Chapter Text
Alva
It was mid-morning on the 4th day, and the tallies were being counted. It was clear who the next High Marshal would be, and had been for some time. It was only a matter of organizing the ceremony in the afternoon and celebrations into the evening.
Alva had wondered if Ivvira would still want to let them watch her celebrations or if it was simply late night feelings, but at one point they’d crossed paths and she had grinned at them and wiggled her eyebrows. So, they had gotten confirmation that was still on. And then had to hide their grin from the Overseers.
Now, later, Alva still had a pleased grin that people would fully consent to their watching —Blessed Ancestors, no sneaking needed!— when Aloy found them, an excited Beta at her side.
To Alva’s surprise, they saw a return of Sobeck’s Raiment, forced upon Aloy by the late power-mad Ceo. Where it had chafed on Aloy, its softness fit Beta perfectly. The muted charcoal- and blue-gray of the Quen silk seemed to match her scholarly build and distant, inquisitive gaze, and made her seem less vulnerable than her white clothes had. But as Alva looked closer, they realized it wasn’t quite the same armor.
Aloy had taken the Quen’s construction and had added the rarest and most powerful defense weaves into the under-layer, and a quick tap to Alva’s Focus confirmed that there were plates of armor busking with components from the most powerful Apex Hunter-Killer Machines HEPHAESTUS had created as well as the most powerful environmental controllers that AETHER and POSEIDON had in their toolbox fitted into the quilted silk slots: parts from Clamberjaws, Frostclaws, Thunderjaws, Slitherfangs, Stormbirds and Tiderippers.
The Living Ancestor had wrapped her Starfarer sister in their genetic mother’s legacy, and in her greatest feats of strength, agility, and protection, when escorting her sister out into the world.
Aloy explained that she had been asked to look into some mysterious deaths of Quen marines just down the coast from the Isle of Spires, and Hekarro had agreed that she shouldn’t further disrupt the ceremonies. If the Quen were amenable, could Beta tag along with Alva in times when Kotallo was busy?
Alva was sure they could make that happen.
Everything was going so well!
Erend had been called as back up entertainment and escort for Beta and waved at the three of them from across the crowd of Oseram. Aloy jogged over just as Kotallo greeted him. She handed Erend some shards and Machine parts, which he was quite pleased about, while Kotallo rolled his eyes. Aloy made some farewells to them both, with considerably more decorum than the previous days, and departed.
Guess Chief Hekarro had asked very persuasively?
However, when Kotallo turned to walk with Erend over to where they stood, he had a new stylized iridescent light blue kiss mark now incorporated into his war paint over his left cheek, with an even more new addition of two vertical royal blue strokes behind its center, rather like the one along Chief Hekarro’s chin: Claimed by both his Chief and his Goddess, it seemed.
So.
Stinkin’.
Mouth-wateringly.
Romantic.
Beta smiled conspiratorially with Alva as the two men walked through the crowds. Alva suddenly realized they were a protective weave as well, Erend and Kotallo and themselves, and Zo if she’d been here, wrapped around Beta by her sister’s friendship and loyalty.
Their moment of awe to be a part of such a web of protection was abruptly cut off as Beta leaned in to murmur, “I heard you might be doing something with Marshal Ivvira tonight. Do you think I could come?”
Alva gaped. Heard? Heard from whom?
But before a wash of dread about privacy violations could even hint at manifesting, they were distracted as Beta touched her left hand to her Focus and then shared a song file called ‘ Travis Tate’s 1337 H4(|<3R J4mz ’, though the metadata has a different song title, something about stealing. The song had been released about a decade before that trickster Old One was even born.
They realized they wanted to know more about Elisabet Sobeck and her Assistant, the wily trickster Travis Tate, lead programmer of HADES. They might be worthy, complex patron Ancestors like she had learned Eileen Sasaki was. Maybe Beta would tell them more.
Then, tilting her head and looking from the sides of her eyes rather like her sister did, Beta added, “You aren’t the only one who likes to watch,” before she turned her attention back to the two men approaching.
Alva’s open-mouthed shock slowly transformed into a sideways grin, until they tossed their head back to laugh, with no Overseers to stop them.
Kotallo and Erend had finally navigated the crowds and made a loose circle with them, and Kotallo’s eyebrows and pointed glance were asking Beta about Alva’s hilarity, as they doubled over in relief and joy that they had not irreparably damaged important relationships but perhaps had found ones they couldn’t have imagined.
Beta ignored this, and said, “Kotallo, have I told you about Knights Errant and Paladins that I managed to upload onto GAIA’s transfer hardware? I think you will like this even-more-ancient military history from APOLLO. It’s got some really long poems!”