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Traveling anywhere these days is a risk. That’s why unless you’re well-trained in machine fighting or hunting, you either don’t do it - or you pray to whatever deity you believe in for safe passage.
Erend doesn’t believe in any deities, but he’s got plenty of experience walloping machines. It’s why he never hesitates on the path between Hidden Ember and the Base. Unfortunately, today one of the Frost Bellowbacks wanted to start something, spraying the path with ice and causing his mount to stumble, sliding out into some rocks.
He takes about two seconds to decide between booking it north to the Base or staying to fight before pulling his hammer off his back. Either way, the type of armor he favored didn’t allow him to move too quickly. Idly, and not for the first time since meeting her, Erend wishes that Aloy and her fire arrows were here.
“All right, you overgrown icicle,” he growls, swinging his hammer and landing a hit directly on the Bellowback’s head. The machine rears back before whipping its tail with surprising speed and hitting him right in the chest. He was preparing for ice and not a sneak attack, so the hit knocks him on his ass.
He’s climbing back to his feet when he sees a fire arrow shoot past him, directly into the Bellowback’s sac. Knowing what’s about to happen, he books it to the closest boulder and throws himself behind it just as the sac explodes.
Erend peeks up from over the boulder as a streak of red dashes at the frozen-over machine and stabs a spear up into a weak spot.
Aloy.
He beams as he jogs over to meet her where she’s already stripping the Bellowback for parts. “How many times is it that you’ve saved my ass now?”
Aloy grins when she looks up at him. “I lost count about a dozen or so back.”
Erend laughs at the jab; she’s not entirely wrong. “What brings you down this way?” Surely it isn’t just to see him…
She rips out the Bellowback’s heart. “Down to Camp Nowhere. Then to the Spinebreak.”
Of course the busiest person in the world wasn’t coming to see him specifically. He needs that reminder, as much as he often wishes that she was.
“You need any help?” The offer leaves his mouth before he even thinks about it, although he knows she’ll turn him down. Again.
She pauses for a few short moments, maybe actually considering his offer, before replying with, “No, I’ll be fine.” She puts her new parts into her pack and then straightens. “Headed to the Base?”
He nods. “Then over to Plainsong. Zo needs my help with something.”
Aloy furrows her brow. “She didn’t ask me for help.”
Erend shrugs, though he can’t help the smug grin on his face. “You’re not the only one who can be useful, Aloy.”
Despite the smile on her face, she still rolls her eyes at him. But before heading on her way, Aloy wraps her arms around him in a quick hug. “Be careful.”
He isn’t expecting it, so she’s already pulling away by the time his arms can react. “You too.” Erend settles for a brief squeeze of her arm, the strength beneath his fingers a reminder that she would be fine, before she grins and dashes away.
After a week of hard labor in Plainsong, followed by a couple days of rest at the Base (where Beta kicked his ass at Machine Strike every time), Erend’s on his way back to Hidden Ember. He hasn’t been walking too long when the distinct sound of annoyed machines forces him to deviate from his path.
He pulls off his hammer and turns towards the noise, ready for the fight. Then he spots Aloy in the long grass, trying her best to stay hidden from the pack of angry Apex Spikesnouts. Yeah, he should’ve guessed that it would be her. It’s always her.
Erend makes his way closer, trying to stay as quiet as he can. When he’s close enough to join the fight, Aloy finally bursts out of the grass and loosens a plasma arrow at the closest machine. The arrow strikes true and the machine falls to the ground, writhing from the elemental attack. Aloy turns to aim at another, but Erend sees a third machine circling around, likely waiting to attack from a blind spot.
Running forward, he swings his hammer back and then drives it forward just as the Spikesnout springs for Aloy. His hammer connects beautifully, the powerful swing sending the machine flying, smashing into the nearby rockface. Aloy whips her head around and gives him a smile so sincere that he’s pretty sure his heart stops for a moment.
They clean up the remaining machines quickly and he tends to a scratch on his arm while Aloy finishes gathering parts, including the valuable Apex Spikesnout hearts, and supplies.
“Thanks for the assist,” she says, crossing over to take a seat next to him, eyes immediately inspecting the severity of his cut.
He dismisses it with a shrug. “I’m sure you had it handled.”
Aloy gently pushes his hand away from his arm and takes over the bandaging with steady hands. He tries not to dwell on how the calluses of her fingers brush over his skin.
“I didn’t see it. It would’ve knocked me on my ass like a certain Bristleback did to you back in the Daunt.” She smiles at him, something teasing and soft.
Erend lets out a sigh. “Never gonna let me live that down, huh?”
“It was a little uncharacteristic of you.”
He would like to point out that anyone would be flustered after the sudden return of — what was the right way to label Aloy in his mind? — a friend after a six month absence without any word. How could he not be thrown off his game seeing her again? But he settles on: “I was distracted.”
He doesn’t think she’ll buy that, but she gives him a simple “uh huh” as she ties off the bandage. Then she looks up at him and her features shift into something softer than he’s ever seen on her before. It’s a look that makes him ache to run his fingers into her hair, to hold her close and not let go.
Thankfully, before he can do anything stupid, her eyes flick back to the road. “What happened to your mount?”
“Bellowback, remember?”
Aloy nods absently, lost in thought. “I’m headed back to the Base. We can hit that Bristleback herd on the way and I’ll get you a new one.”
Erend agrees easily. Backtracking to get a mount will still get him back to Hidden Ember faster than leaving here on foot.
“Lead the way.”
He thought that she would insist on flying for speed, but Aloy’s Sunwing follows them overhead while they stroll back to the Base. It means a lot to him that she’s taking the extra time to catch up, sharing tales and updates of what they’ve missed since they saw each other last. Aloy tells him about the Rockbreaker she took down in the Spinebreak while he tells her about all the new construction happening around Plainsong. With all of the land-gods back at work and the crops restored, the Utaru are restarting a bunch of projects they had abandoned.
“You get to knock down any walls?” she asks jokingly, a reminder of their recent mission.
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
Aloy doesn’t say anything in response, but she does give him a grin.
As soon as they reach the machine herd, Aloy effortlessly sneaks in and overrides one of the Bristlebacks, mounting it with ease and returning to where he is hidden in the long grass.
“Tell Morlund I say hi?” she says as she slides off its back.
“You got it. Good to see you again, Aloy.”
This time, he’s ready for Aloy when she comes in for the hug. He wraps his arms around her and holds her close enough that he can smell the lingering scent of pine needles and skybrush in her hair. He breathes it in, something so uniquely Aloy about it all.
It’s a long time before she moves to step away, but Erend isn’t complaining. He could’ve stayed like that forever, if she would let him.
“Good to see you too, Erend. I think I’ll be down near Hidden Ember soon, so…if you’re planning to leave again, just let me know so I don’t miss you.” Aloy smiles at him before calling for her Sunwing with an ear-splitting whistle.
He gets onto the Bristleback—a large, foreign thing after getting so used to Chargers—and starts heading back south. He knows that he shouldn’t dwell on it, but Aloy’s never asked about his location outside of mission reasons, and it’s a long ride back with only his own thoughts for company.
Erend’s dozing in his tent when someone starts hitting the alarm bell at the top of the tower. Years of freebooting and soldiering snap him awake immediately and he’s got his hammer in hand in a second.
“To the west!” one of the Oseram guards yells down from the top level of the tower. “Looks like someone was dumb enough to scrap it up with a Tremortusk!”
Yeah, he can hazard a guess at who that is.
He runs to the Bristleback, essentially launching himself onto its back and taking off before he’s fully settled. Logically he knows that Aloy can take down a machine like that by herself. But when she’s this close, he has to check on her. He’d wonder why she didn’t call for an assist, but…it’s Aloy.
When Erend arrives to the fight she’s got the machine caught in an electrical trap, using her precision bow to crack off the individual tusks.
“I thought you were going to call via Focus. Not destruction,” he yells as he rolls off the Bristleback. Then again, nothing says Aloy like unplanned chaos.
Aloy glances back at him and laughs, the thrill of the fight evident in her eyes. “Erend, I’m going to knock off one of its weapons. Get to it and use it!”
“On it.”
Erend runs towards the Tremortusk as quickly as his steel armor and the sand will let him. He doesn’t even think twice. If Aloy has a plan to take the thing down, he trusts her.
Aloy aims her arrows high, and in just two shots, the shock cannon on its back cracks off and falls to the ground. Erend changes direction as he scurries after it, though curses as the Tremortusk finally shakes free of the trap and gets back on its feet. Aloy’s dealt it a lot of damage, and the thing is pissed.
“Shit! Aloy!” he yells as the giant machine turns its attention to him.
“Hang on,” she yells right back as she pulls out a frost arrow and sinks it into the machine’s ammo drum on its back.
If she wasn’t so damn capable, he’d swear she had a death wish.
But it gets the job done and the machine swivels to look back at her. Erend finally gets his hands on the shock cannon. He’s never used one before — why would he? Unlike Aloy he rather sensibly tries to avoid the larger hunter killers — but it’s simple enough to figure out. He charges the cannon before releasing the shock pulse at the Tremortusk. It stumbles at the attack, but doesn’t fall, turning towards him with a screech of metal.
“Fire and spit,” he swears before tapping at his Focus to quickly scan how much more damage it can take. Seems like another hit of the cannon will do it. So Erend shoots it again while the Tremortusk starts to charge directly towards him. The pulse hits the machine just as it rears and Erend covers his head as pieces start to rain down around him.
The Oseram stays frozen in place until he hears Aloy frantically calling his name. Erend carefully crawls out from under the dead Tremortusk and doesn’t miss that had Aloy not already shot off the tusks, one of them would be inside his gullet right now.
He groans as he straightens. “Aloy, we really have to stop meeting like this.” But Aloy runs at him, tackling him into a hug with enough momentum to knock them both into the sand.
Erend lets out another pained groan, but it dies on his lips when he realizes that Aloy is still on top of him and looking at him, her eyes wide. Maybe it’s just residual energy from the shock cannon but he can feel every single nerve in his body vibrate under her gaze. Her eyes keep sweeping from his own, down to his lips, and back. He can’t read in her face what she’s thinking, but he’s just about to say slag it all and kiss her when she kisses him instead.
Her kiss is eager and heated, and Erend doesn’t hesitate to wrap one arm around her waist and slide a hand into her hair. Erend doesn’t want to give her a single doubt that he doesn’t want this, though he had no idea that she did. Any concern of why (and truthfully, every thought he’s ever had) flies from his mind as he traces her lips with his tongue. And when she parts them and teases her tongue against his, he’s pretty sure he’s going to happily die right here in the Stillsands, trapped between a pretty huntress and the hot sands, a wrecked machine to their backs.
He couldn’t even begin to guess how long they stay kissing in the sand. Every time that Aloy breaks away and he thinks she’s going to run, she just dives back in for another. This is, without question, the best damn day of his entire life.
Eventually, she pulls away and looks over at the Tremortusk. He can tell that she’s itching to carve out the parts she needs. If it wasn’t so endearingly Aloy, he’d take it as a jab at his kissing skills.
Erend moves both hands to cup her face. “I take it back. Let’s always meet like this.” But then he pulls his hands away so she can get up and get to work.
Aloy gives him a smile that surges through his entire body. Then she steals another kiss before getting up and offering him a hand. He takes it, trying to work out if he died. He died, right? The Tremortusk gutted him and he’s dead. This has to be the only explanation for what just happened.
Aloy makes quick work of stripping the machine, which makes him wonder how many of these things she’s taken down by herself. The giant heart gets strapped to the Bristleback and he helps her carry back everything else of value to Hidden Ember.
Once they haul everything up the ramps, Aloy grabs a fistful of parts and carries them over Morlund’s workbench. She holds up piece after piece, looking for something specific, and then turns to him. “Erend, can you help me?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. I’ll go find Morlund.” He’s well-aware that he’s not a tinkerer like their friend. Aloy and Morlund have conspired over plenty of projects while he and Abadund stood back, passing a flask back and forth and cursing about oblivious geniuses.
Her face softens and she nods at the workbench. “No. I want you to help me.”
“…Oh.” Erend comes over and looks at the organized mess on the table. “What do you need me to do?”
Aloy carefully points out things she needs him to hold while she strings cable through them, and after, to pull them together as tight as he can. They’ve cleaned armor together, he’s watched her make ammo, but she’s never asked him to help her upgrade one of her weapons before. He’s extraordinarily careful, giving everything the same level of care he’d give his own hammer.
When they finish, Aloy snaps the string and beams at him. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
He’s so overwhelmed by the power of that smile that it takes him a couple moments to answer. “Of course. Anything for you.” Erend has said that on more than one occasion, and always meant it, but it seems to carry a different weight after their…desert activities.
“In that case, would you mind if I stayed in your tent tonight? I’ve got some things to do before heading out.”
His heart skips a beat as he thinks about Aloy’s hair all spread out on his pillow. “Yeah, not a problem. I can crash with Stemmur.”
She’s picking through the rest of her salvage, but stops to look up at him. “I wasn’t going to kick you out.” Aloy tilts her head with a grin. “The tent is big enough for the two of us, right?”
“Yeah,” Erend manages to choke out before graciously holding everything that she shoves in his direction.
They make a couple stops: Abadund to sell some of the salvage, Delah and Boomer to donate a couple parts in exchange for the promise of a new weapon, the makeshift brewery for some food, and Morlund who chats off Aloy’s ear about a new project and then admires the craftsmanship of her upgraded bow. This gives Erend a lot of time to grapple with the fact that less than two hours ago they were making out in the desert and now she’s acting like nothing has changed.
Well, not exactly nothing. The way she keeps looking at him isn’t how she’s historically looked at him. But it doesn’t answer his unasked question of Why?
When they get to his tent, Aloy piles up what’s left of her salvage and unfurls her bedroll right next to his own. It’s seeing the absence of personal space between the bedrolls that breaks him.
“Okay, I wasn’t going to press, but what’s going on here?”
Aloy gives him a confused look while unhooking her quiver. “What do you mean?”
Erend scrubs his face, wondering how she could need clarification over that question. “Why did you kiss me?”
“I wanted to.” She keeps staring at him, as if the answer was obvious.
I wanted to. While that’s usually a reasonable explanation for whatever Aloy does, it really doesn’t help his racing mind. “Let me clarify: why now? Why today?”
“Erend, are you okay?”
He lets out a choked laugh. “Aloy, I’ve been crazy about you for over a year. I just want to know what made you decide that today was the day. And is it the only day? Are you ever going to kiss me again? I’ve been wondering about this for hours.”
Her eyes widen, and she sets down her bow. “Oh, Erend, did I do something wrong? Is there a different way that Oseram show their romantic interest first?”
Romantic interest? Fire and spit, she was going to kill him.
Thankfully, she seems to read the confusion in his face and she keeps talking.
“I…have been thinking about it for a while. But I don’t know; there was something about the way you ran right at that Tremortusk without hesitation…” Aloy sighs, tugging off the headband around her hair. “The way that you trust me, Erend. And the way that I trust you. It’s…different from what I have with everyone else.” Aloy pauses for a moment, seemingly trying to find the right words. “There’s nobody else I trust more to fight at my side. You’re my partner on the battlefield, but I…” She trails off, looking down at the ground.
At first, he doesn’t dare hope that she was really about to say what he wanted her to say. But hey, today he helped take down a Tremortusk and got to kiss the most beautiful girl in the world. Things are going well for him today. “…but you would like to be partners in all ways?” he offers carefully, hesitantly.
She raises her eyes to him. Maybe he’s just being exceptionally optimistic, but she seems relieved that he was able to fill in the rest for her. “Yeah. I’d like to try.”
Any lingering doubt falls away, replaced by relief and hope, and he crosses the tent to take her in his arms. “I’d really like to try that, too.”
He can feel her relax against him and wind her arms around his waist.
“I don’t…” Aloy’s words hang in the air unfinished, but he has a pretty good idea what she meant to say. So he gives her another gentle squeeze.
“Doesn’t matter,” he assures her. “We don’t exactly live normal lives, so normal relationships aren’t going to apply to us. It’s all just details.” He takes one of her hands and presses a kiss to her palm. “All you need to know is that I am always going to be here for whatever you need and all I need to know is that you want me to be.”
Aloy smiles at him before shifting her hand to cup his cheek and kissing him again. It’s not the same pent-up heat and need as the ones they shared in the desert; it’s soft and easy, like a promise. “I want you to be.”
They don’t even use her bedroll. Once they both strip down to what they wear for bed, and Aloy completely strokes his ego as she drinks in the sight of his bare chest for a good few moments, she curls up right next to him on his bedroll. Without any armor on, she's so small, her leathers so soft against his skin. It’s Aloy at her most vulnerable and he is humbled by this level of trust.
“Is this okay?” she whispers.
“It’s perfect.”