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The cool air of the summer sun whipped through her hair, the wilderness of the Revelation Mountains spanning across the arctic landscape. She would never get over this, the great expanse of the Alaskan wilderness stretching out in front of them, the small plane Ikkotah and Chekkatah had delivered them in becoming nothing more than a blip on the horizon.
She glanced over to Kotallo, wind whistling through his hair as he walked, their equipment over his shoulder, strength rippling through his back. He’d grown up here in these lands, and fallen in love with them all over again, leaving and returning with her in tow. Despite the relative similarity in their two doctorates between them, she’d never been to Alaska before, rather in the depths of karstic caves for her own research. Kotallo had spent countless summers up here, both as a child and then for his own thesis, endless hours spent with connection marked by satellite phones between them, longing to hear each other's voice.
But now with their jobs, both professors and researchers, he was taking her out to the mountains he first fell in love with glaciology in, promises of sweeping moraines and braided rivers wooing her as quickly as he had done. It was rare fieldwork was between the two of them, no students to guide, and there was a certain kind of excitement that came with such isolation, watched only by the ever-silent guardians built in stone.
They came up to their campsite on a hill, a moraine truly, sediment spilling around their feet as they gazed into the valley, smoothed out by the once extensive glacier that had rested here but 19,000 years ago. The familiar thrill of being out in the field nearly toppled over her, eyes scanning the valley, already noting the moraines she’d seen on the LiDAR data before setting out. It was a scrappy landscape, green flushed over stones, gelisols under her feet. She was sure if she pulled out her binoculars she would make out wildlife scrambling over the stones, arctic foxes and shrews alike.
Kotallo set down their equipment, boots crunching under his feet. The air was crisp despite the summer months, never truly warm in this region, and it felt like home, months of cold wrapped up in her old cabin with Rost, since translated to their home at the edge of town, mountains their backyard. They’d had many adventures together, Kotallo and her, but they always seemed to find themselves in the snowy mountains over and over again, home the echoing song in the valleys.
“What do you think?” Kotallo asked lowly, hand finding hers, slotting their fingers together. He pointed his chin towards the mountains, a glacier nestled in the cradle between them. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?”
“It’s amazing,” she breathed out, glancing up at him. “Can we get closer to it?”
Kotallo chuckled, tattoos glittering in the light, “Let’s grab the equipment first, we are out in grizzly territory.”
She nodded, grabbing the bags and supplies they needed. They’d spent hours, days, weeks, in the true wilderness such as now, but there was always the recognition of respect for Mother Nature, despite their experience. It wasn’t a fear, never truly a fear, but rather a deep respect for all that she brought. Aloy knew better than most how vengeful she could be if not treated with due diligence, and she would heed the warning Mother Nature gave.
They would spend the next couple of days coring and logging data from this place, but today was for introductions to this landscape. There was a certain thrill that came from sharing such a love for science with your partner, the delightful experiences of perfect moraines, tumbling granite rocks that promised beryllium dating, and a genuine love for fieldwork. Kotallo seemed freer, a smile broad across his face, and she’d never felt more in love as he pulled perfectly smoothed stones from the braided river as they walked, passing them over for inspection, the scar on his lip pulling with joy across his face.
He’d spent so many nights sharing stories of the wilderness of Alaska, his promises placed on bare skin, kisses seeping into her as his warm breath ghosted across her shoulder. Stories that lulled her into him, of how you were nothing between the Earth and the sky, but one person across a great expanse of world untouched by man. They had seemed almost fantastical, a thrill she’d never quite get rid of, and yet she could find he had not exaggerated.
They descended into the interior of the valley, the glacier easier now to see, her face marred with black even here in this isolation. Aloy could do nothing but stare, at the great, groaning expanse of ice towering before them. Her face glimmered in melt, depleted in size, her once great expansion forced into a retreat that made her heart ache. Kotallo set down his supplies, and she followed in suit, coming to stand next to him as he stared up at the glacier, nestled deep into the hulking walls of granite
“It was her that made me fall in love with geology,” he whispered, eyes scanning the face. “She’s retreated so much since I was a child, I feared once my love might never see her.” He glanced at her, pulling her close. “It’s because of this glacier I found you.”
“That’s awfully poetic of you,” she teased, pressing a quick kiss to the underside of his jaw. “For what it's worth, I’m glad caves led me to you.”
Kotallo chuckled, “You and your cave mud.”
“Hey, it’s not just mud!” she cried, not truly offended. Kotallo was a true glacial geologist, eyes already soaking up the scoured earth around them, but for herself, she had a fascination with paleoclimatology, notably the speleothems in caves, but the interdisciplinary nature of her work had her in many hats, from isotopes to stratigraphy. These days she was more geochemistry than anything, Beta having recently joined their university as a professor of chemistry, a twin force Kotallo had joked no one was prepared for. It’s why she was itching to date the granite boulders, torn from their homes on sheer mountain faces, aching to reconstruct ice sheet retreat in the valley that had brought her her husband.
She rubbed her hand up Kotallo’s back, jolting him out of his trance where he stared at the glacier, growing ever smaller in the warmer years that followed. He shook his head, scanning out across the landscape, something pulling across his face.
“It is hard to be upset when this is our laboratory,” he said softly, the bare alpine peaks of the mountains studded with the green rims where the tree line sat. He glanced out over the valley, the small buds of summer foliage creeping up over the rocks washed down from the mountains. “Let’s get set up first before mapping.”
“Lead the way,” she said, watching him set off across the terrain. He was completely at ease here, the crisp air of his home bringing something off his shoulders. Though he’d not lived in Alaska since leaving for school, over a decade ago, it was easy to see how comfortable her husband was in these lands.
There was a time in which he’d been haunted by Alaska, the dark words of his foster father following him into school, the loss of his arm still fresh, Tekotteh not yet jailed. She’d never known the boyish youth that those from the Sky Clan talked about, the mighty son who they all knew would make them proud. She could still feel the warm tea cupped in her hands before their wedding, Gerrah whispering hushed tales of Kotallo’s childhood, of the angry scar Tekotteh had left physically and socially. She could do little to tamper the anger that came when she thought of the sorry excuse for a man in Tekotteh, but she would not sully his good mood, not when his foster father had nearly ripped his home, his people away from him as ferociously as he had his arm.
He seemed so at ease here, freed from the dark history of the wilderness, a sly grin on his face as he wrestled the tent into submission. This was the man she’d fallen in love with countless times over, fleeting kisses left on her hair as she organized their coring devices. But she could not shake the feeling of darkness hanging over him, his gaze constantly finding the glacier retreated deep in her lair, anguish etched into the lines of his face when he thought she wasn’t looking.
***
She awoke cuddled up against Kotallo, the warmth from the downy sleeping bags more than enough in the summer sun. His skin was hot, a personal heater even in the dead of winter, a skill he claimed came with genetics, generations of his people passed down to survive the cold, bleak winters in the Sky Clan. Aloy would never complain, not when morning brought warmth and safety, curled up in his arm, the gentle rise and fall of his chest soothing.
She found she could not tear her eyes away from his face, tracing the line of his jaw with a finger. Somehow this man was hers, until even after death, souls intertwined into one. His skin twitched under her fingers, a sure sign he was waking, eyes blinking openly slightly before closing once again. She knew his wake-up patterns like the back of her hand, days spent curled together, skipping classes once or twice, stumbling into the lab far later than they should.
But here in the valley of a glacier, hours from anyone who was anything, she found herself softer than she could have ever imagined. Slowly she pulled herself from the sleeping bag, careful not to wake him even though her body craved the warmth he brought. Checking the landscape around them she stepped out into the morning air, the summer sun high in the sky despite the early hours. She warmed their food, rehydrated in warm water over their tiny camp stove, and devoured her portion, leaving half for Kotallo once he woke.
She could hear him rustling in the tent, and she knew it would not be long, capping the morning meal and settling in to explore their campsite. She could feel the fevered excitement of field work under her skin, the great, stretching moraines from the glacier scars across the valley, the old tales of her ancient greatness long before humanity stepped foot into this region. It had been since undergrad that she’d truly done retreat sequences, content rather to listen to Kotallo’s excited theories in alpine glaciers, helping him scour LiDAR maps and fight ArcGIS when data files were too large.
Aloy settled down at the edge of their camp, pulling out her Focus notebook, tough against the elements, not even rain able to destroy it. She started sketching the landscape, crudely, noting the sloping angles of the small moraines in front of her, the river cutting through parts of the crumbling sediment pile. So entranced in her work, she did not notice Kotallo coming to sit next to her, sending her jumping as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“Thinking hard are you?” he teased, “That’s always dangerous with you.”
In a moment of true adulthood, she stuck her tongue out in response, and Kotallo laughed, pressing a quick kiss to her hairline. “Are you ready for coring?” he asked, glancing down at her notebook in her hands. “You were always so much better at sketches than me.”
“Well one of us has to be decent at it,” she rebutted, allowing him to pull her up. “But am I ready? It’s like you don’t even know me.”
Kotallo shook his head, mirth in his eyes, “You and your tools, it’s a terrifying combo.”
They collected the corer, setting off towards the moraines she’d identified on the LiDAR before landing out here, the box hauled up and over his shoulder, probing rods and PVC halves tucked under her arms. Kotallo was the best partner in the field, efficient and strong, meticulous in data collecting, and they worked as a well-oiled machine, pulling up logs and wrapping the sediment for further analysis in the lab. They rarely got to work so closely together like this, just the two of them, no students to teach or command. It made everything feel so much more at ease, flicking pebbles between each other and stealing pens out of each other's pockets.
Yet, despite the thrill of the work, Aloy could not shake the feeling of a facade over her husband, his grin not quite reaching his eyes. Alaska was supposed to be his balm, the lifting of the weight of the world upon his shoulders. It was the grant she’d worked the hardest on, determined to bring him back here, to the wilderness that was his first home.
By the time they were calling it a day, having pulled several full lengths of core from the moraine and two samples of granite, his silence for everything but responses to her teasing or questions was grating on her nerves. Kotallo had never been passive, an immovable, stubborn man with a heart worth more than gold, their shared headstrong attitudes combining to something exponentially more. It was unlike him, and nearly angering, to be agreed with most of the time, frustration and concern bubbling under her skin. She couldn’t bear it any longer, not where there was no one but themselves for 100 miles.
“You’ve been quiet all day,” Aloy stated, circling in front of Kotallo who ducked to avoid her gaze. “I let you have space, but we’re not going to bed before you tell me what’s wrong, not out here.”
A long pause passed between them, Kotallo fiddling with the plastic wrap that covered their last core, eyes cast downward. He knew her better than to think she would let this go, especially warped in silence. A fleeting glance was shot towards the glacier, a guardian in the distance, her aching, creeping valley longing for her return.
“I want to show you something,” he said with finality, standing up slowly. “Trust me?”
“On my life.”
She could see how nervous he was, and she could do nothing but nod, grabbing her pack and following him into the valley. They hiked in silence up the river bank, smoothed granite stones under their feet, the bowels of the Revelations brought down from their arching peaks. The world was silent except for their breaths, not even the call of an elk to soothe them.
The glacier loomed closer than ever before, the river leaking from its base, a shallow tributary running over the alpine landscape. As they got closer, still football fields away from the ancient ice, she could make out how the tongue of the glacier scoured into the earth, the soil and stones caught up in the hulking weight of its body. They came to a stop at the mouth of the valley, where the glacier was retreating to her origin point, squirreled away in the peaks of the mountains.
Kotallo kneeled on the gravelly stones, fingers running through the smoothed rock wash of the ever-changing stream. “It was here I thought I would die,” he murmured after a moment, hands clenching at the stones.
Nothing could have prepared Aloy for that. Horror settled deep in her stomach as everything slammed together, the story he’d told of the loss of his arm, death settling in like the closing walls of the mountains. Surviving only by the determination of Chekkatah and Ikkotah, men more like fathers than Tekotteh had ever been, pulling him from his grave with no witnesses, soul doomed to be lost in the wilderness.
“I trusted him, how could I not in the ruggedness of this land?” he spat, hand stretching out towards the mountains in front of them. “He left me here to die, a threat to his authority.” He shook his head, grasping at the pebbly rocks underneath him.
Aloy said nothing, sliding down next to him, gently placing her hand on his shoulder as to not startle him. What could she possibly say to this? Kotallo leaned into her touch, the stump of his shoulder pressed against her hand, and she rubbed it softly, a practiced motion.
“I wanted to remember this place as the site that led me to you,” he whispered, eyes catching hers, full of tears yet to fall. “But I can only think of how these rocks know my blood.”
She reached out to cradle his face in her hands, thumbs swiping away the tears as they fell. This was grief she could not take, only shoulder, propping up her husband when he himself could not. He’d done the same the first time they’d visited the cliff where Rost had died, and she understood what Kotallo was feeling now. There were no marks left to record what had happened here, but the earth remembered all the same, guardians even past humanity itself, knowing the world before even bones.
She glanced back to the glacier, an old friend, a silent guard. Spurred by an idea, Aloy stood quickly, pressing a soft promise to Kotallo’s hairline, a squeeze of return to his hand. She could feel his eyes on her back, watching her every move. Kneeling down, she carefully selected two, smoothed, light grey stones, rounded by the countless years of water from the river bank. The water would be freezing, numbing to her hands, but she plunged them into the fresh, cooled melt from the glacier herself, freed after thousands of years.
Kotallo was staring at her like she was crazy when she turned around, confusion and bewilderment across his aching face. Gently she pressed one, wet stone into his palm, curling his fingers over the stone, keeping the other in her palm, pressed on top of his hand.
“This water, it comes from the glacier herself,” she murmured, chasing his gaze with her own, waiting till he looked her in the eye. “It does not know your spilled blood, only the warmth of your life, the strength of your resilience. These stones are absolved from his crime,” Kotallo’s breath hitched, pulling his hand, and hers with it, to his chest above his heart. “You will always have a piece of this place as it was, the one that led you to me,” she continued, sidling closer, pressing flush against him. “It is ours, it is yours, it is reclaimed.”
She could barely finish the sentence before his lips were on hers, arms squished between their bodies, stumbling from the force of passion. A laugh escaped her lips as they parted, Kotallo’s warm breaths against her neck.
“How did I get so lucky with you?” he breathed, the intensity of his gaze causing her to flush. He glanced down at the stone in his palm, and she turned over hers, the glittering, glassy quartz shining from its bath in the meltwater. He gently plucked the stone from her hand, slipping them both into his pocket before he was suddenly on her again, hand tangled in the braids of her hair, causing her to squeal in surprise.
She felt devoured, rich and warm, hunger and love spilling between them like a poured bottle, unable to be recorked. In the evening sun of the valley, where life and death found themselves over and over again, observed by the keepers that soared high into the sky, she felt something shift between them. A promise of healing, of the future, in the bowels of the earth that set them on the paths to meet so many years ago.