Chapter Text
Its been a rough few days.
Its not a fact that Aloy really wants to admit to herself, but it remains a fact all the same.
There was that pack of clawstriders from three days ago on her way through the Raintrance. Which of course meant she stumbled into the Bellowback after it, her nose still clogged with the stench of smoke and singed hair.
But it's just another battle. Just another bruise added to the patchwork markings left on her skin.
She can still remember the way the painter had looked at her the last time she had stopped by in Scalding Spear, that look of subtle concern matched with something that felt a little bit like disapproval when Aloy had asked if he could make sure they all got covered.
It wasn't a big deal, not really. She had just been meaning to see Erend on that trip, and if he saw them, he'd start asking questions. And more questions. And pretty soon, he'd be leaving behind his responsibilities to stand by her side and make sure she "didn't get killed."
Not that she was too worried about that. She always knew how to get out—even if it was rough. She… she trained to be better. To survive. To stand alone.
Because if she got too close… too used to someone standing at her side, quiet comfort, knowing eyes, and a faint trace of a smile, and then she lost them—
Aloy stops those thoughts in their tracks and shoves them back down her throat, gulping down a couple more swallows of cold mountain air for good measure.
She doesn't have time for that. For thinking about things like that.
For thinking about…
A shake of her head, and she rolls out her shoulders, turning her attention back towards the whole reason she had come out here in the first place.
Sunwings.
Her current mount hasn't fared too much better than her these past few days, and there's only so much she can do to patch him up with field repairs. So last night, when she should have been sleeping, honestly, with how bone deep the exhaustion in her had been, she had mapped out a route up to the Bulwark that would lead her right over a sunwing nest.
If she can land her shots just right, she should be able to use the salvage to patch up Sora and make any additional repairs he might need.
She just cant screw this up.
Simple as that.
"Sound good to you, Sora?" Aloy calls back, catching the attention of the machine behind her. "I swap out some of that solar plating on your wing and we have some smooth flying up to the Bulwark from here?"
The sunwing lets out a chattering sound, and Aloy nods in agreement, freeing up her sharpshot bow from where it is nestled on the machine's side. "I'll make this quick, then," she mutters, taking two steps closer to the ledge of the cliff she's on.
She's been here before. Been in this exact position before, too. It's the best angle to pick off the shield casters—and maybe even the plasma fin—before the sunwings down in the small gorge below get too agitated and start trying to fly up to her position.
High ground.
Rost had taught her that years ago and she still sticks to it, even now. The enemy with the high ground is the enemy you fall to, so its always better to raise your standing and even the odds.
She had joked with Kotallo once that he always had the high ground, by virtue of being so tall.
And what had that man done? He had looked her in the eye and murmured—
I would get on my knees if you saw it fit, Commander.
Aloy chokes that memory sharply within her mind, all but mentally kicking it off the edge of the cliff. She doesn't need to be thinking about him right now.
"Focus on the mission, Aloy," she mutters, running her fingers over the arrows at her hip. "Don't get distracted."
It should be an easy thing to ask of herself, but lately it's been harder and harder to keep it up. To keep him out of her head.
It doesn't help that she had forced herself to take the long route around to the Bulwark, just so she didn't have to fly over the Memorial Grove. Because if she was there… if he was right there…
She would get distracted. And she can't afford to get distracted again.
Another huff of breath. Aloy drops into a crouch two steps from the edge of the cliff, then hisses out another seething exhale, flinching at the lance of pain up her outer thigh.
Those Clawstriders she had tangled with the other day hadn't wanted to go down easy. She should be used to it—she is used to it—used to the flash of pain and gritted teeth as she stitches herself back up.
Things she had to learn to do alone not too long ago, but now it feels like it's all she's ever known.
Even as she knows that once—she was cared for.
Aloy shakes her head, adjusting her position and drawing the string on her bow back, steadying her breath.
Focus on the mission.
The first shot drops just below where she really wanted it—but she's not surprised, nor concerned. The tearblast pod attached to it hums—she swear she can almost here it from her station up on the ledge, and when the pod explodes—
The Sunwing below turns into a squawking, flailing mess as the shieldcaster on its wing blows clean off, it's body staggering even as Aloy nocks her next arrow and draws it back, her focus shifting to the plasma fin of the next sunwing back.
One breath out, and the arrow looses.
The arrow collides in sharp and perfect impact—tearing through the fin and dousing the machine in a rush of purple energy—satisfaction pulling through Aloy's gut at the sight of it.
She stands, readying to change her angle and continue the fight, but hisses on the next step, another shot of pain ripping against her leg as she moves.
Keep focused.
Push through it.
Aloy sidles along the cliff's edge, drawing arrow after arrow to shoot down from the sky and shatter through metal and wire.
She can feel her pulse pounding in the gash on her thigh with every beat of her heart.
One sunwing goes down in a wash of sparks and screeching noise.
The other lifts its head, plasma flickering hot and molten through the air as it fires at her.
Two steps, then roll.
Aloy pushes off to dodge the blast—
—a ripping sensation in her leg nearly kicks the breath out of her lungs, and Aloy falters from the searing sensation of it.
She doesn't catch her momentum.
The plasma scorches startlingly close to her head, and Aloy drops immediately, adrenaline kicking into her veins.
Two steps to the edge—
Her foot skids, and then the edge is gone.
A frantic curse punches it's way out of her throat as her she falls.
Shieldwing. Shieldwing. Shieldwing shieldwing shieldwing shieldwing!
But every time she summons the device, it flickers haphazardly to life and sputters back out—that damn Bellowback!—and the cliff and rock cuts raw patches across her skin as she scrapes further down sharp incline.
Aloy twists in her fall, breath slamming painfully inside her lungs as her hands turn to clawing against the rock, desperate for a handhold, for a ledge, for anything—
A jut of rock beneath her hand—and she catches it, her whole body jolting from the sudden stop—and another curse tears its way free from her throat as lightning hot pain kicks through her shoulder.
Swallowing down a ragged cry, Aloy hangs from her one hand, pulse pounding in her ears as her feet scrabble at the cliff face.
Her whole arm feels like she's doused it in blaze, waves of heat roiling up through her senses as she strains to look over her shoulder.
Another swear cuts across the tip of her teeth.
Because down in the gorge are flickering red flares.
Damn stalkers.
Aloy dips her head down to her chin, pulling in a breath that seems to burn on its way down, hot like fire under her skin.
She can still get out of this.
Her feet catch purchase against the stone, and she settles her weight onto them as best she can, everything in her right shoulder screaming at her the longer she holds on, and there's a tremble beginning to work its way into her hands.
She can do this.
There's blood dripping down her leg. She can't feel the pain so much as it is the hot sensation of it against her skin, soaking into her Nora leathers.
Damn it.
She definitely pulled her stitches.
Aloy affords herself another half breath—
—And forces her arm into motion, a ragged cry tearing itself from her throat as she strains her weight upward—no doubt alerting those Gaia forsaken stalkers below—but she can't even care anymore. She has to get out of this.
A sunwing lets out a warning call, and the hair on the back of her neck prickles in apprehension.
Aloy's left hand slams down on the shieldwing mechanism on her right arm. At the same time her feet kick her straight away from the cliff face, and she's falling—
The shieldwing finally activates, and her shoulder jolts again, that white-hot sensation digging deeper towards her spine and blurring through her vision.
Keep it together, Aloy.
The ground approaches far faster than she can prepare for, and she crashes into it in a rush of rock and ice and raw and aching skin, her arm barely able to come up and protect her head in time.
Or maybe she doesn't. Her ears are ringing as she rolls onto her back, her vision spotting and wavering as she pulls in a wheezing breath, and vaguely, she realizes that an awful lot of her body feels like it's in pain.
At least, it should be in pain. In a way, everything feels very far away as she stares upwards, blinking lazily at the darkened bellies of snow-laden clouds as they stretch towards the last few patches of remaining blue sky.
Then something red and bright eclipses through her vision, and just as distantly, Aloy knows the flare means something bad.
The red… the flares… the…
Stalkers!
Every fuzzy sensation slams into Aloy with crippling clarity all at one—dull pulse behind her skull rising into a roar, the litany of scrapes along her skin, the ache of pulled stitches at her hip, and something twinges in her chest every time she tries to breathe. The cold snow and rock beneath her, the sound of sunwings squalling in distress. The last remaining smoke from the Stalker flare drifting into her lungs.
It doesn't matter. Aloy shoves herself onto her feet, even as she swallows back a ragged gasp at the shock that rolls up her leg, white-hot and searing beneath her skin.
She has to get out of here.
One step forward, and the world shifts violently around her, her vision spotting through with darkness, like the shadow of snow across her eyes.
The sound of a Stalker dart ricochets through the air.
Aloy has just enough presence of mind to dive into a roll, and the air above her back goes searing hot from the dart flying over her.
Her foot feels like she's dipping it into fire.
She's probably fine. Probably just a sprain. Hopefully just a sprain. She can't afford for it to be anything worse.
The stalker lets out a scraping, growling noise.
Her head feels like it's stuffed with wool, everything but the pain going fuzzy again on the edges, the sun going strangely dim as she jolts back in the opposite direction.
Salvage be damned. She has to get out of here.
Her arm screams as she fumbles for her focus. Aloy wheels around, her other hand darting towards the warrior bow she keeps clipped at her hip.
Come on, Sora. Aloy calls out to the machine, a focus ping and a desperate whistle spilling out from cold-chapped lips at the same time.
Light catches across the cloaking of the stalker, and Aloy levels her bow towards the beast, steadying her aim.
The sound of wing-beats thudding through the air.
The stalker before her snarls, lunging towards her.
Aloy unloads three arrows straight into its ocular lenses, and it howls, crashing to the ground.
Metal feet latch onto her back, and Aloy hardly has the chance to pull in a breath before her sunwing tosses her into the air, swooping beneath her.
The impact jolts up her body, and she nearly falls off, the world eclipsing into darkness all at once.
Aloy jams a breath down into her lungs, her hands snaking forward and tangling themselves into the wires running down the sunwing's neck.
"Back to the shelter," she croaks, blinking past the shadows in her vision. "Come on, Sora, back to the shelter."
Does it even understand? She can't say. She can barely hold on, but it's all that she can do now, to hold on even as her body protests every jolt that comes from each flap of the sunwing's wings.
She just has to hold on.
-
The sunwing lands.
She feels it more than she sees it, and by the Ten she feels it, as if each of her bones suddenly scrapes against the other and her body aches from the inside out.
She'd like to say it was a graceful dismount. In truth, it's more of her own crash to the earth, rock and stone rushing up to meet her and it is all that she can do to catch herself upon her knees and one hand, her head spinning as she bows it to meet the earth.
But the shelter is right there—right in front of her. All she has to do is get inside, and she'll be fine. Could probably sleep off the worst of the headache—that usually worked before, and maybe with her thoughts feeling less fuzzy she could focus on whatever was still bleeding.
Aloy shifts her weight back, and there's red smears left behind on the rock when she lifts her head.
Something about that feels important.
A groan drags itself from her lungs—or at least, she thinks it comes from her. There isn't anyone else here as she forces herself to sit up, leaning back against the sunwing until she can move again without feeling like throwing up.
Hadn't it been morning only a few minutes ago? Why is the sun so low upon the horizon now? She didn't… couldn't have been on the sunwing for that long.
How much time is she losing even now, just by sitting here? She has to get up to the Bulwark, and then past it, further north—
Aloy lurches forward, bile searing up her throat and burning in her mouth, acrid and horrible and she can hardly breathe—
She shudders, and her mouth still tastes foul as she sinks back against the sunwing with a sigh, her gaze lazily focusing upon the shelter only a few steps away.
The shelter.
She had wanted to do something with the shelter.
The wind chooses to remind her—it's cold outside, and the sudden shift of the icy cut of it sends her trembling and pushing herself to her feet all at once.
Had her foot hurt before? It doesn't seem to feel that way now. Nothing more than a dull numbness radiating up from where she's fairly certain her leg is supposed to be. Everything feels numb, in a way, everything but her skin prickling from the cold.
Aloy limps into the shelter, and the darkness within it is like a balm to the headache splitting through her skull. An audible sigh of relief finds its way out of her throat as she collapses to her knees to the padding laid down in place of a bedroll.
She should get her own bedroll, but it's still clipped to the side of her sunwing, and that is just… so far away now. So Aloy sighs, and lets her cheek sink against the woven mat of sticks beneath her, ignoring the scrape of it against her skin.
Everything…
It's cold. Should she have tried to light a fire? Or grabbed her own blankets? Her… she had wanted to bedroll, but she had decided against it, right?
It must not matter that much.
Aloy heaves out a breath, curling onto her side and wincing from the flare of pain that emanates from her shoulder as she cradles her right arm close against her stomach.
She'll just sleep it off. Everything should… it should feel better when she wakes.
That sounds right.
That…
-
"Kotallo."
Kotallo lifts his head from the sudden sound of Gaia's voice in his ear. It is a now regular occurrence that he can still never quite find himself accustomed to, to have the living vision's voice upon him at any moment.
Unlike the others, who must call in order to contact him, Gaia is able to reach to his focus at her own whims, just as she is able to do unto all of the others.
It is the small price they pay to be able to remain in contact at any time, and to remain connected both to the base, and the rest of the squad as a whole.
Especially in these days, when the squad has broken up into their respective missions, and the distance between them seems to grow further and further each passing day. Even after returning from Meridian and reporting back to the Grove, and the quiet still feels insurmountable between them all.
They remain—caught, stationary in their separation—and the only one who flits freely between them is the one they see the least.
Aloy.
He had seen on the map that she was back in Tenakth territory after her stint in Dunehollow with the Oseram—her icon skirting around the lower reaches of the Raintrance before cutting upwards to follow the northern draw of the Stand of the Sentinels.
He had tried to convince himself that she was not avoiding him on purpose—that she simply had other tasks to be done—even as he knows that an overnight stop at the Grove would have cost her far less time than the circuitous route that she had taken instead.
But the doubt still sticks inside his chest, ugly and raw and unable to be avoided for all that he hates its presence.
"Kotallo? Kotallo."
He pulls in a sharp breath at the repetition of his name, shaking his head to dismiss his wandering thoughts. "Apologies, Gaia," he murmurs, lifting his head as if the AI might somehow sense it and know the fullness of his attention is upon her now. "How may I assist?"
"I have been tracking Aloy's vitals for some time now," The AI says, with no form of preamble or hesitation. Kotallo's heart stutters at the sound of Aloy's name. "They have a tendency to fluctuate as she finds herself in combat, but they have been at concerning levels for the past few hours, and her location has not changed in just as much time."
A pause, and there is something that almost sounds like concern in the living vision's voice as she speaks again. "Kotallo, I am worried about her."
A curse sticks in the corner of his mind as Kotallo pulls in another breath, just as he pulls up the map displaying all of their locations.
Aloy's remains to the northwest of his own, nestled against the sheersides, and a ping of granted access from Gaia reveals a copy of her vitals in the corner of Kotallo's display.
His stomach drops.
"What do you need me to do?" Kotallo croaks, and the sound of his pulse roaring in his ears almost drowns out Gaia's response.
"Go to her, please." He cannot see her, but he can almost feel the desperation bleeding through Gaia's words. "Kotallo, you are the only one who is close enough to—"
"I'm on my way."
Kotallo discards the trade route he had been studying—it is overwhelmingly unimportant in light of Aloy—in light of how he is truly needed.
In light of how he has now failed his Commander.
"Don't worry, Gaia," he assures her. "I'll find her. And she… I will do all that is within my power for her."
Two steps more to the edge of the room, and Kotallo breaks into the hall just as he respectfully dismisses himself from conversation with the AI.
A stop to the throne room—to report his intended absence to Hekarro, and then his sunwing.
And nothing will keep him from reaching Aloy, to make up for his failings before.
-
The first tell of misfortune is the unlit fire as Kotallo comes upon the shelter on the mountain path.
The flight had been far too long, even as he knew he was pushing the sunwing past the safer limits of its speed, but every second was another one that Aloy spent alone, in Ten only knows what kind of state.
But when he had crested over the last peak, and the shelter had finally been revealed along the path, the concern in his chest had sharpened into something more dire when not even a trace of smoke was caught upon the air.
Even now, with his Sky Clan blood settled warm within his veins, he can still recognize the chill of the air against his skin.
Aloy is not like him. The cold has always affected her more strongly than he has ever known, and she has lamented of it more than once in his presence.
And she has no fire.
If it were not for the sunwing nestled against the shelter, he would almost believe it abandoned.
Kotallo tips his sunwing into a nosedive, another barrel roll to urge it faster, before he suddenly pulls it level with the horizon, slowing its descent enough to bring them to a landing, rather than a crash.
His feet hit the ground before the machine's ever do—he is certain.
"Aloy!"
Her name rips from his throat, and Kotallo sprints across what little remains between him and the shelter, another note of sharp concern sliding like a blade between his ribs.
The wind barriers have not been strung up either, leaving the whole of the shelter exposed to the bitter chill in the air, the promise of snow heavy in his lungs as Kotallo slams to a halt.
To its credit, Aloy's sunwing has positioned itself against the worst of the wind, but there is so little that its wings can go.
He would almost swear that there is resignation in its eye as it turns its head toward him.
Kotallo's breathing hitches again at the sight of Aloy's bedroll and gear all still strapped to the machine, and above that, smeared against the woven saddle she had commissioned from the stitcher at the Grove—something has dried, dark and black and the sight of it churning in his gut.
He has been in enough battles to know what blood looks like upon Tenakth reeds.
"ALOY!" He shouts again, pushing past the sunwing and into the shelter.
Kotallo stumbles and nearly falls from the body across his path.
Her body.
His heart leaps into his throat at the same time that a choking cry pries itself free from his lungs, and Kotallo falls to his knees at the first wash of despair that crashes into him with all of the strength of a Tremortusk.
But no. No.
A desperate tap to his focus—and the achingly shallow rise of her breathing—and Kotallo knows that she still lives.
"Aloy," He chokes, shifting closer towards her as his eyes adjust to the shadows, and his hand trembles as it reaches to brush across her arm.
Her chest rises—it must, it cannot be a trick of his eyes alone—and Kotallo swallows down another breath as he turns his attention back to his focus display, letting the system scan over her fully.
What he sees sends his mouth dry.
Red alerts ping up from where they are written in light across her body, highlighting the damage that she has sustained, and the extent of it seems to crack into his ribs and hold his lungs tight, stifling his next breath as he continues to stare.
Fractured ankle.
Laceration across hip.
Bruising at ribs.
Dislocated shoulder.
Concussion.
Dermal Abrasions.
Kotallo closes down his focus and looks away, steadying his breath.
He's seen worse than this before.
The ache at his left shoulder reminds him of such.
But this is Aloy.
And for all of her fire and storm, she is little more than a shadow before him as her body lists with the effort of another breath.
Kotallo drags his hand down his face, dismissing his despair and binding it instead to resolve. If her flame is reduced to shadow and ember, then he refuses to let it whither to ash alone.
He has seen worse than this before—and Aloy has survived worse as well.
And damn the Ten if she won't survive this as well.
Kotallo pushes himself to his feet, and gets to work.