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[Aloy has quickly discovered that her body just really, really does not like most of the food here. And honestly, she's glad. Most of it weirds her out. Nothing should be covered in a blinding orange powder unless it's poisonous, and some of it is so salty or cloyingly sweet that she just can't stand it.

So, she's decided to hunt. The problem is, there aren't exactly animals here, just... monsters. Creatures she'd never consider eating under any other circumstances. She's managed to take down something quadrupedal, with long fur turning into quills near its rear and an alarming number of eyes.

It might be gross enough that Aloy is trying to clean and skin the thing, but if no one is put off by that, they'll certainly be put off by the rank, viscous fluid that oozes out when she manages to cut into its hide. Aloy apparently isn't immune to this either, because she lets out a horrified noise and recoils.]

Ugh. Disgusting.

[Probably not edible, then.]

( Serah doesn't particularly like hunting, even when she had Noel and Mog by her side. It's an unfortunate necessity that she knows how to fight and defend herself, but she doesn't come out here for the thrill of murder or anything like that. She just knows, from years of experience in Pulse and what feels like an age travelling through the timeline, that the monsters on the outskirts of the city are an ever looming threat held back by a wing and a prayer.

This is the least she can do right now, with the study building up and running. So she heads out with a bow and tries to pick a few beasts off and, a couple of felled monsters later, her attention gets caught by a nearby noise of disgust.

Someone else?

She turns and- )

What the...?!

( Oh, oh no, that's truly gross. Breathe, Farron. )

Hey. Are you okay?

( Is she covered in that stuff? Is that stuff poisonous? Who knows. )

I'm fine.

[Just nauseated. She doubts whatever this thing is filled with is poisonous, but then again, that would be just her luck.]

I was trying to find something to eat, but this isn't a contender.

( Let's hope.

Since she got here, Serah has managed to survive on a combination of things found in the orchard and shops, but it's not... the most amazing of diets. The food in the shops always seems to lack a certain something that makes it anything more than edible. But she doesn't know the monsters here well enough to even guess which might be safe to eat and which aren't. Hasn't wanted to risk guessing.

But, if this woman is trying to hunt food, Serah would be happy to help out. )

No, I don't think so. ( Judging by the laughter that leaks into her words, Serah can at least find the humour in the way that's phrased. Not a contender indeed. She goes quiet for a moment after that, tilting her head eventually before she speaks. ) Do you want some company?

( If there's one thing Serah believes after recent events, her travels back home and being transported here, it's that it's much more pleasant to have company when fighting monsters. )

[Michael stops mid-walk when he smells the very distinct odor of Dead Thing. It takes him a minute, because at first he thinks it's just... well, himself. Did he not clean these clothes well enough? He's pretty sure he wouldn't forget to shower. But no, it's not him, and the voice of disgust nearby tells him as much.

He wanders over and takes a peek. He's pretty sure he helped Newt with one of these things back when they first started, but it was a lot less... intact than this one is. Aloy's is a pretty clean kill. Well, it was before she started cutting it up, at least.]

Yeah, those things are pretty nasty. [He debates just leaving it at that because he doesn't know her, and this might be weird, but... leaving it at that would also be weird?]

Do you, uh, want some help with that?

[Yeah, she looks grumpy about this. Aloy stands up, nudging the thing with her toe.]

I was looking for something to eat, but I don't think this is worth butchering.

You... might be able to eat it? I don't remember where Newt fell on that one.

[Since people had asked him to... rate the edibility.]

Maybe it's one of those meats that doesn't stink as much after you cook it? Like eels.

[This is a great conversation.]

[Nil is having a similar issue when it comes to the food, and has even taken to using some of the creatures he kills in his pursuit of taking the edge of the itch under his skin. He's still making himself easy to find with such activities, though he has managed to find other ways to entertain himself.

When he finds Aloy, it's in the moments just before she recoils from the thing she's trying to skin. Despite being several feet back he has a similar reaction, his expression one of utter disgust for a fleeting few moments before he approaches.]

I'm not sure if I should be hurt that you've been hunting without me. [He says smoothly, getting no closer to the creature than she is and making a face at the smell coming from it.] But this experience is one you can keep for yourself.

[She shoots him a look, wiping her hands off on the ground.]

You hunt without me all the time.

[Nil looks right back at her, his eyebrows lifting slightly.]

I didn't think you'd be so offended. [Hard to tell, as usual, just how serious he's being.] I'll make sure I extend an invitation next time.

I never said I was offended.

[So there!]

Have you found anything worth eating?

[A sigh, and a shake of his head.]

I don't think I'll ever understand you. [Do you want to hunt with him or not? Oh, well. The door has his foot firmly wedged in it, now, and he'll be sure to invite her along the next time he hunts. Which... will likely be soon.]

The occasional beast that doesn't make my insides want to run for the horizon. [He makes a small gesture at the one she killed.] I wouldn't waste your time on this, though.

[She peers up at him, slightly incredulous. He'll never understand her? She should be saying that.]

What's so mysterious about me?

You hunt, as I do, the same sorts of odorous scum that I do, but you find no pleasure in it. What we do is necessary, but you don't enjoy it, so I have to wonder... why you keep coming back to it.

[It's baffling to Nil, who never feels more alive than when he's bleeding the life out of somebody else. He makes a small gesture to the corpse in front of them.] This kind of prey is unworthy of both of us.

I do it because it's necessary.

[Aloy sighs at the monster, then finally stands, slinging her bow back over her shoulder.]

For you, helping others is just a side effect. For me, it's the point entirely.

[Nil straightens up as she does, a half second behind, and tilts his head to look down at her with that curiosity written all over his face again.]

Aloy... [He hums out.] There's something I've been wondering.

[For someone not usually so taciturn, this time, he waits until he has her full attention.]

[Yeah, that's certainly enough to get her attention.]

What is it?

You said something to me, when last we met on the Spearshafts, that I thought about a great deal. [You know, where you so cruelly broke his heart.

Before his journey to Meridian, that is, where he still believes he'll likely die.]

That people like me were needed. A curious thought.

[He's thought about it a great deal? That takes her off guard, and she studies him for a second or two.]

You are. I might not understand your obsession, but clearing those camps was the right thing to do regardless.

[He thought about it because it wasn't something that anyone had ever said to him before. He thought about it because when she did say it, she hadn't been disingenuous.

Nil has never been someone who needs approval, but he can't say it doesn't feel good in some small way.]

'Obsession'? I'm stung that you'd describe it so crudely. [And Nil, in the way he has of sounding thoroughly hurt by the things she says, presses a hand to his heart.]

We had a good time together, didn't we? Ridding the world of those odorous wretches.

[She just shakes her head, studying him.]

I wouldn't call what I was feeling "fun". I don't enjoy killing people, Nil.

So you keep saying. [Nil looks about to speak more, then hisses in a breath through his teeth and waves his hand slightly in dismissal of both the words he might have said, and the thought behind them.]

A pity, though. It's always good to find some joy in your work.

If you want me to "enjoy my work", why did you pick me as a partner in the first place? You must have known that isn't how I think.

Because you were capable, and you wanted the same thing that I did. The reason why never mattered.

[Until it did, because she made it matter, and she made him think about it, and how dare she?]

We do make a good team, don't we?

Yes, we do.

[She can't deny that—they work well together. They have since the beginning. They're in sync enough that Aloy has always felt that she could rely on him, and he's saved her life when she found herself in sticky spots. She wouldn't have continued to work with him otherwise.]

The reason why really never mattered to you? Only that someone would help you kill?

I needed a partner, and you have skill with a bow. It was like fate that we ran across one another.

[And continued to run across one another. He had even started waiting for her. The idea to fight her hadn't occurred to him until fairly late on.]

And let's not weight it so heavily on my side. I was helping you, too.

I know you have.

[She says it much more softly. He has helped her, and she appreciates it, but she just doesn't get it.]

But I'm not the only skilled hunter in the Sacred Lands, let alone everywhere else. You don't seem like one for sentiment.

Do I not?

[When he'd been so crushed that she wouldn't fight him? Oh, Aloy, you have him all wrong. He can feel plenty of sentiment, but it's directed in all the wrong places. Much like his attitude towards everything else he does.]

I thought you knew me better. [Sigh! So tragic.] It was almost ordained that we kept coming across one another like we did. Don't you wonder if it was more than a coincidence?

Like fate?

[That pulls her up short. It isn't something she expected from Nil, and she mulls over the concept, not sure how to feel about it.]

You really think that much of me?

You're surprised?

[He hums out the words, his arms loosely folding over his chest. Nil had always thought he had been perfectly candid about his opinion of Aloy, right to the very end.]

Each camp, there you were, and there I was. I challenged you, and you turned me down, then I found myself drawn to a greater challenge under the banner of your name. How could it not be fate?

I don't know if I believe in fate.

[But she's silent for a moment. This isn't the disquieting feeling of being worshipped by the Nora, at least. It's respect, and maybe something else. She's not sure Nil is one to feel affection for anyone, but maybe this is something close for him.]

I guess I've never thought of it that way.

[It does occur to Nil that he and Aloy have never really had a conversation that didn't revolve around death. It occurs to him as a peripheral thought, brushing around the edge of the current topics, but it's there.

So Nil smiles slightly, and shrugs.]

Don't worry about it too much... I know you don't see our partnership in the same way that I do. [Sigh.] And such a pity, too.

[Huh. That's something.]

And how do you view it?

[This pushes into unknown territory. Aloy has never pried further before, never pushed to hear what he has to say beyond awkwardly rebuffing him, and just for a moment his expression turns into something softly puzzled.

Ah, he just doesn't understand her.]

We're partners. Two sides of a coin, if you will, against the necessity of ridding the land of the infections that plague it.

[She's trying to understand him, trying to pick apart his meaning a bit here.]

So you're saying we keep each other balanced?

Don't you think so?

[There might be a softened edge to the usual smoothness of his tone, or perhaps Aloy is just imagining it.]

I was never as successful a hunter as when I hunted with you.

[That does sound a little bit like fondness, doesn't it?]

If I didn't know better, I'd say you were flattering me.

[Nil's eyes widen fractionally in an expression of feigned innocence.]

Aloy. I never give flattery without good cause. [If there is one thing Nil rarely is, for all his many flaws, it's insincere.]

But every Sun needs its Shadow.

[She lets out a quiet, amused sound, shaking her head.]

I hope I'm not the shadow in this metaphor.

[But it's sweet, actually.]

Of course not.

[Nil's expression holds its own softened amusement. This is a different kind of conversation to the ones they usually have. More personal, somehow. He's not sure how he feels about it.]

Let's take a walk, shall we? Before the pungent odour of this creature overpowers us entirely.

[A few days after first meeting Aloy and hearing about the armory, he'd gone looking for it to get himself a bow and some arrows. Now that the gods had decided meat was no longer on the menu, he was very glad he had.

Initially, he'd been hopeful that he might come across an actual animal or two, but as the day went on it was becoming increasingly apparent that the only 'animals' here were monsters.

The creature he'd finally decided on had large, almost fishlike, scales but the body and spikes of a lizard. He managed to hit the thing close to where he assumed its heart should be, but it had immediately skittered away, moving almost too fast for his eyes to really track. As he ran after it, he climbed over a hill and nearly ran through the putrid viscera from Aloy's kill.

Not spotting his own quarry, he paused to give her kill a look over, trying not to grimace too much.]

... Did... you get attacked? [He can't stand it any longer and presses the back of his hand to his nose. Surely, she wasn't planning on actually doing anything with this thing.]

No.

[Face still screwed up, Aloy stands and takes a step back, then follows his lead and covers her mouth and nose.]

I was looking for something to eat, but I think this might kill me.

[It's a little bit of a joke, but honestly, she wouldn't be surprised if it did.]

[Nose still covered against the smell, he lifts the bow a little in his other hand to show her and makes an attempt at a smile despite the horrendous smell.]

We had the same idea then.

[He looks from her, to the terrible smelling ooze before looking back at her.]

Please, don't eat that. [He sounds like he's joking a bit too, but seriously... please, don't eat it.]

I hit a... it looked like a big lizard... thing. But it was fast, faster than any animal I have ever seen. Faster than the quickest fish. And it was gone before I could hit it again.

[The slight wind shifts just a tiny bit and he gets hit by the smell again hard enough to make his eyes water and takes a few steps back.]

[Yeah, it's horrendous. Once again, Aloy follows his lead and moves away, shaking her head at the thing as she does.]

You lost it? Do you know how to track?

[Hvitserk nodded, braids skipping across his back.]

But... I'd followed it here, which... [He motioned with his bow at the mess in front of him. He was convinced the creature he'd hit had simply disappeared.]

Maybe we can find something else. [He took another few steps away, eager to be far away from the stench.] We can hunt together? Split whatever we kill? [He gave her a small, hopeful smile.]

[Aloy almost tells him that she hunts better alone. It's an automatic response born from a lifetime of near isolation, but his smile stops her short. That's not entirely true anymore anyway, is it?]

Alright. Have you seen anything that looks... relatively normal?

Uhhh... no. Not really. [Not at all. But he's reluctant to admit that there didn't seem to be anything at all to hunt.]

Let's start moving and see what we can find? I would not say no to trying some of the dragon that I fought when I first arrived. [He gave her a lopsided smile.] How long have you been here? Have you seen anything you think might be edible?

Only a few months.

[Aloy smiles back over her shoulder at him as she sets off, grateful to leave her kill behind.]

Other than in the garden? No. I'm not sure I'd be excited to eat a dragon, either, but don't let my biases stop you.

[He catches up and falls into step beside her, moving lightly and quietly beside her. Even if they were close to the stench of her previous kill, there was a chance they'd come across something else, some other animal, or whatever they wanted to call them, and he wanted to be moving quietly if they did.]

You wouldn't try dragon meat? Really? [He asked the question in a quiet, hushed tone.

He sighed quietly when she mentioned the garden.] You would think there would be rabbits... rats... anything.

[He paused, moving away from her, gaze intently on some broken branches, a very subtle hint that something else had been through this way. He crouched to get a better look, pointing it out to her.]

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