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After two years crossing boundaries and finding all kinds of relics among the ruins, Aloy is surprised when she opens an Old World storage compartment and discovers a looking glass within the belongings.
There is nothing special about the frame. It’s a faded turquoise hard shell called ‘plastic’, about five inches diagonally, with a cracked handle for Aloy to hold as she lifts it to inspect. The oval glass has blackened edges, but to her surprise is mostly clear and intact. Stuffed inside clothes and blankets, and those in a hard-shelled trunk with wheels attached, and that within the compartment of an Old World vehicle, has all worked together to ensure that this looking glass is in the best possible shape after a thousand years.
With it, Aloy finds a datapoint. This mirror belonged to a young child, whose parents were trying to take her to a place called Wyoming. They wanted her to see some real animals instead of holos, but they never made it. The Faro Swarm hit them first.
She runs her fingers over the glass surface, layers of dirt and dust lifting onto her skin. Holding it before her, Aloy blows a puff of air, and the loose layers float away. There is a fragment of what used to be clothes left in the trunk, and Aloy picks it up to wipe at the surface.
And sees herself.
Her reflection is not entirely new to her. She can see it vaguely in unbroken glass among ruins, and in the stillest of waters, and Erend once joked that he’d love a twin so he could know what he looks like all the time (“It doesn’t work like that,” Aloy had snapped, and Erend held up his hands in apology and said he knew, and was only teasing). Aloy knows her appearance well enough, seeing herself in some vague form or other almost daily. She even knows how she’ll look in twenty years.
(If they make it that long.)
Still, this is… strange. This isn’t how she’ll look in the possible future. This isn’t how she looks slightly younger, softer, paler. This is her, now, very real and very clear.
Her face is slimmer than she remembers, the roundness of youth long faded as her mission (her mission, her errands, her responsibilities) physically ages her beyond her years. The desert sun has added a red hue to her cheeks beneath her layers of freckles. Her hair is… a mess, she realises, wondering bitterly why no one ever told her. She needs to take it out and wash it and re-braid.
Her eyes are… hm.
Always green, like the forests that grow in the Embrace. Like the Desert Glass she sometimes found on her slain foes. But there’s a heaviness to them now, accentuated by the dark circles under her eyes that she doesn’t remember being there before.
Aloy stares and tries to count the horrors she’s witnessed. Somehow, it turns into a list of people she’s slain.
Her mind drifts back to the Proving, where her entire life changed. She recalls running on pure instinct as she picks up her bow and aims at an Eclipse Cultist, and how easy it is to draw an arrow and release it with deadly intent. The surge of sick satisfaction as the arrow pierces through his mask and plunges into his eye is also not forgotten, though she tries to make it so.
Killing is easy. Peace is what’s hard, even among Hekarro’s united Tenakth. And as Aloy learns more of the monstrosities humans are capable of, both in the Old World and hers, the more she thinks violence and war are the natural states of existence, and anything resembling peace is the anomalous stitch in the fabric of time.
And Aloy is not above monstrosity.
It’s an… uncomfortable empirical truth about herself that she finally is forced to recognise the day she formally meets Tilda and formulates her plan to defeat the Zeniths. The second she leans in close to the projection of Beta and whispers her plan, there is a voice telling her that this could kill her sister, and not once does she reveal this or ask Beta how she feels about it. And when she looks at Tilda and refuses to tell her what they discussed, that same voice tells her that Tilda is too dangerous to be left alive when this is over.
Aloy has killed before, but sacrifice is new.
And if she can throw Beta to the Scorchers, Aloy shivers to wonder what else she’s capable of.
She holds the looking glass at arm’s length, taking in more of herself beyond the fatigue etched into her face. Her body is painted with the patterns of the Tenakth; she cannot commit to tattoos, so intricate paint will suffice. She leans toward Lowland armour when she isn’t in frigid Sky Clan territory, finding it even more of a relief from the dry desert or sticky humidity of the coast than what’s offered by the Desert Clan. And, superficially, she does like the colours afforded by the Lowland Tenakth. Aloy has always liked blue.
*
The first time Aloy finds a looking glass, she’s sixteen years old. She’s alone in the Embrace as the sun is rising over the eastern mountains, armed with nothing but her simple bow and a spear. Winter has set in, and Aloy’s breath freezes in the air with each exhale. Rost is tending to Odd Grata, the old woman sick with fever from winter chill, and has asked Aloy to collect food so he can make her a stew.
So she can thank the All-Mother while Aloy freezes her ass for her.
Aloy shivers, wrapping her furs tighter over her shoulders as a wind whistles through the clearing. The blizzard from two nights ago has left behind several feet of snow, and air so frigid that she knows her fingertips will be numb inside her gloves.
A rabbit is straight ahead. Aloy spots it with her Focus and marks it in her sights, but it disappears behind a boulder. She takes a few steps to get the right angle, but stops abruptly as her foot brushes against something that doesn’t feel quite right.
As in, it definitely isn’t a rock, but doesn’t feel like a log either.
Some other sound spooks the rabbit and it dashes away, so Aloy takes a moment to kneel and starts to brush at the snow.
And she uncovers a face.
The Nora hunter is young, maybe a couple years past the Proving himself. He must have lost his way in the storm. His face is blue, frozen in a grimace. Vaguely, Aloy wonders if his mother is missing him.
She’ll tell Rost about him when she sees him. Aloy has a feeling that if she tries to tell anyone from a settlement, she’ll be met with suspicion. They’d probably think she did it, she killed him, not carelessness or exposure. In the meantime, maybe she can find something to identify him. She lights him up with her Focus and scans for anything identifiable.
Only one thing catches her eye, and she whispers, “Sorry,” before digging out his pouch and slipping her fingers inside. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
She pulls out something small and round. Why her Focus picked this up, Aloy doesn’t know, but she looks at it all the same. It’s made of silver, some of which has turned black from time, but it’s been polished to keep most of it in good shape. It opens in her hand, and Aloy blinks, staring back at herself through cracked glass.
She’s… pretty.
Rough around the edges, maybe. Her cheeks are a little too red from being stung by the wind, and her hair is all over the place and could use a few more braids to keep it in check, and maybe she could do with a few less freckles, but she’s surprised to find she likes the face that stares back at her. She shines with the hopefulness of youth, and with the restlessness of one built to wander.
She doesn’t have long to look. Aloy hears voices behind her, carried on the wind, and she tucks the looking glass back inside the hunter’s pouch. It doesn’t belong to her.
Aloy creeps away into the tall grass, leaving him uncovered so the Nora can find him.
In a few years, that hopefulness will be gone, and the restlessness will have festered, and Aloy thinks even Rost wouldn’t recognise her anymore.
*
The woman who stares back at her is not Elisabet Sobeck. After everything she’s done, she wonders what she would think of her. Elisabet only wanted to save humanity – she still believed that they were worth saving. And Aloy is trying, she is, because she wants to believe that they are. She wants to make everything Elisabet worked for, and her death, worth something, mean something.
Because even though HADES is gone, it wasn’t wrong when it said that this version of Earth was the last. There will not be another, whether Nemesis hits or not.
There’s a jolt of fury in Aloy’s gut and she wonders what Elisabet would think if she could see her precious world. See the machines running rampant, corrupted by the malevolent memories of people she once knew, a woman she once loved. See the primitive tribes constantly at war with each other. See the descendants of her creation refuse to interact with the gifts of the Old Ones out of superstition.
As Aloy stares at the woman in the mirror, she thinks that no, Elisabet did not save humanity. She only bought it time.
And Aloy wonders just how much morality Elisabet gave to make it happen, and how much of her own is left.
She wonders what Elisabet would think of her. She once told GAIA she wanted a daughter who was curious, who wanted to heal the world, just a little bit. And back when Aloy was so desperate for connection, she had taken those words to heart.
But Aloy’s reality is vastly different from Elisabet’s. Her reality involves a lot more blood, most of it on her hands. Elisabet, as far as Aloy knows, never had to kill anyone to protect the future.
Well.
Except for when she locked herself out of Elysium, but the only life she ended by doing so had been her own.
(And deep down, Aloy will never admit to being terrified of meeting the same fate.)
The woman in the looking glass is not Elisabet Sobeck. She is Aloy, and her hands are stained as red as her hair.
Killing is easy. Mercy is hard. And her first true lesson in mercy comes to her upon the mesa in the Spearshafts, with the man she’s met at camp after bandit camp, who makes a proposal that rattles Aloy to her core.
*
His proposal of a duel to the death is barely off his lips, but Aloy already feels lifeless.
And he has the audacity to look hopeful.
She can only stare blankly at him as he awaits her response. And after a few moments of dumbfounded silence, Aloy dares to ask for clarification, a slim part of her wondering if she misunderstood him.
(She knows she didn’t.)
“To the death,” he says. “We’ll savour it, because we only get this one time.”
Her shock begins to wear, and Aloy is left with a profound sadness, the source of which she cannot pinpoint. It feels like it comes from everywhere inside her all at once.
This… man. This hunter. She has spent more hours with him on the field than any of her newfound acquaintances, if she stops to add up all of their hunts. Their first night together in Devil’s Thirst, where Aloy truly learned what she was capable of, he had stayed glued to her side. And despite their slow, quiet, stealthy approach of picking them off one-by-one, he had spoken to her almost constantly.
One of Aloy’s first shots went wide – too wide to be anything but deliberate. The man who called himself ‘Nil’ and requested she do the same had made himself comfortable next to her side and leaned far into her space, lining up the angle of her shot with his own eyes. Then he turned to her with a knowing look and asked her why she had gone and done that.
She huffed and aimed high at a sharpshooter. Her next shot didn’t miss. And when Nil smiled, so too did Aloy. The game was on.
Now here he is, asking her to kill him. And maybe there is a chance she can slip, he can win, but Aloy has a feeling that isn’t what he wants. And after the past few months, as Aloy studied him at each bandit camp and picked up some of his moves and tricks, she’s certain she knows the outcome of any duel.
And it… stings. It hurts.
And with the hurt and confusion comes a rage so potent that Aloy sees red. She lifts her chin and meets Nil’s gaze, and it’s on the tip of her tongue to accept his proposal.
But then she thinks of their conversations, the way he speaks of demons, and even though the moment is fleeting it’s enough that Aloy softens. She turns him down. And then gives him just a small piece of her mind for good measure.
As she’s leaving the mesa, she turns back once and says, “Nil…”
He looks at her from under long lashes, his lip not exactly out but in a clear pout all the same. “It’s true, I offered you the choice,” he sighs, “but my heart is broken.”
And as Aloy rappels down the mesa, she thinks that may be the most straightforward he’s ever been with her.
She reaches the bottom and for a moment she doesn’t know what to do next, where to go. She can’t seem to think of anything but what just happened, of Nil asking her such an intimate favour. Sylens might be waiting for her at Sunfall—
Wait.
Wait.
To borrow a phrase she picked up from Erend, what in the forgefire fuck was that?
Aloy doesn’t hesitate or give herself time to calm down. She starts to climb back up the mesa, growling to herself that if Nil decides to rappel down while she’s on her way up, she might just take him up on that duel after all. She ascends with more ferocity than usual, sweating from the effort she exudes, and reaches the top to find Nil facing away from her and on his knees.
She takes a step and calls his name. He whirls, getting to his feet at the same time.
“How could you ask me that?” she demands, storming toward him. “How could you ask me to do that? After everything, after… After all of it?”
Before she has a chance to think, she’s directly in front of him and placing both hands on his chest in a rough shove. He stumbles back, his eyes oddly glazed as if he doesn’t truly see her. Or maybe doesn’t believe she’s there.
This doesn’t quell Aloy’s tempest. She shoves again, her voice rising. “I trusted you! You made me trust you!”
She thinks of Devil’s Thirst, where he saw that she was freeing prisoners and dutifully opened the other cage, telling the Nora inside to run and hide. She thinks of how he followed her lead to draw nearby bandits into the tall grass and plunge their blades into their chests. How he praised her ability to bring about a swift, decisive death. How he grinned and said he knew his trust in his newfound partner was not misplaced.
She thinks of Shattered Kiln, where Nil fought back-to-back with her as bandits closed around them, their alarm lit to draw more and more to the fight. She thinks of how he glanced at her over his shoulder when she grunted in pain, an arrow slicing her outer thigh. She thinks of how they fell to the ground together, gripping each other, and rolled as the pack of blaze on the leader’s back ignited and exploded next to them. How she lifted her head from his neck to see the last of the bandits burning, finally beaten, and coming down to the realisation that she was sprawled on top of him with his arm around her waist, and the heat that coursed through her belly at the feel. And she thinks of how he helped dress the wound on her leg later, his touch as he wrapped a bandage around her thigh as tender as he was deadly.
And she thinks of Gatelands, where the quiet after the storm allowed for conversation. She asked Nil where he had been since the Nora lands, and he offered his introspection into her, and Aloy… Aloy realised that Nil truly saw her, and it both frightened and excited her. And she thought, for one heart-wrenching moment, that he might put his hands on her when he shifted his bow on his back, that maybe the gap between them would close, but no. It never happened, and she was foolish for thinking it would. She was fresh from Brightmarket, fresh from helping Elida, and was only thinking of… foolish things. Foolish things as she said goodbye to Nil, only for him to invite her here, now, to this place he knows, to this place that must hold some meaning for him to bring her here.
She thinks of this and she launches herself at him, kissing him as he opens his mouth to answer her.
And pulls back just as quickly, stumbling as she touches her fingers to her lips. Her mind whirls, disbelief settling in her gut, wondering what she just did. She just… she just kissed a man, kissed Nil, and he… He just stares at her, that glazed look still in his eye, but starting to come alive again with a hunger she’s never seen. A hunger that she is starting to understand herself.
Aloy stares back, her heart leaping into her throat. She can’t tell how much time passes, but it feels like eternity.
Then they move as one, just like on the battlefield, crashing together with blunt force. She’s on his hips, arms over his shoulders, that headdress slipping to the side but staying on as his belt digs into her thighs. There is a frenzy of movement as weapons are dropped, as Nil falls back down to his knees and clutches her to his chest. She kneels around him and whines into his mouth, and the heat off his skin seeps into her very core. Aloy shudders and grips him tighter.
(Not like this.)
Her eyes open and she pulls back from him again. He chases her with his lips, but she leans away and pushes herself to her feet. Aloy’s skin is quivering with desire, but this… This doesn’t feel right. Not like this. Not atop a mesa with her emotions in pieces. Not here, with Nil a broken-hearted shadow of a man. Not like this, surrounded by bandits slain to make room for their own battle to the death.
She runs to the rappel point and launches off again, not giving him a chance to react or recover, or giving herself a moment to reflect her own rash actions. This time when she hits the bottom, she keeps running.
*
Aloy showed Nil mercy that day, and it’s one of the last times she ever did such an act. Regalla hardly counts, she thinks; sparing Regalla was more about needing another body to fight the battle against the Zeniths, and less about second chances.
Another sacrifice, even if Regalla claimed she chose an honourable death.
She wraps the looking glass in loose linens from her pouch and tucks it inside. For half a minute, Aloy wonders what such a rare find will fetch in a market, but figures she would have to go to Meridian to really find out. But she hesitates instead, recalling the datapoint she found when she was searching for Amadis with Talanah. With a smile, she pats the pouch and decides to save it for Gildun, just in case she ever crosses paths with the boisterous Oseram again. Besides, she has more shards than she needs.
The ornament for Stemmur is tucked deep inside her pouch, a valid excuse for her second visit to the Stillsands in three weeks. If she didn’t have this, she’s fairly sure she would put off her visit for at least another week – she doesn’t like to visit too close together. Aloy exits the ruins and whistles for her Sunwing, uses her Pullcaster to haul herself onto its back, and heads southeast.
Nil is waiting for her there. His face swims in the forefront of her mind as her bird flaps its great wings, and Aloy feels her heart begin to race, sweat breaking out on her forehead. She’s looking forward to seeing him, probably more than she should, and yet she gets a chill in her spine all the same.
Her draw to Nil is… complicated. Layered, like he is. And nerve-wracking, because no one sees her like Nil sees her – or has seen her. No one challenges her like Nil does. And no one accepts her like Nil does.
Aloy isn’t sure which of those matters most.
Or which frightens her the most.
He’s become… something to her. Something she doesn’t want to label, but she’s given him pieces of herself that she hasn’t – can’t – won’t give anyone else. Nil has teased out of her things that she didn’t know existed, things she isn’t ashamed of but also is not about to broadcast to anyone else.
Ways her body can move, ways her limbs can bend.
(He’s over her, thrusting his hips, kissing her brow. His left arm slides down her body, over her breast and gives a squeeze, then lower, lower, down her thigh and then slipping under her knee. Aloy is wondering what he’s doing, pulled from the mesmerism of her pleasure as he moves. And then he starts to push on her leg, lifting it, bringing it up, up, and then her calf is propped against his shoulder. He continues to thrust while she’s overtaken by the newness of this, of the strain in her leg burning but in the best way, of how open she feels to take him to the hilt.)
Sounds she can make from the deepest parts of her.
(When he first suggests taking her from behind, Aloy is more than skeptical: she’s almost offended. She’s on the verge of telling Nil she isn’t some woodland animal when he reaches for her face and strokes her cheek with his thumb. If he makes a suggestion, he says, it is for her pleasure, her benefit. Aloy finds herself believing him, so, even though her face is burning hot with embarrassment [and there is a joke in there, she thinks bitterly to herself, about her em-bare-ass-ment], she still turns away from him to get into position – and is fucked gloriously, and she can’t hide it.
Cries and moans of pleasure are torn from Aloy’s lips, starting from somewhere so deep inside she half-wonders if the source is just Nil. Maybe it’s the angle, or Nil being propped up on his knees and giving himself more leverage. Maybe it’s the way he grips her hips like he can’t let go. Maybe it’s the way his cock is brushing a spot inside her that his fingers have only teased before. Or maybe it’s just Aloy letting go, submitting to instinct beyond battle, and allowing someone to give her something. And when Aloy gets it in her head to make sure Nil hits that spot, when she bends her elbows and lowers her torso, keeping her hips suspended where they are, she feels an immense sense of power when Nil loses control and succumbs to his own body.
Because of her.
That in itself is enough to bring her the same gratification as an orgasm, but Nil has other ideas. He apologises with a laugh. She smiles. And then he grabs her by waist to lift her so that he can slide under, and when he’s on his back he guides her to his face. And as she rides his tongue she realises he can taste himself as much as he can taste her, and that sends her toppling over the edge with a cry even more primal than the sounds she’s made all night.)
Desires for ways she longs to touch and be touched.
(When she leads Nil to his shelter after the match race, her heart is pounding louder than the echoes of hooves on the track. Aloy is certain he can hear it. She’s never done this before, but she’s never felt so sure that this is what she wants either.
She came close once, after the mesa. A formal ceremony in Scalding Spear to recognise the ascension of a new leader via combat, and Aloy obliged to attend as she had a major hand in the outcome. The Desert Clan grew rowdy as Aloy grew weary, but the only person who seemed to be having an even worse time was Drakka. She spotted him with her Focus, dangling his legs over the edge of his lookout, and went up to join him.
“Flame of the desert,” he greeted flatly as she sat. A full tankard of drink sat on his other side.
“Commander.”
He grunted at the title, but said nothing. Aloy furrowed her brow, because as far as she knew Drakka, she knew he liked to talk.
“You good?”
“It’s the way of the desert,” he sighed, not hearing her, and Aloy understood.
Remorse.
She felt none herself for choosing Drakka. She had done what she could to help both sides, but Yarra’s lies and paranoia made her dangerous. And Drakka had the decency to ensure an honourable death – a favour Aloy couldn’t help but think Yarra would never repay, if the tables were turned.
She touched his shoulder.
He looked at her.
She kissed him.
Comfort, she told herself. Comfort beyond the capabilities of words.
But when Drakka pulled back for air, she looked into his eyes and saw cedar, when she really wanted silver.
Still, she intended to see it through. Aloy was never one to leave a job unfinished, but Drakka merely gave her a smile as he sat back and said, “Thanks.” And it was… a relief. Not because she wasn’t ready, but because kissing him brought her to the realisation that she missed someone. She missed Nil.
So when he unmasked himself for her, confirming her stifled hope that the disguised stranger who stared at her so intently the way only one other person had was, indeed, Nil, she began to picture this very night. She imagined it over and over, falling asleep to images of Nil wrapped around her. And even though she’s a bundle of nerves, it reminds her of the thrill before a hunt.
She wants this. And it’s something she wants just for herself, not for the greater good.
Wherever she is, she hopes Elisabet forgives her moment of weakness, of self-indulgence, and she turns inside Nil’s shelter to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him.
She doesn’t know if he’s pictured this moment the way she has, even if his feelings for her were made abundantly clear after she beat him the first time. She moans as his lips cover hers, so gentle compared to that first frantic kiss atop the mesa. His hands are on her waist, and as she presses closer to him, one slides lower, brushing her backside.
This Nil is real, and not a figment of her imagination, and so the night isn’t exactly like she pictured too many times to count in the past month.
It’s better.
He asks her what feels good. He asks what she likes. And Aloy has to use her words to respond sometimes, but she… she likes it. And Nil likes it. She can see the effect her voice has on him, and this only drives her own desire.
A few months later, when he’s too hurt to move [and she will never admit to the way she rushes into his shelter when Pekka tells her what happened, will never admit to nearly throwing up at the thought of him grievously injured, will never admit to the tears that burn her eyelids when he awakens and sees her, or how relieved she is when he asks her to stay], he asks her to describe how she wants to be touched.
And Aloy… does it. It’s strange, using her words, but she goes through it all, step by step, the way she’s pictured countless times since Red Teeth revealed himself. The same fantasy, now verbalized and shared.
This time, the fantasy continues in her head after climax, and she keeps talking. In the fantasy, Nil presses his lips to her ear and tells her he loves her.
She stops before she can let that slip, and she doesn’t let herself think it again.)
The absolute trust Nil has in her, though… That frightens and excites her. That he let his guard down with her in every way possible, that he let himself be so vulnerable with her, that he chose to tell her about his past, all things she never imagined could happen if they only slept together – they all point to intimacy deeper than carnal urges.
Even though Aloy hasn’t labelled them, they are more than what she ever believed they could be.
And Aloy… Aloy is vulnerable with him, too.
When he was bound and blindfolded below her, he couldn’t see her face. He couldn’t see her concern, her hope that he was okay even as she felt every muscle in his body tense. He couldn’t see the shine in her eyes when she saw his face contort under the blindfold, or the relief she had when he finally let himself go. None of that night was about her; she didn’t need to tie him up to know she had power over him. He was the one who needed release that night. And he had the control, she thinks: If for a second he had told her to stop, she would have. She had power, but he had control.
And Aloy gripped his bound hands and made sure he knew that she was right there with him.
He doesn’t know this. But he knows Aloy. Not the version of her cloned from Elisabet Sobeck, not the woman created to save the world. He knows who she is when she lets loose on the track and uses any weapon she can to beat him. He knows who she is when she’s slain a man, unprovoked. He knows who she is when she’s covered in blood and smiling because she’s won, regardless of the battlefield.
She once chastised him for keeping count of bodies.
The truth is, she doesn’t count because she isn’t sure how high numbers can go, and the reality of her kills is too much for her to face. And Aloy thinks that Nil knows this unspoken part of her more intimately than he knows her body.
If she’s being honest, Aloy doesn’t want to know how many lives she’s taken. It’s all for the greater fucking good, isn’t it? It’s always for the greater good. For Elisabet. For GAIA. For Earth and all her people, for the friends Aloy has permitted herself to love, she will continue to spill the blood and bear it. And hope she doesn’t drown in it.
And this… this is where Nil has become another source of comfort, because he did keep count. Aloy has never asked, but she thinks Nil knows exactly how many people he has killed, both in the heat of war and in the frigid air of camps. Seeing him in the Forbidden West, happier, fuller, and calmer than he had ever been in the Sundom, fills Aloy with the briefest glimpse of peace. On top of that, she feels hope. Maybe it’s selfish, but Nil is an idea of possible.
She lands her Sunwing behind his shelter as the sun is beginning to set, turning the sky a brilliant orange. She peeks behind his canvas door, but no one is inside. Just his bed, his chest, and… her. Her things strewn about, her belongings scattered among his, and she can’t help but smile.
It fades when she sees that the Focus she’s left him remains on top of his trunk.
It’s… understandable, she supposes. She never told Nil she was giving it to him, or what it is. She just left it after one of their more vigorous nights, where she had glided down from her Sunwing straight at him while he watched her, and let go to fall into his arms and tackle him to the sand. He was on watch, the kids asleep in their own tents, and Aloy straddled him while tearing at his armour. By the time they crawled into his shelter, they were in nothing but smalls, which were discarded before they tumbled to his bedroll.
She blushes, heat travelling down her chest as she recalls the way she turned over and lay flat, Nil’s knees on either side of hers, his teeth digging into her shoulders and her back—
“Hey, Aloy!”
Elottak’s voice rips her from the memory, and Aloy is glad for the wind of flight hiding the true reason for the blush in her cheeks. Her eyes tear away from the Focus as she shoves down the sting of its abandonment, and she turns to face the younger girl. Aloy waves, and Elottak waves back. Behind her, the other five teens glance up and exchange wicked grins.
That can’t be good.
“Hey,” Aloy says, joining them at the fire. “Where’s Red Teeth?”
“He’s over—” Haxx starts, but Wikkoh elbows him in the ribs hard, then silences him with a look.
“He’ll be back soon,” Attah says, sitting next to Aloy and offering her a skewer. Aloy takes it and bites into a chunk of peccary, seasoned perfectly by Wikkoh’s expertise. “He didn’t go far.”
More grins are exchanged, this time between Elottak and Pekka, and Aloy chews and swallows with a frown.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Pekka says, her voice far too sing-songy to mean nothing.
Elottak giggles, her amusement spreading to Wikkoh. Haxx chomps into a pepper to smother his own laugh, and even Josekk approaches the fire with a smirk he’s clearly trying to hide.
“You’re all terrible,” Aloy snaps, which sends them into peals of laughter.
A Charger approaches from the north as Aloy is finishing her skewer, Red Teeth on its back. He dismounts smoothly and comes toward them, his eyes on Aloy. It’s still strange to see him without his mask around the kids – stranger still that none of them, not even Haxx, look directly at him. Their eyes cast downward when he approaches, or they fixate on each other, but no one dares to look at Nil’s face.
Aloy rises and goes to meet him, the snickers of the children behind her as she grits her teeth and rolls her eyes. A stern look from Nil over her shoulder and they silence.
“Hey,” she says to him, and finally smiles.
“It’s good to see you again, Aloy.” She doesn’t think she will ever be over the way he says her name. Aloy can almost feel it like a caress along her spine, and her smile softens, her shoulders relax. Aloy. It’s like her name was made for his tongue, and his alone.
With Nil so close, she feels the comforting peace prickle at her skin, and Aloy allows herself to melt into it.
“How are things?” she asks, and his eyes flicker for a moment. Whatever happened inside his head when he was tied up, Aloy doesn’t know, but she understands the weight it carried.
“I’m better than I’ve been in a long time,” Nil finally answers. He steps closer to Aloy, his fingers sliding down her arms, and she presses her forehead into his shoulder. “But you are early.”
She chuckles and looks up at him. “Should I leave?”
“No, no. I can improvise, but it isn’t as polished as I would have hoped.” He looks down at her, his eyes giving a mischievous glint as he adds, “Though with the state of my shelter, I don’t think you’ll mind.”
She gives his chest a shove as he chortles a laugh and catches her hands.
“‘It’?”
Nil doesn’t answer. He leads her to his Charger and mounts, inviting her to climb on in front of him. She does so, his heat pleasant against her back as the sun continues to set and a chill creeps its way into the desert. He whirls the Charger and they follow its tracks north, heading toward an old tower on the outskirts of the Vegas lights. It’s tall, round at the top and mostly intact, and Aloy looks at Nil over her shoulder as her Focus tells her that the tracks stop at the base.
“Nil?”
“Patience, Aloy,” he says, his palm caressing down her back to slide around her hip.
She thinks of the Focus in his shelter and sighs, leaning back against his chest. She thinks of what it means for her to have left it with him, how she meant it as trust, but not even mentioning it when she left it… Because rejection is a bigger hurt than abandonment.
She thinks of the laughing kids back at the fire, of the life they have and the purpose they’ve given Nil, and how if Aloy reached them before they defected, they could be dead.
Then his hand slides under the top hem of her shorts, down into her smalls, and Aloy only thinks of him, and his hands, and his mouth, and how only he can reduce Hekarro’s Champion to a shaking, babbling mess.
And how only he can make her feel so soft and protected after.
*
The fantasy Aloy describes to Nil is the first time, in her mind, that he says he loves her. It’s not the first time she thinks of love at all.
And to think it starts with a joke.
They have found themselves inside the body of one of the massive Old World airplanes in the desert, where Aloy once found a black box. When the thunderstorm kicked in, Aloy led Nil here to wait it out. He perches against the wall, his arms crossed as he stares at the rain pouring in sheets at the entrance to the plane, then looks down at his feet.
“They’ll be fine,” Aloy says, and Nil glances at her. The children are back at the Stillsands, waiting for Nil to return from Scalding Spear with supplies, and it’s only by chance that Aloy has happened across him. An exchange of pleasantries, brief smiles, and then the light drizzle becomes a full-on downpour, forcing them to seek shelter as lightning strikes a nearby metal post from the Old World.
He’s about to retort when a flash of lightning strikes right outside the plane, thunder clapping so hard the structure echoes and vibrates. And Aloy, who has never feared thunder in her life, jumps and yelps.
Nil eyes her for a moment, even moves toward her in concern, until it becomes clear that Aloy’s reaction is nothing deeper than a jump scare.
And his mouth cracks into a grin.
“Don’t,” she warns him, but Aloy is starting to smile too. She can’t help it: the ridiculousness of her reaction, combined with Nil’s unchecked amusement, has all amounted to her thinking that this whole thing is funny.
He starts to laugh. And so does she, as much as she tries to stifle it. Nil comes over to her and wraps his arms around, laughing into her hair, and she lets him, finding herself melting for his unabashed glee. Finally, she gets enough control over herself to adopt the sweetest, most affectionate tone she can, and tilts her head at Nil, and says a joking phrase she picked up from Josekk: “You and the Ten are welcome to kiss my armoured ass.”
He seems to freeze in her grip, his laughter ebbing away, and then presses his lips to her neck. “I don’t know about the Ten,” he murmurs, and his tone has shifted to one Aloy has come to know quite well, and her thighs immediately press together in anticipation. “But I’ll take you up on that offer.”
“What?” she exhales in a chuckle, not sure if he’s serious or not. “You want to actually—”
“If you want.” His lips are still against her neck, and now her throat, and Aloy’s first instinct to roll her eyes is drowned by memories of the last time he suggested something different. Trusting Nil in this area – and others – has benefits, as she is frequently reminded.
She hums and chuckles again, and he pulls back to look at her. Grey eyes are full of want, not just for her, but to please her. Deep inside, Aloy feels herself pulled upward, as if she’s fallen from a great height and is catching herself on her glider, despite her feet being firmly planted to the earth.
(She can’t think about what that means. Not now.)
“Okay,” she says with a smile, wondering what exactly she’s getting herself into.
All wondering is gone with her bottoms only a breath later. The cold of the storm hits hard, making her realise how warm she is just from Nil’s closeness. She lets out a gasp as even her undergarments are gone from the waist down. There is a brief, ludicrous thought that anyone crazy enough to be wandering by in this storm will get quite a view of the Champion, and Aloy laughs at it as Nil descends to his knees.
She’s facing the wrong way for his intention, but Nil doesn’t seem bothered. He noses at her sex, glancing up at her as his paint already starts to rub onto her thighs, dampened by the rain before they found shelter. When his tongue finds her slit, she nibbles on her lip, keeping her gaze steady with his.
He’s warming her up, Aloy realises, a soft moan escaping her lips as he presses his tongue between her folds. And she lets him, gripping his hair for balance as he dives in with ravenous force. The rain and thunder continue outside, a backdrop to the pleasure mounting within her as Nil… Nil…
“Nil!” she gasps, and her release is close, so close she can feel it in the back of her throat, something metallic and strong and—
He grabs her hips and whirls her around, and Aloy slams her hands against the wall as she leans forward. In the daze of her approaching climax, she almost forgets Nil’s purpose, but he hasn’t.
He hasn’t at all.
His hands are pressed against either cheek of her backside, and he runs his lips over her flesh before pressing a kiss where she is most ample. Aloy chuckles again, this time with some apprehension, and then gasps as she feels teeth sink into that very spot. This isn’t one of Nil’s teasing nibbles to make her break into goosebumps; it isn’t a tender tug to wake up her body. This is a bite, one Aloy is sure will leave a bruise, and her knees start to shake at how much her body craves more of it.
“Do you have any idea,” Nil croons against her ass, his voice deeper and huskier than usual and sending delightful shudders through her spine, “how delicious you are, Aloy? Do you know how divine you taste on my tongue?”
She can’t breathe. Air stops in her chest and she’s frozen at his words.
He bites again, lighter this time, more like his usual. His hand on her other asscheek slips lower, lower still, until his thumb is between her thighs and rubbing a part of her body she doesn’t have a name for, between her holes, and pleasure rockets through her veins as she bends further still.
“The way you open yourself up to me,” he exhales, and his sigh turns into a groan as his thumb slips into her opening, “oh, it’s enough to bring me to my knees every time.”
Aloy gasps, the ability to breathe returning at last as she lets out a whine, Nil’s thumb pressing against her inner walls.
“When I’m inside you” – and here, Aloy feels her knees start to tremble, as Nil’s hot breath moves lower on her backside, and his hands apply the slightest of pressure to spread her apart – “and I feel your release on my cock, it takes all I have to not fill you right then and there.”
The levee breaks, and Aloy spasms around his thumb with a cry. Nil seems to take this as his cue, and suddenly his face is between her ass cheeks, his mouth open and his tongue running from the bottom of her slit up to her hole. Aloy cries out again, her hands slamming into the metal walls of the plane in time with a clap of thunder. She hears – feels – Nil chuckle into her as he gives her ass a squeeze.
“Fa– fuck,” she keens, gritting her teeth and balling her hands into fists, her nails raking the wall of the plane. It’s almost too much, almost more than she can bear, and her entire body is starting to shiver. Aloy knows the storm’s chill has nothing to do with it.
His tongue circles and delves, torturing her with slowness. Aloy’s hips buck against him and he chuckles again, and then grinds his mouth against her with a growl and small shake of his head. At the same time, she feels his thumb leave to be replaced by his fingers, and then his thumb presses against her, under his mouth.
“Please,” Aloy hears herself whimper. “Please, Nil.”
His hand leaves her backside. Her legs are quaking, threatening to give. Suddenly Nil grasps her again, his palm stinging against her skin as the sound of the smack echoes in the plane around them. His fingers dig into the soft flesh and muscle, and he’s still working her with his mouth while the fingers of his other hand are inside her.
“Please,” she repeats, and she doesn’t even know what she’s pleading for. “Nil—”
His middle finger is still inside, but his pointer slips out and begins to circle her bud. Nil presses his thumb gently against her hole, and Aloy comes for the second time in minutes. The force of her orgasm forces her forward, and here her knees do buckle, Nil barely able to catch her as she falls to the floor.
She’s an absolute mess, sweating and shaking and dizzy. Nil gathers Aloy in his arms and lowers them both to the floor, his palm rubbing her backside tenderly as he places kisses on her arm and shoulder. Dimly, she’s aware that she’s smiling, and so is he when she finally turns over enough to see him. He continues his gentle caresses, his peppering of kisses on her shoulder and arm, and Aloy basks in his aftercare.
She came completely undone for him, and she feels no shame for any of it. He never makes her feel like desire is a bad thing, something for her to hide from him. And even when they’ve gone at it at their most passionate, at their roughest, the fact that he makes time for this… for showering her with affection and tenderness… This matters. This means so much to Aloy that her heart hurts.
“I—” She stops, her tongue poised behind her top teeth. She thinks of that flying sensation from earlier, and her heart skips a beat in her ribs. He waits, his lips against her bicep. “I liked that,” she exhales, her original thought fleeting as she refuses to catch it. This might not be what she wants to say, but it’s a version of truth all the same.
He lifts his face to her, grey eyes meeting green. His passion has flamed out, and now he only has that softness, the fondness she knows so well, that makes her feel warm even in the plane’s chill.
“I know,” he says. He begins to redress her, her limbs still too weak to do much, and then curls himself around her when he’s done.
And Aloy thinks: Yes. Yes, he does.
*
His touch is a tease, hovering on her mound but never fully descending into her curls. Still, she brushes against his fingers with each bouncy stride of the Charger, and it’s enough to make her wanting by the time they reach the tower.
“It’s a bit of a climb,” Nil says, pulling his hand out of Aloy’s clothes and speaking as casually as if he wasn’t just sneakily trying to get her off, “but your tool should help.”
“Speaking of tools,” she grumbles at him, and Nil merely grins.
For the height he wants to ascend, Aloy isn’t sure the Pullcaster can handle both of them. She hands it to him, quickly showing him how to use it. Nil launches himself toward an outcropping fit for a grapple, learning the weapon with the ease of a practiced soldier. He climbs to the right and pulls himself up onto a ledge, then leans over to drop the Pullcaster down to Aloy. She catches it and makes her own way up.
“This way,” Nil says, and he leads her around the landing until they reach a place to pull themselves up onto a second level. And Aloy sees his surprise.
The tower was once full of debris, but Nil has cleared most of it away from where they are. A flat platform in the middle is wide enough for him to have spread two bedrolls on it, and the layer below is surrounded with various candles that he immediately sets about lighting. As the last of the sun fades beyond the western mountains, the candles provide the only light within, and soft blue-green holos from outside cast a pleasant hue.
It’s breathtaking. It’s beautiful. It’s for her.
“You gave me a gift,” he murmurs, sliding back to her on his knees. Nil rests behind her as she stares at the scene, pulling her hair back from her shoulder to place a kiss on her neck. “I’d be honoured if you let me return the favour.”
She nods, mesmerized, and allows him to undress her. Atop the platform is no place for stripping, as anywhere they drop clothes runs the risk of hitting a candle, so it’s best to leave them behind. She assists Nil with his armour, then stops before they move. Nibbling her lip, Aloy reaches into her pouch to pull out a rag, and pours some water on it from her waterskin.
“I want to see you,” she breathes, and Nil is still for a moment. Then he lowers his head, closes his eyes, and allows her to wipe the Tenakth paint off him. It takes a few minutes before he’s Nil again, but he’s there, tattoos under his eyes and all, and he’s Aloy’s.
She puts the rag down, and her fingers brush a cool surface sticking out of her pouch. Remembering her find, Aloy pulls out the looking glass.
“I found this today.” She turns it over in her hands, then holds it out to Nil. “Have you ever seen one?”
He takes the mirror and flips it a few times. His eyes never settle on his reflection.
“Not in this condition,” he answers. Aloy takes it back when he hands it to her. Instead of putting it away, she holds it out and leans in, pressing her cheek to Nil’s as she looks at their faces together in the looking glass.
At this, Nil looks too, and Aloy cracks a smile.
“We look good together,” she says lightly. “We’re both very pretty.”
Nil huffs a laugh and turns his face to kiss her cheek. Grinning, Aloy puts it away, and Nil takes her in his arms and holds her to him as he brings her to the bedroll. He kisses her deeply as he lays her down on her back, and she drags her fingers through his hair, down his neck, over his shoulders and onto his chest. Nil’s body is over hers, and she already starts to slide her knees up his sides.
He pulls back and looks down at her. For a moment, Nil looks… almost nervous. Aloy swallows as his face, devoid completely of paint for the first time since she’s found him out here, betrays his feelings.
She reaches behind his neck and pulls him to her, pressing her lips to his brow, and he sighs into her neck.
“This is beautiful,” she says. “It’s… you’re amazing, Nil.”
It’s the most direct she’s ever verbally been with her feelings for him. And it seems to be what he needs, because he relaxes beneath her touch. He kisses her mouth, giving her lip a swipe with his tongue, then leans up again to look into her eyes. His hand strokes her face and she leans into it with a smile that he mirrors.
Then he leans down, and he kisses her throat, just above her pulse. Aloy’s lips twitch, her smile growing. A little lower, and he kisses the dip in her collarbone.
(Wait.)
His fingers wind into her hair as he moves up, kissing her lips, and she kisses back as her heart begins to race.
(Is this…)
Nil continues to kiss, his lips pressing softly into her face. Her nose. Above her eyes. Her cheeks. And then her mouth again, with more passion, and the taste of spice is on her tongue as his slides between her lips and over her teeth.
His hand slips from her hair to her chest, above her thundering heart. He smiles into her lips at the feel of her, then moves his hand lower to cover her breast.
It’s her fantasy. It’s what she shared. He’s… he has it memorised and he’s following it, word for word. A light pinch on her nipple, making her gasp. And then lips on her other breast, kissing the very freckle on the underside she knows he likes to tease, and his tongue runs over her quivering flesh, and all Aloy can hear is static.
He kisses her again, and she kisses back, her body reacting for her as her mind reels. Nil is… Nil is…
He’s gentle, he’s so fucking gentle as he touches her, he’s so caring and tender and he’s everything she wanted, everything she wants , but… If he doesn’t…
Nil is moving down between her legs, guiding her knee over his shoulder, and presses kisses against her thighs until he reaches her cunt. His beard hasn’t grown in as much as she fantasised, but he did say she was a week early. As his tongue begins to work her slit and he presses kisses against the bud within her folds, Aloy feels her body move, feels her hips thrust slowly against his face, but she… she…
(“I love you,” the Nil in her head says into her ear.)
Aloy swallows hard, her stomach flipping inside her. All of a sudden the air feels heavy, tight, like it’s constricting her. She lets out a whimper, and her hands come up to clamp over her mouth. Tears are stinging her eyes. And then everything crashes as his tongue teases her entrance.
“No,” she whispers. Nil stops instantly and she feels him look up at her, but she’s frozen now.
“Aloy?”
He sits up and crawls over her, his hand cupping her cheek, so fucking full of concern and caring that Aloy begins to shake.
This is everything she ever wanted, and Aloy can’t handle it. After everything Nil has exposed her to, after the nights of pleasure and also the nights of gentle conversation while he clutched her to his chest, after he opened himself up to her and trusted her with everything he had, he tries to give her this and she panics.
Sobs wrack through her entire body, and Aloy tries in vain to stifle them with her hands. Her eyes are wide, unblinking as she stares high into the tower’s broken ceiling, stars peeking through the holes and laughing down at her.
Another sob, and Nil’s hands are on hers. She can feel him trying to pull them from her mouth, but she resists and shakes her head. He stops, his arms going around her instead and crushing her to his chest. And Aloy breaks.
Because Nil wouldn’t remember the exact words she told him, he wouldn’t have set this whole thing up here in the tower, he wouldn’t be enacting her deepest desire for her—
He wouldn’t be doing any of it if he didn’t love her.
And it’s this that Aloy wants more than anything, more than the physical act of what she described and he was doing. It’s his love that she wants, and the knowledge that she has it without asking for it—
It’s all Aloy wants, and she can’t handle it. Her heart feels like it’s going to burst and she crumbles in Nil’s grasp, her sobs feeling like they’re shattering her ribs as she cries into his chest. Everything hurts.
She’s among beautiful lights and romantic candles. She’s in the arms of the man she loves and who she knows loves her, and everything hurts.
Nil’s grip on her never falters, never loosens. He doesn’t shush her. He holds her. He lets her wail and he strokes her hair. Like a lover does.
He’s done nothing wrong. He’s done nothing but love her. He never asks her for anything, he never expects her to be anyone but herself, and he knows exactly who that is.
He knows every flawed, angry, hurt, vengeful, malicious, bloodthirsty aspect of her.
And he loves her.
He holds her until her sobs subside and she finally peels herself away from him. Then his hand cups her face, her fingers lowering from her mouth, and he brushes away the signs of her weakness with his thumb.
“I should have asked first,” he says, his voice thick and heavy.
Aloy shakes her head. He doesn’t need to be sorry. He presses his lips to her forehead and then rests his cheek where his lips were.
“Nil,” she finally chokes. He pulls back enough to look at her. “I’m so—”
He shushes her with a kiss, gentle and loving. Gentle and loving. The taste of spice is on her tongue, mixed with the taste of her, and the salt of her tears. She moans softly against him and exhales, allowing him to draw her in.
Then he simply holds her. She’s quiet now, no longer crying, no longer shaking. Her skin trembles now and then, but it’s more from the chill of her drying sweat than anything else. He holds her until her heart calms its reckless pace, and she’s able to prop herself up on his arms over top of him.
“You’re right about me,” she says. “Everything you ever said.”
He reaches a hand up to stroke hair back from her face and nods. It isn’t a victory.
“I’m here,” he promises. “Whatever you need, Aloy.”
“Just this.” She lowers herself onto his chest and rests her head against him. “Just you.”
For now, it’s almost enough.
In time, she’s calm enough to lift herself off him again. And she needs… connection.
She strokes a hand up his chest to his neck and into his hair, and leans down to brush her lips over his. Nil’s lips press up against hers, his fingers toying with the beads in her braid.
She rises and slips her knee over him. Nil furrows his brow and frowns, and Aloy offers a small smile. She doesn’t want to waste the night, waste his efforts, but…
“We don’t have to do anything, Aloy.” He lightens his tone and adds, “I won’t take it personally.”
She kisses him again, more pressure in it, and slides her hips over his.
“Aloy—”
“I want this. Please.”
He considers, looking deep into her eyes. The weight of the decision pulls at him, but Aloy waits. Gears turn almost visibly in his head as his mind debates his body, and one of his hands slides down to grip her waist, but he’s still thinking.
“May I start over?” he asks at last, and Aloy lets out a chuckle. It’s her turn to consider now, and after she does, she nods. Yes. Starting over feels… right.
He grips her to his chest, kissing her as he rolls them over. She positions herself beneath him, and even though her heart is pounding, this time she feels the swell of anticipation instead of dread.
His fingers stroke her throat as he kisses, her pulse thumping under his touch. Here, Nil breaks their kiss, and she readies herself for it to start over properly.
Instead, he deviates from the script. Nil kisses her forehead, then looks down at her.
“You know I’m in love with you, Aloy.”
There it is.
The confirmation she needs.
The affirmation that yes, she knows, and she has known for a while.
She’s overcome with relief, with gratitude, and with a swell of her own love for Nil, and all she can do is close her eyes and nod with a sigh and the smallest of smiles.
From here, Nil follows her words. He kisses where she wants to be kissed. He touches where she wants to be touched. This time when he goes down on her, it feels good, and Aloy surrenders to his love.
As he’s above her later, thrusting while she bucks her hips and she can feel the head of his cock brushing against her core, she is the one to break from the fantasy. Aloy’s back is arched, her eyes closed, but she opens them and puts her hand on Nil’s face to bring him to her.
“I love you,” she exhales, and he smiles and groans, dipping his face into her neck.
As in her fantasy, he comes with her, moments after she does, and Aloy has never felt as sated as when she’s in his arms after. His arms are around her, and she runs her fingers through his hair.
Eventually, she rolls over so her back is to his chest, and she pulls his arms around her and grips his hands. He leans over her to place gentle kisses along her neck, and Aloy’s eye catches on the looking glass in her pouch. She can see them. Her, looking wild and tired, and him, soft and refined.
Nil loves her.
He doesn’t love the Saviour, he doesn’t love the Champion. He loves Aloy. All he knows about her, and he still loves her.
Maybe, when everything is over, she’ll still be worthy of his love.
Killing is easy. Love is hard.
For now, she’ll take everything he offers.
And it’s enough.