#stillsands

[tare-otome]

The Stillsands - Dunehollow - Las Vegas 1/?

Before heading back to the Base i swung by the Vegas area that would be my next subfunction mission to get Poseidon... Las Vegas had an eerie otherworldly feeling to it, like i was on Mars...

Still mysteriously shrouded in swirling sands or fog...

Even in the daylight it refused to reveal its secrets...I would return later...

[longleglens]

Stillsands

[jetskipilotgaming]

Horizon Forbidden West | Tallneck: The Stillsands Fast Way to Complete

[ayaitch]

Relic Ruins: Stillsands

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizon forbidden west | the stillsands 1/?

[thunderjawsandlightning]

Having thoughts about the Gauntlet Racing squad and I just. I love them so much. They are a reflection and an embodiment of different aspects that are present in both Aloy and Nil. They are so important to Aloy's journey of self discovery and finding her own community of people that she can just be herself with. They are so healing to Nil and his struggles with his own (presumed) military-childhood past, and especially so with his desire and search for close bonds with people he can and will trust.

They are community and camaraderie that both Nil and Aloy have been missing in their search for who they are beyond a legacy they didn't ask for. Names and status and deeds don't mean anything on the track, it's just you, your mount, and your weapons.

They are an example of freedom and wanderlust, free to go wherever they please and always searching for something new. Not being bound to one place because you've already seen so much of the world, it's hard to think that you would settle in just one place when there's so much more of the world to be seen and to experience.

They see past tribe and clan differences for the more raw, primal instinct and exhilarating joy of a good challenge and feeling alive, of truly being in the moment. Not caught up in the macro politics of tribal traditions and rituals, of laws and rules that are put in place by those with power that affect so many more without. The racers live for the moment, live IN the moment, and embody so wholeheartedly of being of the world.

Nil seeing Aloy interact with the kids, and the kids claiming her as "one of them" as she participates in more and more races. Of seeing the hardened mask of the Hunt drop away for the thrill and elation of crossing the finish line first. Of wanting more of that freedom for her, of making the Offer to her to join them, even though he knows that she won't stray from her path until she sees it through because he would have done (and did) the same.

Aloy seeing the not-really begruding-turned-respectful admiration that the kids have for Nil. Of seeing him have a weight lifted from his shoulders, to step out (even just a little bit) from the shadow of the Red Raids and the actions that bloodied his hands and his soul. And him doing so by going back to a tribe that was once the Carja's fiercest opponent, and lands that were the site for the inception and birth of his macabre and much-whispered reputation. And now, he's no longer doing penance by roundabout means of socially acceptable justice (bandit hunting), but in a healing, tactile way that his C-PTSD can process and transform into productive, healthy action and habits (racing).

And all of that could only be facilitated by this stray band of kids, racing in the desert: quote: "...the glint of steel at high speed and metal haunches splashed with blood...", and Nil and Aloy each seeing them upon crossing the threshold of the landscape in their own time, and each of them being equally intrigued.

[nimthirielrinon]

Windows to the past: Part 3

[banukai]

playing hfw again. I expect LV to hold a lot of aquatic biodiversity but we'll see. If its the same 4 fish again i will shit.

oh ignore the part where i typed LA onstead of LV im very fucking tired

[sunwingsunset]

Horizon Forbidden West ↳ Scenery / The Stillsands

[belgania]

The Stillsands

[tare-otome]

Sea of Sands 7/7

Against my better judgment, i went with Morland not once, but twice, in his hot air balloon for his side quest, Lofty Ambitions lol 🎈🔥😅 Okay i gotta admit, it looks beautiful from up here.

[kellelkallel]

AETHER recovered (love the stylization of the names, by the way)! Did this yesterday but oh well.

Beta secured (finally).

Stillsands Tallneck done! So so fun, bringing down a Tallneck was truly a magical experience considering how absolutely impenetrable and monolithic they were in Zero Dawn. Can't wait to do more.

[chloefraazers]

Title: Never Kissed A Mouth That Tastes Like Yours

Fandom: Horizon

Rating: Explicit

Characters/Ship: Aloy, Nil, Aloy/Nil

Summary: Aloy had a beautiful goodbye with Seyka. There’s someone else she wants to say goodbye to before she heads east.

Posted this many moons ago, but never gave it a shout-out here. First thing I wrote post-Burning Shores, a wee two-shot.

Opening:

Their first kiss is over the fence of the Charger pen, lit by the sliver of moon and soft glow of blue machine lights.

She’s going east. It’s time. There’s a lead north of the Sundom that she needs to follow, and Avad has asked to discuss Nemesis with her before she goes too far. She’s been preparing for the journey for days now, helping Beta learn to defend herself, and ride a machine on her own, so they can go together.

And the closer she draws to leaving, the more her mind drifts to the Stillsands.

So the night before they leave, she waits until Beta has bid her goodnight, then sneaks out of the Base and calls for her Sunwing. She flies southwest, crossing the cliffs of the desert, her heart skipping in her chest when she sees the bright lights of Hidden Ember.

It’s a race she wants, she tells herself. She needs the rush, the contest. She needs the frenzy of being caught in the pack. She needs to empty her mind of everything but the track. She needs to get back to earth for the few frantic minutes on the back of a machine.

And that’s exactly what she gets.

No one looks surprised to see her there, but Nil’s fixed gaze tells her that he knows something is different.

Read it on AO3.

[ayaitch]

Relic Ruins: Stillsands.

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizon forbidden west | aloy 130/?

[thunderjawsandlightning]

Niloy November - Day 1: Light

There are flickering lights rippling over the dunes, shifting colours like silk banners in the air.  The lights look ephemeral, transient, almost eerie if not for the delicate structures they outline on half-buried buildings.  Nil pulls up his Charger to a halt atop a sand dune, the mask cocking to the side as he surveys this new sight.  He’d been through the Stillsands not too long ago, maybe a fortnight or so? And the desert had been coloured only with spiraling dust devils and the red-and-green markers of Rebel camps that he’d taken care to avoid.  But now, the desert was alight, and Nil couldn’t resist the curiosity that tugged from behind his sternum to investigate closer.  The light in the sky reminded him of Aloy, of the machine-light she often seemed shrouded in.  The largest, most lingering memory was the explosion of blue at the top of the Spire, him and the old general surrounded by sparking demon-machines and flames, faces turned upward and his body thrumming with the knowledge that she would have been at its epicenter.  The quieter, more constant memory was of her, on the road, backlit by the placid blue light emanating from her mount.  

He ran a hand along the glowing blue wires, giving his Charger a pat before urging her forward.  The machine gave a subtle chitter, an accompanying flicker of her lights as she turned her head as if in acknowledgement, and Nil chuckled to himself.  First, it was back East, and now here in the ever-dangerous West, that seeing humans astride machines was becoming an ever more common sight.  Although, nothing would quite pique his interest the way Aloy had that one day, thundering up to the bandit camp among the Gatelands on the back of a Strider.  She had left her machine a ways back on the road, behind the rocks – a smart move, given that a lone grazing machine would have looked out of place so close to a camp.  

To see someone riding a machine felt like something out of a story, more like the fireside tales of his childhood, or one of the lurid fables of Considerate Udain. The time it took for her to approach his waiting spot allowed him the breadth of feelings from a mild awe and shock, to an impressed appreciation, to a quietly burning curiosity that he let simmer to embers in his mind.  That same wash of feelings came surging through Nil’s chest now as he dismounted and walked forward in wonder.  The apparitions shimmering and flickering overhead felt so much like something Aloy would have walked through, something she would have been drawn to, or drawn forth from the depths of the sand like water from a well.  

And among honeycomb-patterned metal and glass, under beautiful, ghostly, scintillating lights, already seeing a path of twists and turns through stone and over sand, Nil thought, ‘The perfect place for a different kind of duel.”