I Will Always Have A Minute For You [Ereloy]

// 3 //

They head back out to the path toward town again after Aloy's spear was returned to its rightful owner. "You know, I'd never worked in tandem hunting machines with someone until today. I didn't realize that it could really be done."

"Anything can be done if it's done right."

"True. I think we should be lucky that there weren't any Sawtooths or Ravagers out there with the Grazers. They tend to work together, too - but they're vicious."

"But it's also weird that they're around here, too. You'd be more likely to expect Ravagers in and near Meridian than Grazers."

"You're right, actually. Maybe something else scared them here."

"Who knows? But all that matters is that they can't attack us any longer."

Aloy nods in agreement with him, looking up toward the city being right in front of them. "We made it." She walks into Meridian first, looking for a merchant to trade with.
"Good day, Aloy." The merchant says to her, and she starts to look through her stuff to trade with the merchant.

"I'm only here to sell a couple of things. I'll be back to trade someday." She says, grabbing a few things that couldn't be used for anything other than selling for more metal shards. She exchanges them, then saying goodbye to the merchant.

"That was quick." Erend looks at her. "You just seem to know what you need to get rid of when you stop by."
"Of course. When you're on a long journey, you just tend to learn what's used for what and then what's eventually not used for anything," she pauses a moment, looking around the town. "It's been a while since I've been in Meridian."

Erend laughs. "It has been. Which is mostly why I came to scope you out."

"I see that." Aloy looks at him with a straight face. "You Oseram are so weird." She strides further into Meridian.

Before following, Erend shouts to her. "You knew that right from the beginning!"
"Is Olin's place still here in Meridian?"

"Yes. Surprisingly, after Dervahl's attempt to take down Meridian, no one's done anything to it. It's still... in bad condition, but it still exists enough to stay standing."

"And Dervahl... is still in the holding cell, I'm guessing?"
Erend nods. "They still can't decide what to do with him."

"I'm not surprised." She pauses. "How's Avad?"

"Same as when you left. You know, it probably wouldn't be bad for you to see him. I'm sure he'd be happy to see you, if anything."
"That's actually not a bad idea. I think I'll go drop by."

"Sounds like a plan. Would you want me to come with you?"
"I'm independent. I can go visit him by myself. Don't worry about me."

"All right, I'll just..." He takes a few steps back. "Be right here."

Aloy turns away from the Oseram vanguardsman and starts to walk towards the Sun-King's Palace - the Palace of the Sun.

The guards that stand surrounding the staircase all stand in a formidable, terrifyingly straight set of rows. To Aloy, it wasn't that intimidating, but to many others it sure would be. All of the Sun Carja and Oseram see Aloy as a respectable person in Meridian - she helped save their town from the nationally-hated Dervahl, who almost blew the town to smithereens. But it wasn't just Aloy who helped there, it was also Erend.

They worked well together to save Meridian from falling.

Aloy continues up the stairs to the Palace of the Sun. From the entrance of Meridian, there were quite a lot of them. Thankfully, they weren't steep. Aloy was used to climbing steep mountains and roads, so it wouldn't have been a problem anyway. She approaches the last set, and one of the guards steps away to alert Sun-King Avad of her arrival. "Sun-King Avad."

Avad turns to the voice, smiling softly. "Aloy, it's great to see you."

"I just happened to be nearby, is all. I don't really have any plans to stay too long."

"I see. Why's that?"

"I've been hanging out in the Cut and helping the Banuk tribe. I need to head back that way pretty soon. Figured coming all the way over here would be a change of pace. It's also a lot warmer out here."

Avad laughs gently. "Of course. How are the Banuk doing?"
"They're well. Now that I've been overriding their control towers, there's less Daemonic Machines to deal with. Those things are vicious - even more so than the Corrupted Machines."

"It's nice to hear about other cultures and their Machines." Avad pauses to think over what he just said. "Er, well, maybe not so much the Machines, since we don't really want them inside the town... they can stay out in the fields where they belong."

"I can agree with that. I'd much rather have more space out in the fields to take them down rather than in the small area of a town - especially one like the Embrace. Of course it's in small sections, but it's still much, much easier to track them with more space."

"I'm sure it is." Avad turns to look behind him. "Meridian's been doing well. I think it's all because of you that we're finally thriving."

"I'm glad your town's back to almost 100 percent. If it wasn't for me, I'm sure Dervahl would've blown this place up - and Ersa still wouldn't have made it back, but we wouldn't have found her if it weren't for me."

"I'm sure Vanguardsman Erend is still thankful for that... it seemed to give him some closure."

"If he is, he surely hasn't told me."

"I thought he would've. He told me he went out looking for you earlier, because he wanted to talk to you."

"He's the main reason I came to town anyway. I was out hunting Machines and he showed up. He... actually teamed up with me to help me take down a herd of Grazers."
"Really? Never thought he was the type."

"He's surprisingly very good at it. He took my spear and managed to take down three of the four. I took down the fourth with my bow and arrow."

"Huh. Way to go, Erend."
"It was probably because of me. I'm not the greatest teacher, but he seemed to understand." Aloy shrugged.

"I would've loved to see him try that. He seems to be too clumsy for things like that."
"I thought that, too. But it was the first time I'd worked in tandem. I wasn't too fond of the idea, but it worked faster. I don't know if I'd do it again, to be honest."
"Why wouldn't you?"
Aloy gives Avad a look. "Independence."

"Right, right." She rolls her eyes at his response.

"Anyway, I should probably get going. It's a pretty long trek back to the Cut." Aloy starts to turn toward the stairs, but not before Avad can stop her with a hand to her shoulder. "Actually, Aloy, before you go..."

"What?" She turns to face Avad again.

"Since you're heading back up that way, let them know the Sun Carja says 'hello'."

Aloy turns back around. "Sure. I'll try." She heads down the staircase and over many bridges, back to the gate entrance of Meridian.