From Eden: ELEUTHIA-9-Brood-1 by ariseis
Okay I didn't write this one, but it's so good and I'm worried it's going to fly under a lot of folks' radars because it's not a shipping fic and doesn't involve any characters from the games, so I'm here to scream about it on your dash.
From Eden takes the crumbs of lore we got in the ELEUTHIA-9 cradle and turns them into a multi-course tasting menu. (Or it will, when it's done. But the first two chapters are so promising and @ariseis has written multiple bangers in the past, so I'm pretty confident in this prediction.)
The world-building is beautifully done (all the kids know about kissing is what they've heard in fairy tales, so of course the conclusion one of the characters comes to is "you're only supposed to kiss girls when they're asleep" à la Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and that goes about as well as you'd expect) and the characterization is so on point that I actually had to go check the datapoints to make sure she hadn't lifted it straight from the game, but nope most of it is original work that just feels completely natural and realistic.
If you love digging into the background world of Horizon, I strongly recommend this one. Also, getting to see their amazed, wondrous reactions to experiencing the world outside the cradle for the first time will remind you what and incredibly beautiful world we live in.
If you haven't read anything from ariseis before, just know that she is a Queen of Angst, so prepare yourself for what I'm guessing is going to be some heartbreak down the line. The archive warnings (neither of which apply to the first two chapters that are currently posted, if you're concerned) back that up.
All the characters are OCs, but they are good OCs. No Mary Sues here.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Fandom: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Tessa (OC), Lena (OC), Edmund (OC), Oskar (OC), Josh (OC)
Additional Tags: ELEUTHIA-9, Cradle Graduates, Original Character(s), Canon Compliant, Pre-Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Wilderness Survival, Post-Apocalypse, Underage because literally everyone are kids, Worldbuilding
The children of Cradle 9 never received the legacy they were owed. No APOLLO. No education beyond kindergarten level. They have been raised isolated, under-educated, abused and neglected by their sub-par multi-servitor guardians and now they must fend for themselves... or die.
Just how did the kids out of Cradle 9 survive the wilds? How did they slot into a world that was supposed to be ready for them? How did they learn to survive, and even flourish? What will they find in the ruins of the people who came before them; who ordered their conception but never gave them all the tools, and were long gone before they ever saw the sun?
