It’s been months since he’s seen her, but when Aloy’s path aligns with his once more, Nil finds his world turned on its axis yet again.
This fic follows the canon events of the Gauntlet Runs in Horizon: Forbidden West (spoilers included) from Nil’s POV! It will also spill into the post-Gauntlet Run events of the first fic in this series, A Race That Can’t Be Won. Many thanks as always to @kittleskittle for being my enabler and partner in Niloy crime! And a special shoutout to the new Niloys on our Horizon server, y'all are wonderful and I adore having you around and causing chaos.
———-
The sun beat down on them, hot and fierce as it burned in the desert sands that whipped up at the slightest wind. For all that it was worshiped so devoutly in his homeland, Nil felt that the sun tormented this land even more.
Although, he acknowledged, his perception may be slightly altered by the masked helmet he wore on a perpetual basis now.
From where he stood in the corral, surrounded by machines that once would have joyfully wielded their metal hooves to grind his blood and bones into the sand, his gaze wandered to the source of the cries filling the air. The mask was necessary. A physical cage that set his soul free to race through sand and snow alongside the children of those he had once faced on the other side of his sword.
The first two chapters of my new Kotaloy longfic are up on AO3!
The prologue is below; ~2000 words. Kotallo POV, and some angst/gore.
**********************
He woke to the sound of howling.
All around him, from every quarter, he heard a mad howling cacophony of noise. Machine screeches, the battle cries of his people, the agonized screams of the wounded, the desperate commands of the fleeing Carja.
He was confused. How…? Why was he pinned, why was he lying here, the battle was still happening, he needed to rise, but his legs… by the Ten, the damned Bristleback—
“Kotallo!” A hand grabbed his shoulder.
Agony. Agony like he had never felt before, a bone-deep agony in his left arm as a pair of tattooed hands tried to pull him free from the dead Bristleback that was crushing his legs—
Athunk of arrow in flesh. The hands left him, and a hot rush of rage swelled in his chest. Not like this. I will not go down like this. He snarled and shoved at the Bristleback with both arms.
The Ten save him, that pain again, pain in his left arm so sharp and hot that it was blinding, but there was no arm. His arm was gone, his arm… He was trapped under the Bristleback that had devoured his arm, ground it up like it was nothing more than dirt—
Not ten paces away, a Bristleback slammed to the ground and skidded, uncontrolled, across the churned-up grass.
Alarmed, he craned his neck to look. Its rider, one of Regalla’s rebels, flew off of the Bristleback to land clumsily on her side, and before she could rise, an arrow appeared in her throat.
“Varl, to the left flank! Help the Carja!”
“I’m on it, Aloy!”
The outlanders, Kotallo thought, and he shoved at the Bristleback again with his good arm. He shoved and twisted his hips, trying to lever the dead machine off of his body, but he couldn’t lift the damned thing and free his legs enough to kick his way out. He couldn’t lift the machine, he couldn’t… with only one arm, he couldn’t free himself. He couldn’t defend himself, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t stop Regalla’s rebels from killing his fellow Marshals, he couldn’t… with only one arm, how could he — how was he supposed to—?
A strange metallic hum and a clash of blade-on-blade drew his attention once more. With some difficulty, he twisted his shoulders and craned his neck back to look at the field.
The battle was over, and a duel was happening instead: a duel between Grudda and the outlander with hair like blood. For a few seconds, Kotallo was compelled to watch. The blood-haired woman was holding her defense quite well, but Kotallo had no doubt that she would die. Grudda’s skill had been renowned even before Kotallo became a Marshal, and he appeared to be equipped with some sort of… a shield made of light, it seemed.
The woman will die, Kotallo thought, and he turned back to his immediate problem. He shoved at the Bristleback fruitlessly, frustration and pain rising in tandem as he failed to free himself — I must get free, I will not go down this way, I can’t—
“Your turn! Come down here and face me!”
He looked up once more. The bloodhaired woman was… by the Ten, she was alive. She was breathing hard and spattered with blood as she stood over Grudda’s corpse, her chin lifted high as she challenged Regalla to a battle one-on-one.
It was no good, though, Kotallo knew. The outlander did not know their ways, and she didn’t know that her victory over Grudda meant that her life was hers to keep for now — and thus that Regalla would refuse to fight her on this day.
And now Regalla was riding away, her remaining people following in her wake on their cursed red-eyed mounts, and all that was left was the pain.
The pain. It was not just in his arm now, but in his legs and his torso too: pain from being crushed by the metal beast that had devoured his arm. It was an overwhelming and exhausting sort of pain, and it was travelling up to his ruined arm to throb like an angrily-beating heart. The pain was an angry pulse, a pulse of failure, a pulsing reminder of everything he did not do. He did not help to broker Chief Hekarro’s peace. He did not protect his fellow Marshals from Regalla’s unprecedented attack. He did not even manage to die with honour on the battlefield.
“He’s alive! The Marshal, he’s — by the Ten, his arm.”
“Don’t just stare, soldier, pull him out.”
Leave me. The thought swam vaguely in his mind, but he couldn’t find the strength to make it leave his mouth. A few soldiers were surrounding him — he wasn’t sure who, because it was hard to see. The weight left his legs, and hands were hooking under his armpits to pull him out.
Leave me. I should have died. His vision was swimming. His arm was thumping, a hot dull pain like an ailing heart.
“Marshal! Marshal Kotallo, sir, stay awake!”
“He’s lost a lot of blood…”
“Get him to the camp!”
Leave me, he wanted to yell, but he couldn’t move his lips. He could barely keep his eyes open. He couldn’t… his arm, his honour, left behind on the battlefield…
I should have died, he thought.
******************
He did not die. But the life that was left to him was a pitiful shred of what it once had been.
The remains of his arm were cleaned. The dead flesh was painfully cut away, and the wound was stitched shut and hidden with a bandage and a scarf. He was given medicine to stop infections and more medicine for pain, and the wound eventually knitted itself together.
The herbalist and stitcher at Scalding Spear were surprised. His wound had healed up faster and better than they had expected — especially since they had really just expected him to die. Still, this brought him no comfort. What use was a healed wound when what it really meant was a gaping absence that could never be restored?
When he returned to the Memorial Grove, he was put to trial-by-combat to prove that he had the strength to continue his duties as a Marshal. He fought a Bristleback in the arena — the same type of machine that took his arm, to prove that the same mistake would not happen again — and when he finally felled the thing, all he could think was that Hekarro had let him off too easily. It was just one Bristleback. Any Tenakth warrior worth their salt could fight a Bristleback on their own. He was meant to be a Marshal, the strongest of Hekarro’s warriors and lawkeepers, so why was he permitted to keep his life and his station after such a feeble trial?
He wanted another trial. He was convinced that Hekarro was pitying him by pitting him against such a basic machine in the ring. When he brought his concerns to the Chief, however, Hekarro disagreed.
“If you think that a Bristleback was all that you faced, then you need to look closer,” he said. “You faced more than just a machine in the ring that day.”
“I don’t understand,” Kotallo said.
“You will. In time.”
“That is not what I mean,” Kotallo said. “I don’t understand… how could you still want me by your side? I am…” He glanced in disgust at his arm, then gestured at the bandaged stump. “I’m maimed. I am a shadow of the warrior I once was.”
“Your trial-by-combat would say otherwise,” Hekarro said.
“I am of no use to you anymore!” Kotallo snapped.
Hekarro raised his eyebrows, and Kotallo was instantly ashamed. To shout at a superior, to reply with such insubordination… it was unbecoming of a soldier. It was unlike him. What was he becoming?
He took a deep breath and bowed his head. “Apologies, Chief.”
Hekarro waved him off. “Your service is still needed, Marshal. Now more than ever. In fact, I have a special duty for you.”
He frowned. “A special duty? What is it?”
“As you know, Commander Tekotteh has yet to send his warriors for the Kulrut.”
Kotallo sighed. “I am aware. And unsurprised.”
Hekarro smiled faintly. “I thought that would be the case. You will speak to him on my behalf.”
Kotallo gaped at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You will go to the Bulwark and convince Tekotteh to send his challengers to the Kulrut.”
For a moment, he was dumbfounded. Hekarro wanted him to convince Tekotteh to send challengers? He wanted Kotallo to convince Tekotteh of — well, of anything? And with only one arm?
I can’t, Kotallo thought. It is impossible. It cannot be done, and certainly not by me. He bowed his head. “Chief, with all due respect—”
Hekarro cut him off. “I know what you’re going to say. But you know as well as I that you have no choice. You are the only one who can do this.”
“Because I am your only Marshal,” Kotallo pointed out.
“Yes, but that is not the only reason why,” Hekarro said.
Kotallo said nothing, but he was displeased. Hekarro was undeniably wise, but he could also be infuriatingly mysterious at times.
The Chief chuckled as though he could hear what Kotallo was thinking. “You will not be conducting this duty alone, Marshal. I will be sending someone to assist you, so your missing arm should not be an imposition.”
This displeased him even more. It was bad enough to suffer the absence of his arm when he was alone with his thoughts. It would be even worse to suffer it with someone else around to stare at his stump and ask him if he didn’t feel like half a man, like half a warrior, without his arm. Or worse yet, to travel with someone who would purposely avoid looking at or talking about his arm, as though it was a rotting corpse in the corner that no one could dispose of.
“I don’t require assistance,” Kotallo said stiffly. “I will make the journey alone.”
“You will not,” Hekarro said calmly. “You will have a partner for this, and that is my final word.”
That was it, then. If the Chief was putting his foot down, there was nothing Kotallo could do about it. “As you say,” he gritted out. “Who is this… partner who will be accompanying me? One of your personal guard?”
“Not one of my guard, no,” he said. “She is not even Tenakth, in fact.”
Kotallo frowned. “Not Tenakth?”
Hekarro shook his head. “Do you recall the blood-haired outlander from the Embassy? The one by the name of Aloy?”
“I do,” Kotallo said cautiously. Ever since his return to the Grove, he had been hearing talk among the Tenakth about the feats of the Nora warrior from the east, to whom Fashav had given rite of passage. It had been said that she was helping the Utaru to heal the machines that planted their fields, that she snuck into Regalla’s outposts and eliminated their fighters with the stealth of a Stalker, and one hunter had told him that there were rumours she could take down a Thunderjaw single-handedly.
From the sounds of things, the woman was a formidable warrior. But none of that was relevant, not if she was not Tenakth.
Kotallo narrowed his eyes. “You mean to send her? But she — you said it yourself, she is not one of us. What makes you believe she will agree to help?”
“Everything that Dekka and I have heard about her makes me believe it,” the Chief said. “She will not refuse.”
“How do you mean to convince her?” Kotallo said. “Will you challenge her to a duel?”
Hekarro smiled. “Your injury has made your tongue as sharp as your blade.”
Kotallo clenched his jaw. Hekarro was right; he was being unforgivably sharp, in ways that he would never have been before he’d lost his arm. But the injury was just so distracting: the shooting pains, the uncomfortable feeling at night like there were ants creeping beneath the skin…
Cease your complaining, he scolded himself, and he straightened his posture. “Forgive me, Chief,” he said gravely. “It’s not my intention to question your methods. But what makes you believe she will even come here to the Grove, so you can petition her assistance?”
“Dekka believes it so,” Hekarro said, “and I believe it, too. It is only a matter of time.”
Kotallo grunted. A moment later, Dekka appeared at the door with a smile on her face. “Chief, the outlander is here.”
“What?” Kotallo blurted.
Dekka’s smile widened, and Hekarro squeezed his shoulder. “The time has come for your duty,” he said. “Go to Stone Crest. I will have the outlander meet you there.”
Kotallo wanted to protest. He wanted to reject this duty, and he wanted to reject the company of this unknown woman who would undoubtedly disdain him as much as the rest of the tribe, and with good reason. But he was a soldier, a Marshal, and he had no choice but to do as Hekarro had bade him.
He saluted Hekarro, then strode out of the strategy room. And so it begins, he thought grimly. So began his first task after his injury, the first duty Hekarro had conferred upon him: a completely futile duty that he was sure to fail, in the company of an outlander whose motives were entirely unknown.
And so it begins, he thought: the rest of my ruined life. Perhaps he ought to grow accustomed to failure, because things would not get better from here.
His life would never get better. His arm was gone, and his warrior’s pride with it. No matter what Hekarro said, Kotallo knew the truth: he was nothing but a cautionary tale now, and once Hekarro had a new set of Marshals to carry out his word, he would have no value anymore.
No matter the result of his trial-by-combat, no matter what the Chief tried to say, Kotallo knew the truth: his life was a ruin now, and he would never be whole again.
The body hair???? That perfect, delectable patch of hair??? It begs for fingers trailed through it, lying in bed late at night. Idle touches from a lover’s hand while their head rests on his shoulder.
It just, lives in my head rent free right now. And not nearly enough people on this hellsite are talking about it.
It was close to midday when Drakka spotted the signature blue headlight of a tamed Charger on the approach.
Aloy, he thought happily. He arched a brow at the vulture who was roosting next to him. “Here she comes,” he said. “She just can’t keep away from me, can she?”
Meat bobbed its head and flared its wings, which Drakka took as an agreement. He watched with growing anticipation as Aloy visited the merchants and stopped at the workbench to tinker with her spike-thrower. Then, just as he hoped she would, she made her way up to his overlook.
By the Ten, seeing her made him feel giddy, like taking down a machine for the first time. But he made sure to keep his excitement from showing on his face. He had a smooth reputation to uphold, after all.
He nodded as she drew near. “Desert Flame,” he greeted. “You’re here just in time.”
“Oh boy,” she said ruefully. “What do you need this time?”
He gave her a wounded look. “You always think the worst of me. It hurts, you know, especially since I’m the best.”
“Uh-huh,” she drawled. “So yousay.”
“You’re going to say so too, once you see what my people have found,” he replied. “Come on.” At this, he set off for the exit of Scalding Spear at a brisk jog.
She quickly caught up to him. “Wait, where are we going?”
It was close to midday when Drakka spotted the signature blue headlight of a tamed Charger on the approach.
Aloy, he thought happily. He arched a brow at the vulture who was roosting next to him. “Here she comes,” he said. “She just can’t keep away from me, can she?”
Meat bobbed its head and flared its wings, which Drakka took as an agreement. He watched with growing anticipation as Aloy visited the merchants and stopped at the workbench to tinker with her spike-thrower. Then, just as he hoped she would, she made her way up to his overlook.
By the Ten, seeing her made him feel giddy, like taking down a machine for the first time. But he made sure to keep his excitement from showing on his face. He had a smooth reputation to uphold, after all.
He nodded as she drew near. “Desert Flame,” he greeted. “You’re here just in time.”
“Oh boy,” she said ruefully. “What do you need this time?”
He gave her a wounded look. “You always think the worst of me. It hurts, you know, especially since I’m the best.”
“Uh-huh,” she drawled. “So yousay.”
“You’re going to say so too, once you see what my people have found,” he replied. “Come on.” At this, he set off for the exit of Scalding Spear at a brisk jog.
She quickly caught up to him. “Wait, where are we going?”
He grinned at her. “Come on, Aloy, keep up.”
They made their way south through the panelled training field surrounding Scalding Spear, and Aloy sighed. “I can’t believe you’re making me run somewhere when I just got here.”
She’s hot and tired, is she? Perfect, he thought. He shot her a mock-sympathetic look. “What’s wrong? Is the sun too hot for you? I thought that flaming hair of yours would reflect the sun or something.”
“Feels like it absorbs the sun more than anything,” she muttered.
He shot her a grin, amused by her complaining, but she changed the subject before he could poke fun at her. “It looks like you and the vulture are on better terms.”
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“I saw you talking to it when I rode up.”
So she was looking at him when she came riding in? The thought gave him another giddy thrill, but he simply huffed. “Oh, yeah. Me and Meat make for a real team.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Meat? The vulture’s name is Meat?”
“That’s what Jetakka told me,” he drawled. “Thought he was shitting me at first, but it’s the only thing the damned bird responds to.” He sighed. “Oh well. The bird’s ugly, but it gives good counsel.”
She scoffed, and when he glanced at her, it was to find her smirking — a rare sight on her freckled face.
When she caught his eye, her expression became impassive once more. “So where are you taking me, exactly? And how much farther is it?”
“Not far, I promise,” he said. “And I promise you’ll like it.”
“Whatever you say,” she said. She was mostly silent for the rest of the jog, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her; it was scorching hot out here, especially at high noon. But he was positive that the recent discovery his scouts had made would cheer her up.
They eventually approached his target location: an area where the sandy desert gave way to a rather incongruous patch of plants and flowers, which then blended into a ridgelike outcropping of chunky black rock.
The areas was being patrolled by a couple of Burrowers and a Longleg. Aloy gave him a tired look. “Really? You need help with them?“
He clicked his tongue. “Have a little patience, okay? You wait here.” He nodded his chin at a nearby boulder for her to hide.
She raised her eyebrows, but crouched behind the boulder as he’d suggested, and he snuck off to deal with the machines.
He made short work of them, if he did say so himself. When Aloy joined him, he gestured at the rocky outcropping. “Check it out,” he said.
She shot him a suspicious look — not unexpected, since the rocky ridge looked totally normal from the angle where they were standing. Then she tapped the relic by her right ear.
A ring of blue light appeared around the relic. She scanned the rocky ridge, and Drakka waited impatiently for her response.
Finally, at last, her slight frown cleared. “There’s a ruin under there,” she said. “A big pipe, and… water?” She gave him an enquiring look.
He grinned at her. “Follow me,” he said, and he led her over the ridge to a place where the black stone formed an overhang over a crevice in the rock. The jagged crevice was about the breadth of three men and an arm’s length in height: more than big enough for a man to slide into — or a fiery redheaded woman.
Aloy eyed the crevice. “How far down does this go?” she asked.
She was clearly interested in his find, which was, of course, what he’d been hoping for. “Come and see for yourself,” he said, and without further ado, he got down flat on his belly and crawled into the crevice.
He came out of a short jagged tunnel right onto the mouth of a wide vertical structure — the pipe Aloy had mentioned. He crept onto the broad mouth of the pipe, then started shimmying down the length of the pipe.
She followed him swiftly, and soon they were stepping into the cool dark interior of an underground ruin. Drakka lit one of the torches that his scouts had left on the floor by the pipe, and he followed Aloy as she slowly stepped into the space, her relic glowing as she looked around with obvious fascination.
When she finally turned to look at him, her eyes were wide. “You found this place?”
“I wish I could say I did, but it was my scouts,” he said. “It was my genius thinking that brought theme here, though.” He playfully tapped his temple.
“Genius, right,” she drawled. “But really, this is a great find. How did you find it a place like this? Are you part Oseram after all?”
Drakka snorted. “Better watch your tongue. A comment like that would be considered a challenge in any part of our lands.”
She huffed, and he gave her a more serious look. “Actually, I was trying to think like you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Like me?”
He nodded. “Jetakka told me what you and Yarra found when you were investigating the Wound. How you were looking for patches of plants that were out of place, and glimpses of those huge pipe things jutting out of the ground.” He waved at the pipe they’d just shimmied down. “So I sent out scouts looking for signs like that, and looking for Burrowers.”
“Burrowers?”
He nodded. “Yeah, because… actually, wait. You haven’t even seen the good part yet.” He edged past her and made his way through the corridors of the ruin.
Aloy followed closely behind him. “It’s getting more humid in here.”
“Yep,” he said proudly. He stepped through one final doorway onto a metal platform, then gestured grandly at the vast space below. “Feast your eyes on that, Flame of the Desert.”
She stepped through the door, and to his delight, her jaw actually dropped. “A reservoir?”
“Damn right,” he said. “Most importantly, it’s drinkable. I tried it myself, and my scouting party did too.”
“Mm,” she said distractedly. “I’m going to get a closer look.” Without waiting for his response, she rappelled down to the floor below.
He chuckled, then rappelled down after her. She was walking slowly around the huge rectangular pool, inspecting the edges of the pool and the ceiling and the maze of pipes that covered the sides and the ceiling of the room, and he leaned against the fence around the pool to wait for her to finish her exploration.
When she finally returned to his side, she was actually smiling. “It was a water processing facility. It must tap a deep wellspring nearby — that’s where the water’s from. The Old Ones could also use places like this to clean their wastewater and make it usable again. Looks like the filtering system was newly fixed… maybe something to do with POSEIDON?”
She was muttering to herself now like she sometimes did, but Drakka wasn’t bothered. “Told you the water was clean,” he said. “Otherwise I’d be barfing my guts out in some sorry patch of sand rather than standing here with you as your handsome guide.”
She rolled her eyes, and he laughed. “Okay, okay. You were asking about the Burrowers before, and why I wanted to follow them. Well, they dig into the ground, right? And I’ve heard Lowlanders say that those little fuckers like to swim, too. So I figured that maybe if they dig deep enough to hit water…”
Her face lit up with understanding. “… you’d find signs of it on the surface where they tend to gather — in other words, plants. That really is clever.”
“I knew you’d recognize my genius eventually.”
She quirked an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “So your scouts found this place, came back and told you about it…”
He nodded. “And then I came to help them take down the Ravagers.”
“Wait, Ravagers?”
“Yeah, a couple of them, plus the Burrowers. Not looking to lose any more of my guys, so I made sure I was here to help with the hunt.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly. “You’re sure you didn’t just come to sweep up the glory for finding this place?”
He sobered. “Come on, Aloy. You know all I’ve ever wanted was for my people to have all the water they need. I’ve been doing everything I can to make that happen, including helping my guys take on the big fights. I’m not going to sit back in Scalding Spear while my soldiers do all the heavy lifting.”
Her face softened. “No, I… sorry, Drakka. I believe you.”
He relaxed and smiled. “Anyway, I didn’t bring you here to remind you what a great Commander I am. I brought you here to show you this.” He jerked his head toward another doorway, then led her through curved corridor to another smaller room.
This room also bore a rectangular reservoir, but smaller than the first — this one only about the size of the melee pit at Scalding Spear. He stepped into the room, then threw open his arms. “Surprise!”
Her eyes darted curiously around the room. “What’s this?” she said, and she tapped her relic.
“It’s separate from the main reservoir,” he said. “I checked. But it’s still clean — check it out.” He dipped a hand into the pool and drank some of the water, then raised his eyebrows at her. “See?”
She nodded, her face once more creased into a thoughtful frown. “It’s… it’s still connected to the filtration system. There’s a port on each end of it — water comes out of one side, gets cleaned, and comes back in.”
“What’d I tell you?” he said brightly. “It’s clean, right?”
“Yeah, it is,” she said slowly. “I wonder why it’s separate from the main reservoir?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know what the Old Ones had in mind. But I’ll tell you what I call it.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s a pool of water, right?” he said. “And it’s a decent size for a few people to wade around in. So I call it a wading pool.” He winked at her. “Catchy, right?”
“I guess,” she said doubtfully.
He smirked and set the torch in a makeshift brace on the wall, then started unstrapping his cuirass.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Stripping,” he said. “What does it look like?” He pulled off his cuirass.
She stared at him without speaking — stunned by how smart he was, no doubt. He quickly shed the rest of his clothes, and when he was naked, he turned and grinned at her. “C’mon, Desert Flame,” he said, and with a whoop, he leapt into the water.
He kept his head above water — he didn’t want to drown, after all, what a shameful death that would be. He cupped some water in his hands and smoothed it over his hair until it was soaked, then shook himself off like a wet peccary and turned to face her.
She was standing next to his clothes with her arms tightly folded. “Why a wading pool and not a swimming pool?” she said.
“Ah, you’ve been spending too much time with the Lowlanders,” he said knowingly. “The Desert clan don’t swim.”
“Makes sense,” she said. She rubbed her nose and scratched the back of her head, then gazed around at the walls of the room, and Drakka watched her with growing bemusement.
He waded over to the side of the pool nearest to her and leaned his elbows on the edge. “What’re you doing?”
“What do you mean?” she said, without looking at him.
“Aren’t you getting in?”
She darted him a quick glance, then rubbed her nose again. “No, I’m… I’m good right here.”
He stared at her. “You’re kidding. You’re not coming in? This is why I brought you here.”
She finally looked at him, but her eyes were narrowed. “You brought me here for what exactly?”
“To cool off, obviously.”
Her face relaxed slightly. “What?”
Drakka shot her a chiding look. “Oh come on, I know you hate the heat. You’re always wiping your face and muttering about how you’re cooking in your armour and all that, so I thought hey, maybe the Flame of the Desert could use a little dip in our nice new water supply.”
For a second, she just looked at him like she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing. Then she unfolded her arms. “You brought me here because you knew I… just for, what, as a treat?”
“Yeah, exactly,” he said. He gave her a knowing look. “Even the most hardcore soldiers know that a little R-and-R is necessary sometimes.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s… huh. That’s really… thoughtful of you, actually.”
“I know,” he said complacently. “I’m the nicest guy in the entire tribe, in case you didn’t know. So are you getting in or what?”
She shrugged. “Uh… I don’t know.” She started slowly prowling along the edge of the pool, her eyes roving randomly around the room again, and at first Drakka thought she was scanning the room with her relic again. Then he noticed that her ear wasn’t lit up with that blue ring of light.
She turned and started pacing in the opposite direction. The firelight from the torch washed across her face, and in the warm light of the flame, Drakka noticed that her freckled cheeks were pink.
He grinned. “Hey, are you shy or something? Never seen a naked guy before?” he teased.
She shot him a sharp look, and with a jolt of surprise, he realized that it must be true. “Wait, really? You’ve never seen a man naked before?” he said. If that was true, then did that mean…?
Another feeling poked at his gut — a warmer, more restless feeling this time. He peered carefully at her. “Aloy, have you not been blooded?” he asked.
“What does that mean?” she said stiffly.
“Have you never had sex?”
Her cheeks went even redder — which was pretty damned cute, in his opinion — but her green-gold eyes were narrowing even more, so he innocently held up his hands. “Hey, no need to spear me with your eyes. I’m just asking. I don’t know how you Nora do things out there in the east, but sex and nudity aren’t something that my people kick up a storm about.”
“I’m not—” She broke off and drew a slow breath, then spoke again in a calmer tone. “I’m not really one of the Nora. But… no, they don’t really go around bathing naked in front of people they barely know.”
He pouted. “‘People they barely know’? C’mon, Aloy, you know me. You’ve fought beside me, you’ve seen me turn from a scabby soldier into the Commander of the clan… you know me.”
She sighed and looked away. “That’s not really my point.”
“It’s not mine, either,” he said. “The point is that you should get your freckled ass into this water.”
She tugged one of her braids. “I don’t know.”
He gave her a wheedling look. “C’mon, Desert Flame. You know you want to. It’s nice and cool in here. Want a taste?” He splashed some water over her sandalled feet.
She dodged back. “Hey, watch it!”
“Or what?” he said. “What’re you going to do about it?” He splashed her again, more vigorously this time — enough to spatter some water on her arms and her exposed midriff.
She scoffed. “You—! You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”
“So I’ve heard,” he said with a grin. “Better get in here and give me a good beating to teach me a lesson.”
“Oh, I’d give you a lesson,” she threatened. “I’d drown you, that’s what I’d do.”
He laughed. “Now that’s just plain mean. Come on, Aloy, get your ass in here.”
She pressed her lips together in a thin line and didn’t reply, but her eyes were darting over the water now, and Drakka grinned. He could practically feel how badly she wanted to get into the water.
“Look,” he said. “If it makes you more comfortable, I’ll get out so you can wade around in here on your own. Sorry, swim, not wade.” He placed his hands on the edge of the pool nearest her and started lifting himself out.
“No!” she said sharply. “No, that’s — it’s okay, you don’t have to — stay in the water.”
He paused with his torso halfway out of the pool. “You sure? Seriously, you can have the pool to yourself. I brought you here so you could use it.”
She sighed and scratched the back of her neck. She was gazing sideways at him and her cheeks were faintly pink, which was making him feel giddy again, but he just waited patiently at the edge of the pool for her to reply.
She finally looked him in the eye. “All right, fine. I’ll get in the damn pool. But go face the wall until I’m in,” she commanded.
“No problem,” he said. “A little privacy for the champion-killer, coming right up.” He lowered himself back into the water and waded to the far side of the pool, but he couldn’t help but listen to the telltale sounds of Aloy taking off her armour.
Aloy taking off her armour, stripping her pale skin bare… Beneath the waterline, Drakka’s cock pulsed. He wasn’t lying to her when he said that nudity and sex were treated quite casually among the Tenakth, but that didn’t mean that the thought of Aloy naked didn’t spur a reaction in his gut. Actually, if Drakka was honest, it was the opposite; thoughts about Aloy, naked and not, had taken root in his head since the first time they’d hunted machines together, and the feelings that accompanied those thoughts were unapologetically sexual.
When he was lying alone in the commander’s bunk at night, Drakka would think about her. He would think about the way she snarled when she was stabbing her spear into a machine’s metallic side, the flexing and tensing of her abs when she drew her bow and swung her spear, the rare smiles that graced her ever-serious face, and these thoughts would make him as hard as a well-sharpened sword. When he’d finished running through his memories of her, he would construct fantasies instead: fantasies about how she might bare her teeth and scrape his chest as she arched on top of him, fantasies of what her ink-bare skin would look like beneath his palms, fantasies about whether the hair between her legs was as blood-red as the magnificent mane of hair on her head. As those fantasies ran rampage through his mind at night, he would slip his hand into his breeches and—
A soft splash behind him drew his attention: the sound of Aloy sliding into the pool. He turned his head slightly. “You in?” he called. “Can I turn around now?”
“I guess so,” she said.
He turned around slowly so as not to spook her. She was naked, all right, but she was standing in a corner of the pool, submerged up to her neck with her arms tightly folded over her chest, and she was eyeing him still as though she was expecting him to pounce on her like a Stalker.
He smiled. He knew he shouldn’t be amused by how stiff and awkward she was being, but her behaviour was just such a change from her usual confident and collected self that it was weirdly endearing. “Suspicious woman, aren’t you?”
“No,” she said. “Just careful.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Look, don’t you worry. I’ll keep my hands visible at all times, I swear.” He lifted his hands from the water as though to demonstrate.
“You better,” she said. “Or this pool’s filtration system will be overtaxed trying to clean out all of your blood.”
He laughed. She just sounded so much like a Tenakth that he couldn’t help it.
She eyed him for a moment, then looked away. “So how long have you known about this place?”
“Just two days,” he said. “Only a few people know about it yet — just my scouts who found the place, Jetakka, and a couple of my personal guards. Jetakka’s gone to tell the village leaders about it, but we’re keeping it quiet until we’ve figured out the best way to get the water up to our villages from all the way down here.”
She nodded slowly. She was frowning slightly, and Drakka hurriedly went on. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re not trying to keep it a secret like Yarra did about the Wound. But if we have a plan first—”
She cut him off. “No, I get it. It’s better to… the more information you have, the more you can answer people’s questions when you tell them. I think it’s a good idea.”
“Thanks,” he said. “That means a lot from you.”
She nodded again. She was eyeing him still, her gaze shifting from his eyes to his lips and down to his neck and shoulders… wait, was she checking him out? Could he be so lucky that she’d consider him worth checking out in the first place?
“Something wrong?” he said. He wiggled his eyebrows. “See something you like, maybe?”
Shetsked, but her face was turning red again. “No,” she said. “I mean, nothing’s wrong. I was just…” She abruptly sank under the water completely.
Drakka bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. When she emerged from the water once more, her cheeks were back to their normal freckled shade, and Drakka decided to take mercy on her and quit the flirting for now.
“So I heard you got yourself all the way out to the far desert of the south,” he said. “What did you find out there? Anything worth mentioning?”
She gave him an odd look. “You really want to know?”
“Sure I do,” he said. “I’ve never been out there, you know. Few of our clan have — even the most hardened warriors haven’t spent more than a couple of weeks in those ruins before coming back home. If you spent a month out there…” He shook his head. “That’s impressive. And that’s not just lip service, I swear.”
She smoothed her hands slowly over her hair to sluice out some of the water, and Drakka enjoyed the sight of her bare and lean-muscled arms flexing with the movement. “Okay, well… well, for starters, it’s easier to cross those dunes on a Bristleback, so don’t give me too much credit,” she said. “But I’d be lying if I said it’s the easiest place I’ve ever travelled…”
She told him about the Oseram ‘showmen’ she’d met in the desert — whatever a ‘showman’ was — and how they’d discovered a huge underground ruin that was once a city of the Old Ones. She told him how the city was flooded, but with an invention made by one of the Oseram, she was able to breathe underwater and managed to drain the flooded city, then had to fight a Tideripper single-handedly. She told him that at the end of all this, the Oseram showmen were able to illuminate the night sky over the ruins with images made from light: images so bright that their glow could be seen all the way from the northern end of the Stillsands.
Her storytelling was matter-of-fact and unembellished, but Drakka didn’t mind. He was too busy enjoying the fact that she was finally starting to look relaxed, swaying slightly in the water and skimming her palms idly over the surface of the pool.
“Those lights really sound like something special,” he said.
“They are,” she said. “You should get out there sometime to see them.”
“No can do, Desert Flame,” he said. “A commander’s place is with their people. But at least I’ve got you to paint pretty pictures in my head with your stories.”
To his surprise, she smiled. “Too bad I’m not a storyteller like Stemmur — one of those showmen I mentioned.” She shook her head in amusement. “Now that’s what I call painting pictures with words.”
She was wearing a fond little smile now, and Drakka’s heart did a funny twisting thing in his chest. Imagine if she ever smiled like that while thinking about him.
He let out a long sigh and draped his arms along the edge of the pool. “So that’s what you do when you’re not around, huh? Deep-diving into a flooded city and lighting up the night sky? Sounds like fun.”
A tiny frown puckered her brow. “I didn’t do it because it was fun. I did it because… well, anyway. It was just luck that it ended up being pretty fun, but that’s not why I went.”
“Why did you go, then?” he asked. “What task drew the champion-killer’s attention all the way to the Stillsands?”
For a long moment, she frowned at him without speaking, and he was sure she wasn’t going to reply. But then, to his surprise, she did — in a way. “I was looking for a way to… make things better,” she said carefully. “The world, I mean.”
“I get it,” he said seriously. “It’s what I wanted when I challenged Yarra.”
She nodded. “I guess you do get it, in a way.”
“See?” he said. “I’m more than a pretty face.”
“Are you?” she remarked. “I can’t tell under that face paint.”
He grinned. “Are you saying you want to see me without my face paint? That’s pretty bold.”
She scoffed and folded her arms once more, but she was smirking, which was a relief. He cocked his head to the side. “So then, Desert Flame, what do you do for fun? Aside from coming to Scalding Spear to hang out with me?”
She lifted an eyebrow like she didn’t know what he was talking about, so he went on. “Do you like Strike? Have you been to the Arena for some challenges? Do you read or whatever like the Carja do?”
She huffed. “I’m, uh, not a fan of Machine Strike. I tried to learn, but it just wouldn’t stick.”
“I could teach you,” he suggested. “I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.”
She gave him an arch look. “Of course you say so yourself. You’re always complimenting yourself. Why would this be any different?”
He laughed. “You’ve got me there. But really, I could show you the ropes sometime if you want.”
She shrugged. “No thanks. It would be a waste of your time. Kotallo has been trying to teach me, and if he hasn’t succeeded, you probably won’t either.”
“Hey, that hurts,” he said. “Besides, maybe you just need the right motivation.”
“What kind of motivation?” she said.
“That depends,” he said. “What would motivate you?”
Her eyes darted from his face to his arms and his bare chest, which he found very interesting. Then she lifted her chin slightly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
He hesitated for a second, then decided to go for it. If worse came to worst, she could always beat the crap out of him for reading the situation wrong. “You sure about that?” he said. “Something tells me you know exactly what I mean.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you quit the double-talk and just tell me what you mean?”
Her bluntness amused him, and he answered just as bluntly. “I mean sex, Desert Flame. I’d be happy to motivate you to learn Strike by rewarding you with sex, if that’s something you want.”
Her face morphed into a perfect expression of are-you-fucking-serious, and he laughed. “You look like an Utaru farmer who’s been offered a chunk of roasted peccary. All you had to say was ‘no’.” In truth, he was a little disappointed that she didn’t want the same thing he did. But he supposed it was a long shot to hope that the Chief’s Champion would look twice at him, especially since she clearly still didn’t think he was quite fit for his command.
When she finally spoke, though, her reply stunned him. “I’m not saying ‘no’.”
He double-taked at her. “You — what? You’re not?”
“I’m not saying ‘yes’, either,” she said testily. “I’m just… trying to wrap my mind around this.”
“Around what?”
“The fact that you just said that.”
“You said to quit the double-talk, so I did,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, how else did you want me to say it? Did you want me to bring you flowers like the Utaru? Sing you a pretty song?”
She snorted a laugh. “You don’t have to be an ass about it. I’m just… a little shocked.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “This can’t be the first time someone’s told you they want to have sex with you.”
“It’s the first time someone’s been this up-front about it.”
He grinned. “Oh, so my approach is refreshing then, huh? That’s nice to hear.”
“Sure,” she said dryly. “Let’s call it ‘refreshing’.”
He smirked, and she shot him a tiny smile before looking away at the far wall. Her arms were folded again, but not as tightly as before, and she was nibbling her lip now as though she was uncertain. There was something tense about her posture — no, not tense exactly, not tense in an anxious kind of way, but tense in a way that reminded him of a bowstring ready to fire.
Then, suddenly, she looked him in the eye. “I should get going,” she said.
His stomach squeezed with disappointment, but he shrugged. “All right, if you’re sure. It’s going to be hotter than a Scorcher’s ass out there at this time of day, though.”
“I’ll survive somehow,” she said. She raised her eyebrows expectantly and did a turn-around gesture with her finger.
He huffed in amusement and turned to face the opposite wall to preserve her modesty. “All right, well, just know you’re welcome to come back anytime to use the wading pool. We’ll be figuring out a way to provide fair access to it, but it’ll always be open to the blood-haired outlander.”
“Thanks,” she said. There were a few minutes of rustling while she got dressed, and Drakka wondered about the colour of her nipples as he waited. Rosy pink to match her blushing cheeks, maybe? Or a darker dusky pink? Probably not that dark, since that wouldn’t be in keeping with the lightness of her skin—
Her brisk voice interrupted his thoughts. “Okay, Drakka. I’m headed off.”
He turned around to face her, and she gave him a frank look. “And listen, this was… bringing me here was nice of you. I appreciate the thought.”
“Anytime,” he said. Then, as a final parting shot, he waded over to the edge of the pool where she was standing and lifted himself out of the water to stand in front of her.
Dripping wet and naked, he stood in front of her, and for the briefest instant, her gaze dropped to his cock — his still-hard cock.
Her eyes went wide before flicking back up to his face, and he gazed steadily at her. “The offer still stands, Aloy,” he said. “You want to be blooded, you know where to find me.”
She swallowed visibly. Then she straightened her spine and lifted her chin, and she was back to being her usual confident-warrior self. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “See you later.” Without waiting for his reply, she turned on her heel and left the room.
He smirked at her speedy departure. When the soft sound of her footsteps was gone, he sighed and sat down on the metal floor beside his clothes.
By the Ten, he was horny. His whole body felt hot with lust despite the coolness of the pool, and he couldn’t quite tell if the approach he’d taken with Aloy was a good one or not. He’d never propositioned an outlander before. If Aloy was Tenakth, she would have just said yes or no to his offer: easy, straightforward, simple as following orders. But now he was in something of a limbo. He’d offered her sex, but she literally hadn’t said either yes or no before running off, and who knew when Drakka would see her again?
He sighed and squeezed his cock — just one squeeze, one quick squeeze and stroke to soothe himself — then stood up and started getting dressed. It could have been worse, he reminded himself. She hadn’t laughed in his face or rejected him outright, and she hadn’t tried to kill him for his offer, which had to be counted as a win.
He fastened his sword belt around his waist, then made his way to the exit of the ruins. She didn’t say no, which means she might say yes, he thought. In fact, Drakka thought there was a good chance she’d say yes. She’d been checking him out, after all, and that was always a good sign.
He smiled to himself. If he was lucky, he’d be seeing her again soon — every last strong and freckled inch of her.
*******************
By the time he next spotted Aloy approaching on her tamed Charger, more than two weeks had passed.
He was at the water reservoir site making sure things were running smoothly when she came riding up. He’d just finished confirming with the soldiers down below that the pulley system was working well, and he was thrilled that she’d appeared at such an ideal moment.
“Well well, if it isn’t the Flame of the Desert!” he called out.
She nodded a greeting and dismounted her machine. “Things look busy here,” she said. Her gaze moved curiously around the camp, taking in the soldiers standing guard and the squad hauling on the chains and pulleys to bring up the water sacs.
“They are,” he said proudly. “The nearest village just got their first delivery of water from the Wound in the Stone.”
“The Wound in the Stone?” she asked.
“Yup. That’s what we’re calling this place.”
“Won’t that be confusing, since most of your clan just call the other spring ‘the Wound’ most of the time?”
He thought for a second. She was right, of course. Then he shrugged. “Hey, I said I was clever. I never said I was original.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. She looked around some more, and Drakka waited eagerly for her opinion, certain that she was going to be pleased with how much he’d achieved. But the longer she studied the smoothly-running conveyance system that he and the other chiefs had come up with, the more her face creased into a frown.
She turned to face him. “Did you steal this stuff from Oseram travellers?”
“Trespassers, you mean,” he corrected. “And yeah, some of it, we did.”
She sighed. “Drakka, I recently spent half a day hunting for machine parts for some Oseram who got looted by a Tenakth raiding party. I thought they were talking about Regalla’s people. Were they talking about you?”
“Hey, they got off lucky,” he said. “We let them keep their lives and their food rations.”
She gave him an are-you-kidding-me look, but he held his ground. “C’mon, Aloy, look at the bigger picture. This gear will help get water to our outlying villages so much faster than supplying it from Scalding Spear. We do what we’ve gotta do to survive out here.”
She sighed, then held up her hands. “Look, I didn’t come here to fight about this. You didn’t kill anyone, so I’ll let you off easy. This time,” she added threateningly.
He grinned. “I knew you were soft for me. Come see how we’re getting the water out of the ruins.” He jogged toward the entrance of the Wound in the Stone.
Her eyes widened as she eyed the entrance. “You blasted away the rocks so you could get in more easily?”
“Sure did,” he said. “Had to make a ton of bombs to do it, but we managed.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t steal Oseram explosives for the job.”
He shot her a hurt look. “Hey, give me at least a little credit here.”
She huffed. “Okay, okay. So how…” She trailed off, her face going blank with surprise as a Bellowback reservoir sac full of water rose up from the tunnel, pulled up by Oseram chains and supported by a rig made of ridgewood and rope.
“You used Bellowback sac webbing to carry the water from the reservoir,” she breathed.
He elbowed her gently. “It’s good, right? Now that was all my idea.”
She smirked, but her eyes were still on the Bellowback sac, which was being guided into the stolen Oseram cart by two soldiers. “That’s… a great idea, actually.”
Drakka tapped his temple. “Told you I was a genius.”
She quirked an eyebrow, then folded her arms. “This is good news for your clan. I’m happy for you.”
He sobered at this. “Thank you. Honestly, I’m still a little stunned about how lucky we were to find this place.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Easy access to water — or easier, at least? This will change your lives.” She gave him a serious look. “It could change the way your whole clan functions.”
“That’s a good thing, if you ask me,” he said. “Traditions aren’t worth shit when they force people to scrounge for a sip of water. Having this water here? It’ll make the clan stronger, I know it.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “Especially with you as their commander.”
That was a surprise. “Was that a compliment I just heard?”
“Yeah,” she said. She looked him in the eye. “You’re doing a good job, Drakka. Really.”
He grinned, genuinely pleased by her praise. “Aw, Aloy. I knew you cared.”
She rolled her eyes, and he chuckled and folded his arms as well. “So what brings you here to our humble Wound?”
She unfolded her arms and smoothed a palm over her fiery hair. “I… was hoping I could take a swim in that pool again. If that’s okay.”
“Of course,” he said. “I told you, you’re an honoured guest, always.” For a split second, he hesitated before speaking again — fuck it, take a chance, he thought — then tilted his head. “You want some company for that swim?”
“I thought the Desert clan didn’t swim.”
He grinned. “Do you want company or not?”
“Sure,” she said. Her face was so impassive that he couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but he hoped it was what he thought.
I’ll find out soon enough, he thought, and he gestured for her to follow him down the huge pipe, just as they had done before.
In the ruin proper, a couple of soldiers were readying another Bellowback sac for transport up through the tunnel, and they paused to salute him as he and Aloy stepped off of the pipe. “Easy, soldiers,” he said, and he clapped one of them on the shoulder as he passed them by.
They made their way through the ruins toward the wading pool, where another pair of soldiers were lounging and chatting together in the water. Drakka stepped into the room and whistled at them. “Kallo, Olekka, clear out. Aloy’s here, and she needs some privacy for her precious champion-killing ass.”
The soldiers grumbled playfully as they waded toward the edge of the pool, and Aloy made a face. “No, that’s — I didn’t mean to make anyone else get out.”
“It’s fine,” Drakka said with a casual wave. “They were done anyway. Weren’t you, you scabs?”
“Sure were, Commander,” Olekka said, and she lifted herself out of the pool with Kallo close behind.
Both of them were naked, of course. Aloy hastily averted her gaze, and Drakka forced himself not to laugh. Instead, he playfully shoved Olekka’s shoulder. “What’d I tell you about that? Forget the formality. Save the titles for the next time we’re on the hunt.”
Kallo smiled as he pulled on his breeches. “You know Jetakka gets a new wrinkle every time you make us call you ‘Drakka’ instead of ‘Commander’.”
Drakka shrugged. “Eh, it’s good for him. Gives him something to complain about when he meets up with the other Chaplains.”
Kallo snickered. He and Olekka finished getting dressed, then saluted him and nodded politely to Aloy before leaving the room.
Drakka smiled at her and gestured at the pool. “It’s all yours.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “I didn’t mean for them to have to leave.”
“It’s fine, really,” he said. “They’d have been leaving in a minute anyway. They’re the ones who’ll be pulling the cart of water back to Arrowhand.”
Her eyebrows rose. “They’re — you have soldiers pulling the water carts?”
“Yup,” Drakka said. “We’re trying a system of rotating squads taking turns to come out here, fill the sacs, and haul it all to the villages. We’ve already got a waitlist of squads wanting to rotate into this duty.”
“They want to do this?” she said. “Hauling a cart of water must be heavy work.”
“Oh, sure,” Drakka agreed. “But if it means they get to use the pool…”
She blinked, then huffed and nodded. “That’s a pretty compelling reward, all right. I get it.”
“You see?” he said slyly. “Commander Drakka’s got it all figured out. For this much, at least.” He started stripping down to get into the pool.
She hovered silently beside him as he stripped, and he was careful not to look at her while he took off his clothes. He had the impression that she was studying him, like she was watching him and waiting for something, and he didn’t want to spook her by being too obvious about what he was waiting for, especially since her reaction had been so neutral the last time he’d offered to blood her.
This time, he wanted her to make a decision — whether her decision was a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But he had the feeling that his chances for a ‘yes’ were higher if he gave her a little space.
When he was naked, he jumped into the pool, careful to keep his face above the water, then splashed some water over his hair before opening his eyes to look at her. “I’ll go face the…”
He trailed off. Her sandals and her metal breastplate were off, and she was untying the scarf that was wrapped around her chest.
She peeled off the scarf and flicked back her hair — Ten guide him, her breasts — ah fuck, she was naked from the waist up.
Then she looked at him. She lifted one eyebrow, and Drakka closed his mouth and jerked his thumb at the opposite wall. “I’ll… you want some privacy, or…?”
She eyed him for a second. Then she shrugged. “It’s fine,” she said. She turned slightly so she was facing away from him, then started unstrapping her utility belts.
He watched silently as she took off her armour, shedding her belts and her vambraces before finally taking off her tassets. By the time she was pushing down her shorts, the last piece of clothing covering her bare and unadorned skin, his cock was hard and throbbing under the cover of the pool.
She turned to face him. Her expression was serious and she wasn’t meeting his eye, but as she slid into the water, she shot him a pointed look. “What, are you going to stare the whole time I’m here?” she said.
Can I? he thought. Damn, but he really wanted to. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone with no ink on their skin, and it was… honestly, it was bizarre in a way, to see a grown woman and a warrior with no marks of her prowess on her skin. On the other hand, the lack of ink made it possible for him to really see everything: the collection of pinkish scars scattered across her body, the way her thighs and upper arms and belly were slightly browned compared to the parts of her body that were usually clothed, the fact that the hair between her legs was a near-perfect match for the hair on her head…
He took a deep breath to calm himself, then lifted his hands from the water and started clapping.
She sank into the water up to her chin and scowled at him. “What are you doing?”
“Congratulating you for stripping down like a Tenakth,” he said. “The Ten would be proud.”
She scoffed and relaxed. “I don’t remember seeing that Vision at the Grove.”
He grinned at her. “It’s a loose interpretation of the Chaplains’ wisdom.”
“Whatever you say,” she said. She dunked her head under the water and rose to the surface again, and Drakka waited patiently while she splashed her face and smoothed some of the water out of her hair.
She sighed in satisfaction, then opened her eyes, and her expression became pointed once more. “You’re staring again.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
She gazed at him without speaking. The look on her face was still hovering somewhere between caution and skepticism, but Drakka steadily held her gaze until her expression started to soften into something more serious — more serious and more… intense, somehow, like a hint of blazefire in her hazel eyes.
He took a small step closer to her. “Why did you come here today, Aloy? Was it really just for the pool?”
She wet her lips, then lifted an eyebrow. “No. It wasn’t.”
He nodded slowly and took a tiny step closer. “Okay. Then what did you come for?”
Another long, tense moment passed — a moment in which he and Aloy just stared at each other, a moment in which his heart thumped as though he was preparing for a hunt.
Then, finally, she said what he’d been hoping she would say. “I… I want you to blood me.”
Yes, he thought excitedly.Yes, fuck yes, praise the Ten. He took another step closer to her. “Spoken like a true Tenakth. And you’ve been wearing our armour these days, too.”
She shrugged and idly scratched her shoulder. “It’s good armour.”
“It’s great armour,” he agreed. “Now all you need is some ink, and you could be one of us.” He stepped even closer to her — close enough to touch — then ran his palm over her shoulder.
Her eyes darted from his face to his hand and back. He lifted an eyebrow. “I think you should get a sleeve to start. Your victory over Grudda would take up your shoulder, I think. The defense of the Kulrut? At least the rest of your arm, and maybe part of your breast.” He dropped his gaze to her breasts, which were still partly hidden from his gaze by the water.
Her cheek pinkened, which was just so damned cute. “Hm,” she said. “I… I don’t know about that.”
“Why not?” he said. “Scared of the pain? It’s not that bad, I swear. And the longer the inkers work on you, the more it starts to feel good.”
“It feels good having ink hammered into your skin?” she said skeptically.
“Yup,” he said. “You should try it sometime. Is this really what you want to talk about?”
She gave him a meaningful look. “I told you already. I didn’t exactly come here to talk.”
His cock pulsed at her bluntness. He smiled, then took another step closer to her — close enough that their bodies would be touching if she didn’t back away.
She did back away, though: a small step as though he’d thrown her off balance. He kept moving forward, slowly stepping into her space, giving her ample time to get away from him and get out of the pool if she really wanted to.
But she didn’t get out of the pool. Her eyebrows rose as she shifted away from him, but she didn’t get out. “What are you doing?” she said.
“Sizing you up,” he said, and he kept moving toward her until she was penned between his body and the edge of the pool.
With no place to go, she folded her arms and lifted her chin. “Now what? Now that you’ve trapped me, what are you going to do?”
He grinned. They both knew that if she really wanted to escape him, she’d have no problem doing it in the blink of an eye. “You don’t like uncertainty, do you?” he said.
Her face went slack with surprise. “What… why do you say that?”
“You’ve never done this before,” he said. “It’s making you feel itchy, isn’t it? Not knowing what to do?”
Aloy frowned at him, then sighed and lowered her arms. “It’s… not a feeling I’m used to.” She offered him a tiny smile. “This isn’t something my, uh, relic can help me with.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll show you how it’s done. You can’t ask for better than a lesson from a Tenakth Commander.”
She scoffed and looked away. “Humble as always.”
“You don’t want humble, Desert Flame,” he said seriously. “Not with this.”
She looked him in the eye, and Drakka steadily held her gaze. She was frowning still, but as he stared at her without speaking, he could see the tension leeching from her posture.
She finally sighed. “Okay. Show me what to do.”
He smiled. “First things first: get your ass out of the water and sit here.” He patted the edge of the pool.
Her eyebrows rose. “You want me to get out?”
“Yeah,” he said. “C’mon, champion-killer, sit right here.” He patted the pool’s edge once more.
She swallowed hard, then lifted herself out of the pool with a soft splash, and Drakka’s entire body pulsed with lust. She was sitting in front of him now with her body on display for his greedy eyes, and he wasted no time taking full advantage of the view.
He rose to his full height and reached for her, brushing a damp lock of her hair back over her shoulder so he could properly see her breasts. She scoffed and started to fold her arms, but Drakka took hold of her wrist.
“Ah-ah,” he said. “C’mon, Desert Flame, just relax. Relax and let me look at you. And hey, you can stare at me too, as much as you want.” He opened his arms to show off his chest.
Shetsked. “You really think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
“I don’t have to,” he said. “I’ve seen how you look at me.”
She tutted again and looked away. “You’re so full of shit.” She was smirking, though, and that rare look of amusement on her face made his heart twist in a pleasant way.
He stepped closer to her, eyeing her breasts as he did — her nipples were a light rosy pink, mystery solved! — then placed his hands on her knees. “Open your legs.”
“Why?” she said.
Was it just him, or was she already sounding a little breathless? “Because I’m going to lick you.”
Her eyes went huge. “You’re going to what?”
“I’m going to lick you,” he repeated. “Trust me, you’re going to like it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Then, finally, she relaxed her thighs and opened her legs.
Droplets of water were dappling her skin and dampening the curls between her legs. Even so, he could see that she was already wet for him, her rosy folds swollen and slick, and for a split second, Drakka felt like he’d been struck by a Stormbird’s canon blast. She looked… fuck, she looked even better than he’d imagined. Her scars, the planes of her muscled abs, the lines and curves of her muscular arms, everything so easy to see because of her bizarrely bare skin. Her nipples, hard and puckered and making his mouth water, and between her legs… Ten save him, he would bet a thousand shards that she was going to taste as good as she looked.
He lifted his eyes back to her face. “Damn, Desert Flame,” he said huskily. “You look good in our armour, but you look even better without it.”
She snorted and tugged at her ear. “What am I supposed to say to that?”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “Just accept it.” He ran his palms up along her thighs, enjoying the shaky sound of her inhale as his thumbs drew close to the apex of her thighs, then slid his palms back down her thighs in a slow caress. “You should get some ink on your thighs, too. A band around your thigh for every rebel outpost you’ve taken out. How many would that be so far?”
“Uh… I dunno,” she said — yep, she definitely sounded breathless now. “I’ve… kind of lost count. My Focus could tell me…”
“Make a guess,” he said. He lowered his lips to her left thigh and placed a kiss on her skin.
She gasped and tensed her thigh, and Drakka’s cock throbbed in the water. To hear her reacting this much to just a simple kiss…
He shot her a coy glance. “C’mon, Desert Flame, make a guess.” He kissed the inside of her thigh again, this time finishing the kiss with a little flick of his tongue.
She inhaled sharply through her nose. “Um… m-maybe eight. No, closer to, uh, ten…”
“Ten, huh?” he said. “Ten it is.” He turned his head and pressed his lips to the velvety skin of her right inner thigh.
He glanced up at her. “That’s one,” he said. He kissed her thigh again, a little higher than the last. “That’s two…”
She let out a breathy little laugh. “You’re not serious about this.”
He shot her a grin, then placed another little kiss on her inner thigh, this one higher still than the last — higher and closer to her sex. “That’s three.”
She didn’t reply. She was breathing shallowly now, her legs spread wide and her palms braced on the floor behind her for balance, and Drakka glanced at her to make sure she was all right.
Her eyes were wide as she watched him, her expression guileless and unguarded in a way that Drakka had never seen before, and it did funny things to his heart. He smiled at her, then kissed her thigh again — “that’s four,” he said, and she smirked — and he continued placing delicate kisses along her inner thigh, closer to her sex with every kiss.
The eighth kiss was close enough to her sex that he could smell her, and the ninth was close enough that his tongue grazed the edge of her folds. By the time he was about to lay down his tenth and final kiss, she was restlessly shifting her hips on the edge of the pool, and Drakka’s cock was pulsing so insistently that he thought he might burst.
He looked her in the eye. “Ready for that tenth kiss, Aloy?”
“Yes, okay? I’m ready,” she snapped.
He grinned at her, thrilled and amused by her eagerness. “Okay, here it comes,” he said, and he lowered his mouth directly between her legs.
He kissed her sex, a slow and thorough open-mouthed kiss, and she exhaled hard: a breathy little grunt of pleasure. Drakka slowly drew his tongue up along the length of her folds — she really did taste as good as she looked — and Aloy jerked her hips, grinding herself closer to his mouth as she did.
He hummed softly as he traced his tongue between her legs, smoothing his palms along her thighs as he did, and she made a whimpery sound as she flexed her hips toward his face. “Mm,” she moaned. “Th-this… ah,Drakka…”
His nerves thrilled at the sound of his name in that breathy voice. He lifted his face to look at her. “Feeling good, Desert Flame?”
“Yes!” she gasped. “Yes, can you — come on, don’t stop!”
He shot her a grin — damn, she really was a firebrand — then dipped his head down and pressed his lips between her legs again, pressing his tongue directly against her clit as he did, and she cried out: a strained and pleasured cry that echoed in the wading pool room.
Drakka lifted his face again with a grin. “You want my soldiers to hear you up top?”
She dragged in a shaky breath and shot him a glare. “No, okay? I didn’t — that was an accident.”
Her face was red. He chuckled and squeezed her thighs. “Hey, don’t apologize. You can be as loud or quiet as you want. I’m just warning you that they’ll probably say something if they hear.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t that, uh, rude?”
He shrugged. “Maybe for your people or the Carja, but not for us. I mean, they’re not going to make fun of you or anything, but they’re not going to pretend they didn’t hear us.”
“Good to know,” she muttered.
He grinned, then reached up and pinched her chin. “Hey now, don’t be embarrassed.”
She scoffed and batted his hand away. “Are you going to keep doing what you were doing, or are you going to make fun of me?”
“Do you want me to keep doing what I was doing?” he said.
“Obviously,” she retorted. Then her expression grew cautious. “Unless you…I mean, not if you don’t to. Were you… finished?”
“Oh, I’m not finished until you are,” he said. “And you aren’t finished yet, not by far.”
Her brows puckered slightly. “How do you know?”
He gave her a patient look. “How many times do I have to tell you how amazing I am before you’ll believe it?”
She laughed — a snarly-sounding laugh that made him laugh as well. “Okay, oh-so-amazing Commander of the Desert Clan. Can you finish what you were doing now, or should I be getting dressed and getting out of here?”
He laughed. “All right, all right. Just relax, okay? I’ll finish you off. Damn, you’re more prickly than a Rollerback.” He pushed her thighs apart and started lapping at her clit.
She moaned and thrust her hips toward his face, and another wave of lust flooded through his blood, as strong and hot as the rush before a battle. He gripped her thighs to hold her down and swirled his tongue around her clit, teasing the little bud until she was whimpering and gasping, then lapped carefully at her clit, placing little kisses between her legs and along her swollen folds every now and then to make her mewl. He licked her and kissed her with relish, and she bucked her hips toward him despite his grip on her thighs, and Drakka marvelled at the way she was rubbing her slickness against his lips like she was trying to fuck his tongue. For someone as self-possessed as Aloy was, it was a real treat to see her starting to unravel like this.
Determined now to make her mindless with pleasure, he kissed her between her legs, swirled his tongue carefully around her clit, licked her slick and swollen folds. He licked her until the sounds she was making were whimpery and high-pitched and strained, until her thighs were hard with tension beneath his palms, and then finally she did what he was waiting for: she gasped in a sharp breath, then cried out — another nice echo-y cry.
“Ah!” she moaned. “Ah, mm — y-yes!” She slapped her palm over her own mouth and shuddered, her sounds of pleasure now muffled by her hand, and Drakka grinned cockily to himself as he continued to lick and kiss her sex.
Then, without lifting his mouth, he slid one finger inside of her.
She jolted and cried out into her palm, a muffled sound that was still loud enough to bring his cock to throbbing attention. He lapped at her clit and curled his finger inside of her, then carefully drew his finger out and slid in a second — by the Ten, she was so fucking tight — and in the space of seconds, she was rolling her hips toward his hand in a distinct thrusting rhythm that made him feel like he was going to come on the spot.
Drakka pulled his fingers out of her and squeezed her thighs. “Aloy,” he grunted.
She moaned into her palm, then lowered her hand. “What?” she gasped.
“I want to fuck you now,” he said. “I’m getting out of the pool.”
Her eyes went wide. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I—”
He lifted himself out of the pool and rose to his feet, and Aloy stared up at him, her eyes wide as she scanned his dripping body and his steel-hard cock. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I… okay. Let’s do this.”
He kneeled beside her. “Relax, Desert Flame,” he said as calmly as he could. “I’m not going to rush you. Take a breath, tell me when you’re really ready.”
She inhaled through her nose, then exhaled shakily and nodded. “Okay,” she said again. “I’ll… just give me a second.”
He nodded and clenched his fists on his thighs to steady himself. His cock felt like a throbbing beacon, like the gentlest touch from her might make him blow his load on the spot, and he didn’t want to shame himself by finishing too quickly when he was finally inside of her. He’d told her he would show her a good time, and he swore on the name of the Ten that he was going to make her voice echo around this room again by the time he was done.
He breathed deeply and slowly, and he contented himself with studying her naked body as he waited to her to be ready. She was facing him now, her eyes moving over his body with the same careful curiosity that she’d employed as she was studying the rig upstairs, and Drakka couldn’t help but smile.
“I know I’m pretty, but you can do more than just look at me,” he said.
Her eyes slid from his cock up to his face. “What?”
“You can touch me,” he said. “If you want.”
“Oh. I, uh…” A little frown creased her brows, and she scratched the back of her neck. “I don’t know how. I don’t know where to start.”
“Just do whatever you feel like doing,” he said. “I’ll tell you if you hurt me.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Hurt you? Why — how would I hurt you?”
He shrugged. “There are ways. Like, uh, you could bite me too hard or something.”
“Bite you?” she exclaimed.
“Yeah,” he said. He gave her an innocent look. “You know, biting. When you use your teeth to press down on something—”
She cut him off. “What part of your body would I be biting?”
‘My neck, maybe,” he said. “Or my chest. Maybe my nipples if you go easy.” Ah fuck, he was getting even more turned on just talking about this. “You could go for the thighs, but don’t even think about biting my dick—”
She suddenly moved toward him. Before he had time to react, she was gripping his shoulder and licking the side of his neck.
He gasped, shocked and thrilled by the sudden heat of her tongue. She shuffled closer to him, her teeth pressing lightly into the tender skin of his neck, and then she was straddling him — ah yes, she was trying to straddle him, she was such a fucking firebrand, but he was still kneeling and it was awkward, and she couldn’t quite mount his hips…
He squeezed her hip. “Hang on,” he gasped. “Aloy, just — hang on, just a second.”
She lifted her mouth from his neck. “Am I hurting you?”
“No, it’s not — not that,” he panted. “Just let me…” He adjusted his posture so he was sitting instead of kneeling, then squeezed her hip. “Okay, get on top of me now.”
She immediately obeyed him, straddling his hips and gripping his shoulders, and then she was licking his neck again and pressing her teeth into his neck and oh oh fuck she was sucking and biting his neck at the same time — how did she know that he liked this, that he’d always liked this, that it was just enough pain to make his pleasure feel that much better?
Lightheaded with lust, he braced one palm on the floor to support himself and slid his other
Ok, my post about creating a Horizon Forbidden West cookbook has gotten pretty popular pretty fast
It isn’t completely finished yet, but I have three recipes from each tribe so from the sky, lowland and desert tenakth, the Utaru, Oseram and the Carja! Below will be the front cover image I made, the index of recipes I currently have and a few recipes to share!
Let me know if there are any recipes you would like to see!!
Also, happy birthday Aloy!!!!!
I’ll try to share more recipes over the next few weeks while I work on the last of the recipes needed!
Thanks to @crackinglamb for the tag! Once again, I haven’t done this in ages, but I finished Horizon Forbidden West recently and my head is exploding in WIPs so everyone can get a taste of the chaos of videogame boyfriends that are taking up my brain right now.
First off, some Aloy x Drakka (i.e. the cheeky shithead boyfriend):
Drakka grinned. “Hey, are you shy or something? Never seen a naked guy before?” he teased.
She shot him a sharp look, and with a jolt of surprise, he realized that it must be true. “Wait, really? You’ve never seen a man naked before?” he said. If that was true, then did that mean…?
Another feeling poked at his gut — a warmer, more restless feeling this time. He peered carefully at her. “Have you never been blooded before?” he asked.
“What does that mean?” she said stiffly.
“Have you never had sex?”
*********************
Next up, some Aloy x Nil (i.e. the murder hobo boyfriend):
She moans, clenches her nails on his naked chest, revels in the blissful thrum of heat racing through her body. Beneath her, distantly, she hears his deep and musical voice. “You really do ride with abandon, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she pants. “Only way to get ahead.”
**********************
Finally, some Aloy x Kotallo (i.e. the stern boyfriend with the sof insides and the sense of humour that only his loved ones get to see):
He woke to the sound of howling.
All around him, from every quarter, he heard a mad howling cacophony of noise. Machine screeches, the battle cries of his people, the agonized screams of the wounded, the desperate commands of the fleeing Carja.
***********************
KOTALLO WILL GET THE SEXY TIME TOO, PROMISE. He just has to go through the slowburn first. Everyone pray to your gods and spirits for me for having this many fucking WIPs at once IN ADDITION TO GERALT/READER WHICH IS ALSO MOVING ALONG AT FULL SPEED.
![chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/e68c3a49283d2c47f089796b7db478aa/4cb811599f2faea3-92/s400x600/eee70b22c5fb33268ada6da0c42d3a48ea26b9e8.gif "chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]")
![chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b15ba3bbf1f461359aef9d6c83bc0542/4cb811599f2faea3-5f/s400x600/fa5623f24bce5c9e0e9fbf5032eb077413fb6baf.gif "chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]")
![chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/4ab8b362f16c599a196f48ea72f3602e/4cb811599f2faea3-87/s400x600/7565bd0d3433e3ec7aa3c127098313d45eaa19ce.gif "chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]")
![chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/82c40e9f1c28db6415404569b3df18e2/4cb811599f2faea3-db/s400x600/3b77aaa1667bdef77822883fe9f34d8d936da9bd.gif "chloefraazers: oh, so we’re racing now? [x]")
![chloefraazers: wouldn’t want you pointing that bow at me if you didn’t mean it. [x]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/59b521565cb8913a0820d8fd60044e36/335f76bb1be062a3-31/s540x810/7d79e99306689e8999d68de5eb812d2965b2ab4e.gif "chloefraazers: wouldn’t want you pointing that bow at me if you didn’t mean it. [x]")
