Chapter Text
Aloy faces the last few minutes of flight towards the base with no small measure of anticipation and relief.
The past few months had been nothing but a cycle of mission after mission, and though each time she had to return to the base before setting again, any moments to simply rest were becoming few and far between.
In truth, the last time she had really had a moment to simply rest was back on the night after they had defeated the Zeniths, when her friends had somehow found enough energy within them to throw something akin to a celebration right there on the sands of the beach. When the relief of their survival had drifted away into a quiet contentment at each other's sides.
And Aloy had stood on the outer edge, watching it all with wearied eyes.
Kotallo had been the one to draw her from her own thoughts that night, for however brief a moment of time it had been.
The reality of Nemesis had crashed upon them all the morning after, and her life has been a whirlwind of movement and missions ever since.
It's been months since she's seen many of her friends, let alone be able to hold them all in the same place. Months since her last game of strike with Erend, since the last sleepless night spent up with Alva pouring over datapoints of the old world. Months since she and Zo had sat side-by-side at Varl's grave, sharing their grief and their memories.
Months since Kotallo had—
Aloy pulls her sunwing up short, readying to land on the overlook above the base. She doesn't have time to be dwelling on what had happened that night. She has bigger things to be worrying about, things that cannot be set aside.
Everything in her screams that she has to keep pushing, even as every failure and dead end has her body protesting each step she takes. But she can't afford to waste any time now. Not when every wasted breath is another moment lost in the search to find a way to stop Nemesis. Not when each fruitless trip only tips the scales towards failing against Nemesis.Not when the weight of every life upon this planet is settled back upon her shoulders once more.
Snow crunches beneath her boots as she slides off her sunwing, and Aloy lets out a ragged sigh.
For however much she knows she has to keep looking, it doesn't change the exhaustion that only curls deeper within her bones.
Her sunwing trills behind her, and Aloy waves back at it in a gesture that shouldn't ache as much as it does. "I'll be back up to unpack you later," she mutters, her head hanging low. "Just… let me get some food first. Maybe a nap. And you should spread out your wings while you can; we're probably heading back out again first thing in the morning."
The walk back down to the base is one that sends her muscles groaning in complaint, and by the time she hits the first door to the entrance, the heat that spills out from the hallway nearly makes her moan in relief. It warms against her wind seared cheeks, even as the thick leathers she had worn for flying suddenly feel altogether too thick to have on inside these metal walls.
Her footsteps echo as she crosses into the base, a scowl tugging across her lips as her gloved fingers prove annoyingly useless at untying the laces to her riding jacket, and a line of sweat is starting to trace its way down her back.
Aloy drags her hand up to her mouth, teeth nipping at the fingers of her glove and tugging her head backwards, the first syllable of a curse forming upon her lips as she looks up—
And makes direct eye contact with Kotallo.
Kotallo, who isn't wearing a shirt. Or pants. In fact, the only thing the man has on is a towel that looks almost comically small when wrapped around his hips the way it is now.
He isn't even wearing any paint, and his warm brown skin still half damp and covered in tattoos that curve across every muscle and trail all the way down to match a line of hair on his stomach that she had never even noticed before and it all drops to disappear right under that stupid towel and—why the hell is Kotallo half naked in the middle of the base?
The glove falls from her open mouth onto the floor.
Kotallo, for his part, looks just as put off by her sudden appearance as Aloy feels, because his own eyes are wide and startled and—how has she never seen him without paint before and—
"Commander." His hand moves to settle in a fist across his chest, and he gives one of those little dips of his head that has him looking through his lashes at her and—dammit why is she thinking about his lashes? "I hadn't realized you were meant to return today."
Aloy stares back at him, and something in her isn't even sure if she has been breathing these last few seconds, and everything is so unbearably hot and her face feels like it's on fire and if she doesn't get this jacket off right now she might just scream and—
"Put a shirt back on," she manages to choke out before pushing past him, her steps too fast and the air too heavy as she all but sprints towards her room.
It isn't until her door has closed behind her that Aloy is finally able to draw in a breath again, the flood of oxygen into her lungs dizzying and sweet as she crosses her room, her heart still lurching in her chest. "Fire and spit," she mutters, dragging off her other glove and all but tearing her jacket off her body. "Fire and—"
She drops down onto her bed with a sharp exhale, staring wide eyed up at the ceiling as she presses shaking hands to her still flushed cheeks. "What the hell was that?" Why was he even here right now? Shouldn't he still be in Meridian for the peace talks?
And why did she have to react like that?
Aloy rolls over with a groan, burying her face into her blankets. "Great job, Aloy," she mutters, closing her eyes. "It's been months since you've seen him, and the first thing you do is tell him to put a shirt on?" Aloy gathers her pillow up and pins it underneath her, staring off to the wall of her room, and beyond it, where Kotallo is now.
"Some reunion that was."