Chapter Text
The Tenakth have a way of preserving their deeds in ink and paint. It’s a practice that Aloy personally isn’t all that partial too -- at least not permanently. But now, tucked in a sea of furs and linens, she can see the truth in their customs as she holds Seyka close, explores her body and counts the untold stories laid bare on her skin, memorizing every scar and blemish, every wound or injury that could have taken her from this world before they had ever had a chance to meet.
There is famine, marked here in Seyka’s rib cage that has only recently begun to fill --
Disaster, where a log had gouged her leg after a flood swept her from her home, back in the Great Delta--
Machines, countless machines, each leaving behind burns and teeth and claw marks and gashes--
Even that scar across her brow that Aloy adores is a testament to Seyka’s upbringing, earned on her first week of marine boot camp; but that pales in comparison to the tiny nick just above her left cheek, a mark left behind by Rheng and his firing squad.
Here, Aloy quivers with a quiet rage as she thinks about how Seyka survived even the Quen, her people, when they should have nurtured her, protected her, celebrated her.
That they were so willing to cast her aside as a traitor for doing what needed to be done to save them . . . and that they very well could have, robbing Aloy of her breath, her life . . .
Each trial, each obstacle, each near-death experience floods her mind, and the thoughts of what could have been are enough to make even her own stoicism crack.
Beneath it all, the same nagging question -- the one that has kept her up for as long as she can remember -- haunts her.
What if?
What if Compliance had succeeded? Or Londra, or the reanimated Horus?
What if Seyka had fallen -- not that day, but in the thousands of days before then -- before they had ever met?
Aloy knows that this is just a holdover from her upbringing: the endless drills, the pressure to dissect her every move, to aim for perfection on the next go-around. The only difference is that when she was a child, she had a margin of error -- a luxury she had lacked in her later confrontations with Hades, Helis, Hephaestus, Regalla, the Zeniths, Specter Prime, and Nemesis.
And when that tenuous margin was compromised, the consequences were dire.
What if she had been faster? Stronger?
Would Rost, or Vala, or Ourea or Varl still be alive?
She screws her eyes shut, buries her face in the crook of Seyka’s neck, too afraid to think of the alternative.
A hand brushes against her back, and another in her hair, pulling her closer. Soft lips press against her forehead, then a thumb to her cheek, gently tracing the path of her tears, down to her jaw, tilting her face upward.
Aloy pulls back, meeting Seyka’s gaze; she can see the same breathless disbelief, even grief, reflected in the marine’s eyes, and she knows Seyka feels the same, sees the same as Aloy does.
Seyka reaches forward, her hand brushing over the tiny scar, almost imperceptible now, above her right eyebrow, where Bast had thrown a rock at her as a child --
Her other hand glides down to Aloy’s shoulder, where a Stalker’s sniper fire had just barely grazed her there--
Down to her ribs, where Londra’s lucky shot, now long-forgotten, has painted its permanence--
Then to her neck, her fingertips grazing feather-light over the jagged scar where Helis had pressed his blade against her throat.
Aloy trembles against her touch, feeling shy now that it is her turn to be held. She can feel the stinging sensation in her eyes as she meets Seyka’s gaze, sees Seyka’s own eyes brimming with unshed tears, and her grief tinges with relief , gratitude , even, that despite all she has endured it was worth it, to have known Seyka, to be seen and held, touched and loved by her.
Practically she knows that any of these scars could have easily been the death of either of them -- that a stroke of bad luck could have doomed the world, or robbed it of meaning. That they are alive at all, that they met at all, that they love at all, is a testament to a strange twist of fate, a statistical anomaly, something beyond probability.
But all that’s behind them now, when the world blooms in their palms.
She cups Seyka’s face in her hands now, leaning in to kiss her, to reassure her that for all the stories her body may tell, all that matters is the here and now , the future they have together, the stories yet untold.
They are an impossible miracle.