Living Antiquity

~9~

Even as we made our way back toward the mountain with Olin and his family in tow, Petra stayed on call with me, Varl, Zo, Aloy, Erend, Olin, anyone that was awake, to go over both Aloy's past finds, and things from my archive. Even as I sat on one of the carts and worked on the plushie, the guys culling the carts along, swapping with Aloy and Enasha when they'd get tired.
"So Aloy is a clone.... of this woman? Elisabet?" Petra frowns as I help her through the Zero Dawn project.
"Yes. Gaia Prime, the first fully functional Gaia, had her born to help reinstate her when the time was right," I explain, working my way through a seam of the Plush-horn, as I was calling it.
"Well, jeez, Flame-Hair, you didn't say you were so important!" Petra laughs, leading to Aloy groaning.
"I know. I just... Wasn't expecting to ever have to tell anyone," she sighs.
"She suffers from lone wolf syndrome. Nothing wrong with that, but building a pack might not be a bad idea," I point out, "You might go through data from your old adventures and pick people that you know would make good allies. Smart people. Good fighters. Even people who are just curious about the old world."
Aloy frowns, but sits, thinking. "Aratak and his werak... Aratak was in contact with Cyan."
"The AI at the shaman's path, right?" Erend yawns as I hold up the Plushhorn to check my seam work.
"Yes. She was meant to help monitor some kind of volcanic activity in the region," Aloy says.
"The Yellowstone caldera. I'm shocked they built an AI, too, but it was a great idea. She was very efficient in her work, and she seems so sweet. I feel bad that HEPHAESTUS traumatized her," I frown, "We could always visit in person at some point, though. Maybe if Gaia makes a kind of drone housing for herself, she can explore with us and help locate resources. Along with visit CYAN on her own turf," I point out.
"A likely idea. I can create a blueprint for a drone capable of doing so," Gaia says.
"Lemme know if you need parts forged," Petra offers as Olin pipes up.
"Hands away from the needle, Y/n, bump coming."
I quickly shut off the sewing machine and sat with it in my lap until the cart jolted and I let out a breath, "That was a big one," I groan, rubbing my hip where some of the equipment hit me.
"Well, we're almost back to Plainsong. You said you still need to wash and process the wool to fill it, right?" Erend says.
"Yeah," I say, rubbing the bruise, "Preferably somewhere with no blight algae, and away from populations. I don't wanna pollute someone's drinking water."
"Well, here then. Wash out enough to do the job here. We can stop a while."
Groaning, I lop a chunk off the wool bale, and hope off into the creek, sitting and scrubbing, watching grey water flow away from the wet wool as I even load it with home-made soap and scrubbed until the damn water ran clear.
"There we go. And I can pull it and fluff it when it's dry. Wool may have been a bad idea, but we now have plenty for stuffing blankets. It'll be needed, since we're up in a mountain and the AC systems don't work," I say, standing back up with the clean, debris free wool.
"Wow... It's so white now..." Enasha walks over and examines it.
"The joys of being a bit of a perfectionist..." I sigh nervously and try ti shake water out of it, ignoring my drenched armor and clothes.
"Hah! No worries there." Olin and the others smile as I squeeze out the soaked wool and walk over, setting it in a clean basket to dry.
"There. How's everybody doing?" I look around.
"Had a snack while you were scrubbing. Olurr's taking nap." Olin nods to where Olurr was curled up among the softer supplies.
I nod and stretch, "Guess its my turn to walk, then."
The rest of the way to Plainsong was spent with back and forth going over everything else.
"So then the enemy is from beyond the stars?... Amazing." Olin frowns, swiping through the video of Aloy's struggle to escape... was that Eric Visser?
"I'm kinda pissed that they have the gall to come back," I spit through gritted teeth, "The ine that tried ti kill you? That's Eric Visser. And the blonde? That's Tilda... Elisabet's ex. She tried to get Liz to go with her, but Liz refused to abandon hope for Earth."
Aloy frowns, "Wait what?"
"They're the same people who left, these aren't descendants..."
"So then... What the hell..." Aloy's eyes widen.
"Oh no no no, there is no way in the forge that these are the same people..." Petra chimes in, "They'd be over a thousand years old..."
"They must have had fun experimenting on themselves to gain immortality," I fume, "That isn't going to last much longer, you can bet on that."
"By the Goddess...". Varl whispers.
"... Remind me not to piss you off." Petra whispers.
"It also means we have to be careful about  communications..." I point out.
"I have masked our communications to the best of my ability using MINERVA's capability," Gaia says gently.
Slowly, I start fluffing the drying stuffing as we reach Plainsong, and start filling the plush as we reach the base of the mountain, stuffing it to where it was recognizable as a Plow-horn and sealing up the hole.
"Alright, see you guys in a minute. We're at the door," Aloy says before letting us in and leading the way, Olin and Enasha looking around with wide eyes as we enter the commons, Varl and Zo waving at us.
"Hey!" Zo smiles as she greets them, "Good to finally meet you face to face. Please, make yourself at home," she smiles, talking with Enash as I slip the plushie to Varl and head to help Aloy as we check the area that Zo and Varl had cleared to get to a stuck door.
"The building schematics say there should be a whole housing wing beyond that," Aloy points out, "So we'll have a lot of room for them."
I nod as she jams her spear in the door, and I add my new spear's head ti the effort, both of us working to unjam the frame of the door and eventually pierce  the wet limestone, the door sliding open to reveal a more or less pristine wing, only one or two rooms full of debris.
Which was easy enough to fix, now that we had extra bodies to help.
"Well then, I guess we've got work to do," I smile, then hear a squeal and run back to the commens to see Zo holding the Plushhorn, her eyes wide as Varl grins.
"You said it is... A stuffed animal?... It looks just like the Land-Gods!" She says excitedly, holding it so gently...
"Yeah, he wanted to give you something special, but the whole 'stuffed animal' thing was confusing to him, so I explained, and offered to try to make you one," I smile, "I figured it would be nice to have one of the Land-gods to cuddle with. Squeeze it, its soft," I grin as she turns it over in her hand, "Let me know if any seams go faulty. I trued my best ti make good solid stitched, but its hard to do that on a moving cart."
"Is this why you went all the way to Chainscrape? Y/n, thank you! And thank you, Varl..." she smiles, her eyes sad as she leaned against him, staring at the tiny Plowhorn in her arms.
"I'm sorry, did I make it too close to the real thing?" I frown, watching her face.
"No, that's not it!... I was thinking of how I read that children loved stuffed animals, and how people gave them to those they loved-"
"On Valentine's day, yeah," I smile as Aloy and Erend help diffuse Enasha, Olurr and Olin over to the new area so they could pick out a room,
"Thank you, Varl..." she says quietly as he wraps an arm around her.
"I also... Had a thought, but you may both wanna sit down for this," I walk with them to the main island counter and sit on a stool, "I know you two had a fight about Varl making a comment about making new land gods- but I also remembered that.., You had to destroy one. Fa, right?... Won't your people eventually start asking questions, with Fa gone?..." I watch Zo carefully, "I'm not saying that building a new one will be a good replacement, and ai know you'll personally know the difference. But would the people notice, or should they just be told the truth, once we begin to work more steadily on actually putting this place to its intended use?..."
Her entire body sags at the question.
"I'm sorry... That was taking it too far, wasn't it..." I sigh and rub my face, "I know we can't replace a beloved figure of your people. But with Fa gone, it also messes up your people's calendar... Nevermind, I'm just digging myself a ditch, here..." I rub my face.
"... No, you're trying to offer choices and insight... Continue... You too, Varl." She looks at us, holding the plushie close.
"Alright... The options I see before us are not tell them, and either code a random plowhorn from the wild ti also work the fields and act as Fa did. Dangerous but plausible. The second is not tell anyone but build an entirely new Plowhorn and give it the proper programming. Not as dangerous, but extremely labor intensive, maybe actually more dangerous if we have to get parts from the wild, back to the first idea. We could also tell your people, and offer a choice- a new deity when we have the option, or to leave the calendar as it is and celebrate the long existence of the missing deity. But that does also leave the other six sharing the work that Fa used to do... Your people's Chorus is... disastrously split, and honestly just poor leadership." i frown as I point this out, earning a dry chuckle.
"... I can see why you get along better with Aloy than anyone else..." Varl chuckles dryly.
I nod and rub my head, "I've always tried to see every available option. If we lie and make a new one, will either not notice and be oblivious, notice and ask questions, notice and be angry, notice and just be happy things are back to normal... If we don't, they could be angry that Fa was destroyed, they could be understanding, but upset, they may not understand but still try to... It could even be enough to shake them out of the stupor of wanting to stay rooted in place."
She nods, listening, "I will observe for a while and decide then," she says, then looks at the Plushhorn again, "For now, this little one will be Fa... In honor of what was lost..."
"Sorry I sprung all this on you... I know its a really big decision..." I frown, looking at her.
"Don't be. I think... I needed to hear it..." she stands, holding the Plush and examining it, "How did you get such detail?"
"I recorded the Land-Gods on the way by, and talked ti Gana for advice on dying. I even put some ornaments and handprints on the little face..." I try to smile, wanting to shake off the heavy... everything.
She nods, grinning as she sees the tiny, tiny blue and green handprints painted into the fabric, "Its perfect... Its how she would have looked before she went to the repair bay," she held it close, and relaxed.
"I'm glad you like it..."