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Bright.
Oh fire and spit, that light was bright.
Aloy wrinkled her nose, groaning and pressing herself harder against her bed furs. The furs were warm. So delightfully, temptingly warm. For a moment, she managed to shield her eyes from that damn bright light, and she sighed.
The bed furs sighed under her.
Interesting.
She snuggled closer anyway, not bothering a second thought. She didn’t care about anything that wasn’t that lovely warmth under her fingers and against her cheek. She curled her arms closer, wrapping them around the source of it. Her knee brushed something solid.
The bed furs shifted under her, and that light was back.
“Too fucking bright,” she groaned into the increasingly restless furs.
“Agreed,” came a low, growled answer.
Her bed furs were talking to her. That was new. Aloy blinked her eyes open despite her better judgement and squinted down at them. She met another familiar gaze.
Kotallo.
And the fur under her palm – his chest hair.
“Shit!” She threw herself back off of him, rolling onto her back and recoiling when her palm slammed against tanned leather. A tent. They were in a tent, sunlight streaming through its opening. She peeled it back and squinted up at the tower of Hidden Ember.
Her head swam, her stomach lurched, and she sank back onto the furs again and glanced back over to her left.
Kotallo. Still there. In fact, he hadn’t moved an inch since she’d met his eye, except to angle his face harder into the flat pillow under his cheek. No, not a pillow – her forage pouch. It was only then that she realized they’d wound up the wrong way around on the bed roll, with their heads where their feet should be.
Holy hell, she had never been that drunk in her life. She didn’t think her head had ever ached this badly either. “What…” She stared down at her torso, groaning as she forced herself to sit up. “What the hell am I wearing?” She looked at him. “What happened to your armor?”
It wasn’t the first time she’d ever seen him partially bared, but she’d never done so up close. His chest plate, pauldron and tassets were strewn across the ground next to the bed roll, though his boots were still somehow on both feet. His vambrace remained fastened over his forearm, but that and his shorts were all that covered him besides his paint.
Aloy had to suppress a quiet laugh when she noticed his head piece was still there, albeit noticeably askew.
“I think I remember you cursing at my armor fastenings,” Kotallo muttered. “My chest plate in particular earned some rather colorful ones.”
Her face burned. Fire and spit, she’d taken off his armor?
But where he was half-naked, she was practically swimming in her clothes. She was draped in some comically large white tunic that came to just above her knee. Its frilly sleeves hung down past her fingers. “This is a men’s tunic,” she huffed. Not that she minded, but where the hell she’d gotten it was beyond her. It certainly wasn’t Kotallo’s. Erend didn’t wear anything with this much embroidery.
Maybe it was Morlund’s.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
She shuffled against the furs, pulling up the edge of the tunic to find that she was still wearing the bottom half of her usual Oseram armor, boots and all. The top half of it was nowhere to be found. Her pullcaster dug painfully into her hip.
“Do you…remember anything?” she muttered.
Kotallo’s eyes were still closed, his face half-obscured against her forage pouch. It was mostly empty, which made it a piss-poor pillow, but at least he wasn’t crushing anything important. “Very little.” He pressed his thumb against his temple, massaging in close circles. “I can recall giving…some kind of speech.”
“A speech?” she blurted, and Kotallo winced at the same time that her head pounded. She dropped her volume, grimacing. “What…what kind of speech?”
“It escapes me now,” he groaned.
“Fuck, what did we drink?”
“That escapes me too.”
“How did we wind up–“
In bed together. It was easy enough for him to catch her meaning without her saying it. “Nothing happened,” he said, his gaze suddenly sharp. “Aloy, you have my word.”
“I didn’t think it did. But still, we’re…” She chanced another glimpse up at the tower just outside, closing out the sunlight a moment later when it made her entire body throb. “This isn’t even our tent.”
Suddenly, Kotallo was on his feet, practically throwing Aloy to one side of the bed roll as he stumbled over to the opening of the tent and thrust himself through it. A moment later, she heard him retch. She winced, nausea making her lip curl.
When he finally shuffled back inside and dropped onto the furs beside her again, he sighed. “I know what we drank.” He pressed his palm over his eyes, a deep frown creasing at the corners of his mouth. “Sky Clan spirits. I must have offered up what I brought back from the Bulwark at some point in the night.”
He sank back against the pillow with a quiet, wavering whimper that he almost managed to swallow. Almost.
Bulwark Blaze, if memory served. That was what she’d always heard it called. Although, whenever she heard its name spoken aloud, it usually went by an extra moniker: Bulwark fucking Blaze.
Well, that was one mystery solved. About a hundred to go.
They realized two things in quick succession as they finally forced themselves up: the tent was Talanah’s (judging from the Meridian Hunting Lodge’s insignia emblazoned on its side), and Kotallo’s Focus was gone. She had a few spares in her pack, which was luckily still attached to her belt, so she considered it the least of their concerns.
More important was finding the rest of her armor. And something to remedy the ache pounding behind her eyes. Getting out of the sun was probably a good first step.
“Aloy!” Morlund greeted her when they climbed the steps up to the entrance of the tower proper, and she grimaced. Visibly enough to make him drop his volume, it seemed. “Ah…it’s past mid-day, but there’s probably some food leftover from breakfast if you—”
“Please don’t talk to me about food right now,” Aloy insisted. Fire and spit, she felt like her entire body was throbbing. “Do you…know how we wound up in that tent last night?”
“Under your own steam, at least,” Morlund offered. “Which was no small feat, considering just how much ale and spirits you both knocked back. Especially after you two got engrossed in that drinking competition—"
“I challenged her to a drinking competition?” Kotallo asked.
“Uh, no. She challenged you.”
“I did?” Aloy squinted. “Who won?”
Morlund scratched at his head. “You know…it’s honestly a bit fuzzy for me too. I don’t think I recall.”
Oh, come on.
“It was impressive either way, though. I can tell you that much.”
Aloy glanced down at the oversized tunic hanging off her shoulders. “And this...”
“Ah! That’s Stemmur’s,” Morlund insisted. “Borrowed with permission, of course. You needed something a little more fitting for the ceremony.”
She blinked at him. “Ceremony?”
“The wedding.”
There was no way she heard that right.
“The what?”
“I told you they were too drunk to remember a thing,” Abadund scoffed.
Morlund had a flash of pink spreading across the tips of his ears, but it was nothing compared to the heat that was blazing across Aloy’s cheeks. Fire and spit, she felt like she was about to combust.
“You, ah…” He cleared his throat. “You don’t remember the wedding?” He glanced up at Kotallo, who was unsettlingly silent. “Neither of you?”
Kotallo finally spoke up a the exact same moment that Aloy did: “No.”
“Oh…” Abadund was massaging his temples as Morlund forced a smile. “Well, I think your friend Erend said he got some recordings with that Focus gizmo of his—”
Oh, recordings. Recordings of her and Kotallo both drunk as peccaries half-drowned in a keg, exchanging vows.
Goddess knew what the hell she’d even said.
“For what it’s worth, Stemmur did do a lovely job officiating.”
“Okay. Morlund—” Calm, Aloy. Stay fucking calm. She forced a smile, but she suspected from his expression that it probably made her look half-deranged. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
She braced herself.
“Well…” Morlund’s gaze flicked from her to Kotallo and back again, at least three times in quick succession. “To be perfectly honest, it was his idea.”
When she turned to Kotallo, he looked thoroughly bemused. “Mine?” he asked. Morlund nodded. “I don’t recall.”
Aloy stared at him. “You don’t recall proposing?”
“Well,” Morlund squeaked, and when Aloy’s and Kotallo’s eyes snapped over to him again, he shrugged. “To be honest, it was more like a speech. A speech followed by a proposal.”
Followed by a wedding.
She felt dizzy.
Abadund finally spoke up again, with a heavy sigh. “It’s nothing binding. Stemmur isn’t even recognized as an officiant outside the Claim. So you’re more married in a…metaphorical sense.”
Aloy rubbed at her temples. “Great – that makes me feel so much better about making a spectacle of myself.”
“Not to mention eating and drinking us out of house and home,” Abadund groaned. “Running the numbers this morning gave me heartburn.”
“Just how much was it?” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose to try and stave off the pounding in her head. It didn't work.
“At least a good twelve hundred shards, plus the keg of ale that someone—” His gaze flashed squarely over to Kotallo. “—knocked off the balcony.”
Aloy huffed. “Fifteen hundred and call it even?”
“W-what?” Abadund scoffed. “You planning on paying that all yourself?”
“If it’s the easiest way to call it done, yeah.”
“Fifteen hundred—”
“I hunt a lot of machines,” she insisted, thrusting her hand out toward him with her shards purse clutched in it. She’d let him up-end it into his own pocket if he wanted. “The shards aren’t a problem, but I’d like to have this be the last time we have this conversation. So?”
He blinked at her, once, twice, three times. Then took the shards with a sigh. “Fine. Consider the debt paid in full.”
“Thank you.”
“And—” Aloy must have shot him a more stinging look than she’d realized, because he snapped his mouth shut when she met his eye again. “Ah…you can keep the tunic.”
“I’d rather have the rest of my armor.”
“Sorry, that I can’t help you with.” A flash of realization zipped across his eyes. “Although, there is one other thing that comes to mind. Uh…” He turned to his lockbox and popped it open, reaching into it and carefully removing—
“My arm.” Kotallo said it so plainly that he may as well have been pointing out a machine on the horizon.
“You asked me to look after it,” Abadund said, clearing his throat as he handed it over. “After the whole keg-off-the-balcony fiasco.”
“Was it damaged?” Aloy asked, concern piqued in the back of her skull. But Kotallo was already studying it, and from the unbothered look on his face, it seemed unneeded.
Abadund snorted. “It did the damaging.” He met Kotallo’s eye. “You insisted on proving that you could lift the keg one-handed. Though honestly, I think a machine arm is a bit too close to cheating for my taste.”
“I did still only use the one,” Kotallo said with an easy arch of his brow.
“Fine. I’m not about to argue with a Tenakth Marshal.”
“A wise decision.”
Abadund looked too tired to argue with anyone. Aloy could empathize. “Your Oseram tinker friends might just be able to tell you more about your antics last night,” he huffed. “They were egging you two on the whole way. Well, the explosion-loving one was at least. The other one had a bit more sense.”
Delah and Boomer were easy to find as always, lost in a pile of scrap around the back of the tower. “There you are,” Delah greeted them with a sigh. “Good to see you survived.”
“They weren’t dying,” Boomer insisted, nose buried in her work. “Just drunk.”
“Very drunk," Delah added. It felt like an understatement. She was already pressing something into Aloy’s hands – a cup, still steaming. “Here, try and take a few sips at least. Old family remedy. My pa swore by it. Don’t worry, it tends to stay down pretty easy.”
Aloy took a chance on a sip or two, and it wet her parched throat and settled her stomach enough that she managed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Delah…” As she handed the cup to Kotallo and watched him down a generous bit of it, she let out a groan. “I just wish it would help me get my memory back.”
“I didn’t think you were going to let loose like that. Either of you. You were both pretty engrossed in those…Focus things you had on most of the night. Kept ducking into corners to mutter to each other about something or other.”
Aloy could recall that much at least – they’d found a wealth of data in an old ruin on their way from the Grove, and they’d spent ages together picking it apart. They’d even taken to going through it between drinks once the kegs had been tapped. Though that had only lasted so long.
Delah raised a brow at her. “Just how much do you remember?” she asked.
She took a moment to ponder the question. She had a vague memory of being somewhere up high, looking down on the desert below. Another of yelling. A lot of yelling. About what, she wasn’t sure. “I…think I remember music.”
“Oh, there was plenty of that,” Delah snorted. “Do you two remember dancing out on the balcony?” Delah snorted.
Aloy’s face went blazing hot. “We were dancing?”
“Yeah. It was…sweet.”
“You can’t dance,” Boomer added, thrusting her chin toward Aloy.
“Boomer—”
“It’s okay,” Aloy insisted. “Really, I ah...I think she’s probably right.”
Boomer looked triumphant. “See? She agrees with me.” She jammed her finger toward Kotallo. “You? You can dance a little better.”
Kotallo offered her a grateful nod as Aloy grabbed his hand and tugged him away. “Do you remember any dancing?” she hissed as they made their way down the steps into the sand. “I definitely don’t remember any dancing.”
“Does it bother you?” he asked, one eyebrow arched. “I’m sure your archery skills more than make up for your dancing.”
She froze, turning to face him. As she studied his face, hands jammed against her hips, she carefully narrowed her eyes. “You’re making fun of me.”
“I’d never be so insubordinate,” he deadpanned.
Aloy groaned and lowered herself onto a half-emptied crate of leather and metal wiring. “Okay, I can put aside the dancing for now. Just as long as I didn’t get up and start serenading anyone.”
Fire and spit, she hoped that wasn’t the case. She thought she might walk out into the desert and bury herself in the sand if it was.
“This is still a mess,” she insisted.
“Abadund did say that the ceremony wasn’t binding outside of the Claim,” Kotallo offered. As if that was the problem – the legality of it all. It wasn’t like they’d signed anything. She didn’t even care if they became husband and wife the moment they stepped into Oseram territory. That wasn’t the point.
She said as much, and Kotallo furrowed his brows. Aloy sighed as she hauled herself to her feet. “I can’t believe I made such a fool of myself,” she finally forced out. She took a few steps out onto the sand, staring up at the lights flickering in the mid-afternoon sky. “I can’t believe I made such a fool out of you.”
“Aloy.”
He was using that voice again. That low, steady tone that always had an uncanny way of putting her at ease even when she didn’t want it to. She felt him just a few steps behind her, over her right shoulder, thanks to little more than a shift in the air and a waft of his scent.
For a moment, she thought he might touch her – put his hand on her shoulder or brush his fingers against her wrist. But he didn’t. Not right then.
“Aloy, would you look at me?”
She dropped her arms to her sides and turned, and when she met his eye, her breath caught. With the sun behind her, she got a full view of its warm light playing in Kotallo’s irises. Like a sunrise catching on the branches of a rich, healthy redwood tree.
Had they…always been so lovely?
His voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “You would hardly be the first person to drink more than their limit and embarrass themselves.” He said it on the edge of a fond little arch of his brow that suggested it wasn’t the first time he’d done as much either, but he frowned a moment later. “I should have been more conscious of my own limits.”
“Oh no, you’re not taking all the blame, Marshal.” She jammed her fingers against the middle of his chest plate. “Besides, if Morlund was right about me challenging you to a drinking competition—”
“Which I don’t doubt I won.”
“No matter who won, I was still egging you on.” She sighed, shooting him a smirk as she nudged his arm. “I think that means you’re off the hook.”
“Is that a formal pardon from my commander?”
“Let’s say yes.”
“Very well.”
She drew a long breath, wiping some sweat from her brow and ducking back into the shade. “Anyway, according to Delah, you still had your Focus by the time we got up to the balcony, so you must have lost it sometime after the dancing.” She tried not to think about it. She failed.
“And after destroying that keg,” Kotallo mused, without a hint of guilt in his voice. “I wonder if I handed it off to someone for safe-keeping as well.”
“Or you took it off for the wedding,” Aloy quipped before she could stop herself. A moment later it made regret twist in her belly.
Kotallo didn’t seem to feel the same though. He snorted on a laugh instead.
They did the next logical thing they could think of – they tracked down Erend. As little as Aloy wanted to know what was in those recordings he’d apparently gotten of the night, she figured it may very well be a necessary evil.
“Recordings?” he chuckled when she asked him about them. “Of course I got plenty of ‘em. Talanah insisted on it, mostly.”
“Just how many did you take?” Kotallo asked.
“Just how much happened last night?” Aloy added. She knew her voice sounded as strained as it felt. “You know, besides the whole getting married part.”
“Oh…yeah, you two were pretty gone by that time of the night, but it seemed like harmless enough fun.”
“Harmless?”
“Of course it’s harmless! Hey, back in the Claim, no Feast of the First Keg was complete without at least one couple putting on a fake wedding just for show.” He coughed, scratching at his neck. “And I got the impression if anybody tried to stop you, they’d get an arrow in the eye. Not literally, I mean. We got your bow away from you pretty quick—”
“Erend.” Aloy grabbed him by the sleeve. “Just…tell us what happened. As much as you can remember.”
His gaze snapped from her to Kotallo and back again, at least three times. “Well, ah…it might just be easier for me to show you.”
“Show—”
She didn’t need to wait for him to explain. A second later, he was tapping his focus, and a holo-vid projected in front of them.
“And it was called the Vanishing Dread,” her digital counterpart slurred as she stumbled to her feet, ale sloshing out of her tankard as she thrust it forward into Morlund’s chest. “The Vanishing. Dread. A machine that can disappear into thin air.” Her tankard fell nearly completely out of her hand, forgotten. Abadund screeched as it fell into his lap, but her holo-self barely seemed to notice.
Fire and spit, she was getting up out of her chair. Climbing up on to the table.
What the hell was in that ale?
“Tell me,” the holo-vid version of Aloy spat as she narrowly avoided tripping face-first into the remains of the roasted peccary they’d just picked clean. “If you heard of a machine called a Vanishing Dread that could turn invisible at will, just what kind of machine would you imagine? Anyone? A dreadwing, maybe?”
Holo-Aloy leaned down to grab Kotallo’s tankard next, tipping it back and draining it before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “But no!” she groaned. “I get out into the desert and what do I find?”
“A shellsnapper,” Delah groaned.
“A shellsnapper! A shellsnapper called the Vanishing Dread!” She threw Kotallo’s tankard halfway across the table. “At least that new weapon came in handy.”
“Ba-boom!” Boomer cried, grinning brightly.
Aloy watched her holo-self tilt her head back and let out a loud cackle. “Ba-boom!”
Erend was doing a halfway respectable job of holding in a laugh as he closed the file, running a hand through his mustache and clearing his throat. “I ah…yeah, that’s the first one.”
“There are more?” Aloy groaned.
“Yeah, plenty. I didn’t get any of the ceremony, but—”
She sighed and tapped her Focus. “Just share all the files with me.”
For a moment, Erend blinked at her. “All of ‘em?”
“Yes, all of them.”
“Even the ones of you singing?”
Aloy stared at him. Beside her, Kotallo choked back a snort.
“I’m ah…I’m just yanking your chain, Aloy – ow!” Her knuckles throbbed after they thumped against his ribs. It was worth it. “Alright, alright, I admit it was a boneheaded joke. There are, ah…there are plenty of other recordings though. Talanah kept insisting all night. Said she never wanted to forget a second of it. Though to be perfectly honest, I'm not convinced she wasn't just hoping for some blackmail material.” He was already swiping a few holo-vid files over to her, and Aloy scrolled through them the second they downloaded.
Oh, there were more than she’d been expecting. Quite a few more. She clicked on another, just under two minutes in length, and watched it project onto the sun-kissed sand.
“I’m telling you, he can do it,” came Aloy’s voice over the recording, tinged with static. “I’ve seen him do it.”
“With you on his back?” a holographic copy of Talanah huffed.
“Well…not exactly. But he can do it. I know he can do it.”
“You seem a bit more sober in this one,” Kotallo muttered in her ear.
His voice cut in from the holo-vid a moment later. “I can. Come here, Aloy.” That was when Aloy finally spotted the hologram of Kotallo, on his belly on the sand. Or rather, on the balcony of the tower behind them.
Aloy watched, her face blazing, as her hologram counterpart straddled his hips. He grunted as he pushed his palm flat, forcing himself up as Aloy bent her knees to get her toes off the ground.
“One!” the crowd chanted on the recording. “Two!”
It was with a sudden rush of fondness that Aloy realized she remembered this one. “You got to thirty-seven,” she mused as she paused the holo-vid and shot him a smile. “And Talanah dropped a couple of bags of potatoes into my arms halfway through.”
Kotallo rotated his arm with a thoughtful hum. “That would explain why my arm was so sore this morning.”
“You were sore?”
He arched a brow. “Truth be told, I thought you’d just slept on it.”
She shook her head, focusing on the list of files while she fought not to pout. She would not pout. She scrolled all the way to the bottom and selected the last file, from well after midnight. Immediately, she heard her own voice cackling in her ear. She turned to look at the projected holo-vid just in time to watch herself lean down and wrap her arms around a stumbling Kotallo’s waist.
“Come on,” her counterpart slurred, and suddenly she had Kotallo in her arms, one supporting his spine while his legs draped over the other. She knocked over the Strike board by the door as she hauled him out. “Come along, Marshal.”
“Yes, Commander,” holo-Kotallo snickered on the recording. His grin only grew brighter as Aloy cursed and nearly sent both of them sprawling onto the ground.
“I said my vows – that’s yes, dear to you.”
Aloy felt like her chest was going to explode. Beside her, Kotallo pressed his knuckles to his lips. His recorded voice was warm and bright and tinged with so much Bulwark Blaze that she could practically smell it. “Yes, dear—”
She closed the file.
After a long, painful silence, Erend finally clicked his tongue. “The vows were beautiful, by the way.”
Of course they were.
They tracked down Talanah next. She was hauling a bristleback tusk over to Delah and Boomer’s workbench. “There you are,” she said with a smile when she met Aloy’s eye. “The happy couple. Will this do, Boomer?”
Boomer was already inspecting the tusk, nodding intently. “We’ll need two more. At least.”
“Give me a bit to cool off and I’ll track them down.” She clapped Aloy on the shoulder. “I’d ask you to join me, but you look like death warmed over.”
“Thanks,” Aloy sighed.
“Reminds me, though. I’ll need to give you back your armor.”
Aloy’s eyes went wide. “You have the rest of my armor?”
“Of course I do. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to my Thrush’s equipment.” She jammed her knuckles against Aloy’s shoulder. “I promised I'd look after it when I helped you change for the ceremony.”
The ceremony. The damn ceremony. Aloy gripped the hem of the ridiculous oversized tunic and groaned. “Where is it?”
“With my things. Come on—” She cast a glance up at Kotallo. “You coming, newlywed?”
Before Aloy could say a word about that, Kotallo beat her to it. “I’ll wait here.” He shot her a nod. “Give you some privacy.”
Her face was on fire as she followed Talanah up to her bunk on the top level of the tower. She was already rifling through her pack, pulling out the chest piece and vambrace. “There you go.”
“Thank the damn sun,” Aloy huffed as she tugged off the tunic and reached for her armor. Talanah chuckled as she tightened the fastenings at the front. “And the Ten and the Goddess and you. I went through a lot to get this armor, and if I lost half of it to a drinking competition I’d never forgive myself.”
“As if I’d ever let you do something that stupid,” Talanah said as she patted her on the shoulder.
Aloy shot her a look. “You let me marry Kotallo.”
“Barely! It wasn’t like it was a binding Oseram marriage ceremony. Or any kind of marriage ceremony. Nothing but a little bit of harmless fun, and you could use a bit of that.” Talanah reached for her, knocking Aloy’s hand out of the way when she struggled with a crooked buckle on one arm. She straightened it with a firm tug. “You were awfully eager. Both of you.”
For a few moments, the only sound was leather scraping metal and Aloy’s own pulse pounding in her ears. “What do you mean?” she finally asked.
“You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
“You do.” Talanah stood square in front of her, hands planted on Aloy’s shoulders and eyes boring straight into hers. “Come on, Thrush. I don’t know if it’s just lust or something more, but you look at that man like he makes the sun rise every morning.”
For a moment, Aloy could think of nothing but the sight of orange sunlight reflecting on Kotallo’s irises and catching in his lashes. She swallowed. “Kotallo?”
“Kotallo.”
“I don’t…know what you’re talking about.”
“Well he does.” Talanah’s fingers reached up to her temple, tapping her Focus. “I’m still getting used to this Focus thing, but I managed to get an audio recording. Missed the beginning, but…”
“Talanah, what are you—”
“…and Aloy is the most impressive of all.”
Kotallo’s voice. That was Kotallo’s voice, slurring and stumbling but unmistakably tinged with a smile. She could practically see it in her mind’s eye.
“She is, without a doubt, the most terrifyingly stubborn woman I have ever met in my entire life.” A round of raucous cheers and laughter rose up behind his voice, and she picked her own out of the crowd, mixing with Talanah’s delighted cackle. “She burns as hot as a scorcher and commands the respect of a seasoned Tenakth warrior. And if there exists any person on the face of this earth who may very well stand a chance of surviving the end of the world, or meeting it blow for blow on the field of battle, I have no doubt that it is her.”
Aloy swallowed, her throat as dry as a sand dune. But Talanah just shot her a smirk and kept the file playing.
“The first time I met her, she single-handedly bested on of the most feared warriors in the clans. The second time I met her, she ripped a cannon from a tremortusk and used it to destroy the most stalwart Tenakth stronghold to ever stand. And the third time I met her, she defended the Memorial Grove against a vicious machine attack and restored the visions of the Ten to their former glory. And from that moment on I was pledged to her service.”
A memory of this speech was sparking in her mind, even if it was fuzzy. She remembered a flash of Kotallo’s eyes meeting hers over the rim of his tankard, glazed over with spirits but gleaming all the same.
“I suppose it’s only natural,” his recorded voice said, “That I should pledge the rest of me as well.”
The recording abruptly ended, and Aloy stared at the wall.
Talanah clapped a hand against her shoulder. “This whole wedding thing was his idea. He even got down on one knee like Morlund told him.”
Aloy appreciated her friend’s firm grip – without it she felt like her knees were going to give out. By the time Talanah let her go again, she was at least able to keep herself vertical.
“Here—” Talanah tossed something to her, and Aloy blearily caught it. "Found this just outside your tent this morning."
“Kotallo’s Focus,” she breathed, staring at it in her palm. A quick scan confirmed it, and it was no worse for wear.
It confirmed her worst fears a moment later though – there were recordings from the previous night. One holo-vid and a handful of pictures. Aloy swallowed and opened the latter.
Herself, standing on the table waving a tankard over her head. No doubt ranting about dreadwings and shellsnappers.
Erend and Talanah, laughing as they tried to tap a keg. Another of Erend shouting as ale spilled out from the barrel onto his boots.
Boomer tinkering with what looked like a double-pronged explosive spike out on the balcony.
Her own sleeping face.
Aloy blinked, her breath catching in her throat. The picture was a snapshot of her face, up close, her eyes shut and her lips lightly parted. The edge of the white Oseram tunic was just visible where it draped across her shoulder, and her hair lay messily across the bridge of her nose.
From the timestamp, it must have been taking somewhere near dawn. She wondered if he remembered taking it at all.
She swallowed and closed out the files. “Thanks, Talanah.” She turned on her heel and scurried toward the door without another word.
Kotallo’s speech rang in her ears. The terrifyingly stubborn woman he’d ever met in his life. The only person who could survive the end of the world. Someone worthy of a pledge, not just of his service but of so much more.
Her stomach flipped up into her throat as she shoved his Focus into his palm without meeting his eye.
“There were a few, ah…pictures. From the party.” She watched as he replaced the spare Focus from that morning with his old one. “And a holo-vid, but I didn’t watch it.”
He squinted at the holo-screen in front of him. “This recording is from near midnight.” A beat later, realization spread across his face. “The roof.”
“The roof?”
“We went up to the roof of the tower at midnight,” he said, as casually as if he were talking about the weather. “It was your idea. Actually, you insisted.”
He as already playing the file before she could say another word.
“Are you recording?” her own voice piped up, and there they were. Her and Kotallo, or projections of them at least, sitting with their legs dangling off of what Aloy could only assume was the edge of the roof. Though it looked like they were eerily floating in mid-air.
“Yes,” Kotallo replied on the recording.
“Good. Alright.” She watched herself cant her head back, staring up at the sky. “Here goes. I want to make a promise to you. And I don’t want either of us to forget it, so pay attention, Marshal.”
“Always,” he chuckled. Whether it was at the playfulness in her tone or the way she was slurring her words, she couldn’t tell. Maybe it was a bit of both. “And we can always watch it back.”
“Exactly. And we will. Anytime we need a reminder.”
“Aloy—” It was oddly endearing, watching the hologram of Kotallo cock his head to one side as he studied her. She didn’t realize how fascinated he really looked when he did that. Almost like she was a set of unfamiliar glyphs he was trying to translate. “Just what kind of promise are you trying to make?”
“A promise not to die.”
The hung in the air on a wave of gentle static. Beside her, she felt Kotallo’s shoulders tense, but her recorded self’s expression was calm. Almost serene.
“I don’t know what Nemesis is going to throw at us. I don’t know how we’re going to stop it or save the world, but we’re going to do it. And we’re going to come out of it alive. All of us. You and me, and Beta, Erend, Zo, Alva…” She nodded to herself, almost like she was mulling over her own words before she continued. “We’re not going to die. We’re not going to lose. I’m not…I won’t bury any more of my friends, Kotallo.”
Aloy clenched her fist at her side in the recording at the same moment that she did so in the present.
“I promise you I won’t die,” her recorded self said. “And I won’t let you die. So now you…you promise me the same.” She reached out and pressed her hand against his ribs, her voice so much smaller than it had been just a moment before as she forced out, “Promise me you won’t die, Kotallo.”
“Is that an order?” he asked instead.
“Yes.”
His holographic counterpart nodded. “By your command.” He paused, and for a moment, Aloy watched his brow furrow and his jaw set. “And…”
And? Aloy thought it as her recorded image said the same out loud.
“Lately, when we’ve traveled together, I’ve had…a feeling.” Kotallo’s holo-self said.
“A feeling?” Holo-Aloy blinked. “A good feeling?”
“An…insistent feeling.” His hand crept toward hers on the unseen edge of the roof. “One that’s…difficult to ignore.”
Aloy watched herself blush on the recording. “I think I might also just have a feeling or two for you,” she mused, letting her fingers brush Kotallo’s as she said it.
She felt like every drop of blood in her body went ice cold at once, flash freezing in her veins. Kotallo made a noise that she could only describe as pained. Aloy was pausing the recording before she could spare it a second thought, her entire body on pins and needles. Fire and spit, she felt like she was going to combust—
“Play the rest,” Kotallo said.
She turned to face him. “That was…we were drunk. We were—”
“Play the rest,” he said again, his fingers curling against her arm. But as urgent as his request sounded, his voice impossibly gentle. “Please.”
Like sunshine through redwood branches, she thought to herself as the evening light glinted against his irises. It really was uncanny.
She swallowed and resumed playback again.
“I think I might also just have a feeling or two for you,” her voice repeated, and in the holo-vid, Aloy cast her gaze down toward their hands. “I don’t…I don’t exactly know how to do this. I don’t know if I even should. But…it’s the end of the world.”
“Perhaps,” Kotallo’s holo-self muttered. “But we just promised each other that we wouldn’t die. So perhaps not.”
“You’d take the chance of being stuck with me past the apocalypse?” Aloy chortled.
“I’d happily be stuck with you anywhere.”
“That almost sounds like a proposal, big guy.”
Aloy glanced down at the tunic folded in her arms, its embroidery frayed with age. She didn’t dare look back at Kotallo, but her own voice drew her gaze up again when her recorded face lit up in excitement. “Did Erend ever tell you about Oseram weddings?” she delightedly asked.
“The subject didn’t come up,” holo-Kotallo mused.
“Everyone gives speeches and at the end of the night one person picks the other up and carries them right out the door.” She let out a laugh that dissolved into a delighted snort.
“That’s not too far off from Tenakth pledgings.”
“Well I don’t know about a pledging, but a wedding would be something to see.” She leaned back to recline on an invisible roof, arms tucked behind her head. Aloy could almost picture the stars she’d been gazing at, even if the memory of the conversation was nothing but fog. “Kotallo…your feeling…do you think it’s the same one as mine?”
He leaned back to join her, turning to meet her eye. “It very well may be.”
“Because my feeling is a good feeling.” She broke into a wide and mischievous grin. “And I think we should get married.”
He started to laugh not long after she did. “Well, the world is ending,” he mused, slurring downright endearingly over the last few syllables. “Why not?”
The recording ended, and Aloy realized she’d been biting down on her thumb nail.
Well.
“Kotallo, I—"
“Aloy, we should—”
They both went silent as quickly as they’d started speaking, staring at each other. She ran her hands through her hair with a groan. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.
Kotallo blinked at her. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes. Of course I’m sorry. I can’t believe I…this whole ridiculous wedding thing was my damn idea. Not yours.”
“That hardly warrants apologizing, Aloy,” he told her, his voice quiet and calm. Somehow it still managed to put her at ease, even now.
She buried her head in her hands. “Those damn spirits. Bulwark fucking Blaze.”
Kotallo was chuckling. Out of all the things he could have done. “Now you sound like a true Tenakth.” He shot her a smirk. “With Sky Clan blood, too.”
Damn him.
Damn him.
Damn him for making her laugh. Even with humiliation and anxiety and uncertainty all tangled together and wrapped tight around her ribs, slight upturn of his lips and the playful gleam in his – beautiful – eyes still managed to loosen it, if only a tiny bit. Somehow, it felt like just enough.
“I didn’t mean to…to say all those things,” she forced out. “I mean I – I meant them. I meant them, but I didn’t meant to say them. Not—”
His hand found her wrist, fingers curling against her skin. “Did you mean it?” he asked her. “The feeling you spoke about. Did you mean it?”
She swallowed. “Did you?”
“Yes.” And a moment later, with a flash of teeth, “Bulwark Blaze has always made me honest to a fault.”
There he went again, making her laugh. The nerve of him. “Of course I meant it,” she finally managed to force out.
Suddenly, he was so close that she could almost feel the rumble of his voice as he murmured, “Aloy, I must kiss you.”
“Wait,” she breathed, and Kotallo froze. “Yes. My answer’s yes. But—” She glanced up at the horizon, at the sun just dipping down behind the distant ruins on the edge of the pink-tinged sky. “Come with me first.”
He said nothing, but slipped his hand into hers and let her lead him to the tower, up the stairs and across the balcony, stopping at the base of a ladder that led to—
“The roof,” Kotallo mused, a smile slipping onto his face. “I remember this.” He ran his hand along the edge of one rung. “You’d been looking so thoughtful all night. Every time I met your eye, you seemed to start. I was worried I’d said something to offend you.”
She fidgeted as she stared out at the sand. It had been the reason she’d even let Talanah pour her an ale in the first place. This hot, twisting, pulse in the pit of her stomach that had followed her from the base to the Bulwark and then to the Grove, and finally all the way to the desert.
Everywhere Kotallo went with her, it followed close behind.
It got exhausting fast.
A feeling, he’d said. Maybe it really was the same one. From the way he was looking at her like he’d never wanted anything more in his life, she was starting to think it just might be.
She drew a steadying breath and ascended the ladder.
They settled on the edge of the roof, just where they’d sat the night before to exchange a promise. Well, she’d made a promise. She’d given him an order. But she supposed it amounted to the same thing. They would not die.
She was nothing if not stubborn. And she would not yield in this.
They stared out west at the sun setting on the horizon, staining the sand a rich melon red. She rolled her shoulders and said, “Alright.”
He arched a brow. “Alright?"
“I wanted a memorable view,” she said with a little smile. “And now we have one, so…kiss me.”
“Aloy…” He reached for her, his knuckle pressing against the underside of her chin. His lips were so close that she could feel his breath against hers.
She loved how he said her name. When he kissed her, she could practically taste it, and it was so, so sweet.
It was soft, almost shy, and Aloy shuddered as she pulled away, her face burning so hot it had to be scarlet. “Listen,” she said. “I um…I don’t know about any vows, but…maybe we could start with something a little smaller? See where it takes us?”
He hummed, thoughtfully. “I see…perhaps a promise then.”
A promise.
She could handle that.