Title: Obligations
Fandom: Horizon Zero Dawn
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 365
Author notes: I surely can't be the only one who wondered what happened to Odd Gratta when Aloy left the Embrace.
Summary: Aloy has a stop to make, before following the war party beyond the Embrace.



Gratta doesn't speak to a Seeker anymore then she does to an outcast. Aloy, who hadn't been expecting any different, still drops off a brace of rabbits on her way to resupply at the hut, and takes the time to warn her she'll soon be away. Headed outside of the Embrace, following after the war party.

Only realities after she's said the words that it's probably the first that Gratta's heard of it, or the attack on Mother's Watch, or the Proving. She's a proper outcast, one who keeps the Tribe's laws, not a seeker after truth like Aloy has been her whole life.

Gratta doesn't react beyond starting the Hymn of Atonement instead of her usual prayers. Aloy wonders if the echo will be heard in Mother's Watch, or if the Matriarchs will echo across the valley instead.

She should be moving. Every minute she spends here is more time for the killers to get further away, longer for the rains to wash their tracks clean. But she doesn't want to finish the climb. Not when the hut will be empty. Marks a passing boar with her focus, then deselects it as she recalls that she is leaving. She won't have time to butcher a full boar.

Gratta could probably use it though. She's too frail to hunt, and even if she wasn't, she still spends too much time with All Mother and her prayer beads to feed herself.

She survived the weeks Aloy was unconscious well enough. Not that speaking to her back gives Aloy much to judge by. And weeks isn't the same as the months that she'll be gone in the Sundom and wherever the trail leads her from there, months Gratta will have no hand feeding her but her own.

So she sighs, and offers the use of the hut. There are food stores enough there to eek out the winter, if one person lives frugally. And the old furs that line the walls should keep her warmer than whatever shelter she's pulled together herself.

Gratta is praising All Mother for the sanctuary of her Embrace as Aloy turns to leave. It's all the thanks she's ever likely to get.