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“Just hold still. This won’t take long,” Erend says while running a clean cloth along the cut on her forehead.
Aloy lets out a sigh but does her best to hold still. She’s pretty sure that Erend is overreacting—the Ravager didn’t hit her that hard—but the sooner he finishes the sooner she can get to her long overdue weapon upgrades.
He dips the cloth into the hot spring bubbling at the eastern entrance to the Base, holds it in the breeze for a moment to cool it, and presses it back against her forehead. Aloy had burst up from the mountainside via her pullcaster and he dropped the laundry he was planning to do in order to tend to her cut.
It was unnecessary, but kind of him.
“It’s not too deep. I don’t think it will scar if we put some of Zo’s herbal medicine on it,” he continues. You’ll only have the one.” He runs a finger over it and Aloy’s breath traitorously catches in her chest. “How’d you get that, anyway?”
The moment flashes through her memories: a young Bast throwing a rock at her. “I got it when I was a kid.” She sighs, the memory stinging but no longer haunting the way it used to. “But I’m sure you’ve seen that.”
Erend frowns at her as he wipes along her cut. “What do you mean?”
“The whole thing is in my files. That Nora kid threw the rock at me?”
“They what?” he hisses. “On purpose? Is that more of that Nora outcast slag?”
Aloy tilts her head, matching his gaze with her own. “…yeah. You didn’t know? I assumed everyone knew about my childhood at this point.”
“Oh.” He places the cloth down and picks up the small pot of herbal paste. “I haven’t watched anything from your personal recordings that happened before we met at the Proving. It felt…I don’t know, extra intrusive.” Erend gives her that half-smile that always makes her feel at ease before carefully covering her cut with the paste.
This surprises her. On more than one occasion, she’s come back to the Base with one of her team members looking at something from a past journey. It never occurred to her that they wouldn’t just watch everything stored in her Focus. It moves her more than she expected that Erend gave her that privacy.
“Would you like to see?” The offer comes out before she really has time to think about it.
Erend finishes with the paste and rinses off his hands in the pool. “Of course. Are you sure about this? Only if you want to.”
“I do.” And she surprises herself how much she means it.
Aloy shifts next to Erend and pulls up the file. She shares it with his Focus so they can watch it at the same time and she presses play.
Seeing the Embrace clutches at her heart in a way that really shocks her. But it’s not homesickness, exactly. It’s the shock of a time before all of this. When she was just an angry young girl with no answers about her mother instead of a worn-down young woman shouldering the fate of the entire world.
Aloy starts with the scene of picking berries; how she longed to fit in and do her part for the Nora. When the Nora mother gathers the children and turns away, she can feel Erend’s body grow still. The anger in him is palpable, seeping out into the space between them. Aloy places a reassuring hand on his and almost right away he flips over his own so he can properly hold hers.
Before he can say anything, she cuts forward to the event of Bast throwing the rock. They both flinch as the rock comes hurtling towards her and he squeezes her hand when the younger her throws the rock to knock the other from Bast’s gasp.
“So you’ve always had good aim. I would’ve gone for the head.”
“I thought about it,” she admits. “But back then I still had hope that I’d fit in with the Nora one day.”
Erend turns to look at her, his smile all warmth and determination. “I mean this in the best way, but even without genetic destinies, you were always meant for more than that. The Embrace was far too small for you, Aloy.”
Aloy is struck by his words. He’s said something similar to her before, but the place, the meaning, and the scope of her mission were entirely different. The way she feels about the Oseram next to her is entirely different. She smiles at him before circling her arms around him into a hug. The action surprises her as, aside from the one she gave Teersa that felt obligatory, she’s really never initiated a hug before. It feels nice. “Thank you, Erend.”
His large hand runs up and down her back a few times before he speaks. “Is that jerk still around where I could toss a rock at him?”
She chuckles darkly before pulling out of his embrace. “He died in Helis’ attack.”
“Oh.”
Aloy squeezes his arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I kicked his ass in the Proving.”
The smile returns to his face. “That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Even the idiot I was then knew that you were something special.”
She smiles back, but the thing is, Aloy has never wanted to be special. When people call her Savior or Anointed, it makes her want to run away and commit fully to a life of hermitage. But when Erend calls her special, it doesn’t make her bristle. In fact, it usually makes her feel warm all over. She’s still trying to sort out exactly why, but she thinks it’s because he sees her as a special person to him.
Aloy isn’t sure how long they sit there holding hands and looking at each other, but eventually the air between them grows so heavy that she tips her head down and laughs. “I should probably go find something to eat.”
He nods. “And this laundry won’t wash itself.”
She feels the absence of his hand as soon as she pulls her own away. That’s something else she’s going to have to think about. Rost taught her a lot of things growing up, and she’s learned a lot over the past year, but there are plenty of emotions and feelings and social cues that are still so foreign to her.
Aloy carefully picks herself up from the ground. “Erend, are you busy later?”
He looks up from the pool and shakes his head. “No. Need something?”
“Would you…like to see more of my childhood? I’d like to hear more about yours, too.”
The Oseram looks at her for a few heartbeats before stuttering out: “Yeah, of course. I’d like that.”
Something flutters in her chest and she pushes it down before replying. “Great. My room after dinner?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there. It’s a date.” Erend’s eyes widen and he claps a hand over his mouth.
Aloy flushes as she heads inside.