Chapter Text
His first real memory of the outlander huntress, the Savior of Meridian, is the flash of blood on her spear, her teeth grit in a snarl as she blows through Regalla’s rebels. Pain blurs his vision, the smell of blood and burning flesh filling his nostrils. He can’t move, can barely breathe under the weight of the Bristleback crushing his legs. He groans, dropping his head as another rebel falls under the strange woman’s onslaught.
The next time he sees her, he’s too consumed in his own anger and the lingering throb of his arm, the fire consuming fingers he can still feel , to take much stock of her.
“It won’t be easy,” he tells her when she wants to convince Tekotteh instead of challenging him.
“Never is.” She shrugs. He huffs. Perhaps he underestimated her again.
He is still seething when they’re done, his swollen arm throbbing, the wound consuming his shoulder, clawing up his neck and down his back from Tekotteh’s heavy hand. He wants blood. But the Nora woman scampers off. He goes to get a meal, finds a few old friends that will deign to speak with a maimed Tenakth, Marshal or not. When he goes to look for her again, the guards point down to where she’s climbing down from the wall.
He comes up behind her. She’s studying the wall, those keen eyes taking in every stone and pebble and boulder. What does she see, he wonders. He’s heard about the Savior of Meridian, a warrior with a second sight. He doesn’t know what it means.
“The guards said you’ve been scurrying around the wall like a rat. What in the name of the Ten have you been up to?”
She turns to him, her eyes alight like a child challenging him to a race. They’re green he notices suddenly, flecks of brown and gold catching the sunlight.
“Tekotteh said he wouldn’t send his challengers as long as they’re safe behind the Bulwark.” She says. “Right?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“So…” she’s still panting from the climb, but she grins. “We take it down.”
He can’t believe what he’s hearing. He blinks up at the Bulwark, trying to find sense in it. He knew the stories about her were overblown rumors. She’s insane. She may be strong to get this far, to face Grudda. But perhaps that insanity is weaved with so much luck that she’s survived by mere chance.
“Did you hit your head on the way down here?” He asks.
“I’m serious!”
And she is. Very. He follows her, reluctantly, but well… he won’t give her another chance to compare him to Tekotteh. He hesitates to defy her again.
His next memory of her is the slip of her in tall grass, her fiery hair disappearing in the swaying fronds, her greenshine eyes glinting dangerously in the firelight. Kotallo’s breath catches, shocked and awed by the way she vanishes in the space of a breath. He stays close to her, at once watching her back and trying not to be left behind. She silently and methodically dispatches each rebel guard, her body rising from the grass, a small hand yanking a jaw with a strength that surprises him, her arms driving her blade between ribs, her legs vaulting up a rebel’s body, twisting and dragging them down to a death that takes his breath away.
She leaves them where they lay, slipping back into the grass when their comrades come to investigate, their shocked breaths cut short by her arrow. Finally, there’s only the rebel atop the Tremortusk, and she silences him with a well-aimed arrow. She holds her hand up, stilling Kotallo while they wait for the Tremortusk’s gaze to return to a placid azure. Finally, she nods to him. He springs into action, his tensed muscles shivering in relief as the rage of battle overtakes him.
It is difficult work. His arm aches from the jarring feel of his axe meeting metal over and over and over. His stump aches with the cold. He ignores it the best he can, gritting his teeth against it. The machine’s body finally shakes the ground. He rounds it to find Aloy pulling its cannon off, stumbling back with a grunt. She grins up at him.
“Not looking forward to hauling this all the way to the Bulwark.” She pants.
He offers himself without a second thought. As he leads the way back, he realizes he would offer her anything if she seemed to want it. He wishes for his left hand so he could rub away the ache forming between his ribs and the flush on the back of his neck. Still, he keeps his eyes forward and his wants in check.
He just reminded her that he is maimed. She probably has no use for him after this mission.
Still, when he leaves her to return to the Grove, he glances back at the crumbled remains of his childhood home, the mountain she moved to make a point , and wonders what miracles she will bring with her to the Kulrut.