Living Antiquity

~21~

By the time I woke up, it was midday again, and I was convinced my skin was on fire as I sit up and make a sound akin to a peccary getting crushed under Piglet's foot because it ran in the path, "Gaghg...!" I groan, soon hearing movement as Drakka bolts upright.
"What?" He says worriedly.
"Sunburn, d-don't touch..." I shake, already feeling shocky.
"Shit... can you move?" He asks, gently moving so he was between me and the direct sunlight.
"N-no..." I say shakily, groaning, "Note to self, set alarm next time."
He frowns, "Shit... uh..." he sighs, "Will you be able to hold on if I carry you down?"
I groan, regretting that my arms were exposed due to the nature of my armor. "I need to make armor that's better for fighting and actually covers me..." I say, sitting up and wincing as my shoulders flare with the full fury of half cooked skin, feeling him grab me by the waist and lift me to my feet as he looks around the tower and fumes.
"Sorry... I normally wake up when the sun comes up, but you took a while to pass out..." he says meekly.
I pant, my skin on fire and actively feeling like it was trying to dispose of me for not protecting myself better.
I nod, my balance wavering as I almost throw up. "I just love feeling like the only fragile human being on the planet, let me tell you..." I groan, "No puking... No puking..."
He sighs and digs some cable from his personal supplies, "Come on. I might be able to rappel us down."
I nod and climb on his back, wincing and almost crying. "It's just hot and tight right now, it's gonna be hell later and for the next few days..." I groan, holding back the urge to scream.
He nods and runs, jumping and snagging the edge with his grappling hook, sliding us down and landing just easily enough for me not to fall off, "I'll take you to the herbalist and if that doesn't work, I'll help you up to your base..." he offers, "Scouts have seen you guys come and go so we know where you are..."
I nod, shaking as he carries me to the herbalist and talks with them, having to take me up the mountain because the Herbalist was already out of aloe, or Desert Chillgel as they called it.
"Aloe, huh?" He asks.
"Yeah. Aloe Vera. People used it to help burns, they also made drinks with it..." I groan, wincing as he puts me on Piglet, the heat messing up my ability to hold a full thought, hearing him say something to Piglet before leaking the way across the desert, past Arrowhand, and up the mountain, the heat making me throw up over Piglet's side, until we reached Rukka's camp.
"Commander!" She yells.
"She got sunburnt, we're trying to get her to Zo." He says, "They didn't have any Chillgel left in Scalding Spear, and she at least needs out of the elements."
"Cold nice..." I mumble, tired.
"On it." Rukka runs to the climb up to the door, and climbs up.
A few minutes later, they had me in a sling and were pulling me up after Rukka called Erend and Kotallo out, and I was soon in the dark, cool and quiet if the base.
"Wow... So much metal.. and plants. Lots of plants..." Drakka says, looking around.
I groan, and look at Zo.
"Your entire face... your shoulders... your arms, even the tiny spot on your back... how long were you asleep?" She frowns, walking over and helping to carry me to my room.
"Dunno." I groan as she shoos the guys out and helps me with my armor, biting my lip to the point it bled to keep from screaming as the armor scraped over every inch of burn in the process.
"Land-gods preserve..." she frowns, checking everywhere with obvious burns, before sighing.
I let her work once I was in some of my old clothes, happy Trav had preserved shorts and tank tops for me.
I relax as she applied salve made from some kind of painkiller, and what felt like aloe, the pain fading away enough that I could think again as she finally lets me up to walk around.
I trundle out to see Drakka in the commons poking around, Kotallo giving him a warning look when Drakka approached the chunk of Bulwark that Kotallo took as a prize from his and Aloy's explosive adventure.
I walk over and grab his shoulders from behind, "Rawr!"
He jumps and fumes, turning to look at me and frowning as he sees just how much if my skin was red from exposure, "Next time, I'm dragging you back to the covered quarters before you pass out," he frowns.
"Trauma response- I can sleep anywhere, anytime, until I'm in pain, or if I'm anxious." I grin, "Comes form sleeping on the streets!"
"How long until you've healed?" He asks, frowning.
"Oh... four, five days? Once it starts peeling I'm more of less healed but I always end up playing with the skin that comes off." I stretch as he relaxes and makes a face.
"Ah, Y/n... I was hoping to ask some questions about Operation: Enduring Victory..." Kotallo asks.
"Yeah, sure," I look over at him, "As far as I understand, it was the big lie that was used to get people to fight the Faro Plague back..." I walk toward the interface room and start pulling up a holomap of the states, "If we compile date in this we could even make a map tracking the overall activity and progress of Enduring Victory back then," I point out as Kotallo nods, Drakka raising a brow.
"Enduring Victory?" Drakka asks.
"The last war that the Old Ones ever, ever fought. To prolong the existence of life on earth as long as possible so that Liz could work with her team to make Gaia," I explain.
"Still hard to wrap my head around... They made a spirit all by themselves..." Drakka says, thinking,
"While fighting off ravenous, self replicating machines on all fronts... I'd like to make one of these war maps to bring to the Grove in preservation of their efforts. I believe there is also a woman there who wishes to preserve the voices of those lost in ancient flying machines..." Kotallo explains.
"Huh? Voi- ohhh, black boxes. They'd still have the data recorded during flights!" I grin, "Amazing how durable they are. A war map with the locations of the downed flights as well as places where the machines were fought would be amazing."
I point to a few spots, "She already recovered blackboxes here, here, aaaaand here... and I know for a fact the date and time for the Horus intrusions here and here..." I scroll the map to the Horus Titans on 'All Mother Mountain' and the Grave Hoard, "I listened to the data she recovered there repeatedly sfter I woke up... My cousin in my birth family... She was stationed there. I never got to contact her after my parents kicked me out, they told everyone else lies... My extended family died thinking I was a teenage drug addict that attacked my parents..."
Kotallo nods and taps the Grave-Hoard's location, seeing that I'd already keyed every bit of data Aloy recovered there to the places they were found.
Including Tracy's dying screams as she was crushed under the invading Horus arm, pinned down until her bones gave out to the weight and she finally fell silent.
"... To die like that... Screaming and trapped... she didn't deserve... I..." I shook snd sat down, holding my head, my skin tight from the sunburn and wet from the Aloe mixture.
"Y/n, it wasn't your fault..." Drakka knelt next to me, frowning.
"I shouldn't have raced that night..." I whisper.
"Then you wouldn't be here." Drakka deadpans, grabbing my shoulders, "You would 't have been homeless, you would 't have met your brother, the Alphas, you wouldn't have been saved, and where would we be?... Come on, desert flower... Where would any of us be without you poking holes and rearranging plans? You keep dragging us all together no matter how hard we try to fall apart. You're worse than sticksap," he jokes, smiling as I finally groan and laugh.
Kotallo raises a brow, "You'd make for a fine Commander, had you been born Tenakth." He says.
"Exactly," Zo pokes her head into the room, "You're all over the place cause you weren't raised in this era. You still see the network that existed before and you strive to rebuild it... If Aloy is the Champion of what's to come and Beta is the Architect... you're the Beacon. You drag people into the fold, kicking and screaming if you have to, and you show them how badly they need us and we need them. Just like with the Quen- a harsh wake-up call, but needed nonetheless. Atekka and a squad are already escorting a man from the Quen camp to us." She points out, "You gave them a way ti save what people they have left."
I let put a breath, shaking.
"What happened to Tracy is upsetting, to say the least- a soldier should be allowed to die fighting..." Kotallo frowns.
"Fighting for her breath, and her sanity, in that moment... I wonder if she made it to Valhalla? She liked norse mythology when we were kids..." I mumble.
"Valhalla?" Kotallo raises an eyebrow.
"From what I understand of it, it is where great warriors are welcomed to by Odin and the Gods, where they can feast and train forever in preparation  for Ragnarok- the end of the world. Don't quote me on that, I probably got t wrong, but I do at least know that those who die fighting are allowed to enter Valhalla under the Norse belief system. I hope she got in..." I say meekly.
"Sounds like a place any Tenakth would happily go." Kotallo nods.
Drakka grins, "Sounds awesome. Food forever and all the machines you could ever fight?"
I laugh, perking up and looking at him.
Zo listens, curious, as the conversation drifts between the ancient wars, and I felt myself start to relax as Kotallo began filling out the map in earnest.
Eventually, Enasha calls out that dinner was ready, all of us piling out of the rec room to the commons as Olurr races around with a stuffed Clamberjaw that his mother had made using schemstic drawings I took in the Lowland territories.
I wat h everyone eat, catching myself genuinely enjoying the taste of food for the first time in a while, before realizing, actuvating my focus, "Atekka, Zo mentioned you are already bringing a Quen refugee?"
"Y/n! Yes. We've just made it to Fall's Edge. He apparently challenged their Ceo's legitimacy as the reinstallation of Faro?"
"Good ol' delusional asshole, what can you do?" I sigh, rubbing my face, "Let me k ow if you'd like a machine escort, I could have a couple of Watchers out there with you pretty quick."
"We are the Lowland clan. If we can't keep one man hidden from the world in our own territory, we have failed as the Lowland clan," Atekka jokes.
"I can have Jetakka ready a squad to escort him to the mountain from the Grove. I'm sure you're all still recovering from blight poisoning..." Drakka offers, "Ready soldiers are in short supply..."
"That would be appreciated," Atekka sighs softly.
"Alright." Drakka steps aside to make the call as I think.
"We're gonna have to solve this sooner or later..."