Chapter Text
Erend can get mean when he drinks. Zo does not like to acknowledge this, even in the quiet of her thoughts, because she loves Erend even if they're constantly discovering ways in which they are fundamentally very different people, and to acknowledge this feels like a betrayal.
Sometimes their differences in perspective scrape against Zo like grit caught under her armor, rubbing her skin raw. The moments when Erend makes her smile outweigh and outnumber the moments they frustrate each other. But, nonetheless it is painful when she's trying to coax Erend to drink some water after he's finished retching and he knocks her hand aside and mumbles something about how it was easier to like Varl.
Erend starts crying immediately after he says it and tells her he doesn't mean it, but you can't take back the truth so easily. Zo presses her lips together to hold back a retort and holds Erend's hand.
She wants to be mean right back. She is tired and sore and swollen and nauseous whenever they stop for food, and hungry as soon as they finish packing everything back up and get back on the road, and it would be so easy to be mean. It is on the tip of her tongue. But she loves Erend, even in the moments she does not like him. Maybe especially then.
And, well, he's right. It was easier to like Varl. They are going somewhere where Zo will be only one of many people who loved him.
In the morning, Erend apologizes again.
Zo gazes at the horizon without really seeing the colors the sunrise has washed over the world. Her thoughts are a tangled bird's nest. She begins with what she knows for certain:
"Erend, we are family now," she says simply, finally turning her head to look at him. His charger plods steadily along next to hers. She holds his gaze, challenges him not to look away in shame.
"Is that a good thing?" Erend asks suspiciously.
"It means you are part of my song, even when your notes are discordant."
He squints at her. "I can't tell if this is more flowery Utaru speak, or you're insulting my ability to carry a tune."
"Maybe a bit of both." Zo smiles at him, and the relief that breaks upon his face warms her more than the waking sun.
They're back to bickering over their favorite topic by the last day of their long travel. It has been an aching journey, and Zo is looking forward not only to rest at the end of it, but to see the rest of their wayward family there too.
Aloy confirms that she and the others are still on schedule to meet them at the border, where they will dismount their sunwings and travel the rest of the way on four legs with Zo. Zo never quite warmed to the concept of flight, even before her growing belly ruined her sense of balance. She’s a child of tilled earth and she’s meant to feel it under her feet, not soar recklessly among birds. And at least if she falls off a charger, Erend will be there to help her up.
He sighs happily as the others sign off from the call after they've figured out the details.
"Just like clockwork," he says. Zo thinks he's just talking to himself for a moment until she notices he looks too pleased and he's watching her out of the corner of his eye.
She groans.
They've been having this debate almost as long as they have both been Aloy's allies against the darkness, since the first days in which they were learning how their world came to be: which tribe was right, after all?
The world was planted and tended like a garden, Zo argues, pointing out the careful seeding of each biome they've passed through and the herds of machines still dutifully executing their terraforming maintenance processes a safe distance away from them.
Exactly! Erend argues back. The world is clockwork. Elisabet and her team made up all the pieces, and now every single one of us, human and machine and animal and even your beanweed snacks are little gears in a larger process to save the Earth!
I do not think my beanweed bites are active participants in the fate of the world, Zo replies blandly, but she cannot help but be amused nonetheless. In their own ways, they are both right.
She realizes Erend is purposely goading her the closer they get to the heart of the Nora lands.
Aloy won't stop casting nervous glances at Zo when she thinks she's being subtle. Kotallo has outright reminded Zo that she only needs to do as she wishes: say the word, and he will cover her retreat. Beta, who wears knowledge as armor, has been nervously trying to share flashcards with Zo's Focus, as if studying Nora practices will somehow help Zo explain to them that the son they sent to follow in Aloy's footsteps will never come home.
(Alva made the flashcards.)
But of all their friends, only Erend succeeds in drawing Zo out of that quiet place in her mind that she retreats to before battle. Only Erend knows when she needs space and when she needs to be distracted from her grief, and she has to hand him that much - he has always been too willing to put himself into the line of fire. She is more grateful for his friendship than she will ever be able to convince him of.
He stands at her side, his arm brushing her shoulder in silent support, as Zo raises her chin high before the Nora Matriarchs and explains why she is here, mere weeks before birth. Zo sees Sona's face before and after each piece of news and thinks the Nora may have had a point too.
The world begins and ends in every parent.