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thefandomwritersblog · 1 year

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It's back babes!

Better! Longer! More fleshed out than the last!! You may notice similar passages and themes, but also a lot of new stuff too! And all in all, I'm much more happy with it this time around.

Shout out and many thanks to @maelove21 ! Without her invaluable help and insights this would have taken much longer to get up off the ground. I cannot express how much I appreciate your patience, your kindness, and the wonderful friendship you've given me!

I do want to apologize to everyone. I very abruptly took this project down around the end of October with zero explanation, and I know that it confused a lot of you. I want to thank those who found a way to reach out to my friend, and asked about me. I was very surprised and touched.

The short of it, is that my mental health towards my writing took a very drastic and negative turn. I had to have a very difficult talk with both my partner and my therapist, and we all agreed that it was best to stop and pull back for a bit. I went cold turkey because I knew that if I didn't the emotions would only get worse.

I put a lot of thought into Ghost of the Ten while it was down, and I came to the simple conclusion that I still loved this story very much. It is by far the work that I am the most proud of, and I want to make sure that the work I post reflects that joy and pride. So this time around, I will be adding (and editing out) a lot more scenes that feel longer, and more fleshed out, and incorporate the ideas I wanted to incorporate the first time around.

I appreciate your patience, I really do. This fandom has been nothing but kind to me since I got into it in February, and I look forward to showing you all the next chapter!

Ghost of the Ten Horizon Forbidden West Hekarro x Fem!OldOne Action/Adventure/Hurt/Comfort/Romance Chapter 1

PART 1: Tomb of the Ten

“We never fully die even in what we think of as actual death. We change again and become echoes in others, and they carry us forward.”

― Eric Overby

Hekarro liked to think of himself as a reasonable and level-headed individual.

He was like that of a steel blade forged in the fires of conflict. Honed through the many trials he faced over his long years. As a result, there was little in the world that troubled his mind these days. He faced each challenge with tenacity and grace, guiding his people toward the unity and prosperity he'd envisioned since he first conquered the Grove nearly two decades ago.

Yet, there was an anxiety in his gut he couldn’t shake.

He kept a safe distance from the excavations, his hands clasped behind his back to keep his knuckles from popping. Aloy hovered by his side, bouncing with nervous energy. She recognized the importance of this work, both for the Oseram workers who darted around like frantic machines and for him. Hekarro had little tolerance for outsiders, Oseram more so than others due to their tendency to plunder sacred Tenakth sites.

Nevertheless, the work they performed today was vital, and Hekarro required the Oseram to complete it, regardless of his feelings. Regalla and her final stand had collapsed several tunnels beneath the Arena, tunnels that had already been weakened when her Rockbreaker had broken through the last time she tried to kill him. As a result, a number of sinkholes formed, destabilizing the entire structure and killing several of his guards. Cleaning up the damage and securing what was left was dangerous work.

“Almost ready, Petra!” called an excavator from the threshold of a nearby tunnel. Petra, a robust Oseram woman who stood on Aloy’s other side, gave him a wave,

“Keep that blast under control,” She barked back, her voice carrying across the arena, “Everyone else get clear!”

Hekarro followed Aloy and Petra to safety while the rest of the crews cleared the floor. They ducked behind a large pillar opposite the tunnel, and he listened to the sappers begin their countdown. He could almost taste the tension in the humid air around him, and saw it easily on the faces of the men and women around him. Suddenly, Petra nudged him in the arm. The smile on her was plain as the day when he turned to look at her,

“Nervous there, Chief?” She teased. Hekarro huffed at her; he admired her candor. Petra carried herself with pride, and easily held the respect of the men under her command. She was easy to get along with, but wasn’t a pushover by any means of the word.

“So long as your explosives don’t cause any more harm.”

“Don’t worry your pretty head there, Chief, my boys know what they’re doing. We’ll get that tunnel cleared and shored up in no time! Then, we’ll see about exploring that nifty Old One Ruin beneath your Grove.”

The explosives shook the arena floor with their tremendous force, and the Oseram were back to work before the dust settled down. Aloy chuckled nervously at his side before he could offer a dry retort,

“Maybe,” she said, casting Petra a sidelong glance, “Maybe it would be best for Chief Hekarro and I to go first. Just to make sure everything is safe. Besides you said it yourself, the ruin is under the Grove so he should have the honor of exploring it first.”

“Oh, I know!” Petra nudged him again with a grin, “I just like teasing him! It’s fun to try and get a rise out of someone so stoic .”

Hekarro suppressed his laughter with a cough and turned away.

Hekarro and Aloy watched on as Petra and her men worked. They were quick, efficient, and barely looked up from their own tasks while their Forgewoman barked out her orders.

“Do you have an idea of what we’ll find down there?”

"Not really," she said, shaking her head free of whatever reverie she was in, "but if I had to guess, probably JTF-10 Artifacts from the Old World. In any case, it's a fantastic find for the Tenakth."

“It is,” Hekarro agreed, “All the more reason I’m thankful that Kotallo called you here."

Aloy flushed with a scoff but didn't comment. Instead, she almost bumped into Kotallo who appeared at her side with Dekka in tow,

“There are few with the knowledge of the Old World like you, Aloy.” Kotallo teased, to which Aloy rolled her eyes. Dekka chuckled,

“And we are lucky for it and even luckier that you managed to convince the Chief to allow the Oseram to help.”

His champion grinned, “I can be convincing when I want to be.”

“When you’re not threatening me.” Hekarro deadpanned; Aloy scoffed once more and poked Kotallo in the arm when he laughed at her.

For the better part of an hour, they watched the frantic shuffle of the Oseram as they worked. In and out of the tunnels, tools and materials on their shoulders, until Petra herself finally emerged from the underground. She called them over with a wave of her hands, slapping the dirt and debris from her hands against the leathers of her things.

“Everything is in order,” she said, a frown on her face, “We shored up the tunnels as best as we could, but there are still a few areas that are structurally unsound. I need the both of you to be aware ; if anything load-bearing collapses you two could die, and I don’t need that on my hands.”

“We’ll be safe, Petra,” Aloy assured her. Petra replied with a grunt but allowed her to pass after giving her a stern glare.

"I also advise caution," Dekka warned, reaching for his crown. He let her take it, relieved to be free of the heavy thing, especially if he was going to explore the underground tunnels with Aloy, "Do not make me dig out your corpses if the worst happens."

Hekarro smirked, "You and Kotallo keep watch. Make certain that no one enters until we return."

She gave him a stern salute, and Hekarro turned on his heel to follow Aloy into the underground.

From the very moment he stepped into the darkness, he was keenly aware of the enclosed tunnel walls surrounding them. Cooler than the oppressive humidity outside, the air was thick with the smell of wet stone and damp metal. Along the tunnel, he noticed evidence of the Oseram's labors, such as support beams and pillars lined up against the rock, with the occasional flickering torch.

Then, a groan rippled along the ceiling above them, accompanied by the soft crackle of debris as gravel hit the floor. Hekarro tensed and reached out to grab Aloy's armor collar. He yanked her back and drew them both to the wall, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. The groaning eventually subsided, and the tunnel fell silent except for the faint sound of his measured breathing in the darkness. Aloy was tense next to him, far too silent, far too aware, before she finally exhaled a soft sigh of relief.

"I think the tunnels are just settling," she grumbled. Hekarro grunted under his breath, but let her go when she tested her weight against his grip.

“Should we turn back?”

"If you want," he saw her shadow turn to him in the dark, "but I'm curious about what's down here, so I'll keep going."

He almost laughed at her stubbornness as he heard her footsteps retreat against stone, and he followed after her, determined not to let her wander off alone. They pursued the twisting stone path until the walls started to rust and they came to a fork in the path. The tunnel to their left opened through a broken wall into an empty and dark room beyond. To their right, it continued into the unknown shadows.

“Aloy?”

She hummed under her breath, “Probably best to take the left. It seems the most direct, and the safest. Oh! Before we go further in, I want you to take this.”

She reached into her belt-tied pack and pulled out a gleaming jewel for him to take. He examined it in the dim light. It was no bigger than the pad of his thumb and looked incredibly delicate. As he did not want to waste any more time, he placed the strange jewel on his temple like he had seen the others do. The world around him suddenly lit up in various shades of purple. The sight made his stomach tighten, images and glyphs he couldn't understand flashing before his eyes in disorienting waves.

“Aloy, I-“ he moved to take it off but stopped short as her tiny hand wrapped around his wrist

"I know it's a lot," She reassured him, drawing his attention back to her with a soft gesture of her hand, "But you're going to see a lot of strange things inside, and you'll need a way to make sense of it all. Just give it a second, you’ll adjust."

Hekarro closed his eyes against the onslaught of information to rein in his composure. In and out, he counted his breaths until the coil in his stomach disappeared and he reopened his eyes. Everything still seemed strange, awash in various multicolored hues, but with greater clarity, he easily distinguished between the jewel's projection and the physical world around him.

“Are you ready?”

Before he could respond, another rumble reverberated through the tunnel. Louder and far more powerful than the last. The very ceiling gave way above as huge, heavy boulders smashed down to the ground with a resounding roar. Before he could even process the thought, Hekarro pushed Aloy through the open threshold and she fell to the floor with a loud grunt.

"Hekarro!"

The wall between them collapsed, cutting her cry short.

With the tunnel out of the underground completely caved in, Hekarro dove into the opposite corridor and took off in a dead sprint. There was just enough illumination from the jewel to allow him to see where he was going. His pulse raced. His breath was labored and ablaze within his lungs. Raising an arm to protect his face from falling debris, he sped through the chaos as deftly as the narrow passage would allow.

Then he noticed a faint glimmer of low light ahead of him. Hekarro dug his heels into the floor and sprinted across a worn threshold just as it gave way behind him. A hot lance of pain shot up his arm as he slammed into the steel floor with a groan, but he bit down on the yelp that threatened to leave his mouth. In the small, unfamiliar room around him, the aftershocks of the cave-in rumbled, shaking steel and stone until it fell silent.

Now that he was no longer in imminent danger, Hekarro relaxed and took a moment to breathe. His shoulder ached, and he rolled the joint to stretch it. The fact that it didn't hurt too badly gave him hope that his shoulder hadn't been dislocated. Being at a disadvantage in an unknown environment was the last thing he needed right now. With an unsteady sway, Hekarro pushed himself to his feet and scanned the room in which he had found himself trapped.

The jewel at his ear cast a faint outline of ancient furniture in the darkness, haphazardly tossed as if the previous occupants had left it in a hurry. Beyond the wreckage, he noticed the shadow of a door that was half-open and extended even deeper into the underground. He approached cautiously, alert to his surroundings in case of an ambush.

“Hekarro?!”

Hekarro swore loudly and jumped a mile out of his skin. He glanced over at the door, where he half expected to see Aloy peeking through the crack but saw instead only pitch blackness.

"If you can hear me, just touch the Focus at your ear. It’ll open a channel for us to communicate."

Hekarro hesitated for only a moment before he did as she told, “Aloy?”

"You're still alive!” The relief in her voice was palpable, “Are you hurt?”

"I only sprained my shoulder," he explained as he tested the door's strength. He put his full weight on it, and it moaned but didn't give. "Otherwise, I'm in one piece. Where are you?”

“Somewhere on the other side of the facility, I think?" she replied, “It’s hard to tell. Do you see a way out from where you are?”

Hekarro noticed a rigid piece of a broken steel rod nearby, which he examined for a moment before he grabbed it and turned his attention back to the door.

“No.”

His shoulder protested in pain as he pushed against the broken door with the rod. Fighting him for every centimeter, it slid across the threshold until he finally had enough room to wiggle through.

"Nothing on my end, either," Aloy sighed, "but Kotallo says Petra and her team are already digging us out, so I'll see if I can find my way over to you."

“That’s all well and good, Aloy,” Hekarro said, “but only the foolish stand idle and wait for a rescue that could take hours.”

"Well, if you're going to go exploring, just be careful," she cautioned, "Old One Ruins are dangerous, and for good reason."

Hekarro simply grunted in reply. Aloy fell silent over the jewel, and it stretched into the yawning darkness of the corridor, his own shallow breathing his constant companion. The passage twisted and turned in seemingly every direction, far beyond what he knew to be the Grove's boundaries. Hekarro wasn't a fool; he'd known about the underground tunnels for years now, but every attempt to clear them out had ended in death and disaster until they finally lay forgotten in during the Red Raids.

Was it just bad timing that they were unearthed after Regalla's death?

Or, perhaps it was providence? Another indication from the Ten that he was prepared to learn more of their secrets? What would they show him if that were the case?

The uncertainty unnerved him more than he was willing to admit.

Hekarro turned a corner to another corridor that opened out into a large antechamber. Like the room before, ancient and broken furniture lay strewn across the room with no sign of its previous occupants either. Instead, a glimmer on a nearby counter caught his eye. It shimmered with a bright light in the darkness and drew him to it like a moth to the flame. Suddenly, the Focus chimed again in his ear, but instead of Aloy’s voice an image materialized before his eyes.

Hekarro frowned, perplexed by what he saw. Aloy had given this jewel, this Focus, to Kotallo as well, and he'd often found his Marshal enthralled by whatever it allowed him to see. And just as he’d witnessed Kotallo and Aloy do, Hekarro reached a tentative hand out to the symbols.

"I'm not sure where to begin," The voice of an unknown man echoed in his ear. So clear and concise that Hekarro almost believed they were standing side-by-side, “but the Colonel insisted I leave something, anything, behind.”

He could hear the painful shudder of emotion in the man’s voice, the subtle sigh as if his throat was thick with tears, “When all this chaos began, I was convinced that we were going to come out on top. Humans vs. machines, the dream sold by General Herres as Operation: Enduring Victory. Buy the scientists over at Project: Zero Dawn some time to finish their superweapon."

“It was all a lie…”

“There never was a superweapon. There never was a chance of winning against the Swarm. Herres lied, but I got a feeling that the Colonel had always known that something was wrong. She’s far too calm for a woman looking down the business end of the apocalypse and… She’s planning something. I served under Colonel Faraday for years, I know that look in her eye. It's not a secret that she called the Staff Sergeant into the base today. To be honest, I'm relieved to be here making this stupid audio journal. There’s always a fight when those two are together…”

The voice cut to eerie silence and the image blinked against the stark darkness around him. Hekarro remained frozen in shock, reeling at the brief glimpse into the past the Focus showed him. The Old Ones against machines- this…Swarm…

He reflected on his younger years. In the Valley of the Fallen, beneath the hulking carcass of a machine that had long since died. Even back then, he could not forget how tiny and insignificant he felt next to it. And the Ancients had lost a hopeless battle against its armies. That he was standing here and now proved it, but what had happened in the time since their fall?

What had finally stopped the Swarm?

What was Project: Zero Dawn?

And why did he have the impression that Aloy knew the answers?

Without a doubt, fate followed that girl wherever she went, and the earth trembled in her wake. He remembered that first day they met with fondness, the unstoppable storm that blew into his Grove, determined to get her way even if it meant crossing spears. It amused him, even then, just how much of himself he saw in her determined expression. Yet, whereas she was the wild storm that swept over the unprepared, he was the patient hunter who knew how to make even the strongest warriors submit to his will.

Hekarro shook his head to dispel his unsettling thoughts and continued through the antechamber to the opposite wall's door. He proceeded further and further into the bowels of the subterranean complex, passing by abandoned rooms and bunkers that lay in unearthly stillness.

“Hekarro?”

He once again jumped as Aloy’s voice cut through the quiet like a hot blade. She was nowhere to be seen when he looked for her, so he once again tapped the Focus and continued his explorations.

“I’m here, Aloy.”

“Good. Have you found a way out yet?”

Hekarro rounded a darkened corner and came to a halt in front of a closed door. The wall console blinked slowly in the dark, an unsettling contrast to the otherwise powerless rooms he'd passed through.

“I don’t know, I just found a powered door.”

“Really? That's strange…” She muttered, and Hekarro couldn’t help but agree. He pushed the button on the glowing console and winced as the creaking old door sprang open. When he crossed the threshold, he entered a glass hallway that looked out onto a room lit up by several power cores. Their intensity was such that he could feel them vibrate through the ground.

For the life of him, he couldn’t understand what their purpose was. He was aware that the generator beneath his throne powered the Grove and its visions, but that tiny room paled in comparison to what he saw now.

What was down here that required so much power?

Hekarro walked the entire length of the glass corridor to another closed door, whose console blinked slowly against the wall. The soft pad of Aloy's boots echoed off the walls before he felt her presence at his side. He gave her a quick glance over his shoulder, his hand hovering above the switch, and she simply shrugged at him,

“It’s your choice.”

His previous anxiety returned. A small part of him pleaded with him to turn around. To leave and let the tunnels collapse in on themselves. Let the secrets of the Ten be buried, because whatever they were, nothing good could ever come of them.

Nevertheless, Hekarro decided to press on despite his misgivings. The doors hissed open as the console chimed. With Aloy close behind, they crossed the threshold into one final chamber, and what he saw left him speechless.

He counted nine metal tombs in a room large enough to fit a small congregation of his Tenakth and still have room to move comfortably. Eight of the tombs lined the walls on either side; each with its own console, and each cold and dead with a single window that peered into dark interiors. At the foot of the tombs lay a footlocker, old and withered with age, the burnished rust eating away at the corners of the metal chests.

However, it was the tomb at the far end of the room that drew their attention. He could feel the thrum of power in the floor from where they were, a cold chill in the air around them. They approached with caution, wary of the empty tombs on either side until they were only a few feet away. It, too, had its own active and glowing console, as well as a footlocker at its base. The Focus on his temple caught a glint of another testament atop the lid and chimed as it materialized another display.

“This is Colonel Anne Faraday of the United States Air Force,” Hekarro dared not move a muscle, frozen in shock, “ and if you’re listening to this, then I’m dead and gone.”

“Is that…”

Aloy fell silent at the curt gesture of his hand,

“I… I don’t have a lot of time, and… sentimentality is lost on the both of us, so I’ll keep this brief. I know that you’re angry. That you probably have a list of things you want to say to me when you wake up, but… There are things I must do as a Colonel, and there are things that I must do as your mother, but this? This is the most selfish thing I will ever do for myself. I lived my life, Victoria, but if this experiment succeeds then you still have a chance to live yours.”

Hekarro's chest tightened, his eyes wide with awe and horror. He closed the gap between himself and the Tomb before he could stop himself, before Aloy could even protest. A pale blue light shone from within, the glass to the interior fogged and thick condensation, but he could just make out the shadow of a mysterious figure inside.

“I… I left something in my exhibit for you. Something to remember all of us by. It’s yours if you want it. I'm not going to pretend I was perfect. I made a lot of mistakes, but that doesn't change the fact that I have always loved you. And for however long it takes… I hope the future is kinder to you.”

Anne's voice faded away, and the only sound that remained was the monotonous hum of the tomb.

“I thought…” Aloy muttered somewhere behind him, “I thought they couldn’t perfect the technology in time…”

Wordlessly, Hekarro reached out a hand to wipe the haze from the window. His breath fogged up the encasement anyway, the moment he stood closer, squinting for a clearer view. And ever so slowly, a dawning realization sank into his twisting stomach when he found himself staring— not at his reflection, but at the features of another. Hekarro stumbled backward, briefly losing his footing as he tried to make sense of the sight of a sleeping woman encased in a thick rime of ice.

“Aloy,” he whispered, feeling as though the ground was about to give way beneath him, “Is that...?"

She gasped beside him, eyes just as wide as his own.

“It’s… a living Old One. ”

The golden field is bathed in the warmth of morning twilight, a kaleidoscope of colors on the never-ending frontier. The air is so sweet and clean that she can almost taste it on her tongue. There’s a breeze that ripples through her hair as she flies through the tall grass, astride a stallion that races towards the unknown horizon at breakneck speed. With each gallop, she can feel the muscles flex between her thighs, strength and power surging through the beast to her. She tightens her grip on his mane and urges him forward, faster and faster, her laughter brighter than the sun.

She does not know where the horizon ends, all she knows is that she is free.

#Hekarro #Chief Hekarro #horizon forbidden west #Horizon Zero Dawn #hfw #hfw fanfic #fanfic #horizon writing #old one oc #my writing

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disgruntled-welshgirl · 1 year

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I posted 6,588 times in 2022

That's 5,102 more posts than 2021!

564 posts created (9%)

6,024 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@bad-with-emotions-sadly

@galahadwilder

@hummerous

@uniquevocashark

@themadmanandhisbox

I tagged 826 of my posts in 2022

#stranger things spoilers - 324 posts

#st liveblog - 319 posts

#the dragon prince - 75 posts

#dp liveblog - 72 posts

#stranger things - 56 posts

#wombo.ai - 46 posts

#horizon forbidden west - 39 posts

#welshie's ramblings - 37 posts

#ronance - 33 posts

#hot damn - 19 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 093844

My Top Posts in 2022:

Hey Ronance Rabble! I found a good piece of art for us by @soartamiright_ off Instagram.

76 notes - Posted October 18, 2022

Headcanon:

Every single person who’s WLW from Thornmarsh to Sunfall has at one point dated each other and as Aloy goes on her way she uncovers a cryptic and extensive web of women who were once lovers of one another. It leads to convos like:

Petra: Aloy! I hear you’re heading west. Say hi to Yarrah for me if you ever get out to the desert. I hear she’s commander over there now. Hot as a forge over there, and i don’t mean the desert.

Aloy: I’ll be sure to do that Petra.

[Later]

Yarra: Oh, Petra. Such a strong warrior. Finest easterner i ever met. Well, except Ikrie of course. If ever you meet my darling snowdrop, please tell her i wish her well.

Aloy: Wait, you know Ikrie? Yeah, I’ll tell her if i run into her.

[Later still]

Ikrie: Damn, you met Yarra? I’m surprised she didn’t snap you up Aloy. You’re just like Talanah and me, her type.

Aloy: At this point, I’m not even surprised Talanah’s part of this.

123 notes - Posted March 8, 2022

I put forward we stop calling the Wednesday Xavier Tyler thing a love triangle and instead call it what it really is, a love corner. And Wednesday's backed into it

157 notes - Posted December 4, 2022

I’m sorry but Aloy’s tone when she says to Talanah about Amadis “You love him, don’t you?” is just killing me. She sounds so defeated! And look at her face!

The girl’s yearning, clear as day; and it hurts to watch

189 notes - Posted February 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I'm still not over how the each of the GAIA gang decorates the base over time:

Zo brings in flowers and just generally makes the place look nicer and feel livelier for the benefit of everyone

Varl brings items of deep sentimental value to either him or Aloy out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart

Erend brings an ember from Vegas and a strike board out of a sense of community with the Oseram of hidden ember and his friends respectively

Alva brings a relic from Thebes and tries her best to also bring a flower to show her appreciation to Aloy

Kotallo brings some massive rocks

356 notes - Posted February 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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all-pacas · 2 years

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★ ☯️ 🤍 and ☠️ for Ersa! Love your characterisation of her!

oh ersa my favorite character who we never get to talk to because the game decides to ignore her incredibly disney princess backstory in order to kill her off 😌

i'm currently in the process of rewriting one story and getting ready to post another about my girl help i'm obsessed HZD writers we need to talk

★ - sad headcanon: quoting the guidebook here on erend, but —

Erend and his sister Ersa grew up against an acrimonious background of familial strife, economic uncertainty, and drunken rage. As children are wont to do, they responded in completely different ways. Determined to seize control of the things that mattered most to her, Ersa used this trauma as fuel and fought hard for a better life. Erend, on the other hand, internalized the conflict, which metastasized into the central dilemma of his life: hatred of his father's failings, accompanied by the creeping fear that he is doomed to repeat them. This toxic combination threatens to transform his anxieties into self-fulfilling prophesies, resulting in depression, self-destructive impulsiveness, and excessive drinking. […] much of his confidence is due to his sister. Throughout his life, she has been there to influence him, guide him, and when necessary, kick him in the ass. […] He has relied on her strength without co-dependent rancor or resentment, except for a bit of pouting after she scolds him, [looking] up to her like the parent he wished he'd had.

And from Avad's entry in the same guidebook:

[Avad] is capable of making tough decisions, but he is too fundamentally decent to make ruthless ones, like ripe out the insurgency of which is 8-year-old half brother is the figurehead. Until recently, this lack of savage expediency (viewed by his enemies as a lack of backbone) was covered up by Ersa, the Oseram woman who served as the Captain of his Vanguard, also his advisor, lover, and friend. Her blunt counsel often gave him the will to do what was needed, and when it didn't, she went ahead and did it herself. This relationship brought strength to Avad, giving him an equal he knew he could trust — someone who admired his geniality, and whose steel he admired in turn.

and like, that's fucking sad, isn't it? ersa is someone who has spent her life coping so hard that she makes a living out of being competent, being the person who makes the hard decisions and gets things done, who everyone relies on and needs. and her brother adores her, that most of meridian admires her, that between this backstory and avad's not-at-all-ambiguous comment that it would be frowned upon were he to have married an oseram woman, ersa was well loved and admired, that she wasn't some martyr who no one appreciated: and yet. she's the one who does everything. she's the one who charges off alone without telling anyone, who leaves her brother behind at a time she knew she was heading into danger to protect him, who dies thinking not of herself or her brother or her lover, but of duty that must be done. and yes, they're all tied together, but she's put so much of herself into the role of that person that it's also kind of tragic: erend loves her dearly but puts a lot of weight onto her to take care of him, and it seems avad was in his own way doing the same thing. and it seems like she did it willingly and that control was her own coping mechanism, but it's also just really sad. does she even know how to put that aside? if in a world where she doesn't die, would she ever know how to step back, see a place for herself with her loved ones if they don't need her in that same way?

in an au where she lives, she's probably not coming out of her months of imprisonment and torture uninjured or unscathed. would she even know what to do, if she wasn't Captain anymore, if her brother didn't need her scolding him, if avad had grown a backbone? it isn't as if they would stop caring about her, but what would she do, in a world where she's no longer able to protect and control and be the best anymore? the thing about aus where ersa lives is that it kind of goes hand-in-hand with: but now she isn't needed anymore. and that's actually a good and necessary thing for erend, and avad, but it's clear that so much of her life has been about being the person you relied on. and i just see it being a huge crisis for her. i'm sure she would much prefer it over being fridged for no reason, can we seriously talk hzd writers, but it's still running off a cliff into a void and i find it fascinating and really, really sad.

☯ - likes/dislikes headcanon:

okay this one will be less long and meta and more to the point: when i was writing my big backstory fanfic i kept sneaking in a running joke that when there was food anywhere in the room her entire pov was zoomed in on it no matter what else was happening. she stops paying attention to anything else. so ersa never stops eating is a cherished and beloved headcanon of mine that you can never take away from me. i literally just wrote a scene where she's a little cranky to have to sit at a formal dinner but also let's have two full paragraphs on what she's eating.

dislikes: boats. as a joke in the same story i had her become ridiculously seasick the second she went out on a lake and i just think it's funny for some reason. she just doesn't like boats and it's canon until you can prove otherwise, and you can't.

♡ - romantic headcanon:

extrapolating a lot from npc dialogue, the game suggests there's an Oseram concept of "Bladewife," where you "shave your head and kiss the blade." we really don't see many women oseram who fight, and npc dialogue suggests there's a pretty large cultural pressure on women to marry and work for their husbands — petra also suggests she came to the Sundom because fuck that — so i tend to assume that "Bladewives" are called such because they're married not to a husband but to battle, and that ersa is/was one.

so, the way i wrote it, she can legally never marry, have children, inherit property or assets. and of course those are the laws of a country she no longer lives in and it's all much more ambiguous now that she's living in Meridian, but, you know.

she's had a handful of relationships in her life, very few even remotely serious: erend isn't clear what her "type" is, not that she'd necessarily be telling him, but also she's not following the rules of her own people, being a warrior and unmarried and in command of others. i imagine there were those who saw "buff cute girl" and "legally can't get married" and went "excellent, i can sleep with her and never be trapped in a relationship!", and that ersa got burned a time or two before she wised up to dating in her social circle (in my big backstory fanfic, she has a messy relationship with a man named Dorin with whom exactly that happened — they were quite serious until he abruptly got married and more or less ghosted her, which she wants to think of as not his fault but also resents. and Erend hates the dude.)

her relationship with avad, canon as it was, seems to have probably also been complicated: they kept it incredibly secret, probably because the carja would very much disapprove and the oseram would not be any better, and while there's no denying they were close (again: avad's word choice to aloy, we couldn't marry, like, you don't usually throw marry around as the word to explain your relationship if you're just fwb my dude)… it can't have been the easiest thing, either, considering how public both their lives were and how fragile the peace in meridian is. they probably spend as much time as they could together and alone, but while sneaking around in a secret affair is probably super fun and sexy for a while, i imagine after three years it starts to get a little rough. avad very publicly has no heirs, no successor, and until the end of the game he and meridian are in a position where if avad were to die, the next legal king would be itamen and the shadow carja. (dervhal came so close to letting helis just take over meridian and he didn't even know it) avad must be under some pressure to marry and have a kid, even for cynical political reasons, and imagine if you're his closest advisor and secret girlfriend and in the past you've already been dumped because you're not allowed to get married and whoops these answers keep getting long and angsty sorry not sorry

☠ - angry/violent headcanon

by the standards of her setting, ersa is only okay at hunting machines. like, she's fine. she is unlikely to die if stuck in the wilds for a week. but people like talanah and aloy would absolutely smoke her in any kind of contest: ersa's a little bit hindered by the fact that she's spent most of her life fighting in a unit of soldiers, with other men, and not asked to hunt independently.

that said, she is very, very good at fighting people. that's what she was trained to do, after all: defend oseram lands against the carja. in the sun ring, she straight up goes around murdering kestrels and saves the ravager she's supposed to be fighting for last. in that same hypothetical contest, if aloy was kept from using her traps and skills and just had to fight ersa hand-to-hand, ersa would probably win. that's just her skillset, you know?

ersa as confirmed by the comic is actually pretty short — she's like a full head smaller than erend, avad, and dervhal. this doesn't stop her from kicking the latter's ass into a hole and leaving him there i'm still not over this can't believe my girl was asked to kill him and was like eh good enough he's in a hole, nor does it stop her from her attempted carja murder spree in and before the sun ring. she's not like nill, just a fucking serial killer having some fun, but… she can fight and compensate her stature and strength. she's pretty fucking good at killing people.

#hzd ersa #yeah time to keep spamming this tag what up

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jmindigo · 3 years

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2020 fanfic recs

Well hey, look at that. It’s International Fanworks Day, and I’m actually aware of it before it’s over! And! I actually kept track of what I read last year! That’s right, time for some fic recs. Like this barely scratches the surface of the 250+ fics I read last year, but these are the ones that jumped out at me when reviewing my list.

First up, the miscellaneous -

Eternal Horizon by Betterbemeta - Animal Crossing/Doom crossover, Gen, Mature. 23k. If there is ONE fic you read off this list, make it this one. It’s probably the only one here that I’d solidly recommend to someone outside its fandoms. It’s wholesome, it’s mindblowing. I maybe cried a little.

salt by Lvlins - Dragon Age, Solavellen, Mature. 16k. An AU where a newly awakened Solas discovers elves that are also selkies.

Diamond by midnight_marimba - Dragon Quest XI, Sylvando/Serena, Mature. 110k. This is one of those fics where I wasn’t even looking for it, but it jumped out and dragged me in. Heavy on the character development, and very queer.

Library of Alexandria by senlinyu - Harry Potter, Dramione, Explicit. 26k. I’m one of those rare weirdos that reads PWP for the worldbuilding.That said, this is great. Also, Read Dramione To Piss Off JKR 2021.

charcoal stained in generations by whalesong_and_bones - Dishonored, Emsider, General. 2k. Grief and fluff. Emily’s daughter meets the Outsider.

From Under a Shadow by cryptid_jack - Horizon Zero Dawn, Ereloy, Teen. 79k, WIP. I’m such a sucker for worldbuilding, and this is the Oseram-centric I was looking for.

Next up, Star Wars. A series that is trying and almost not failing to beat my love for it out of me.

Age of Kings by disorientedscribbler - Reylo, Explicit. 161k. Post-TLJ time travel AU, where Rey and Ben are sent back to the Prequel Era and hijinks and angst ensues.

Rey Tries Things! By andabatae - Reylo, Explicit. 30k. Modern AU. Is Youtuber/Sugar Daddy To Lovers a trope unto itself yet? Needs to be.

Inside My Wounded Soul by kimaracretak - Reylo, Teen. 22k. AU from the end of TLJ. Poetic and mythic, about memories and histories and destiny.

She-ra. Let’s watch She-ra I thought, it’ll be low investment I thought. Phfft. I really should know better by now, eh?

Tremble Before Her by VillainIHaveDoneThyMother - Entrapdak, General. 8k. You know I just really enjoy fics that view a relationship from the outside? And I always appreciate spending time with lesser appreciated characters.

Behind the Curtain (series) by mlle_ledoux - Entrapdak, Teen. 97k. Starts with fluff and headcanon and then dives deep into delicious worldbuilding, and more fluff. This fic series informs a lot of my own headcanons about the Fright Zone…

Genetic Composite by RenkonNairu - Entrapdak, Teen. 119k. Accidental baby acquisition, only it’s a clone and its parents are both ‘MIA’. There’s angst, then there’s fluff, and then more angst, then more fluff.

Of all fandoms, the only other one I read enough of this last year to justify giving it its own section here? Megamind.

Dive by dalniente - Megamind/Roxanne, Teen. 20k. I’m such a sucker for leaning into the alienness of alien characters.

Swansong by dalniente - Megamind/Roxanne, Teen. 135k. More grief! Angst! Depression! Could only be sadder if someone actually died! It’s great.

Cold Fusion by dalniente - Mega/Roxanne, General. 34k. Huh, just now noticed these are all the same author. Well, no complaints from me - consider it a blanket recommendation for their works. :D This one is a continuation from the end of the movie.

I’m going to cut it off here, lest I expand this venture beyond my available spoons.

#fanfiction #fanfic rec #*franticly hits post before the anxiety catches up*

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meggannn · 4 years

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this post is a jumbled mess so nobody take it too seriously, but anyway the thing i have against the way race is handled in HZD is..... difficult to put into words. even putting aside the fact that aloy is a white woman in a story that (in my opinion at least) would mean a lot more if she had been anything but white,

on the one hand: diversity, yay. on the other: it seems very... shallowly done. as if making a range of female characters and bipoc is the only thing to be done, instead of consideration of how these people would actually evolve and look like over centuries.

(also, sidenote: where are the disabled characters? like, i have no doubt in my mind that they would make up a prominent section of society, given the dangers of this universe.)

but anyway... the game’s native appropriation was a big criticism when it was released, and i’m sure the whole “white people with dreadlocks” thing has been raised too. (iirc the developers have explained some of this away by liking the nora to celtics or vikings instead? but... ehhh.) i’m neither black nor native so i feel like i shouldn’t speak too much on either of those.

but mostly, i think a lot about how i just don’t buy that a population would look this way after ~700 years, and it’s not because diversity wouldn’t exist—but i think it would just look differently from how it's shown in the game.

what i do buy is that when the zero dawn staff were determining which zygotes to put in eleuthia cradles, they’d make america’s cradles ethnically diverse (presumably others too, though i wonder what they did for ones, say, in locations where diversity was more locational than global—did they only place chinese descendants in china? indians in india? mesoamericans in central america? a thought for another time). i assume the diversity we see in the game was a choice by the eleuthia team to replicate america’s diversity in the 21st century in a snapshot moment, to take that snapshot and simply allow eluethia to transfer it into the future so the human species can continue as if it simply paused for a while.

what i find a little harder to buy is that so many zygotes in the 2060s would not be mixed race; after all, the average american will not be white by the 2040s. but, fine, i can handwave this.

what i find much harder to buy is that the new civilizations, carja and nora and banuk and oseram, would not start to develop their own visual identities after reproducing within their groups for ~4-700 years (assuming a few hundred years of establishing roots in one place long enough to build up boarders, develop xenophobia, etc)... or that they would not look universally mixed race, especially if the zygotes were scattered across north america truly randomly

as it is, i feel uncomfortable looking at some of these fictional groups—the nora, with aesthetics and language taken from indigenous american tribes; the banuk, with parallels to the inuit (to my eye at least); even the carja, who i think could be paralleled to mesoamerican groups pre-colonization—and seeing a bunch of EVERY kind of people partaking in these aesthetics, but it being okay because it’s... like... equal opportunity for characters of all races to partake in these real-world cultures! and it’s opportunity that was based on location by virtue of which cradle facility someone’s ancestors’ zygotes happened to be located? (ig you could say that there is no difference between someone’s ancestors’ zygotes being located where they are in TODAY’S world, either, but the difference for me is that since zero dawn was not a natural process of evolution, the decision of how to divide and localize these zygotes across the world was always going to be inherently political: not that it was a bad decision to diversity them across the american continent. and not that i would have suggested differently. but... anyway, it is what it is.) like, i can understand this part in the game’s world, but when i put my doylist glasses on, this is political in today’s climate in a way that feels weird to me.

like, i hope i’m explaining myself well here, and i guess my point is: i don’t know if i’m entirely convinced that (for example) asian and black people wearing and representing inuit-inspired clothing and culture is better than a white person doing it. not that these new ethnic group in the HZD world should not take any influence from our real-world non-white cultures, or that diversity wouldn’t exist in the 31st century, but again, i think the diversity would just look different than the way it does in the game.

which goes back to my main thought of... hell, why wouldn’t most of these new groups—especially the carja, who live in a desert—be darker? so... why are so many carja white?? lmao. if these people spend all day outside or in the sun... you would think they would be darker... this even goes for the nora really who don’t seem to spend a lot of time indoors.

anyway, somewhere in scattered my feelings about race in this game is a tangential thought about how aloy—and elisabet before her—being a woman of color could have been a much more meaningful choice. a girl outcast from birth for things beyond her control, being recognized and judged everywhere she goes? a woman in stem being expected to clean up a rich white man’s mess and doing tireless work behind the scenes for years (green tech, miriam, PZD)? i think elisabet’s story is certainly something lots of white women relate to, but it has always felt a lot more like a biwoc story than a white story to me: a story of the under-appreciated and overworked carrying a tremendous weight into the world without expecting thanks, giving it a reality, receiving most of her appreciation after death, and even then, only known for those who do the work to discover the story at all—which at the moment consists of a grand total of two living human beings.

(i think it’s unlikely aloy would let elisabet fade into obscurity, but to avoid that, the truth of PZD and the ancients’ world would have to be revealed on a broad scale... and lbr, is the new world really ready for that? aloy didn’t tell anybody about PZD or elisabet in the first game, even at the final hour, but... i guess we’ll see in the sequel if she changes her mind lol. i certainly hope so.)

#horizon zero dawn #horizon stuff

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krahka · 5 years

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The KleskizhAUs and their Poetic Styles

Under read more because lomg

SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous Sith Juggernaut. Excessively proud of his Sith ancestry but also ridiculously light side and somehow doesn’t see this as a problem. Loves lightsabers, loves the Empire but is a little less clear on whether he likes the Empire as an institution or the Empire as the people, and hint, it’s the people, he’ll pick the people if he had to.

Poetry: ALL CAPS HAIKUS FREE VERSE ASTRONOMY METAPHORS EXTREMELY VIOLENT REFERENCES TO ANCIENT SITH HISTORY BEAUTIFUL WORDS BEATEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIS HEART OF DARK PASSION

DS!SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous and awful Sith Juggernaut. Believes himself morally and genetically superior to all others. Delights in toying with his inferiors, especially in breaking their hearts with his charm and facade of kindness.

Poetry: Flowery and romantic and flattering. More or less copies of ancient Sith poems, but with the words changed a bit. They’re mostly for showing off how cultured he is and how much he loves you babe, so he doesn’t put in much effort.

ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage. A scion of the Direnni but not on great terms with his family due to his allegiance to the Aldmeri Dominion and his marrying a Bosmer because of Spinner shenanigans. Ambassador of the Queen and definitely not one of her Eyes nosir. Got pressganged into the Buoyant Armigers after impressing Vivec by exemplifying all of hir favorite virtues and vices just by accident.

Poetry: Sonnets. Ballads. Sexually explicit but it’s so purple that you can hardly tell just how sexually explicit it really is. Mostly about his own adventures and the people he knows. Melodramatic as fuck. The stuff he wrote when Vivec specifically was taking an interest in him is his best work, since he starts getting more experimental and tones down the silliness without losing that red hot emotional core that really elevates the verse to something that so many people try and fail to replicate in the future that it’s become its own genre.

DS!ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage what dabbles in necromancy. Believes himself the rightful king of all of High Rock with the Bretons as his rebellious subjects. Allied with Mannimarco because he promised him that when Planemeld happened, he could have his ancestral holdings all to himself, with all the people there living only to glorify him. The kinda guy you end up killing in the Daggerfall Covenant quests or in a Balfiera focused dungeon DLC.

Poetry: Pretty similar to light side ESO!Kleskizhae, but if he thinks you didn’t appreciate his work he’ll torture you until you do. Try and critique it and he’ll just plain murder you and raise your corpse to grovel for his forgiveness and admit that you were wrong. Also his poetry is his annoying boss mechanic somehow. Didn’t read the books in his dungeon? Too bad because that’s how you defeat him.

GW2 Klejskizae

Norn Herald. Skald, champion of Wolf, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers. A Delight unto all people of Tyria! Your new best friend who is not using your friendship with him to learn your secrets! Come and listen to him channel the spirits and the Legends next Dragon Bash!

Poetry: Actually more into prose. Veddas. Stories about heroes, exaggerated for effect. Tales that he keeps in his mind that he tells differently each time he’s asked to tell it, depending on what he thinks his audience needs to hear. The poetry tends to be more personal, often taking the form of prayers to the Spirits that are between him and them. Also will write songs, also about heroes, with calls to action for the Pact.

TES!Specifically Klejskizae

Nord Skaald. Traveling yeller. Delighter of audiences all throughout Tamriel. Follower of the Old Ways. Probably also in the Blades.

Poetry: SCREAMING TAVERN SONGS. Great heroes, sometimes gets kicked out of taverns in Skyrim because he’s performing songs about non-Nord heroes but how can you not be excited by EVERYONE

SWTOR!Specifically Klejskizae

Mandalorian what will scream battle poems in your ear as he faces you in glorious hand to hand combat. Has some very weird ideas of what being Mandalorian is, but they’re closer to reality than his Sith version’s ideas of being Sith.

Poetry: You thought Sith Kleskizhae’s poetry was gory and violent? You haven’t heard Mando Klejskizae. They are ridiculous. Everything ends with lovers embracing for the last time as they die in battle and their death is described in excruciating detail.

FFXIV Kleskizhae

Ishgardian adventurer. Dragoony Bard. Got kicked out for being way too scandalous for the theocracy and for talking too much about how he thought that maybe we should just smooch the Dragons?

Poetry: The poetry isn’t why he’s not liked back in Ishgard, though that poetry was a means to transmit his unpopular and scandalous ideas and activities. The poetry specifically is why he’s distrusted in Gridania after he met an elemental and challenged it to a rap battle and it went very poorly. (Kleskizhae won and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise or that that’s not the point and there is no winning because he definitely won)

West Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel. Sort of into the whole BoS thing of keeping dangerous tech out of people’s hands but also he’s into protecting people in any way he can, since they must protect those who will inherit the past, yes? That is what we’re doing, right? Right?

Poetry: He found a book of poems about Arthurian legends and they changed his life, as did Grognak the Barbarian which he’s sure is in the same canon. He’s also read a bunch of Shakespeare and only sort of understands it. So yeah, sonnets that are Shakespeare ripoffs. Casting modern topics into medieval terms. Sometimes it’ll get weird and his BoS worldview will come in and make them anachronistic but it’s unintentional because he just wants to write like the knights of yore.

East Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Enclave soldier, later deserter once he sees that oh shit killing everyone wasn’t supposed to be what they were going to do! He wasn’t listening to the quiet part! Ends up aiding synths because it pisses off the BoS and also saves lives. Still believes in America but it’s one that maybe never existed.

Poetry: The Enclave did preserve a lot of good American literature in their databanks, though they’re kinda sketchy about distributing it to their soldiers since even before 2077 they realized that a lot of the American canon contains like, anti-war, anti-corporate ideas and they couldn’t have that in their new society. He read Leaves of Grass once and it blew his mind. He might just surrender to the Brotherhood if they let him have access to their books, because he needs those. But also he might not because they would probably kill him and he’s also spending his post-Raven Rock time helping synths out of the Institute and that’s something they’d kill him for. And probably also kill a lot of other people if they realized that the Railroad had ex-Enclave in there. And the Institute doesn’t care for the humanities, which is why they had to create machines to teach them how to be human and then proceed to do such terrible things to the humans they’ve created; because they are less machine than they are and they resent them for it.

Modern Vlogger Klaus K. Zheng

Relationship advice vlogger, specifically as a counter-voice to all those shitty misogynist PUAs that are targeting lonely straight men. Also here for the lonely women and the lonely queers since he’s a queer man himself.

Poetry: He’s got a Master’s in Poetry and he feels it was time well spent, even if he didn’t care as much for academia as he did for the writing and the reading. One of the rewards for donating to his Patreon at a higher tier is a short poem written just for you about whatever subject you wish. (Assuming that it’s not extremely objectionable. He’ll gladly write poems about all sorts of sex acts, but he won’t write one about the virtues of white power.)

HZD Kleskizhae

Carja Warrior. Participated in the Red Raids because that was what the will of the Sun was but he couldn’t take the violence and the genocide and ended up joining with Sun-Prince Avad to overthrow the murderous king literally as soon as he could. Has been on a tour of goodwill ever since.

Poetry: Overuses the words “glinting”, “scintillating”, “resplendent”, “radiant”, “brilliant” and other words that mean A LOT OF LIGHT because he’s really into writing ridiculous songs about the Sun. A lot more personal and emotional than a lot of Carja poetry, since it’s more about love than about praising the Sun or the King. It’s a new dawn, and what the world needs is love’s shining rays to heal her wounds. With the help of some Oseram who wanted to promote the newly invented phonograph, manages to become the first real pop star after the apocalypse.

DA Kleskizhae

Tevinter Battlemage. Was sent off to the front lines against the Qunari to keep from embarrassing his family and his master. Accidentally ended up embarrassing them anyway.

Poetry: So he’s really into bringing up the Old Gods in his poems. He doesn’t worship them, he’s a good Andrastian, but you know how in the Renaissance everyone was a huge Greeceaboo? Yeah, it’s like that.

WtA Klaus K. Zheng

Fianna Galliard. He’s a werewolf poet who sings ballads of his pack’s glorious battles and lifts their spirits in the name of Gaia and Stag!

Poetry: He’s got a soft spot for dirty limericks. All of the Kleskizhaes will make improv poems upon request when they’re drunk enough but Fianna!Klaus is the master of the drunken on-the-spot poem. Like they get way better when he’s drunk and they’re improvised, as opposed to the usual thing where they’re charmingly bad.

VtM Klaus K. Zheng

Toreador. Got the vampire bug some time in the Victorian era, I dunno if he was actually British or what.

Poetry: Lord Byron himself once called his poems “a bit maudlin.” His sire was certainly fond of his work, but if he had more time in his peak living creative years he would have probably been a better known figure in the Romantic movement. As it is he’s fairly irrelevant and forgotten by all but a few intense scholars of the period, and even they consider him a minor figure.

Shadowrun Klaus K. Zheng

Elven Street Samurai. Just wants to make the world a better place through the power of love and also katanas. Probably unfortunately involved with Aztechnology which is gonna end badly for him probably.

Poetry: Machines and corporations have not yet conquered the metahuman soul, and that is why he writes. Has been banned from a couple of Runner BBSs for constantly posting about his latest runs in the form of epic poem, and that’s not what these boards are for, @GLORIOUSSAMURAI, please turn off your caps lock

Star Trek Kleskizhae

Romulan Tactical Officer. Fought in the Dominion War, joined the Romulan Republic after Romulus asplode, because they wouldn’t let him quietly desert and because he believes in the true Romulan spirit that can never be repressed!

Poetry: He’s trying to revive ancient pre-Awakening Vulcan poetic traditions whilst failing to recognize that lots of it doesn’t work in the modern Romulan language. He’s always been super into poetry but after the destruction of Romulus, he becomes obsessed with writing the perfect series of poems to describe it for the future, so that people will remember what it’s like long after everyone who remembers it is dead. He hasn’t been successful yet and it’s upsetting him but he can’t just not do it. He owes it to the dead.

Bionicle Kleskizhae

He's a proud Skakdi warlord of Fire who is trying his best to unite his proud and noble people against the wicked deprivations of the Makuta and might also be in the Order of Mata Nui because sometimes Kleskizhae is a spy? But always he is very loud.

Poetry: Extremely long and elaborate war chants with 40 verses that he’s trying to get his guys to chant into battle but no one else but him can remember it all and he keeps adding more verses. But also he’s written love poetry that’s gone all the way around Greg and made romance canon again! He’s done it! With the chiseling of the tablets he’s made love real!

#oc: kleskizhae #all screaming together in perfect harmony #long post

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xtolovers · 5 years

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The Anvil

Pairing: Aloy x Erend Rating: M ( albeit in later chapters) Warnings: Graphic Mentions of Violence, slight mentions of alcoholism AO3 / Fanfiction.net

Uncomfortable

“I can’t move troops to the border without provoking the Oseram. But I could send a few Vanguardsmen… and perhaps an exceptionally gifted Nora as well?” Erend suppresses a growl as he recalls Avad’s words from the day before. If he’s honest, it’s less the words — Aloy certainly deserves the praise— but the look and step forward that accompanied them. He doesn’t know if the rumors about Avad and Ersa are true, and fire and spit, he doesn’t want to think about it, but even if they aren’t, he still can think of a good dozen reasons why the Kings praise rubs him entirely the wrong way. Sure, one of them might be his… fondness for Aloy, he will admit as much, but there is a reason he thought Ersa and Aloy will get along well- both of them are free. And Avad might be likened to the sun all day and all night, but he is tethered to his throne and to his people. So why that damned look? “So cap, is she really as pretty as they say?” Irritation turns to anger as Erend turns away from where his eyes are searching the bridge, ready to give Andrik a good punch.

“Ouch!” As he turns he sees that Karan has beat him to it: Andrik is rubbing the back of his head with an insulted look on his face while his second-in-command crosses his arms. “What matters is if she’s as proficient as they say. Our goal is to get Ersa back, not to help you with one of your conquests,” Karan snaps. Erend gives him an appreciative nod. The older man was— is one of Ersas most trusted companions, and Erend knows he can count on him. In the past two weeks that he’s been staggering around trying to fill Ersa’s shoes, Karan has helped him more than once, and he is grateful for him, even if his competence makes Erend feel even more useless. Andrik shrugs, not bothered. “A guy can ask, can’t he?” “A guy can remember that Aloy is the only reason we even know Ersa could still be alive, so a guy would do better to shut up,” Erend barks. He knows he’s being hypocritical, because her looks were the first thing he himself had noticed, and Andrik hasn’t even met her. But back then his sisters life hadn’t been on the line and he hadn’t seen what Aloy was capable of. Andrik is a good guy, but his comment makes Erend grit his teeth. His shoulders feel as if they’re made of steel with all the tension they’ve been holding in the last weeks, and he knows that spending the next week watching Aloy dodge Andrik’s flirting will thoroughly exhaust his patience. He needs her to find Ersa, and distracting her is off limits. He willfully pushes down the tiny part of his brain that thinks that that’s only half of the reason he wants Andrik to keep his thoughts to himself. “I thought we were leaving at dawn. Where is she?” Andrik asks as he’s leaning himself back against a bridge post. “At first light is what we agreed upon, I believe,”a voice rings out behind him. Andrik snaps upright, and Erend and his men turn towards the path next to the bridge, Aloy crosses the last few steps of distance between them, eyebrow raised defiantly, a bunch of wild ember in her hand. “She was here then, but because the rest of you weren’t here, I went down to the river and gathered some herbs in preparation.” Andrik opens his mouth to reply, and that can’t mean anything good, but before he can form the words, Karan steps forward and turns to Aloy, his hammer conveniently swinging just so that it slightly hits Andrik in the back of his head. “Apologies, m’am. We ought to have been here sooner, there is no time to lose.” Erend watches Aloy’s eyes linger on Karan’s hammer for a second, the slightest smirk on her lips, before she scowls and shakes her head. “My name is Aloy, no need to call me anything else.” With a gratuitous motion that Erend couldn’t pull off if he wanted to, Karan bows his head. “ Karan. At your service, Aloy.” Then he looks expectantly to Erend, who feels like a complete ass because he was too slow again. Too slow to call Andrik to order, too late to gather his men, too late to apologize. Karan’s meaningful look feels like a gesture of pity, even though Erend knows it’s one of respect. Respect you haven’t earned. He clears his throat. “Apologies, Aloy. Karan here is my second-in-command. This bung over here is Andrik, these two are Beren and Enoch — they’re brothers — and this is Oren.” Each of his men nod to her as he calls their names, and Erend feels that the introduction is far more lackluster than it ought to be for a Vanguard strike team, but for the life of him, he can’t recall what Ersa used to say. He’d have to ask her. This time, he’d learn from her as much as he could. Aloy returns their nods, plainly studying each of them for a brief second. At the end, her eyes meet his, searching, and Erend knows what she’s looking for. He meets her gaze steadily. After a second, the green in her eyes becomes the tiniest bit warmer, and she nods, apparently pacified.

“Then let’s go.” She strides right through them and presses the wild ember against Andrik’s chest without any further comment. Beren and Enoch snicker as he starts to tie the bundle to his sack where it can dry. His men start following her up the ridge, towards the way that will lead them north to Pitchcliff, and Andrik shoulders his sack before he grins. “So she is pretty.” This time, Erend is not too late. Karan’s and his hand smack Andriks head exactly at the same time.

About an hour past noon Aloy looks over her shoulder and let’s herself fall back next to him. Until then, she had steadily led the group, always on the lookout, only slowing when she was engaging her focus. His men had given her some distance— by Erend’s orders. They’re good men, and he’d easily die for each of them, but Erend remembers how uncomfortable and overwhelmed she had looked back in Mother’s Heart during the celebrations. Aloy wasn’t used to being surrounded by people, and his men weren’t exactly considerate. Since yesterday when he’d broken the news to them, all of them had been gripped by a sense of restlessness and a thirst for revenge, and he was too grateful for her help to make her uncomfortable. “There’s a small valley between those mountains up ahead where we can rest for a bit. Unless you want to push ahead.” Erend shakes his head with a laugh. “ Something you never do, I’m sure. Do you ever eat?” “Sometimes,” she shrugs, but the corner of her mouth twitches. He takes a look around at his men. If he asked, they’d march all the way to Pitchcliff without a stop or complaint, but Erend can see that the hours on the road have taken their toll. “Let’s rest.” Aloy nods and scans the area around them, apparently content with her findings. She starts walking faster again, and Erend has to push down the urge to follow. Instead, Karan slips next to her, and he can see her tense up for a moment. This was exactly what he didn’t want. “If I might ask, what does this… device show you, Aloy?” Erend sees her contemplate for a second, and then her shoulders drop and she starts answering him. After a second of contemplating it, Erend decides against interceding. “Why is Karan allowed to talk to her and I’m not?” Andrik asks behind Erend’s right ear. “Because Karan can behave himself, and you’ve already insulted her once today,” Erend growls back. Andrik mumbles something but falls silent as he sees Erend’s face. Up ahead, Karan and Aloy are chatting amiably, laughing now and then. He should be happy that she’s getting along with someone— their trip could last at least two weeks after all— but it doesn’t sit right with him. Aloy and Karan are chuckling ahead of him, and Erend’s teeth grind together. He really hopes he isn’t seeing what he thinks he’s seeing. Karan is a good man, but he’s twice her age. But he can see why, with the force of nature that she is, that wouldn’t stop somebody. Yesterday when she arrived at the palace she was suddenly clad in Blazon Armor that barred her midriff and clung to her body, and the only thing that kept his mind on the task and his eyes from Aloy’s navel was the thought of Ersa suffering somewhere in a dark dungeon. Now that she was walking ahead of him, hips swaying slightly with each step and the sun on the very well defined muscles of her back and her legs, Erend was sure he’d be sore tomorrow with the effort it took not to stare. Embarrassingly, he was doing a poor job of it, catching himself a couple of times, or at others, hearing Beren’s snicker behind him. But fire and spit, Andrik is right— she is pretty. Who could blame Karan for noticing? Sure, they are talking about tracking techniques now, and all Erend sees is respectful camaraderie between two travel companions, but still. Karan is, despite his years, a damn good looking bastard. The sun and the fights have done their fair share to cover his face with wrinkles and scars, but his skin is tanned from the sun, his hair fair and golden, even if there is the odd white strand showing now and then. For an Oseram, he’s unusually slim, not as stocky as the rest of them, but muscular enough to make up for it. Erend has visited enough taverns with him to see women fawn over him and his stupid blue eyes, a lot of them not much older than Aloy. Bastard. By the time they reach the valley and start to make camp, Erend is thoroughly annoyed. “Do you mind clearing the perimeter?” He turns to Aloy, who frowns for a second, but shrugs in the end and jogs to the other side of the valley, scanning the surroundings. Before Karan can get any ideas, Erend turns to him and asks him to start distributing the food, something that usually is Oren’s task. Karan studies him for a moment and he can see him barely suppress a smirk as he nods and turns around to comply. “Of course, Captain.” He’s sure he’s hearing Beren and Enoch chuckle behind him, and Erend turns away to study the landscape as he feels himself blush. In a week he’ll have Ersa back, and she can wear her own damned boots again so that he doesn’t have to stumble around in them and feel like a gods-damned fool. Aloy comes back to them without any news, and an awkward silence settles over their group as they all silently bow over their lunch. He can feel her eyes on him a few times, searching, probing, but she doesn’t say anything. Her shoulders are stiff again. They rest for an hour, and then they continue their track the same way they have so far, with Aloy slipping to the front, leading them north. Mostly they make good time. The further they get from Meridian, the more machines they see, usually further away. At some point they happen upon a small herd of tramplers, and Erend has to grin as his men disbelievingly watch while Aloy takes down two of them by herself while the Vanguard collectively handles the other two. As they bring down the last one, she pushes her arm in all the way to the shoulder and rips out the machine’s heart with a well practiced twist of the hand. His men step back and let her do the looting— it’s easy to see she’s far better at it. Despite their protest, Aloy disperses the parts between the men and herself. Above them the sun crawls their way over the sky as they slowly make their way north, the men chatting amongst themselves as Aloy strides ahead. Now and then he can see her scanning, and Erend has the feeling she is searching for something. Once she startles, only to sink down disappointed, and he hears her mumble Grazers. She leads them around the herd without disturbing it. Several times, when he’s not busy thinking about Ersa or wishing for a drink, Erend considers going up to her and striking up a conversation, but he has no idea what to say, and he’s afraid to make an ass of himself again, so he leaves her be. They decide to make camp at a river bend next to a cliff face. He sees Aloy scan their surroundings. “So what is it this time? Machines to take down, or killers to track?” he asks as he steps next to her, and his stupid quip is rewarded with the first genuine smile he’s seen on her face all day. “No machines except a few Glinthawks south of here, but they don’t worry me,” she points in the direction, but there’s just the side of the cliff. It takes him a second to realize that apparently, she can also see through mountains with her focus. “ There are some goose downstream however.” With that she draws her bow and skips over some rocks in the water. Within moments she is on the other side of the river and disappears into the tall grass, her red hair blending effortlessly with the color of the stalks. Erend shakes his head and turns around to the camp. With a pang of guilt he can see that Karan has already delegated all necessary tasks, and is now watching him. He takes a few steps to Erend’s side, and then looks over to the spot where Aloy has vanished. “She seems as capable as you have said.” “I have the feeling I’ve only seen a fraction of what she’s capable of,” he replies, and Karan gives him a look that makes him blush the faintest bit. Erend looks away. Because Karan is a bigger man then he, he let’s it go. “She seems uncomfortable.” Defensiveness raises the hairs on his back. “ Of course she’d be. She was outcast from her tribe her whole life, and alone most of the time afterward. A rowdy, loud group of Oseram would make her uncomfortable, that’s why I told them to behave.” Karan was silent for a moment, nodding slightly to himself. “That… might be true. But a rowdy, loud group of Oseram who don’t talk to her might be even more uncomfortable for someone who was shunned her whole life.” Karan looks at him, his eyebrows the slightest bit raised, and Erend’s stomach sinks. He thinks of Karan asking her questions earlier, and the way Erend rewarded that with giving him an unnecessary task to occupy him. “Shit.” Karan chuckles and pats his shoulder, a gesture that feels undeserved. “ You tried.” “And failed,” Erend mumbles as Karan retreats back towards the rest of their group. His men are setting up the tents for the night, and after he has pitched his own, Aloy is still nowhere to be seen. She’s left her pack with them, so he gets started on hers in an effort to make up for it. Behind him, Beren and Enoch are talking about Aloy’s victory over the tramplers, and he decides he has to do something. “Listen lads… I think you can ease up on her now,” he starts, but as he sees Andrik’s eyes light up, he amends: “ A little. Don’t wanna give her culture shock now, do we? Doesn’t mean you can’t talk to her, though. Respectfully.” Karan gives him a small nod, but Erend knows he’s chickened out again. There’s rustling behind him and Aloy appears out of the brushes, carrying a bulk of Ridgewood and two turkeys. As she starts to settle on the ground to pluck them, Oren makes his way over to her. “Let me handle those. You did the catchin’, I do the cookin’.”Oren is a big mountain of a man, huge even for Oseram standards, but ironically one of the gentlest of the Vanguard. At his low-pitched, rumbling request, Aloy hesitates for a second, always assessing and analyzing the situation, but then she smiles and hands them over. “Never been much of a cook myself, anyway.” “But an excellent huntress, I can see. Straight through the head.” “Can’t afford to waste the meat when you’re the only one feeding yourself.” “And good training for aiming at anything with even bigger heads.” She laughs then. “That, too.” As Oren sits down to take care of the birds, Aloy looks over to him and sees his progress on her tent. “You didn’t have to do that.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Eh, had nothing better to do, and you were already making yourself useful, so I thought I should do the same.” Her face is hard to read, but she nods and touches his shoulder lightly before she takes the straps out of his hands. The spot on his arm stays warm for a long while. This rest is different then the first. Not exuberant— it can’t be, given the cause of their mission— and not fully comfortable yet, but not as awkward as the first. When the odd lull in conversation happens, it’s simply because they don’t know each other well enough yet. But this, finally, is something Erend is good at. Rambling, telling jokes, making people comfortable. So he does. Little stories about failed flirting attempts— none of them his stories, of course— or Vanguard mishaps, and soon he has her laughing, has all of them laughing. It doesn’t take them long to make short work of the two birds Oren has expertly prepared, and the sky turns from red to purple to blue. Around them, the crickets start their songs, signaling the evenings arrival. “ I can take last watch, I don’t mind getting up early,” Karan offers, and Oren volunteers to join him. “I’m not tired yet, I’ll take first, then,” Aloy says. Across from him, he can see two devilish glints flash in Andrik and Beren’s eyes, albeit of a different kind. Before Andrik can speak up, Beren steps on his foot. “Andrik and I can take middle, he still has to finish telling me about this girl he’s met and her brother, who is apparently a very interesting prospect for one lonely Oseram Vanguard, warrior and hero. “ He pounds his chest with a laugh, and replaces it with the stupidest, most calculated look of fake pondering as he turns to his brother. “Enoch, you’re probably tired right? You haven’t marched this long in a while, with your busted foot.” Enoch, who had twisted his ankle months ago, makes no point of concealing his grin as he yawns deeply, and Erend’s scalp starts tingling. Bastards. “Brother, I am surprised I’m still awake right now. You know, I really need to go to bed. So sorry I can’t take a shift today.” “No no, we need you strong tomorrow. Cap’ can take the first shift, and then we’re all set up, right, Cap?” Steel to his bones, he’s going to strangle them. It doesn’t take long for them to disappear into their tents, and silence settles around the camp. Aloy busies herself with the Ridgewood she has gathered earlier and starts making arrows. Erend tends to the fire, trying to come up with something to say, but she beats him to it. “How are you doing?” Her eyes are on him, appraising.

“Haven’t had a drink in nearly a week, so could be better. It helps that I don’t have to mourn Ersa now, but the worry isn’t exactly

better.

”

“

You didn’t eat a lot.”

“Eh, I’ll eat better once we have her back, and once I can have an ale with it. Before that, my stomach is denying me its work.”

The scowl is back on her face. “Are you in pain?”

“Nah, just… queasy. Happens to the best of us, right?” The worried line between her eyebrows is back and he just can’t have that. “ It

does

happen to you, right?”, he quips, and Aloy rolls her eyes.

“Put some water on, I’ll be back in a second.”

Without further warning she slips away into the darkness, silent and swift like a Stalker. Because he has the feeling that protest is futile, he complies and puts on of the pots back on the fire, and fills it with water.

Two minutes later, Aloy reappears silently next to him, some kind of dark purple root in her hands, dripping with water.

“Ochrebloom root. The tea will help your stomach.”

He watches her slip a small knife from a leather strap on her boot, using it to peel and slice the root before she puts it into two cups, a treacherous warmth spreading in his chest.

“Thank you,” he murmurs as she hands him the tea. Silence falls over them while they both sip carefully.

She stares into her cup, her thumb absentmindedly tracing its rim, and Erend feels guilty.

Time to man up, Erend.

#hzd #ereloy #aloy #erend #aloyxerend #erendxaloy #the anvil #hzd fic

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