#anyway. have some utaru views

[hzdtrees]

The Cordon, pt. 1

[thescientistowl]

Dawn Eases Night

Right, so after a little reworking, I finally finshed writing the first chapter of my first Horizon/Niloy fic! I haven't written ANYTHING in a few years, so I am incredibly rusty at this (and for that, I am sorry).

It is flasback heavy, but they will be clearly laid out with underlined and italised timestamps, so you'll know when we're back in the present... hopefully, anyway. I also haven't had it beta read, and it isn't edited to the best of my already terrible ability. Again, I am so sorry.

I'm posting it here, on our beloved hellsite, because the Horizon and Niloy fanbases here are based. I also don't have an Ao3 account, and I'm sure my old FF.net account has probaly died by now anyway.

The story takes place post HFW, so expect spoilers, and at the minute I have warnings for canon typical violence and occasional strong language. This WILL change down the line as the story is going to visit some dark topics, but I'll update those warnings as I go.

So, the story is under the cut! Please enjoy the first chapter of Dawn Eases Night! If you want to send me any constructive criticism, then please feel free to do so :) .

Chapter 1: The Trail We Leave Behind

     Red. Purple. Screaming. Aloy was surrounded by it all.

     A thick miasma of acrid smoke filled her lungs, stealing her air, choking her from the inside. GAIA was dead. And the world… the world was burning.

     Around her, machines of black and gold and furious purple tore down those that she loved. Beta’s cries were snuffed out as furious Spectres surrounded her. Zo, Kotallo and Alva lay crushed in a Slaughterspine’s wake. Erend, as brave as he was, had tried to handle several machines at once. They shot him dead. Talanah and Petra shot together in unison, but they were set upon by Stalkers, filled with darts and left to bleed. And behind them, a group of Chargers, bearing riders, fought back as best as they could before they too were ripped apart… but the last man standing among them put up the most furious of fights. Even then, Nil fell too.

     Aloy tried to scream, but sound would not come. Movement would not carry her to their sides.

      More familiar faces of her friends - of Carja, Tenakth, Oseram, Nora, Utaru, Quen and Banuk – fell to the machines or the toxic air that stole their breath, and there, in the distance, were Varl and Rost, their skin grey and their eyes cold, beckoning her towards her own demise, promising her that death was the release that she deserved.

     It was never supposed to be like this. She was supposed to fix it! How could she not fix it!?

     There was so much pain. She burned, she sputtered, and above her the red light of a now not so distant enemy loomed over her, mocking her. The screams of the people of the world, innocent people who couldn’t understand what was happening to them, filled her head.

     She had failed. She had failed all of them. It was all her fault…

     Aloy woke with a sharp breath, her lungs aching for the air that had been denied to her in her dreams. With frantic eyes she searched her surroundings; a storage chest sat nearby, shadowed by a set of well used training mannequins and old bookshelves filled with small tokens from her travels. She took stock of her position, her body laid out flat on a comfortable surface and covered with several blankets. Her bed. She was in her bedroom.

     Forcing steady breaths, Aloy slowly counted backwards from ten, feeling her chest rise and fall to the rhythm she had implemented on herself, and deliberately drowned out the sound of her panicked heartbeat. She needed to move. Movement would clear her head.

     Rising slowly and methodically from her mattress of Utaru make, Aloy moved around the desk that hid her bed from the full view of the door, her fingers running along the cool metal to help ground herself. The recycled air around her was cool without the warmth of her blankets but she found that she did not mind it at all – it reminded her of early mornings spent in the wilds, when the world was not yet quite awake, and the sun’s first rays had yet to warm the landscape.

     With no real sense of direction, Aloy followed her feet as her body ran on instinct, leading her towards the common room beyond the door that opened with no command. 

     The Base was awfully quite now that most of her friends had returned to their homes, as free as they possibly could be before their looming fight against an apparently insurmountable threat. The Zeniths may have been defeated by their hands, but they had left them with one last parting shot, albeit an unintended one.

     Nemesis. An angry red lingered in the forefront of her vision, the last vestige of her almost fevered dream, and Aloy fought to shake it away, taking a few unsteady steps into the open space as she did.

     The common room itself was quiet and empty, save for the gentle hum of the holographs and electronics surrounding her, and in the dim light Aloy could see the trinkets and decorations left behind by her friends; Erend had left his Machine Strike board and several kegs of Scrappersap, Zo her many, many plants, and Kotallo’s piece of the Bulwark remained standing proud nearby. Alva had even graced the floors with a few Quen rugs before she had returned to Legacy’s Landfall.  GAIA had taken to humming quietly in the small hours of the morning, her digitised voice a soothing and gradual wake up call to all in the Base, but one that was broken by a soft snore that came from Beta’s new bedroom – the one that had once been shared by Varl and Zo – and Aloy smiled. All of these things served to remind her that her night terrors were wrong: she wasn’t alone.

     So then, why did she feel like the loneliest soul on the face of this planet? 

     With little else more to do than sit, Aloy made her way to the breakfast bar in the centre of the room, her naked feet padding gently across the soft Quen mats (and Aloy really would have to thank Alva for these the next time they spoke – they felt so good under her toes!). She found her perch atop one of the barstools and, with a great sigh of relief, rested her head against the metal of the counter, the contact alone cooling her sweat-soaked forehead. When had she even begun to sweat?

     As her arms came to lay flat next to her head, Aloy felt a small and wooden thing brush against her knuckles. A tingle burned alight in the base of her head, as she looked up and came face to face with the most delicate figurine of a Charger. Her fingers reached out to stroke it, a smile casting across her lips the whole time, and her eyes flicked to another figure next to it, also made of wood, but one that was cast in the shape of a Tallneck. Both figures had been dyed, the blue of calmed lights contrasting with the light grey of the machine’s metal plating. Both were crafted by a pair of hands that could create such miniature wonders, but they could also destroy, killing in the most visceral of ways.

     Memories of campfires and long conversations flooded her vision. Sometimes there were bandit camps on the horizon, and sometimes there were only the wilds, the dunes of the Sundom or the rolling hills of the Nora Sacred Lands. But always there was her, and him; the man that she had first encountered surrounded by corpses as she approached on the back of her newly acquired Strider, who had spoken so softly to her as though he had not just run through several bandits with his blade and bow.

     Her smile grew as she remembered his introduction. ‘Call me Nil’, he had insisted, and though Aloy’s instinct knew this to be a false identity she had, at the time, no desire to push for the truth from this stranger who had offered to help her with the nearby bandit camp – one that threatened the Nora that she was now sworn to protect. He had only been of aid to her then, a temporary companion to help her on what was only one small part of her larger journey… or so that was what she had originally thought.

----------

Several months ago, outside the Gatelands camp…

     “I thought we were partners.”

     “I have my own roads to follow, Nil.”

     Aloy’s stride was unwavering as she walked away from what had been the Gatelands bandit camp. Her once empty packs now sat heavy at her waist, full of the slagshine glass that she had taken from each marauder that she had killed. Hopefully the pieces would fetch a decent price - she was running low on supplies.

     Two heavy footsteps echoed in the open canyon around them, and Nil appeared in the corner of her sight. He easily outpaced her with his long legs, and soon he was leading the way down the path that Aloy had intended to travel alone.

     “And they seem to lead back to bandits.” He countered, looking over his shoulder with a crooked smile. “That works for me, I’m not suggesting a Carja wedding. I’m never lonely when there’s killing to be done.”

     Aloy rolled her eyes. She was beginning to regret engaging with him in the Sacred Lands, because now their meetings were becoming infuriatingly frequent and Aloy was sure that he was following her. Rost had often warned her of the dangers that men like Nil could pose - those who appeared friendly, but who would later appear from nowhere by pure ‘chance’… She would have to put an arrow between his eyes if this continued.

     If only she knew of another route to Meridian. If only she still had her Strider, but the damn thing had sacrificed itself in a fight with a roaming Sawtooth. But Aloy was not worried – she could override several machines now, but any override made on a machine that she could ride seemed to be its own, very unique, override - one that seemed to remember its past lives in the several machines it had inhabited. Perhaps Aloy would have to name this particular piece of override code…  

     As they drew level with the opening landscape, Aloy spotted something huge and bulky in the distance; a large and terrifying bipedal machine that roamed the heights above them. Aloy had never seen a machine so big, save for the Tallneck at Devil’s Thirst, and so she ignored Nil and instead raised her hand to her focus. With a melodic blip a burst of purple light encased her in a large orb, one seemingly made of an ever shifting net, and the machine - and it’s weak points - were highlighted clearly for her to see. As the machine turned towards the path on which they walked, the old-world glyphs formed a name in front of her eyes: Thunderjaw.

     Her pulse quickened in anticipation of a fight, but then the machine turned and moved away, seemingly unaware of their presence.

     A short breath of relief, and Aloy dismissed the web of light around her.

     Nil, meanwhile, had continued talking. He didn’t even seem to notice that Aloy had not been paying attention to him. But as her ears reattuned to his voice she heard only words of violence, of murder, of bloodshed. Of war. She heard how he revelled in it, and something in her core quaked, as it had done, during their assaults on Gatelands and Devil’s Thirst. How could someone enjoy such chaos? There was still so much about the world beyond the Sacred Lands that she did not know, but she was quickly learning more and more about the ‘Red Raids’, and from the sound of his words Aloy wondered if Nil had seen or had been a part of this war.

     Her curiosity was piqued.

     “So, you used to be a soldier?” She interrupted his monologising, not caring for the furrow of Nil’s brows as he frowned. “You fought for the Carja?”

     “For them, against them,” his expression slowly softened as he responded, “an empire always finds its wars. You can’t be picky.”

     The path below them followed the slight slope of a gentle hillside, and Aloy soon found herself keeping an even pace with the strange Carja beside her as he took shorter steps. The sun beat down on them relentlessly, but where Aloy was clearly beginning to suffer and sweat from the heat Nil instead seemed to revel in it, stretching out his arms to the warming rays.

     He looked at her pointedly before he continued.

     “The new king, Avad, saw things differently. Called an investigation into war crimes. Aren’t all wars a crime to someone?”

     Silently, Aloy agreed.

     “Still,” he continued, his voice so casually matter-of-fact, “I raised my hand and volunteered.”

     Aloy stopped, her feet digging into the loose stones and dirt beneath her. “You volunteered? To investigate?”

     Nil also stopped, turning around to face her head on. From his lower position on the path, he was finally on an equal eye level with her.

     “No, I volunteered my confession. No sense wasting time with an investigation.” A small smile played with his lips, and his eyes gleamed in the sunlight. “I was sent to Sunstone Rock for two years. The trade was fair.”

     He turned on his heel then, continuing his descent, and Aloy, now infuriated with his indirect answers, stomped after him.

     “They sent you to a rock for two years?” She demanded, confused. “Is this some kind of Carja ritual?”

     Nil laughed then, his voice echoing from the few surrounding rock faces, and Aloy silently fumed. She didn’t know! How dare he laugh at her.

     “No, no, Sunstone Rock is a prison,” he continued through his dying laughter. “South of Meridian. South of the Raingathers. Our new Sun-King is a believer in rehabilitation - as am I.” He looked once more over his shoulder as Aloy caught up to him. “In the heat of a stone cell, in the dark, I learned to focus on what was truly important to me.”

     Aloy wondered what it was that Nil considered to be ‘truly important’ and then balked at the thought. Maybe she didn’t want to know.

     “What were these things you did, Nil?”

     “Acceptable things, under the circumstances.”

     She frowned. “Acceptable to who?” Perhaps she didn’t want to know the answer to this either.

     He smiled, and Aloy supposed it was a genuine attempt to put her at ease, but the glint of… something… in those cold silver eyes did absolutely nothing to calm the sense of dread that was slowly beginning to claw its way up from her stomach.

     “I don’t make decisions.” He stated with a finality to his tone that was so blunt it sent her mind reeling. “Let’s just say the rules of engagement suited me. But rules are important. A structure.” He paused. “A cage.”

     Aloy was wary as he rounded on her, her fingers instinctively flexing for a weapon.

     Nil’s voice was low as he took one small step towards her, keeping a respectable distance between them as he did. “Otherwise… you know of those places? Lonely places where people once were, now just a hole cut into the world? Chances are, I was there before.”

     He gazed down at her, unblinking, his eyes thinning, and Aloy knew that he was scrutinising her. She wouldn’t back down. Instead, Aloy straightened her back and glared up at him, her entire frame exuding defiance at whatever it was that Nil was examining her for. If he was trying to decide if she was easy prey, then he should already have his answer from their shared time at the bandit camps.

     Seconds passed until Nil’s piercing gaze relaxed. Clearly, he had found what it was that he had been looking for.

     “A brief encounter for us, but the end for them,” he smiled pleasantly, looking back down the hill to where the path forked. One branch was the more direct road to Meridian. The other led away from civilisation and further into the rocky landscape of the Sundom. And now Nil was making his way towards that very path.

     Briefly he paused, turning to her with a smile that was all teeth and violence. “They were squalid lives anyway.”

     Aloy could only stand, stunned, as he slowly vanished. Yes, the bandit’s lives were forfeit for their crimes, she agreed with him on that, but his love for bloodshed, his obvious pride in the unnamed crimes he had committed during the war… he was no better than the bandits he deemed below him.

Hopefully, said bandits would simply wise up and leave. Hopefully she would never have to see or hear from Nil again.

----------

A month later, in the jungles of The Jewel…

     To say Aloy was frustrated would be an understatement. Between the bloody gash on her thigh and the clumsy loss of her tripcaster and medical supplies, Aloy wasn’t sure if today was just a bad day, or if her lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll. But there was so much that she had to do, and now that her new ‘friend’ Sylens was there to constantly remind her of the perpetual march of time, Aloy had very little in the way of calm moments where she could simply rest. Sleep… She had forgotten what that felt like. She had learned, however, that power naps were not an acceptable substitute.

     Blackwing Snag lay behind her, now bereft of any trace of bandit life. Each of her shots had been quick and clean, until the leader of the crew, a woman from another tribe, the Tenakth, had found her. It had quickly become messy, and at some point the woman, Ullia, had angled her blade so precisely that it had cleanly cut through the leg of Aloy’s leather leggings and into the flesh of her thigh. It wasn’t a life-threatening injury, but it was a painfully persistent one.

     At least Janeva would be pleased; Ullia had been Aloy’s final contract from the warden at Sunstone Rock.

     “I was sent to Sunstone Rock for two years…”

     Aloy had asked about Nil during her initial meeting with Janeva, curious to see if she could learn more about the hunter who had, somehow, crossed paths with her twice since their combined assault at the Gatelands camp.

     “He was born under a long and dark shadow, but he wasn’t a knife without a thought behind it,” they had said. “He had honour. Old-fashioned. His time here… boiled it to the surface.”

     Aloy had wanted to ask just what Janeva had meant, but the warden had ushered her away with three contracts in hand. Three contracts. Three dangerous criminals. She had never wanted to be a killer of men, but Aloy supposed that had all changed with the attack on the Proving. With Rost’s death. The Eclipse. Helis.

     Her breath left her in a shudder at the memories; of Helis’s hand around her throat, his knife against the skin of her neck. Rost… oh, Rost…

     Clamping her eyes shut, Aloy moved away from the camp, limping as she did so. She needed to concentrate on returning to Sunstone Rock. She needed to let Janeva know that the job was done, and hopefully she could find something to bandage her leg with whilst she was there.

     Her trek across the humid jungle was slow, thanks to the biting pain in her leg and, Aloy thought with bitter resentment, a lack of energy. Her severe lack of rest was really beginning to rear its ugly head. Perhaps, if she had not been as exhausted as she was, Ullia would never have landed a hit on her in the first place.

     At least now, this close to a clearing, she could just about see the prison through the heat haze.

     An almost silent rustle broke her train of thought. As she had done so many times before, Aloy whipped around to face the sound, bow pulled from her shoulders and knocked with an arrow at lightning speed. Beyond the tip of her arrow there was nothing but deep jungle.

     Perhaps she was hearing things. Exhaustion did do strange things to people…

     A crack of twigs underneath feet. The sound was closer this time.

     “Where..?”

     Something shimmered in the air, lunging at her, something long and lithe, before Aloy could even think to react to it. It leapt into the air, where suddenly all pretence of stealth was gone, and a vicious looking machine of black armour and yellow armaments blinked into existence.

     Aloy dove aside, missing its attack by mere inches. Not that it made much difference. With a dangerous growl the machine moved fast, turning on her and ramming Aloy into the ground. Sharp metal claws tore at her armour, and Aloy had to kick the thing in its centre to escape from it.

     With no other thought than to escape, to hide, and hunt the damn thing from the shadows, Aloy turned and ran as best as her bloody leg would allow her, heading across the nearby stream and into the thicker body of the jungle, wild turkeys fleeing from her as she did.

     A dart flew passed her, burying itself so deep in a nearby tree that the tip could be clearly seen on the other side of the trunk. It could shoot too? Why? Wasn’t it bad enough that it could turn invisible?

     With her heart pounding in her head Aloy continued to run, weaving through trees and thick grasses in an attempt to lose it. She could no longer see it, but… was she safe? Was the damn thing hiding?

     Something hard collided with her side, then her stomach, and all air escaped her. There was the briefest sensation of uncontrolled flight before Aloy landed painfully with the ground, her head slamming into rough dirt, sending sparks exploding behind her eyes. She rolled, faster and faster until she suddenly stopped, her body crashing against a thick tree, hidden in some deep and tangled red grass, blanketed in shadow and darkness.

     The world spun, with the constant pounding of metal and high-pitched beeping echoing in her skull. A small, pathetic whimper escaped her lips as she dared to open her eyes. The sun, which had been high in the sky mere moments ago, was gone. The jungle floor was dark and calm with the sounds of night, save for the constant metal pounding and that wretched beeping. In the near distance she could see a red thrumming light. Aloy made another whimper as the light burned at her eyes.

     Then bright blue, clear behind her eyelids, before quickly turning yellow and then vanishing, leaving her in the dark once more. The pounding of metal grew unbearably close.

     Aloy just wanted silence. Peace.

     Something grazed her shoulder in the dark, but Aloy had no energy to move away from it. The touch moved from her shoulder and to her neck, and visions of knives against throats flooded her mind’s eye. Some kind of small noise escaped her and the touch, though it lingered, vanished.  

     Then, running footsteps, moving quickly away from her. Not a machine. A shrill shriek as red erupted behind her eyelids, and the howling of that invisible monstrosity. No, more than one. The metal pounding moved away at speed, leaving her to the dark and silence, and Aloy welcomed both like the old friends that they were.

     She woke to the warmth of the sun bearing down on her and birds chirping out their morning tunes. She could hear water nearby, some calm, and some crashing against rocks somewhere not too distantly. She had moved herself then, or someone else had.

     Aloy opened her eyes against the light to find herself laying out in the open, on a rock outcropping next to a river, and the Jewel spread out like a blanket on the opposite bank.

     She lay on an unfamiliar bedroll that someone had laid out for her, and just a few of her travelling packs rested by her head. As she moved to take in more of her surroundings, leaning up on her elbow for purchase and grunting with the pain and effort it took, she realised that her leg had been expertly bandaged around the large gash in her leggings, and most of her armour was missing.

     No. No, no, no, she could not be this exposed in the wilds!

     “Just relax girl,” a voice, laced with amusement, sounded somewhere behind her. “You’re safe here.”

     She knew that voice. Nil.

     Aloy fell back to the bedroll with a groan. Of all the people who could have found her, it had to be him?

     “I have to say, the colour of blood suits you.” There was a clear smile to Nil’s voice as he spoke - she could see it all too clearly in her head. “But I do believe that the idea is to wear the blood of others, and not your own.”

     “Could you please stop talking?” Aloy snapped, curling in on herself as she suddenly became all too aware of her light state of dress in his presence; her tunic and leggings were not enough protection if he decided he wanted to slide his blade between her ribs.

     She heard a slap of hands on thighs behind her, and instead of speaking Nil simply hummed to himself. It was a quiet and unfamiliar tune, but it was a pleasing little thing all the same. In fact, Aloy was quite surprised that it was at all pleasant to listen to, coming from Nil.

     But she needed to move. With a push that took more effort than it should have, Aloy forced herself to sit up straight.

     The view that met her was astonishing. A tall cliff side skirted alongside them, leading to a large waterfall - one larger than she had ever seen - and to an outcropping where a Carja tower sat proudly against the deep blue of the sky. Birds gently flew above the tower, and the few clouds that dappled sky were calm.

     “There’s another waterfall on the other side of the tower,” Nil began, obviously following the movement of her eyes. “It is quite impressive, isn’t it?”

     Aloy frowned, slowing turning toward his voice. “I thought I’d asked you to keep quiet?”

    And the world suddenly stopped.

     Nil was sat by one of the few trees that surrounded them, hidden partially in some ferns, but his armoured jacket, pauldrons, vambraces and scarf were gone, as was his ridiculous feathered headdress, the clothing all set aside with his own things. The only cover he had on his top half were wrappings that were tightly wound around both of his forearms.

     His hair was as jet black as his beard and shaved at the sides, with longer hair at his crown. Currently, said hair was sticking out in all sorts of uncontrolled directions, but even from here it looked so invitingly soft.

     Nil’s chest was another magnificent sight. Yes, the parts that Aloy had already been able to see were quite beautiful to look at (she had to give him that much credit, at least) and once or twice she had needed to stop herself from staring. But now the full musculature of his torso was laid bare to her, as was the sheer strength of his arms.

     It was with some shame that Aloy only found his severe lack of chest hair to be Nil’s singular physical let down, but she had noticed on her travels that a lack of body hair seemed to be the style among the Carja.

     Even as an outcast, when Aloy had come of the age where hormones and physical attractiveness played a big part of her life, Aloy had discovered that she did like a healthy smattering of hair on a man’s chest. A rare sight in the Sacred Lands, yes, but when the summer sun had belted down upon them, some of the Nora men had chosen to shed enough of their armour and clothing to stave off the heat, and Aloy, watching from the side-lines and away from tribal life, had found those few moments to be very informative and refreshing… until Rost had caught her ogling a young brave one day, when instead she should have been training. He had admonished her severely for that, and she had never gone searching for such sights again.

     But now here she was, gawking again like some lovestruck child, until she heard Nil chuckle darkly to himself and her eyes snapped back to his face. His silver eyes, usually so cold and calculating, were now filled with an unfamiliar warmth, not unlike the one that was threatening to burn her cheeks.

     “Like what you see, girl?”

     Aloy looked away quickly. What could she possibly say to that? Better to say nothing, then to open her mouth and sound like a fool.

     Uncomfortable minutes passed, and Aloy itched to leave. She had never felt so awkward in her life. And so she took a mental stock of her things, to prepare and distract herself. She was missing a few packs, her bedroll, and from the pile of folded armour she could see that most of her leathers and hides were torn. Teb had worked so hard to make that armour for her, and one lousy machine had ruined it all.

     Her hands reached for her hide top, thumbs caressing over the damage.

     “You’ve never come across a Stalker before, have you?”

     Aloy turned to look up at Nil, deliberately ignoring his state of undress. She raised an eyebrow.

     “Those… things…” she began, thumbs still running along the damage. “Stalkers?”

     Nil nodded.

     Aloy huffed. “Appropriately named, I guess. I can’t believe one of them took me down.” The shame she felt was like a gut punch. What would Rost have said?

     “Three.”

     “What?”

     Nil stood and straightened, stretching his back and his arms. In his hands was a small knife and a chunk of wood, and Aloy was curious as to what they were for; the wood was much too short and thick to be turned into arrows.

     He made his way to her side, the silk of his purple pants sashaying as he moved, and knelt not too far away from her, once again keeping a respectful distance. Always a respectful distance.

     “There were three Stalkers, Nora. Only one of them showed itself to you.” Nil looked at the fabric in her hands, his lips curling downwards.

     “How do you know that?” Aloy’s eyes thinned. “You are following me, aren’t you?”

     Nil chuckled. “No, I am not following you. By chance or fate, girl, our paths inevitably lead us together.” He looked into her eyes then, the warmth still there. “If I were a man of stronger faith then it would be of my belief that the Sun himself was leading me back to you. You are, after all, the best possible partner this soldier could ask for.”

     Aloy rolled her eyes at his words, uttering a small and sardonic ‘thanks’ in return, but she felt the small and fleeting smile on her lips none the less. And judging from the look on Nil’s face, he had seen it too.

     “So how did you know about them?” She asked, quickly changing the subject. “And how did you find me?”

     Nil shifted, making himself comfortable, and placed the knife and the wood by his feet. There was something etched into the wood, the shape of something, but what it was Aloy could not quite tell.

     “I was hunting the Stalkers, actually. I know, I know, I do not care for hunting them, but I do care for their echo shells.”

     “And what do you need echo shells for? They’re only really used by machine hunters.”

     Nil’s lips pursed, and it looked for a moment as though he was going to say no more on the subject. But then he exhaled slowly through his nose and continued. “There’s a trader that specialises in rare herbs. I have use for some of those herbs, and he only deals in echo shells.”

     Aloy cocked an eyebrow at him. What kind of trader only accepted echo shells? And what herbs did Nil have an interest in? A feeling in her stomach stayed the questions on her tongue; he probably wouldn’t have answered them anyway.

     “As for how I found you, I saw you in the distance, running through the trees. I could see one of the Stalkers on your tail, and another, well, it whipped you with its own tail. I watched as you flew and vanished down a steep embankment. It was actually quite impressive.”

     “Nil.”

     He smirked at her before continuing. “I saw the three of them then. They had to follow the long path down to find you, but you were apparently too well hidden in your landing place for them to find. It did take me a while to find you, after all.”  

     “And then you drew them away.” Aloy interjected, her mind replaying small snippets of what it had caught that night: the touches to her shoulder and neck, the rushing footsteps, the enraged machines…

     Nil nodded.

     “Why did you come looking for me? You could have just left me.”

     “I didn’t want to lose my hunting partner, girl.” He replied with a non-comital shrug.   

     She scoffed. “You would have found some other idiot to help you.”

     She watched as one of the corners of his lips quirked, before his face became infuriatingly neutral. “You may find it hard to believe, but there are many who find my charming disposition too much to handle.”

     “No…” Aloy smirked, rolling her eyes. “You are a cuddly ray of sunshine. How could anyone find that too much?”

     His lips quirked again, splitting enough for Aloy to see a quick flash of teeth, though whether it was in a smile or a snarl she could not know.

     Nil reached for the knife and wood at his feet and examined the chunk of what had once been a proud tree. With a small hum he put the knife to it, gently whittling away at small chunks and slithers of bark. Aloy sat mesmerised as she watched the wood give way to his hands and the blade edge, with form slowly being gifted upon that which was once formless. Aloy still was not sure what it was going to be, but she was certain that she would see soon enough.

     “Rest, girl,” Nil said, not looking up form his work. “I’ll make us a meal soon.”

     But Aloy couldn’t rest. Her thoughts were too preoccupied with watching his work. It was… fascinating.

     Nil stayed his hands, his eyes catching hers, and he smiled a genuine smile. It was not one of his snide or smug grins, nor the smile that was all teeth and death. Aloy’s heart skipped and shuddered beneath it – the gentle curve of his lips broke into small dimples in his cheeks and… wait, how had she never noticed that adorable little gap between his front teeth? Or the few, scattered freckles on his cheeks and nose? Or how the corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, silver irises sparkling. And the tattoos under them, what did they mean?

     ‘Stop. He’s a killer. Stop it!’

     Aloy turned quickly, looking out across the river to where a group of Chargers grazed. Useful; the unique override code favoured those machines, she had noticed. She still needed a name for it though.

     The soft swick of wood giving way to metal continued, and Aloy inclined her head so that she could see. Was it going to be a machine, or a person?

     “You really should rest,” Nil’s voice was soft, “the Stalkers did throw you down a steep climb, after all.”

     Aloy shuddered, looking back towards the Chargers. Were those machines still out there?

     “Speaking of which,” she began, trying to block out the images of shimmering air that transformed into fangs and teeth. “Did you kill them?”

     “Sadly, I did not. I drew them away long enough for me to get you to safety.”

     “But your echo shells!”

     “I’ll find some,” his eyes briefly flicked to her before returning themselves to his work. “Don’t concern yourself with that.”

     They fell silent once again, Aloy sharing her time between watching Nil work and observing the behaviour of the Chargers. Her body didn’t ache as much now, and Nil’s bandages had stopped the bleeding from her leg.

     Just how far were they from Sunstone Rock now?

     And on that subject…

     “I saw Sunstone Rock for myself.”

     Nil seemed taken off guard by that admission, as his shoulders hunched and his hands stilled. Slowly, he relaxed and returned to his carving.

     “Only visiting, I hope?” He asked, turning the wood with deft fingers. “Carja justice has become so complicated.”

     Aloy nodded, and Nil caught it from the corner of his eye.

     “Is Janeva still shackled there?”

     “Janeva is the warden, if that’s what you mean.”

     Nil chuckled, stopping his work to instead turn towards her.

     “Such a waste of an intoxicating ferocity. We fought together, and each other!” His face softened as he clearly reminisced on old memories. “Ah, but don’t let me get sentimental.”  

     “Uh huh.”

     “But why were you there? I thought the woman who saved the Sun-King could do no wrong?” The tease to his voice was as clear as the day above them.

     Ah. He had heard about her defeat of Dervahl, and the subsequent rescue of Avad, Marad and Erend. Of course he had. Half of the Sundom seemed to know by now.

     “I was exploring the area, and found the place being attacked by machines. One of the former inmates had a bone to pick with Janeva and the guards, it seemed. So, Janeva asked me to hunt him down, along with two other escaped prisoners.”

     “Former inmate? Am I right in assuming that they are no longer with us?” His eyes twinkled.

     “I didn’t kill him, Nil. Rasgrund was pretty good at doing that job for himself.”

     “Ah, yes, the Oseram. I remember him. He enjoyed trying to make his deadly little traps out of any scraps that he could find.”

     “Yeah, well, in the end he decided that he wanted to die to one of his ‘little traps’.”

     “His is no great loss.”

     The day passed by slowly, but Aloy found that the break from her usual hectic pace was a welcome one. Sylens was not particularly happy about her lack of progress, and he made no secret of it as he uttered very one-sided rebuttals through her Focus. Tired of his whining and enjoying the rest that her body and mind had clearly needed, she simply removed her Focus and stashed it safely in the nearest pack that she had.  Aloy was more than happy to enjoy just one day off, and it came as a shock to her, as quickly as a bolt of lightning struck the tallest of peaks, that she was enjoying Nil’s company. He was… charming. Murderous, yes, but pleasant. Fascinating.

     As promised, he later cooked the two of them a meal of small boar and mixed greens that he foraged from the jungle floor. He was a surprisingly good cook, she discovered, as she bit down into the seasoned meat and vegetables and her mouth was flooded with delicious flavours. What other skills was this man hiding beneath his vicious outer shell?

     As the day passed to evening, and the evening to night, Nil finished carving the piece and held it gently in his hands. It was a small Watcher, its head held aloft as it kept vigil over the machines it helped to protect. It was, in a word, beautiful, and sculpted with a surprising amount of detail.

     Putting the knife carefully back into his boot, Nil instead turned to one of his small packs and from inside he produced a small bottle of what looked to be grey ink or paint. A small brush followed, and Aloy moved closer to watch as he began to coat the bristles in the pigment.

     She was rewarded with that same warm smile for her curiosity.

     Nil had finished coating the wood before the last of the sun’s light vanished, and he placed it on a nearby rock, claiming that it had to dry before he could give it another layer of colour.

     The fire he had started to cook their meal was still going strong, and as darkness descended upon them Aloy found herself closing the gap between them as they sat together, Nil pointing out the constellations that the Carja had for the stars that they all shared. Unsurprisinlgly, there were a lot of avian based constellations (the Carja did love their bird imagery), but there were also machines and figures from the tribe’s past. Aloy explained that the Nora believed the stars to be flecks of flame from a fire that All Mother had lit to guide them through the night. Nil remarked that it was quite a beautiful tale.  

     Aloy wasn’t sure when she fell asleep, only that she woke curled up in the place where she had been sat the night before. Nil gently snored beside her. He too had fallen asleep where she had last seen him.

     She could leave. She should leave. But one look at his face, soft with sleep, and her resolve to do so vanished. Besides, it would be rude to do so after he had helped her. He could have potentially saved her life, for if he hadn’t found her before the Stalkers did… Aloy shook her head. No, no she wouldn’t think about the ‘what if’.   

     Nil woke a little while later, with obvious surprise on his face when his eyes found hers. Had he expected her to leave? Aloy simply greeted him in return and went about emptying the only pouch of food that she now owned, sharing what was left of her jerky and dried fruits with him.

     “It’s not quite as good as what you cooked last night,” Aloy sheepishly admitted, “but it’ll get the day started before we have to part ways.”

     Nil’s only reply was a slow but altogether large smile, one that made his eyes light up and her heart miss a beat.

     Aloy could easily become accustomed to that smile.

----------

      Aloy took the small figures into her hands, holding them both so fondly. Each nick in the wood, each stroke of paint, was all Nil.

     The pair of machines had originally sat in her own room, guarding both Elisabet’s pendant and the necklace that Rost had gifted to her so long ago now, but with each subsequent visit to her room, her friends remarked on just how much they liked them too. And so Aloy had made the difficult decision to move them to the common area, where they could be enjoyed by all.

     She just hoped that Nil wouldn’t mind. He had made them specifically for her, after all, but she supposed that perhaps he would feel a surge of pride that others enjoyed his handiwork just as much as she did.

     It had been a few weeks since she had last seen him, and even then it had been fleeting as she had needed to stop at Hidden Ember to collect some special supplies that Abadund had promised to find for her.

     Nil had worn his mask, his moniker of Red Teeth, the whole time, with the forced change in his voice that came with it, one that made him seem more Tenakth than the Carja that he was. Their conversation had been cut short as both Beta and Sylens had contacted her, asking her to joint them as they believed they had found a breakthrough in recapturing Hephaestus. And so Aloy had stupidly left, with one last apology to Nil as she did so. When she had returned to the base, it was revealed that it was a mere blip in the data that they had been reviewing. No breakthrough. There had been no need to leave Nil so quickly.

     Damn it all, she missed him!

     Well, she had recently promised both Zo and GAIA that she would take regular breaks. Perhaps a race with a certain Tenakth-spirited Carja soldier was exactly what she needed.

[system-threat-detected]

So I’m running a D&D game set in the Horizon universe, so I think about a lot of unnecessary worldbuilding stuff, like main exports/imports of tribes, what resources they might have available to them based on in-game evidence, and other stuff. It got me thinking about their clothes. Specifically the stranglehold the Oseram seem to have on linen. 

I don’t actually know a lot about clothes, cloth, or armor, so take that as you will. It’s something that vaguely interests me, but most of my knowledge comes from quick google searches, or that one time I went down a cloth-based rabbit hole on Wikipedia, so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about stuff. 

Out of all of the tribes that we see in-game, the Oseram are the only ones who use (what I’m assuming to be) linen in their armor. While this can be chalked up to design language - trying to get us to read someone as Oseram at a glance just by looking at them - I’m going to read more into it. 

Flax, the plant that linen is made from, grows well in Idaho/The Claim, and enriches the soil with nitrogen, blooms early, and is easily replaced by native plants, making it ideal for terraforming that part of the US. It would make sense for DEMETER to put it there, meaning the Oseram would be the ones who produced and sold the linen found everywhere else in game.

[ID: three Oseram mercenaries, dressed in leathers, metal, and cloth. end description.] 

Your average Oseram citizen also wears this cloth, though most of them seem to be wearing forge-worthy leathers (which could pass as armor anyways) based on my exploration of Pitchcliff and Free Heap. 

Another demographic who wears this non-leather cloth are common Carja citizens, as well as the poor/displaced people of Sunfall. More wealthy citizens and outlanders wear silk, and the nobles wear almost exclusively silk(Charles why did you think putting silkworms in the middle of Utah was a good idea? They are not native animals. Charles the silkworms that produce usable amounts of silk have been so domesticated they can’t even survive in the wild anymore. Charles silkworms can ONLY eat Mulberry tree leaves, which, thinking about it, I may actually have found in The Jewel. Charles pls.), but that’s a topic for another post. 

[ID: Five Carja citizens from the Horizon Zero Dawn art book. Two are labeled “Craftspeople Woman” and “Craftspeople Man”, who appear to be wearing mostly linen and some silk. One is labeled “Artisan”, and is wearing some linen, a lot of silk, and some decorative machine parts. The last two are labeled “Villager Man” and “Villager Woman”, and are wearing all linen, no silk. End description.] 

It makes sense that the Carja have access to this linen, as they canonically have good trading relations with the Oseram. 

It’s also worth pointing out that black/purple dye is time consuming and extremely difficult to do. The shadow Carja/Eclipse made it part of their Whole Aesthetic, which I find hilarious(but looking deeper into the implications, horrified). They’re canonically starving all the time and they still find the time to dye black clothes. 

[ID: A turnaround of an Eclipse thug, whose outfit is mainly tattered, deep black cloth, with some dark red, bullets, and a white mask. End description.] 

Black dye can come from chestnut trees, so there is, in fact, an in-game basis for this, as I found chestnut trees in The Jewel while looking for avocado trees, but I’m even more incredulous they figured out how to make purple. The most likely sources, since they obviously don’t have access to that super exclusive Mediterranean shellfish, are Rocky Mountain Irises, Blackberries, Elderberries, or Daylilies, none of which I have seen in game, but can grow in the Utah area.

We can interact with exactly one Utaru in the whole game, but the concept art for them appears to be mostly woven/dried plant leaves or leather, and some machine parts.

[ID: The front and back views of two Utaru. They both are wearing outfits with strips of dried plants or leather woven together in alternating black and yellow patterns, a mysterious mint green cloth, red feathers, a little bit of black fur, and a dried grass cape. Both are wearing hats made of woven plant/leather, machine parts, and what appears to be wood. End description.]

Looking at Rea, the Utaru we interact with in-game, the mysterious mint green is toned back to a more natural green, and it actually looks more like leather than fabric.

[ID: A waist-up in-game rendering of Rea, an Utaru woman. The rendered textures make everything previously assumed to be cloth or plant fiber, besides her grass cape, look like leathers that have been tanned differently. End description.] 

It’s possible the Utaru have access to cotton, but there simply isn’t enough in-game information to confirm or deny that. 

The Banuk and Nora tribes overwhelmingly use leather and hide, along with assorted machine parts (like metal or cables) in their wardrobe. It makes sense for them to be dressed this way, as where they live is colder than the Sundom or Plainsong. I have, however, noticed there are strips of cloth used in their outfits. 

[ID: Four generic Banuk warriors, wearing leathers dyed their traditional light greens, blues, yellows, and reds. Their heavy, warm outfits also include furs which range from, and sometimes gradient from, blacks to whites. There are strips of what appears to be vibrant blue cloth wrapped around their limbs, as well as attached to their weapons. End description.] 

The blue cloth the Banuk use to tie their boots up/their arm wraps on and on their spears is obviously a reference to the Blue Light, and is the only cloth in their outfits. The rest is warm leathers or furs. Their territory, Ban-Ur, is mostly covered in glaciers, so it makes sense they’d opt for overall warmer clothes.

While we know from Bergrund that the Banuk don’t like trading for ‘necessities’, it is possible that the easily-dyed blue cloth is one of the things they will trade for, as it holds religious symbolism for them.  

And the Nora:

[ID: Concept art of four generic Nora Braves, all wearing outfits comprised of natural leathers, white machine metal, and blue machine cables. End description.] 

[ID: Aloy wearing the Nora Silent Hunter Heavy armor. The armor is mostly made of natural leathers, but there is a green and blue net woven of some unknown material. End description.]

The green/blue net/rope stuff we see in Nora outfits is most likely woven from natural fibers taken from dogbane, nettle, or milkweed. 

Aloy’s scarf looks like it’s made of silk, 

[ID: An in-game image of Aloy. She is wearing the armor Teb made for her, and is standing in the dappled shadow of a tree. Her blue scarf is shining like silk. End description.]

But there’s a possible explanation: It’s the same one she had as a kid, that Rost wrapped her in as a baby. He was a well-traveled man, maybe he found it while he was on his vengeance quest, and kept it because it reminded him of his wife/daughter or something. (She’s wearing her baby blanket around her neck)

This, however... 

[ID: An in-game rendering of Olara, a Nora woman who is wearing an outfit made of natural leathers, dark blue netting, a dark blue cloth sash, leather belts, and what appears to be a knit wool shoulder cowl. End description.] 

Ma’am where did you get that wool. There are no sheep here. The Banuk have all the goats, and they don’t even use them for that. There are no Angora rabbits here. No alpaca. And yet. There you are. With your knit wool(?) shoulder cowl. Someone please help me out here. What could that be made out of. 

And then there are the Tenakth. The game doesn’t specifically state where they are from, but since only Carja texts seem to mention them, and the Banuk/Oseram/Nora lore we are provided doesn’t mention them at all, I’m assuming they’re south of the Sundom, kind of around Arizona/New Mexico area. So like. Hot. Dry. Sunny. I’d argue that what little we have seen of their designs supports this. 

[ID: Concept art of members of the Tenakth clan, shown from two different angles, one male, one female. Both are, wearing classic Tenakth blue and red body paint with thin white lines. Both are wearing light armor around their neck and forearms, and the woman is wearing a red chest wrap that appears to be made of cloth. They are both wearing skirts made of woven plant fiber, green, yellow, and red dyed leather, and red leg wraps. End description.] 

The body paint we see could easily double as natural sunblock, since they clearly don’t have the light, airy Carja silks to keep the sun off their backs. But I’m getting distracted again. 

[ID: An in-game rendering of Ullia, a Tenakth woman. The texture pattern on her clothes suggest the red material around her chest, arms, and legs, is in fact, cloth, while the strips of material around her waist and upper thighs are leather. She is also wearing shin-guards that appear to be made of dried bamboo. End description.] 

BAMBOO???? What does it MEAN?? (After a quick google search, I learned that bamboo does, in fact, grow in the Americas. A quick google search informed me it is native to a lot of South America, Central America, and the Southeastern United States. Why or how it got to the Southwestern States is beyond me, but it’s making me think the Tenakth territory (The Clan-Lands) is a lot wetter than I originally thought. Or they stole it from whoever boarders the eastern part of their territory.) But again, I’m getting off topic. Back to cloth. 

The Tenakth are known for raiding, and taking what they believe to rightfully belong to the strong, so even though they’re nowhere near The Claim, it’s likely they have stolen a linen from the Carja, but not enough to be able to consistently make a whole outfit out of it. They seem to just use it where it would be the most useful, like for attaching the bamboo/machine metal to themselves as armor. This lines up with having a scarcity of a certain material, so I’m pretty satisfied with this explanation. 

This concludes my long and unnecessary analysis of Horizon world clothing styles. I hope you all had as much fun reading this as I did figuring it out!

BONUS:

[ID: A still from the Horizon: Forbidden West trailer, showing two members of the unnamed clan that lives in what was once the Yosemite area. They are both wearing outfits made of leathers, scavanged machine parts, natural rope/string bindings, and carved wood. End description.]

Whoever these guys are, they don’t look like they have cloth, but they’re likely capable of growing flax, if I’m right about where they’re from. 

And the other one: 

[ID: A still from the Horizon: Forbidden West trailer, showing a person standing in a field of red vines, holding a withered carrot in their hand. They are wearing a yellow and green outfit, which appears to be made mostly of woven leaves and leather. End description.]

These people who appeared in the HFW trailer, who I’m no longer convinced are Utaru, don’t look like they have cloth either, but we don’t really get a good look at their outfits in the one scene they appear in the trailer. 

[inappropriatestork]

Another thing I'm liking: how machines with cargo can use their cargo and can have different types, so you don't always know if the Leaplashers you meet have radar or something else.

More thoughts with maybe minor spoilers:

Have now left Barren Light and am just entering Utaru territory.

Erend broke my heart with his "if you ever need anything" and then stepping in to make the soldiers open the gate.

Speaking of which, I'm definitely seeing a theme of like, Aloy accepting help? Which I'm still confused about because the whole first game was about building friendships and allies to call on in the final battle, plus the parallel of piecing together Elisabet's story of building a team to save the world as well. You could say Aloy saw people die in that battle and wants to keep that from happening to anyone else, but honestly she didn't really lose many people in terms of significant named characters. Rost, I guess. And Ourea, although the circumstances there were a bit different. Pretty much everyone major survived the big battle though.

So it seems very weird that Aloy would experience that and yet arrive in this game like "ONLY I can save the world and no one can even help me if I can possibly avoid it." And the writing on these games is usually too good for something so seemingly incongruous, so I'm intrigued to learn if there's some reason behind it.

But the conversation with Fashav, where he was surprised it was only her and Varl and then pointedly told her that allies are essential seemed relevant. And his kind of side eye when she said she'd seek the Tenakth chief's help only if she had to. Then Erend stepping in to get the gates open, so she didn't have to fight an entire fort. Maybe minor, but his help was pretty essential.

I'm glad she ended up traveling alone after all - having a companion is mostly just annoying and Varl kept being like "come on, let's go this way" when I was trying to explore, Varl.

I find Varl slightly pesky, tbh, and I feel bad about that, lol. Part of it simply that I adore Erend and if anyone's going to be tagging along I'd rather it was him. I am VERY biased, lol. But Varl is so...Nora. I can buy him as friends with Aloy, but I can't see them as shippable. He's too sheltered and traditional and while he adapted relatively (somewhat unrealistically imo) quickly to Focuses and holograms about space travel and machine riding, he's still half scared the goddess will curse him for setting foot in a ruin. And so much of his view of Aloy is straight up hero worship, not just at her accomplishments or abilities or just who she is as a person, but believing her sent by the goddess and all that. Their relationship just feels very lopsided. It's hard to be friends and equals when one person considers the other almost supernatural or something, plus the vast gap in experience and understanding of the world, and his still pretty strong Nora worldview and beliefs, which have pretty much only ever held Aloy back and caused her trouble.

Erend is awed by Aloy too but in a more down to earth "this girl is amazing and has helped me so much and I can't believe she'd even talk to me" that's almost more about his own self-esteem than Aloy herself. And that feels more overcomeable than all the Anointed Of The Goddess stuff. He's impressed by and likes her for who she is and what she does and how they get along, not his insistence on seeing her as some divine messenger.

I don't really expect actual romance, but if I could have DA style romance options, or if I was going to write fic shipping her with anyone, it would be Erend in a heartbeat. Maybe Petra 2nd. Varl and Avad are really good guys but their feelings are too complicated by other things (religion and Ersa, respectively) and their lifestyles and experiences simply too different and incompatible with Aloy, in my opinion.

Anyway. I like the new territory and new machines. Haven't found any that are too awful to fight yet. (And I'm even playing on Normal, with HZD I started on Story and gradually worked up to Very Hard on subsequent replays.)

I kinda got sidetracked discovering locations in No Man's Land, so I need to get back to following the actual story and do my exploring along the way.

Well, I'm a few hours/about 10% into Horizon Forbidden West and so far my review is:

PLEASE JUST LET ME HUG EREND