole thing in, "and it flies! Amazing! Did you build it yourself? Is it very difficult to fly? You know,I took a flying class once, it was great, I would love to be able to fly some day! What does it run on? Is it sun? Because it's a Sunwing? Although I bet you could call it a Funwing, too!"

[not_of_the_nora]

He talked. A lot.

"I didn't build it," Aloy said. "They're built by a large computer network in my homeworld." She pulled her sandwich out of the bag. "But yes, it runs on the sun. Its purpose is to gather energy."

[pun_king]

The giant capybara underneath Graham perked up immediately when Aloy pulled out that sandwich, ears and eyes and head at attention with an imploring, hopeful little squeal, and Graham shook his head, chuckling fondly.

"Come on, now, Triumph," he said, reaching over to scratch behind his ears. "It's not very knightly to beg. But maybe we'll grab some sandwiches of our own on the way back home, okay?"

His trusty steed....somewhat placated, Graham turned his attention back to Aloy and her Sunwing.

"Gather energy for what? For magic? Or is this an ~electricity~," and, yes, he gave that word the proper mystical respect with a waggle of his fingers in the air, "thing?"

[not_of_the_nora]

Aloy glanced briefly at the capybara - she'd dismissed him earlier as just a steed - and tore a piece off of her sandwich. She held it out for Graham. "For your friend," she said.

Look, it wasn't like Triumph was a metal capybara.

"But yes, it's electricity," she said, "I don't know why you're doing that thing with your fingers."

[pun_king]

When Aloy held out the bit of sandwich, Triumph squeaked and grunted again, looking hopefully between the two of them until Graham chuckled and nodded his head magnanimously. He reached out to take the sandwich bit and held it out of Triumph, who gobbled it up and let out little trills of happiness and excitement...and maybe a little hope for more?

"He says thank you," he shared with Aloy, "and, no, Triumph, that's all for now, you're lucky she was nice enough to share even that much!

"And, well, you see," he further explained, "where I'm from, we don't have electricity! I didn't even know what it was, until I came here. So it's still pretty ~straaaange~ and ~mysteeeerious~, ~oooooh~."

Yes. Still with the fingers on all of that.

"I'm Graham, by the way, and this is Triumph, although you probably already figured that part out."

Triumph came another trill in greeting.

[not_of_the_nora]

"I'm Aloy," she offered. She didn't give the Sunwing's name, because she hadn't given the Sunwing a name and had never really thought about it perhaps needing one. "And we wouldn't have electricity where I come from if the Old Ones hadn't left so many of their machines behind. But it's not all that mysterious when you know how it works. "