#Aliya Elasra

[who-do-i-know-this-man-s3]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[mystie-eyes]

Gecko now or gecko later?

[lucrezianoin]

heaven's vault my love

[catthattalks]

I love Aliya's character so much, it's unreal 💚

[otapxl]

Heaven's Vault Pixel Demake. Would you play this?

[obscurecharactershowdown]

Group C Round 3

[image ID: the first image is of Bai Lang, a Taiwanese man. he's wearing a white tank top, and kneeling at the edge of his bed, which is covered in many different stuffed animals and plushies, such as a fox, an angry bunny, a brown turtle, and a smiling tempura. the second image is of Aliya Elasra, a woman with light brown skin, dark brown hair, and wearing a blue head scarf. around her neck is a necklace with a peach colored decoration. she wears a dirty, white loose shirt, and a brown bag around her hips. end ID]

Bai Lang

He's a traumatized babygirl who falls in love with a hot autistic dentist despite being terrified of going to the dentist. Blames himself for everything and tries to distract people from how much he's falling apart with jokes. He has a bed full of plushies that each have names and he says good morning to each of them individually. This does not change even when he has the hot dentist in his bed as well. Responds to his boyfriend proposing by also proposing. He's a mess. <3

Aliya Elasra

What a WOMAN she’s a badass. First of all, she’s an archaeologist, and she’s learning a dead language and deciphering it- that’s the whole plot of the game and that’s super cool of her. She’s also like incredibly sassy and banters back and forth with her robot companion, Six, nearly the whole game. But she’s so interested in the world dude, like, she just wants to find its secrets and help discover a way to save people or learn as much as she can about the past. The Nebula is full of mysteries and if anyone is going to solve them, it’s Aliya. [additional propaganda 1]

[burnt-kloverfield]

Ooooh thanks for the tag! This was hard! This is just the first five characters who came to mind because I really love so many

And tagging anyone who wants to jump on and @kittenclysm @pokerust @wilder-fangirl @diabetic-bean @sensitiveluigi

Thanks for the tag, @hyllatavorianaldan! I'm making a new post since the old one was getting long.

Rules: make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favourite.

I'll tag anyone who wants to participate, plus @burnt-kloverfield , @in-a-mellow-tone , @1darkflame7 , and @thatdamnokie!

[freshwaterbear]

WHERE is the Heaven's Vault Fandom

[phthalology]

Heaven's Vault: a variety of verbs

for @laughingpinecone

The sunlight of Iox lay overhead like an animal at rest. Paused in the doorway of the Nightingale, Aliya blinked up at the splintered wing mast. Easier to look at the broken wood than at Mina and Huang. She’d intended to come see them to compare some translations, but had limped into Iox with unnoticed wear on the ship finally collecting its due.

Iox couldn’t get parts as reliably as Elboreth, but would involve fewer people trying to talk to Aliya, at least.

Instead, the complications of their own distinctly Ioxian sort started early.

“Do you need any help with that?” Huang asked, waving from where he stood beside the landing pad with Mina by his side. Aliya still felt a pull between herself and Huang. So much had happened since she had begun to see his polite but unmistakable advances as doors, not walls. She had Enkei on board now, and had walked on ancient flagstones and through sites horrific with the long-gone blood of forced transformations. She hardly felt like the same species as Huang any more.

And yet there was something nice about having someone on Iox she truly enjoyed talking to, as much as they disagreed with each other over everything from philosophy to translations. 

“You’re better at linguistics than repairs, and we both know it,” Aliya replied, approaching Huang and thereby taking on the full force of the Ioxian daylight.

Huang's smile was strained but sincere. “I can’t argue with that. Do you still have your robot this time?”

You couldn’t have Enkei, first of all — the empress had to at least make it sound like following you was her idea. “Not a scratch on it,” Aliya said after a moment. “How are you settling in, Mina?”

Iox’s sun put highlights in Mina’s mousy hair. “Found, not lost,” she said. “Not yet.”

Aliya’s smile was genuine, although she still wasn’t sure what to say. She’d imprinted on Mina, wanting the girl to have what Aliya had — the resources and experience of Iox — while also feeling like she herself was more Elborethian than Ioxian. Mina would get to see the moon’s three libraries as much as she wanted now, but she would also find her foot in the mud of university politics. 

Huang felt like home for Aliya more than most places did, but he was an antagonym, and meant the opposite, too. Aliya could be comfortable with him near her ship — near an escape route — in a way she couldn’t in the library. One was her turf, the other, his. She could almost forget the Loop as the Nightingale flew. Maybe that was part of why her feelings were up and down: Rivers really did break off a chunk of the soul.

Except, no. Aliya chuckled softly at her own fancy. 

“Good. I’ll be repairing the ship, so be careful around the masts,” she said. 

“Can I look at your library?” Mina asked. “There are so many new subjects I’m interested in now. I didn’t even know to look for them last time I was on the ship.”

Well, that isn't a surprise. You were so afraid you hardly moved.

“Go ahead. I’ll be working on the outside spar,” Aliya said. If it falls, it will fall outward…

Huang caught her eye as he followed Mina inside. Aliya couldn’t read his expression. It reminded her of a robot’s programmed, flat speech, and for a moment she resented the lack of information. She hadn’t ever wanted to kiss him, hadn’t ever wanted to stay with him. So why did the idea of someone else being with him gall her? She might have scowled, because his gaze flickered with concern before he passed her without modifying his speed.

Aliya looked up at the splintered spar again. That wouldn’t be easy to fix, either.

It took work, to find someone on Iox willing to help a River pilot. Aliya had built up contacts, though, and with some help she had the mast re-bound. It would still need a replacement on a moon with more trees, but it would be able to fly off Iox. By the time they were done she was sweating, her hair mussed. She directed her helper to Myari’s coffers, a perk of technically working on university orders. Myari didn’t need to know — or knew she couldn’t do anything about — how much of Aliya’s initiative was … extracurricular.

As Aliya entered the Nightingale after the job was done, the air immediately cooled away from Iox’s bright light. A squeaking, shuffling noise heralded the presence of the Renaki gecko, although Aliya could not see where it was hiding. Mina stood on her tip-toes to pull a book — a rudimentary dictionary — off the shelf, while Huang stood by the shelves on the other side of the room, tipping his head as he checked for the newest work from a renowned academic he and Aliya both respected (mostly). The portholes turned Iox’s harsh light into a softer blue that cascaded over the ladder, bookshelves, and the red, geometric-patterned carpet. The dusty smell of the ship blanketed the room. 

At first, Aliya’s heart sank as she looked around the nooks and crannies of the small ship and realized Enkei was nowhere to be found. Then she remembered that the robot had claimed she had no interest in tarnishing her memories of the glory of Iox, and confined herself to the cockpit. It was a way to both preserve her pride and to not have to talk to anyone new or give out any more information, Aliya figured.  

“All fixed?” Huang asked.

“Strea’s newest paper is on the table,” Aliya replied.

“Oh!” He hurried over, but met Aliya’s eyes as soon as the folio was in his hands. He flipped through it, clearly eager to focus on it but torn between trying to be social with both Aliya and Mina. 

“It’s good,” Aliya jabbed. “But it still dances around the idea that history might be in the past.”

“That’s a very literal interpretation of the Loop, Aliya,” Huang said idly, without rancor, as if their philosophical arguments had themselves been set in stone to repeat for the next cycle. 

Huang started talking to Mina about Strea’s paper, and Aliya sat half-comfortable in the hammock as if she was getting ready for bed during a long journey. The watery light even reminded her of the Rivers. 

Maybe what she had really wanted was to sit and listen to someone else’s intelligent conversation. Even if it did have too much of the Loop in it, Huang and Mina used jargon Aliya knew, worked through more advanced versions of concepts she had learned as a teen. It was better than being alone and better than having to talk to someone, because she could just listen. Huang and Mina both wanted Aliya there, wanted her to feel included. She could tell by their glances at her, the sweep of placid eyes. Their voices rose and fell, sometimes authoritative, sometimes curious, sometimes laughing. 

(Aliya felt some some resentment, too: they wanted her help, but wouldn’t fly a River to come see her, to enter her world …) 

Aliya still grated against the idea of what she wanted from Huang. She’d thought she might love him, if he didn’t love the Loop. Mina matched him on that, though. They would learn beside one another and hold each other in their familiar, comfortable orbits, whereas Aliya was always trying to pull one or the other of them out of true.

It had been what Mina needed to get away from her father. Maybe what she needed now was stability, though. 

Maybe what she had needed today was to sit in a library while someone else was working on making sure it didn’t physically fall apart around her… 

That didn’t sound bad. Aliya flopped down in the hammock and watched the gecko traverse the ceiling upside down while Mina and Huang muttered to each other across the room. The noise and smell of books comforted Aliya, too. As unlikely as it was, she thought all three of them had that in common.

When they had flown from Renaki to Iox, Aliya had thought Mina’s stillness was religious terror. Maybe part of it had been. As she sat in the same room, though, Aliya relaxed enough to start to understand some of what the ship had been to Mina. The familiar books had been as alien to her as a thousand-year-old inscription was to Aliya. While for Aliya, the familiarity of the Nightongale was what made it feel like home, Mina had the instinct that drove baby scholars: the ability of the unknown to feel instantly familiar. It wasn’t a practical skill, and leaning too much on it made a researcher vague. It was essential in the beginning, though. It could make you sit still with just awe. 

Aliya closed her eyes, comfortable. 

Things certainly could change. Six to Enkei, small town girl to university librarian, words across generations. It was good to take the quiet comfort where she could get it. Aliya only just recently figured out vault was a verb, after all. 

[laughingpinecone]

Chapters: 1/1, 3056w Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Aliya Elasra & Enkei Characters: Aliya Elasra, Enkei (Heaven's Vault) Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Loneliness, At the end of history, cycles, IN SPACE!, Worldbuilding, Some worldbuilding elements lifted from the books but no book spoilers, Vault ending, warrior's repose, minimal symbolic wordplay For dearest @azurefishnets this past Yuletide!

[i-love-books-because-reasons]

[gaypapercuts]

[ID: A black papercut of Aliya and Six from Heaven’s Vault. They are in the courtyard of the Withering Palace, surrounded by statues of the six gods. Text around them reads “It seems curious to assign a gender to a god. After all... what would they do with it?” End ID]

[mystie-eyes]

Heaven’s Vault

Whoever built the Nightingale, however many hundreds or thousands of years ago: they sailed on rivers just like these. They knew their difficulties. I'm sailing in their wake. I'm following their light. It is like I have found an ancient pair of shoes, and put them on, and they're teaching me how to dance.

[katistrophe]

Yesterday I found out decals weren't just a premium feature on HeroForge anymore. And they applied to books. Utterly unrelatedly, I've also been missing Heaven's Vault something fierce. So the only logical conclusion was...

...creating Aliya in HeroForge. Six.... was harder to get right.

But if you squint...

...you need to squint a lot to make this look like Ancient. But an attempt was made.

[stillwinterair]

Started playing Heaven's Vault today... I LOVE this game and I LOVE Aliya, she is such a shithead in all my favorite ways

[occasionallydiverting]

tfw you’re going to buy a gecko