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Kotallo’s brow shone with sweat and blood as he took down his, frankly, unknown number kill. The Ten knew he didn’t have enough fingers to count them. Even with his mechanical arm, and even if you included his toes.
The battle against Nemesis was waging, the overwhelming noise of metal against metal ringing across the land.
Kotallo roared, rounding on another machine, his eyes flitting up for the briefest moment as he saw Aloy shoot by overhead on a Sunwing.
It was the only moment needed.
Distracted for just a second, Kotallo's insides screamed - suddenly pierced and thrown by a machine that approached from his side.
His body went limp as he arced several feet, landing in a patch of soft, long grass.
Kotallo coughed on impact, and he groaned, the soft grass not enough to mitigate the pain of landing. Air rushed into his lungs as he quickly tried to assess himself; those worked at least. He placed his fingers on his side, pursing his lips when they slipped on something wet and warm.
He raised his hand to his eye level and he laughed gruffly as he saw deep, dark blood dripping from his digits to his palm.
Kotallo grimaced, trying to sit up, but he faltered, falling flat on his back once more as his insides churned. He coughed again suddenly, the force surprising him, and swallowed as his lips became wet with something that spat up from inside him, the metallic smell lingering under his nose.
Since he could not sit, he moved his arm out as far as he could and peered uncomfortably down at his side from his supine position.
He winced, disappointed to find the uncomfortable darkness of innards visible through where he’d been stabbed and a shredded exit wound, dripping with the impossibly black blood of his guts, hot and slippery. He let his head drop and he gazed up at the sky - it's almost sunset, he noticed with a smile. He's always liked those colours.
Kotallo's world may have been opened by the glowing object on his temple, but he doesn't need Old World knowledge for this.
Today he dies in battle.
Fighting for Aloy’s cause, fighting for the whole planet and its people.
He grinned, his teeth red and viscous.
An honourable death.
He had no regrets.
Except...perhaps one.
Kotallo spat the excess blood from his mouth, and brought his fingers, growing sticky with his own blood, up to his Focus.
‘Aloy?’
She didn’t respond; he waited a little, inhaling oddly as his body started to tremble.
‘Aloy,’ he tried again.
‘Kind of busy, Kotallo,’ she grunted in his ear.
He smiled; her voice, even this digitised copy of it, soothed and he let it wash over him. Aloy. His Aloy, even if that’s only what he privately referred to her as in his mind.
‘Did you get it?’ he asked, taking a slow steady breath.
‘Yes,’ she grunted, the sound of her bow firing off coming through the transmission. ‘We just need to hold it off a little longer, and we’ve won.’
‘Good.’
Kotallo’s eyes closed as they grew heavy, even as his torso continued to mildly spasm. He supposed this was as good a place as any to die, lying here in the tall grass; he hoped no one would accidentally tread on him.
‘Aloy?’
‘What?’
He smirked at her annoyance, fond memories skating over his mind with flashes of Aloy’s various expressions of frustration. Strong. Determined. Beautiful.
‘You have my thanks.’
The words were small. They could never convey the truth; the debt he owed her for helping him find his self worth, for bringing meaning back to his life. For being able to love her quietly, unknown, to watch all that she achieved and learning just how much pride a human could feel for another.
Kotallo listened to his heart beat, strangely loud in his ears, mixing with the sound of the grass that blew in the weather’s gale. His chest stuttered - trying to breathe but the muscles failing.
‘Kotallo?’ Her voice was sharp.
‘Stay focused,’ he reprimanded her.
‘Where are you?’ she demanded.
He lapsed into silence.
‘Kotallo!’
There was a familiar stirring in his gut; their spillage did not make them immune to Aloy. He frowned as she stressed.
‘Kotallo!’
‘I am well,’ he reassured her.
But Aloy dropped out the sky next to him, landing heavily in a crouch.
Ah, those damn Focuses.
She was radiant as he looked at her, hair mussed from battle, a good chunk of her face covered in machine oil. Perfection. As always.
Her eyes zeroed in on his wound, and she immediately turned to her medicine pouch, a hurried gasp leaving her as she found it empty. She stood up above the grass, her eyes scanning for something - anything. But Kotallo just lazily reached for her with the knowledge that berries would not suffice for this wound.
She looked down at his hand on her leg, as he lifted the corner of his mouth at her quietly.
They stared; wide green eyes meeting half-closed brown.
For a moment, he thought her frozen, until her mouth parted slightly and she sucked in a lungful of air. She dropped to her knees with her whole weight, landing in a pool of Kotallo’s blood with a sickening squish, and took his hand in hers.
‘You have a battle to get back to,’ he murmured.
The ever present sounds of warfare carried on around them to prove his point.
But Aloy stayed paused; to his surprise, her eyes turned shiny and tears began to fall gracefully down her face. She pulled his hand to her, kissing his knuckles with trembling lips. Her breath came out, tripping, small bursts that she tried to steady.
‘Don’t,’ he said at her tears. ‘To fall in battle for my people is a great honour.’
Kotallo considered something for a moment, and with a shallow breath, he pulled his hand from hers. This would be his only chance; he figured he couldn’t live to regret it.
Aloy watched, eyes bright with more tears, as his hand reached for her face, the white paint on his arm disturbingly close in colour to his unpainted flesh. His fingers glided into her hair and caressed her, his blood transferring and leaving a gruesome stain on her cheek as it swept past.
He murmured something too quiet for Aloy to hear, too subdued for her to read on his lips, a small bubble of blood popping on his mouth.
‘What?’ she said, leaning in closer.
He waited until they were almost nose to nose, exchanging the air between their mouths – waited until she met his eyes, until he could see each one of her freckles clearly even as his vision was darkening, and he paused just to admire her a little more.
‘I love you,’ he said again, and he marveled once more at how inadequate words are compared to what he tries to convey; the pressure in his chest whenever his thoughts traveled to her, the fold in her brows when she thinks and brings a curious finger to her lips, and everything Aloy.
She stared at him.
And then she whacked him on the shoulder, her face scrunching in exquisite frustration. She let out a noise, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, although she is visibly shaking.
‘Now you tell me.’
‘It’s a surprise,' he hummed, body jerking with an unexpected twitch.
He pulled her a little further until her forehead rested against his; he closed his eyes, having imagined this countless times – it was even better, her scent, her hair tickling somewhere on his neck. Aloy. It didn't matter that they both quaked.
The light from the sundown filtered through the grass, painting them in pinks and purples as he opened his eyes to look at her one more time. Kotallo’s trembling was beginning to slow, his pallor greying further.
‘Kotallo?’
‘Hm?’
She took a shuddering breath.
‘I love you.’
His lips curved - she was so beautiful as she said it.
‘I had hoped.’
His lips were suddenly warm, and he used the little strength he had left to kiss back and grip her fiery hair – and he’s thick and heady with her, finally – finally. He could do that for the rest of his life...
‘Fly on the wings of the Ten,’ she gasped against his mouth, his vision blurring as he committed the feel of her lips to his soul. He would take it with him.
Kotallo closed his eyes, and it all became...very dark.
Aloy stayed on her knees, watching over him. She stilled as she no longer felt his breath over her, as the sliver of pink she could always see right on the inside of his lips paled.
She took in a great, shuddering breath as her shake traveled deep within her, muscles flexing and releasing in an absurd almost allergic reaction, fingers clawing at the grass at her side to remind her: this was all real. Her lungs have caught fire and so she screamed, or something inside her does for she has never sounded so inhuman; not truly a scream but a tearing of her, shoulders wrested from one another, cleaved and separated. Never to be put back together.
She rested her forehead against his once more, her tears falling on him, here amongst the grass. But he was unbothered and still. So still.
‘Good bye, Marshal.’
And then she stood, her spear drawn slowly from her back in a fierce grip, as the cry in her throat transforms into a feral growl. She daubed her fingers into Kotallo's blood left on her cheek, marked with his love, and she dragged it across down towards her chin, striking her lips - four finger marks etched across the span of her face, cheek to chin.
When you are wounded, you must strike back. Draw blood.