Aloy remembers being only six years old when she first heard the word that would define her for the rest of her life.
“Seal your lips, boy! They are outcasts, both. And she… she is motherless!”
The Nora were mysterious and interesting, and she was naturally a very curious child. No matter what precautions Rost took, what rules he set into place, their paths were bound to cross, and it wasn’t long before Aloy learned all she needed to know about the tribe.
“She is a curse made flesh!”
“She’s an outcast, to be shunned.”
“Stay away, No-Mother!”
Over the years, countless insults were thrown her way, whether they were whispered behind her back or sneered in her face when no one was looking. Though, no insult hurt as badly as that first stone cast. She still carries the scar on her temple, along with a rage in her heart that she’s never quite been able to shake off.
Why?
Why didn’t she have a mother?
Rost didn’t have any answers, only a path forward, to the Proving.
Aloy was grateful for it all the time. It gave her something to strive for through the long years that followed.
Age didn’t matter when you were an outcast. No one cared if you lived or died. She and Rost had each other, though, and through seeing so many like her that weren’t able to survive their sentencing. Those that froze out in the cold or died from machines, bandits or starvation, she knew that even without her mother, she had to be grateful that she wasn’t alone.
By age eighteen, Aloy was so close to the Proving that she could barely keep herself still.
She practiced day in and day out, striving for perfection, pushing herself to her absolute limits both physically and mentally until her head hit the pillow each night.
All the while, thoughts of her mother circled her mind in an endless torrent.
Soon, she would be able to ask the matriarchs about her mother, and maybe even… find her. Learn what it was that kept them apart, and tell her all that she’s been through.
Maybe even… introduce her to Rost.
The tribe also seemed to notice the dwindling days, though, and some of their insults became harsher. More vicious. Whispers of how there was no mother waiting for her at the end of the Proving. Or even if there was, that her mother had abandoned Aloy long, long ago.
For the Nora, who worship All-Mother and the concept of motherhood above all else, to be unwanted by your mother is cruel.
Unthinkable, even.
Aloy refused to believe it, no matter what anyone said.
A wake-up call came when Rost brought her outside of the Embrace, for what she thought was a final test against a new machine.
Instead, Rost had a very important lesson to teach her.
“The strength to stand alone, Aloy, is the strength to make a stand. To serve a purpose greater than yourself.”
She thought about that lesson, maybe harder than any of the others he had taught her thus far. She didn’t understand his words. The Nora tribe hated her, and while a part of her was willing to forgive them for that, another, stronger part, hated them just as much. But Rost, he… wanted her to embrace the tribe. So much so that he was willing to separate them both for the rest of their lives.
It hurt.
Strangers have laughed at her, shunned her and hurt her all her life, but that was nothing compared to the one person she’s ever known pulling away from her.
Without Rost… she…
So, she told him no. That he taught her how to track, and wherever he went, she would follow. Always.
It didn’t matter if she was part of the tribe, and he wasn’t.
It didn’t matter if she found her mother or not.
Aloy didn’t want to exchange Rost for her mother. She wouldn’t do it.
She’d rather remain motherless forever.
Rost, though, didn’t seem to think the same way…
“This… attachment to me will only hold you back. It is my wish that you embrace the tribe.”
Aloy mulled over Rost’s words as she went into Mother’s Heart, distracted from what should be the unforgettable experience of being among so many people for the first time in her life.
She didn’t know these people, though. And that was precisely the problem.
The Proving was perfect. All of her training had paid off in the best possible way.
Aloy was the first to display her trophy, and the first to be accepted as a Brave.
But then…
…
Rost had told her to survive. His last request of her.
She would honor it as best she could.
When she woke from frenzied nightmares, Aloy saw her first glimpse of a woman with features just like hers.
“Are you my mother?”
Hope had flared in her chest for the first time.
Until Teersa dashed all of Aloy’s fragile expectations in an instant.
“You were not born of a woman, Aloy. The mountain is your mother.”
That… didn’t make any sense.
Aloy learned more about the woman sometime later, when she rode towards Maker’s End. Sylens had chimed into her focus. An annoying occurrence of many more to come.
Still, he had precious information that no one else could provide.
That the woman who looked like her had a name: Elisabet Sobeck.
She hated that Sylens, this stranger, had been the one to share that knowledge. That he somehow knew more about Elisabet than she ever could. But as that first gene-locked door opened, and a mechanical voice referred to Aloy not by her name, but that of Elisabet’s, she couldn’t deny the intrigue of just what exactly was going on here.
If Elisabet was her mother, why was her name registered to open doors related to the Old Ones? Why did a recording say that she was late for a meeting that occurred over 1,000 years ago?
More questions came up than answers, until she made it to the top of the ruins, and witnessed a projection of Elisabet meeting with Ted Faro.
Aloy was… mesmerized by her.
“I know you, Ted. You’ve screwed something up -something big- or you wouldn’t have eaten the crow necessary to get me here. So spit it out!”
Elisabet’s mannerisms, her expressions, her personality, her voice.
All of it was so similar to Aloy’s own.
It was… overwhelming to take in.
Aloy followed Elisabet’s trail to the Project: Zero Dawn Facility, and learned the disturbing truth of her plan. She found the alpha registry master file, and headed back to All-Mother Mountain, where she could finally learn the details of her birth.
A part of Aloy was still hoping that there was something missing in all of this.
That there may be something beyond that door besides what she already knew to be true.
Project Zero Dawn did mention the creation of human beings through GAIA’s subordinate function ELEUTHIA, and Aloy wasn’t so stupid as to not put two and two together.
While her mind already knew the truth, though, her heart still struggled to accept it…
When Aloy went into All-Mother Mountain, inside Eleuthia-9, and heard GAIA’s dying plea, she felt numb inside.
Her ears rung and her vision swam as she listened to GAIA’s unyielding belief in her. A belief to do the impossible; by purging HADES, and restoring GAIA once more to save the world.
“In you, all things are possible.”
Those words gave Aloy a glimpse of who Elisabet was, how Elisabet could and did do incredible things. But she and Aloy are not the same person. Neither is Elisabet her mother.
No, Aloy never had a mother at all.
“I’m not a person. I’m an instrument. Manufactured by a machine.”
She couldn’t stop shaking, and it wasn’t due to the cold inside the mountain.
Looking back, Aloy took everything out on the Nora. She knew she did.
She had yelled at them without restraint. It felt good at the time, too, to finally put voice to her frustrations with the tribe after so many silent years of suffering.
“First you shun me, now this?! I will NOT be worshipped! I’m not your ‘Anointed’! I don’t belong to you!”
She never asked to be shunned, ridiculed and outcast her entire life, nor did she ask now to be anointed, or have this task bigger than life itself on her shoulders.
All Aloy ever wanted… was her mother.
She still wants her mother, no matter how much time has passed.
But it’s in that wanting, that she allows herself to think of Rost, and his want for her to live for a purpose greater than herself.
So despite it all, Aloy finds the strength to continue on.
Nothing got easier.
In the ruins of GAIA Prime, Aloy found… an alter to Elisabet, surrounded by holographic flower petals, and something dropped in the pit of her stomach.
Elisabet… sacrificed herself to save her team. To save GAIA. And the entire world.
It was almost poetic, how very like Elisabet she was coming to know that action would be.
She knew, because Aloy herself would have done the same thing.
Even so, the details of Elisabet’s death brought back horrible memories of the day she lost Rost, and Aloy stood there in the frozen depths of GAIA Prime, truly reminded of just how alone she really is.
The Battle of the Alight was ultimately won, and as Aloy stabbed Sylens’ spear into its metal casing, she reached out for Elisabet.
“Elisabet Sobeck… Alpha Prime.”
Saying those words somehow felt easier than she thought they would.
She may not be Elisabet, as GAIA intended, but at least now she knows the truth.
And that was enough.
With HADES defeated, Aloy knew she had to restore the terraforming system, but there was something else she had to do first.
No, something Aloy chose to do first.
The one selfish thing she’s done since before she can remember.
Back at GAIA Prime, she had found some of Elisabet’s journals, and inside them were not just recordings and memoirs, but also coordinates. They led her to Elisabet’s childhood home, Sobeck Ranch, where Aloy came across a slumped figure on a stone bench, surrounded by brilliant purple flowers and dancing butterflies.
Aloy sank to her knees, feeling water gather in her eyes as Elisabet and GAIA’s audio log continued playing.
“If you had had a child, Elisabet, what would you have wished for him or her?”
“I guess… I would have wanted her to be… curious. And willful – unstoppable even… But with enough compassion… to heal the world… Just a little bit.”
Elisabet may no longer be alive, but… hearing Elisabet tell her stories, getting to know her.
It’s really… all Aloy ever wanted.
II
After that, the world started to die, and Elisabet’s dream started falling through her fingers.
The weight of it all was heavy, more so now than ever before.
Aloy couldn’t escape it. Not even in her dreams.
Every night, it was the same. A vision of walking under a brilliant night sky, surrounded by the flowers that had littered Elisabet’s final resting place.
Elisabet herself was always there in the center. Waiting for her.
“Even though you’ve been dead for a thousand years. You’re the closest person I’ve ever had to a mother. And for a moment, I feel whole. But it never lasts. I’m always left alone.”
Elisabet’s necklace sits heavy but comforting on her chest, a symbol of all that she’s fighting for alongside Rost’s pendant tucked safely away in her pocket.
At the Far Zenith Launch Facility, Varl joined her, and understandably had many questions.
She had to explain that she wasn’t born, but was instead made by a machine.
That she is a clone of an Old One.
Telling this to Varl was surprisingly difficult. As if she were sharing a dirty secret.
Made even worse because Aloy never… quite got over the news herself. Sometimes she still thought of herself as a tool. Something a machine made to perform a specific task.
Varl could react in any way possible; call her crazy, leave her stranded, or look at her as if she wasn’t human at all. Memories of thrown rocks and hatred-filled gazes came flooding back to her in that moment, and she braced herself for the onslaught.
But Varl… didn’t look at her any differently.
All he had was more questions. Reasonable ones, too. About Elisabet, about GAIA, and what exactly happened inside All-Mother Mountain.
They ended up shelving the conversation. She didn’t want to think of the Nora tribe. It only reminded her of where she grew up, where she wasn’t wanted, and where she lost the one person she’d ever known.
And honestly, she had bigger worries to deal with right now than reliving the past.
She learned of Sylen’s betrayal, and followed him into the Forbidden West.
Like he knew she would.
“It won’t be easy out there – the blight, the storms, Regalla’s machine riders. But I’ll have to push through it all. Find a way to fix the world… like Elisabet would.”
Inside the Hades Proving Lab, she found recordings, two of which were of Elisabet.
Datapoints from Elisabet were always precious to Aloy. She would immediately drop whatever she was doing and hang onto Elisabet’s every word. Each file was then carefully tucked away into a special place within Aloy’s focus, safe to relive whenever she felt the need.
The first one she found was of Elisabet talking with Travis Tate. About the logic bomb he sent to Far Zenith, back when they tried to steal a copy of GAIA.
Elisabet did not seem impressed by his antics, and Aloy watched her with great fascination, getting a glimpse into how other people viewed Elisabet at the time.
“Color me confounded, Lis. How is it that someone like you – a paragon, damn near saint – can love this world so damn much, but no one in it? I mean, have you ever even had a friend?”
It was clear from that one conversation that Elisabet kept everyone at a distance.
For whatever reason, though, Aloy still didn’t know.
The other recording she found didn’t offer much help in that regard. Aloy found it deeper in the ruins; a datapoint of Elisabet talking with somebody named Tilda.
The two of them were arguing, and it was jarring for Aloy to hear Elisabet sound so angry.
“You tried to steal GAIA!”
“I had nothing to do with it. And you punished those responsible.”
Their conversation ended abruptly, and it was clear that this would be the last interaction between them.
Though, the sudden sadness in Elisabet’s voice caught Aloy’s attention.
“Enough now. Time to let go.”
Aloy could only speculate as to what that really meant.
Aloy finally found an intact copy of GAIA hidden deep within the Hades Proving Lab.
But then, Sylens betrayed her. Again.
That wasn’t even the worst of it, though…
“Genetic profile confirmed. Entry authorized. Greetings Dr. Sobeck. Please step inside.”
Another clone of Elisabet.
Aloy couldn’t believe it as the two of them locked eyes.
Then the other clone was suddenly gone, and Aloy was pitted against a foe unlike any she had faced before.
Water carried her away, and her thoughts swirled in the waves.
Of the other clone. Of GAIA. Of Elisabet.
Though as she lay there on the beach, hurt and bleeding as she struggled to breathe, she thought of Rost, and desperately wished that she could see him once more as the world went dark.
Varl saved her life.
He took her to an outpost of the Utaru tribe, where they met Zo, and learned of the threat in the mountains west of Plainsong, where MINERVA was hiding.
Together they made their way into the facility, and restored GAIA back to the world.
Seeing GAIA come to life before her eyes was a dream come true, made even better by hearing GAIA acknowledge Aloy by her name. They talked for what felt like hours. About the subordinate functions, about the biosphere, but most concerning of all; about the mysterious strangers at the Hades Proving Lab.
GAIA surmised that they were the descendants of Far Zenith, and it was clear that there was only one thing they could want: extinction of all life on Earth.
It was why they had their own clone of Elisabet, and were after a copy of GAIA.
Just thinking about the other girl made Aloy uneasy. Angry, even.
How could she work with the Zeniths?
How could she willingly destroy Elisabet’s dream? Not to mention the entire world?
To Aloy, it was unforgivable.
The path forward slowly became clear.
Find AETHER, DEMETER and POSEIDON and merge them together with GAIA. Capture HAPHAESTUS, and use it to create an army of machines to drive the Far Zeniths off the planet.
It was a steep task to undertake, and one with a time limit of only a few months.
Aloy unconsciously fiddled with Elisabet’s pendant in her hands as she thought it all over.
GAIA was quick to pick up on her distress, though.
“Is something wrong?”
“Um, I don’t know… it’s just that Elisabet set the bar pretty high. She had a dream for you – for life on Earth. And… a lot has gone wrong. And it’s all on my shoulders to fix it. Do you think I can do it all? Repair the system? Defeat Far Zenith? Live up to her example?”
GAIA looked at Aloy with a knowing expression, and Aloy got the feeling that Elisabet must have asked her something similar once.
“Absolutely. In her last message, my predecessor declared her unwavering conviction in your success: “In you, all things are possible.” You prevailed in purging HADES and rebooting my system core. You will prevail in this.”
“… Thanks, GAIA.”
Aloy traveled into Tenakth territory. Met Chief Hekarro, brought down the Bulwark, and ultimately helped the Tenakth tribe help itself in their war against Regalla. Aloy collected AETHER, and even made a new friend in Kotallo, who decided to join their cause.
Upon returning to the base, it was surprising to see how lively it had become.
Erend, Zo, Varl and Kotallo. All of them allies she’s made along the way who want to help her in any way the can. It was odd, knowing that they were here, learning about her mission.
But it was not… unpleasant.
They even made a space for her, too. Her own room.
Having such a place brought up a lot of memories of the cabin she and Rost shared. It was the only safe space she had ever known, and a deep emotion tugged at her heart as she placed the trinkets from Rost and Elisabet together side by side on her shelf.
When Aloy returned AETHER to GAIA, the AI informed her that she had received a strange transmission.
She, Erend and Varl left to check it out, expecting either the subordinate function or some sort of trap. What they found instead was a dead Zenith, multiple dead Oseram, a mysterious broken weapon and… the other clone of Elisabet Sobeck.
Aloy felt so many emotions looking down at the girl that is so much like her, reminded of the day when she saw Elisabet for the first time in All-Mother Mountain.
She stood there, frozen and numb as she listened to Beta’s imploring message, feeling all of her reservations about this girl melt away in an instant.
Time passed, and while Aloy had been hopeful that having an ally in Beta could be useful in their fight against the Zeniths, she quickly found out that things didn’t exactly get any easier once the girl woke from her injuries.
“You didn’t even know who the Zeniths really are. You were supposed to be further along by now! Coming here was a mistake. They’re going to find me. They’re going to find this place and take me back. This was all for nothing!”
Aloy was left struggling with how to respond.
They should be two of the closest people on the planet; both of them born from the same genetic code.
But there was clearly a distance between them.
Whether it was put there by Beta, or by Aloy herself, she didn’t know.
Either way, it would be untruthful to say that Aloy wasn’t happy when she eventually left Beta behind and trekked back out into the wilds.
Upon merging POSEIDON with GAIA, Beta had something interesting to share, though.
Apparently one of the Zeniths, Tilda, could be different from the rest.
Aloy recognized Tilda’s name immediately, recounting the audio log she had found of Tilda and Elisabet’s argument. By this point she must have listened to that log about a hundred times, as is the case with all of the recordings she finds of Elisabet.
Hearing that Tilda was alive, and that she had reached out to Beta, felt a bit… suspicious to say the least.
But maybe they could use that to their advantage.
If Tilda had been willing to talk to Beta, then surely she would talk to Aloy too.
Beta was quick to dismiss her, though.
“Is there anything else about her that we may be able to use to our advantage?”
“She was the first real person who ever bothered to speak to me, I wasn’t really assessing her for strengths and weaknesses.”
Aloy is still learning, still processing, how to talk to people. How to let them in.
With Beta, everything she said, everything she did, seemed to be thrown right back in her face. Aloy had met so many people by now, but none of them have ever pushed her buttons in the way that Beta had.
Aloy didn’t know where the two of them stood.
Or if they even stood together as anything at all.
Aloy ventured back into the wilds after that in search of DEMETER.
She encountered a deadly new tribe, the Quen, and met Alva.
It was refreshing to be around Alva. Their time together kept Aloy’s mind off of other things.
When they discovered the truth about biomass conversion, however, Alva looked at Aloy with pleading eyes, stating that she needs the wisdom of her ancestors to help her people.
“Do you understand? My family. My sister. I left her when she was fourteen.”
Not… much younger than Beta is now.
“Already you could see her bones. They will starve.”
For some reason, the thought of Beta going through something similar twisted Aloy’s gut in a way that she couldn’t understand.
She decided not to dwell on it.
GAIA seemed pleased with the acquisition of AETHER, POSEIDON and now DEMETER. Seeing her like that brought a great amount of happiness to Aloy, as if through GAIA, Elisabet herself was smiling down at her, proud of what she’s accomplished.
Her thoughts were redirected, however, when Varl and Beta entered the room.
Beta and GAIA had been putting serious work into researching HEPHAESTUS, and GAIA hypothesized that they would need to capture it at a cauldron with two data cores; Cauldron GEMINI. It sounded like a good plan, but as always it all came crashing down when Beta once again brought up their chances of failure.
“I suppose I could, but it’s not going to work. The Zeniths will find you.”
Aloy had to fight the urge to scowl.
The odds didn’t matter, she had to try. She always had to try. Like Elisabet would.
Why couldn’t Beta see that?
Aloy couldn’t understand her.
Maybe… she never would.
With a new direction in mind to gain Omega Clearance from Thebes, Aloy set out to find Alva. The Quen, surprisingly, had already found the hidden bunker, and upon making her way inside, Aloy immediately felt apprehensive as she took a look around.
Something about this place… felt wrong. Horribly, incredibly wrong.
The strange feeling only got worse when she saw the Quen leader, Ceo, wearing a hideous ensemble in tribute of Ted Faro.
The Quen… they somehow thought that Ted had saved the world.
But it only got worse from there.
They then produced a raiment for her, and it looked suspiciously like…
“As he is Faro, you are Sobeck. For an occasion this momentous, shouldn’t you wear proper business attire?”
“Whoa… No no no no no. No. I am not wearing that. No way.”
She couldn’t wear Elisabet’s clothes.
Aloy isn’t Elisabet.
But the Quen could never understand that.
Especially not when she was only just beginning to understand it herself.
The clothes felt unnaturally stiff and constrictive against her skin as Aloy went with Alva and the rest of the Quen down into the bunker. The notes and audio logs she found in Thebes were disturbing to say the least, but the most shocking thing came at the end.
Ted… he was still alive.
“Lis’s future. Lis’s children. Someday they’ll come. And I’ll be here to greet them… They’re gonna need me. My advice. My guidance. And then I won’t be alone anymore.”
Aloy could certainly relate to being alone. She shuddered to think of what her life would be like, if she didn’t have Rost by her side growing up.
Would she have been like Ted? Forced into madness after years of solitude?
She had seen it before in other outcasts with exceptionally long sentences. People who were left to live alone for years losing their minds trying to survive in a world where no one cared about them. The lucky ones survived until their sentence was lifted, but were never the same again.
She could only thank her lucky stars that Rost had never been among their number…
Now, though, Ted Faro couldn’t even be described as insane. He had been alone for literal centuries, and there was simply… nothing left of him. There was only a faint sign of life flickering in that thick blob of mass that she could see through the wall with her focus.
Aloy felt sick to her stomach hearing Ted’s blubbering growls, wondering what Elisabet would think about this as the Quen burst in through the door behind her.
GAIA, while always glad to see Aloy’s safe return to base, had troubling news to share.
That HEPHAESTUS had been busy while she was away. Capturing it would take longer than they anticipated, and for any chance of their plan to work, they would need Beta’s help.
Aloy sighed, the weight of this news heavy on her shoulders.
Beta has been anything but optimistic about their odds, and Aloy could already tell that she would want no part of this change in plan.
Aloy took a steadying breath and tried to reel in her patience as she made her way downstairs. Even so, she couldn’t help the tense figure and leering steps she posed as she entered the server room, already expecting a fight.
Beta wouldn’t even look at her as Aloy made her case.
“Tell me why you won’t go.”
“What if they- What if they take me back? Alone in a cell again. Their slave… forever.”
Those words had Aloy stopping as she saw a glance into Beta’s genuine fear for the first time. Aloy tried to assure her that she and Varl will protect her. That the Zeniths will not find them.
Beta only shook her head, though, and raised her voice in panic.
Aloy was silent for a moment, trying to be patient, but when Beta snapped at her again, she couldn’t contain it any longer.
“You’re right, I don’t understand. We have the same genes. The same mind. The same heart. So why can’t you find the strength to do what has to be done? Like Elisabet would?”
Aloy has always found that strength. She’s never had a choice, but even if she did, she has always strived to follow in Elisabet’s footsteps. To protect her dream.
Why is it that Beta can’t do the same?
Hearing Beta’s voice crack, though, had Aloy stopping in her tracks.
“Don’t you think I’ve thought about that? I don’t know what piece of Elisabet I’m missing. I don’t know what you have that I don’t.”
Aloy felt something like shame and regret twist in her chest as Beta sunk to the floor.
“What’s my defect?”
What… was it that made them both so different anyway?
The answer came as Aloy remembered Rost’s charm in her pocket. She had grabbed it from her room when she returned from Thebes, wanting to hold it close after the many disturbing realizations she’d found in that place.
Rost… he had always been there for Aloy. Always gave her strength.
He watched over her, guided her, protected her. Made her the person she was today.
Without him, she…
“Beta… look. It’s not a piece of Elisabet. The difference is… I had him. Rost.”
Without him, who’s to say that her and Beta would not be the exact same.
The… the Zeniths found them.
GAIA and Beta were taken, and Varl…
He was the first person besides Rost to ever see the real Aloy. To truly look at her, and see someone worth having around. He tried to knock some sense into her stubborn head when she needed it most, and reminded Aloy time and again that she didn’t have to do everything alone.
That she could learn to trust other people.
He never gave up on her, and in a lot of ways, he had saved her life.
But now… she would never see him again.
What’s worse still was that the one thing Beta had ever asked her for, she couldn’t bring herself to follow through on.
She couldn’t lose both Varl and Beta in the same breath.
She couldn’t…
Aloy’s thoughts haunted her when she eventually woke up in a foreign mansion, and continued taunting her throughout a very long, monotonous talk about art of all things.
The one speaking was Tilda, one of the Zeniths. The one that had abandoned Beta.
Yes, Aloy knew exactly who she was, and something immediately felt… off about her.
Aloy didn’t like the way that Tilda spoke to her. It had her on edge, uncomfortable.
“When you’re ready, take the stairs down the hall and come see me.”
Still, Tilda provided useful information. She assured her that Beta is still alive, and Aloy could play into the relief that that knowledge gave her.
She was furious, however, when Tilda pulled out her old focus.
It was one thing for her friends to look through her logs.
But this… Tilda had no right to invade her privacy like that. To watch every detail of Aloy’s past.
Tilda was adamant, though, that she had to see them. To be enlightened.
“Incredible things. What you’ve accomplished in two decades of life. A thousand years at my back and I haven’t even come close.”
To her credit, Tilda did apologize, and stated she wanted to help restore Elisabet’s dream.
Instead of however Tilda expected her to respond to that information, though, Aloy took that as her cue then to begin her own interrogation.
She grilled Tilda for a long time at that stupid white dinner table, asking about the Zeniths, about Beta, the data channel, about Sylens and his weapon. All the while Tilda seemed restless, though noticeably kept her back straight and her words soft. She would sometimes wander behind Aloy’s chair every so often, and it made something in her skin crawl.
Whether or not she could trust Tilda was irrelevant, though, as with all other points of discussion out of the way, Aloy finally asked her about Elisabet.
About what she was really like.
“The honest answer is that I don’t actually know. For all the time that I spent with her, she always kept a part of herself locked away. It was like that from the moment we met.”
Aloy could imagine, now… that a lot of people probably felt the same way about her. She was working on being more open with people, but she knew that she still had a lot to learn in that regard. She would do it, though. If not for herself, then for Varl, who tried to teach her the importance of putting trust in others.
As Tilda kept on talking about Elisabet, however, Aloy noticed how Tilda looked away with a whimsical expression, and it was then that the pieces started coming together.
That recording she found of their argument.
The way it was different from the rest, more personal to Elisabet at the end.
It all made sense now, through talking with Tilda.
Tilda… loved Elisabet. Or at least she did when Elisabet was still alive.
Aloy stood up as she realized this. She filed that piece of knowledge away, unsure of what to do with it at the moment, and instead pondered over everything Tilda had told her thus far.
Aloy told Tilda to open up the data channel, and spoke with Beta about a new plan. Talking to Beta again was a relief, but seeing her captured and in pain had guilt eating away at Aloy’s chest.
She had caused that. But… she would fix it.
Aloy was confident that this plan would work, as was Beta.
“As long as I know you’re coming for me, I can endure anything.”
Beta’s unwavering faith gave Aloy strength, and allowed her to finally admit to not only the world but to herself just who exactly Beta was to her.
“What did you tell her?”
“That – is between me and my sister.”
Aloy took to the skies, defeated Regalla, and regrouped with everyone at the base. Both Sylens and Tilda were there now, and having them both together was… interesting, to say the least.
She spoke with Sylens first, interrogating him about his weapon.
He seemed very protective over it, though, and something about that struck Aloy as odd.
“Suffice it to say the weapon will work. The intricacies of “how” is knowledge that is mine alone.”
Well. As long as it worked, she supposed that she could care less.
After speaking with him, Aloy then spoke to Tilda, and laid all her cards out on the table.
Tilda didn’t even try to deny that she and Elisabet had once been in a relationship.
“She had lost her mother a few years back. I filled a void for her. I know I did. But as time passed, it seemed as though she wanted less when I wanted more.”
Aloy chose to share that Elisabet seemed to regret how things ended between them.
Tilda was grateful for it, and their talk ended with her reiterating that she had no ulterior motives other than restoring Elisabet’s dream.
Somehow, though, Aloy just couldn’t believe her.
Aloy rallied everyone for a final debriefing, and took the fight to the Zeniths.
She needed to save her sister, and make them pay for what they did to Varl.
She and her team fought their way through together; Alva and Kotallo destroyed the specter drone matrix, Beta installed HEPHAESTUS into the base’s printer, and Sylens deployed his weapon.
The Zeniths were taken down one by one, until Gerard was the only one left in their way.
But he could wait.
Alva called her, stating that she found some odd information in the Zenith’s database.
“I found a bunch of flight plans and trajectories. As if the Zeniths were planning to leave Earth.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. But there’s more. The files I found have a lot of references to something called ‘nemesis’. Whatever it is, the Zeniths are afraid of it.”
Alva cut out after that, but it was enough for Aloy to be assured that something big was going on, and it was only a matter of time before the truth came out.
Relief flooded Aloy when she finally found Beta.
Her sister was here. And she was alive!
Aloy immediately freed her, and the two of them got to work figuring out what exactly the Zeniths had been trying to hide.
“There’s something in deep space. It’s following the Zeniths to Earth.”
Beta and Aloy shared a face of contemplation, putting pieces together.
“Aloy – I don’t think a natural disaster destroyed the Zenith’s colony on Sirius. This thing did.”
“Earth isn’t a new home for them. It’s a way station. They’re on the run.”
The true answers, though, came when Tilda literally exploded into the room, blasting Gerard to death without ceremony.
“It is us. The minds of Far Zenith.”
Some of the other members of Far Zenith wanted virtual immortality, and through an experiment gone wrong, Nemesis was created. It festered, gained sentience, and took out its revenge; destroying Sirius in a matter of hours and sending the extinction signal that woke HADES.
Tilda’s posture changed when the truth was finally out.
She stated that they must flee the planet, and that Aloy would be coming with her.
Aloy felt that same skin-crawling sensation she had back at the mansion as Tilda looked at her like a predator eyeing its prey.
“You’ll come with me to the stars. And with GAIA, we’ll create a new world, together, where that monstrosity can never find us.”
“What? No.”
Leave the Earth to die? That is the farthest thing from Elisabet’s dream. The farthest thing from anything that Aloy had ever sought out to do with her life.
Tilda would be insane to think that Aloy would ever abandon it.
“I loved Elisabet more than you could ever know. And I let her stay behind to die with the rest of humanity. A mistake I have regretted for a thousand years. Now she stands before me again, not some inferior copy… but her best possible self. So I’m not asking, you’re coming with me.”
‘That “mistake” wasn’t your choice to make, Tilda.’
Aloy blinks with surprise, confusion passing through her eyes as she looks behind her.
Through the white and gold doorway that she had entered through earlier, there now stands someone.
Or rather… something.
It’s a machine. A Clawstrider.
With eyes that are an unnaturally bright shade of pink that Aloy has never seen before.
‘… Excuse me?’ Tilda asks after a long moment of silence, once it becomes apparent that the voice came from the machine itself.
‘You heard what I said.’ The voice says again. ‘Or have you maybe gone deaf since I last saw you?’
The Clawstrider approaches further, and both Aloy and Beta easily move out of its way.
Tilda remains rooted where she stands, though, a contemplative look on her face.
Aloy has a similar expression, analyzing the voice intently, before her eyes widen as she suddenly recognizes it.
Tilda seems to realize it too, as her expression swiftly shifts to disbelief.
‘…Lis?’
Aloy looks at the Clawstrider, frozen in place.
It can’t be…
The Clawstrider’s eyes shine, casting a holo projection into the room.
Elisabet Sobeck has a stern expression on her face. Her arms are crossed as she looks at Tilda with an unyielding, judgmental gaze.
‘Hello Tilda.’
Bonus Scene:
The battlefield is alight with smoke, machine sparks, and distant battle cries as Alva quickly runs towards the main building.
Kotallo is ahead of her, an ever-watchful guard should any machine dare to come close.
So far things have been going well. Alva had been honing her one and only piece of advice from Kotallo, and ran from anything dangerous while they were making their way to take down the Zenith drone matrix.
Now though, they were just trying to regroup with the others and find Aloy.
Alva skids to stop when Kotallo suddenly pauses, gripping his weapon as his eyes stare off to the side.
In response, she freezes and follows his gaze to see a towering machine running their way.
‘A Slaughterspine?!’ She gasps.
‘Brace yourself, Alva.’ Kotallo calls back. ‘They are the most bloodthirsty of hunter killers.’
‘Uh… okay.’ Alva says, brandishing her bow uncertainly.
As the machine grows closer, Kotallo roars with an intensity that scares Alva at the suddenness of it.
She bravely stands next to him, though, making ready for battle.
The Slaughterspine, however, doesn’t even spare them a glance, and Alva can feel the weight of its steps on the ground as it runs right past them. There are specter drones up ahead, but the machine plows through them as if they were mere pins to be knocked over, marching towards its goal of the Zenith Base.
‘What?’ Alva asks, confused.
‘Hm.’ Kotallo hums.
He doesn’t respond further, but from his neutral expressions that she’s slowly grown to know, she can tell that he too is bewildered by the hunter killer machine’s strange actions.
The two of them stand there for several moments in an unnatural silence among the cacophony of machines fighting all around them.
‘Did that machine… have pink eyes?’ Alva asks, dazed.
‘It appeared so.’ Kotallo says.
‘Huh… neat.’
Dream Eater Allyphant Creations 
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