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Kotallo’s weapon was in his hand before he came awake. Sleep still bleary in his eyes, he flew from his bedroll and landed in a crouched position, frantically scanning the shelter for any sign of danger. The shout that had woken him had been Aloy’s, and the discreet woman would not cry out in such a way unless there was a serious threat.
As his sight cleared and he took stock of his surroundings, he determined that his response had been nothing but a major overreaction. They were in Desert Clan territory, in the leather shelter provided to them by the Arrowhand chaplain, and they were, as far as he could tell, entirely safe. He imagined that he must look ridiculous, crouched atop his bedroll in nothing but his undershorts, as though he could hold off a foe in this state, but Aloy was in no position to notice. She sat up in her own bedroll, her legs still tangled in its furs, her head cradled in her hands. She was crying, gasping breaths rasping from her throat in a way that told him she was trying to stay quiet and failing. Kotallo rose from his crouch and warily lowered his weapon. “Aloy,” he croaked, his voice still rough with sleep, “what has happened?”
“I’m sorry I woke you,” she hiccupped into her hands, “I, I uh, keep … dreaming of Gemini. I see Varl die, over and over again, all the time, and I can’t …” her voice broke as a sob shuddered through her small frame, and Kotallo’s heart clenched at the sound. This was not a threat he could face with his blade, and he carefully set the curved metal back on the ground next to where he’d been asleep just moments earlier.
“Do you, hm, wish to speak of it?” he ventured. Wary of startling her, Kotallo crossed their shared space and lowered himself cautiously to the ground next to her bedroll, not close enough to touch but close enough that he could feel the heat of the desert night radiating from her form. Like him, she slept in only her underthings: a pair of undershorts and a cropped cloth top that served primarily to keep her armor from chafing against her pale skin. He crossed his legs under himself, lowered his gaze, and paused, watching her warily through his eyelashes while he waited for her to compose herself. The urge to reach for her and hold her against his chest nearly overwhelmed him when another powerful sob wrenched through her and shook her shoulders. He felt that they had begun a friendship, a closeness even, during their tour of Tenakth lands, but he was not certain she would welcome his touch in this moment of painful vulnerability. He placed his hand palm down on his right knee and flexed his fingers against the flesh of his leg instead.
It was several moments before Aloy’s breathing evened, and the sobs shaking her lithe frame turned to small hiccupping gasps, and then quiet, shallow breaths. Eventually the torrent passed, and she sniffled and raised her face hesitantly from her hands. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again, so quietly that Kotallo almost missed the words. The sight of her red and tear-streaked face, a face usually so bold and cocky, made his heart clench so tightly that he had to assert all his self-control not to reach for her. If only she would let him hold her, the thought surfaced, and he pushed it aside. His concern had to be for her tonight, not for his own selfish desire to feel the weight of her against his chest. It was not as though the contact of skin on skin alone would heal her wounds. Kotallo had known enough loss to know that no expanse of another’s skin could cure what ailed Aloy this night.
“You need never apologize for a show of grief, Aloy,” Kotallo returned, lifting his gaze now and looking at her directly. “It is no wonder that you feel Varl’s loss deeply. He was a good friend to you, a confidant and companion.” What could only be described as jealousy clenched in Kotallo’s stomach and he forced it away with a wave of disgust. Now was definitely not the time to feel jealousy for a dead man, even a man who had occupied such a prominent place in Aloy’s heart.
Aloy nodded. She could not bring herself to meet Kotallo’s eyes, embarrassed as she was by her ragged, vulnerable display. Instead, she busied herself with untying a braid that had come loose during sleep, then carefully rebraiding it, as though she hadn’t done this task a thousand times and couldn’t complete it with her eyes closed. When she spoke again, it was little more than a whisper. “Varl always insisted that I didn’t have to do everything alone. He told me it was ok if I needed help. After the Hades proving lab, he … he saved my life, even after I left him behind.” Her hands stilled and she swallowed, forcing down a fresh wave of tears. She laughed bitterly and shook her head, gaze still tilted down towards the now-finished braid between her fingers. “He should have just stayed away. You all should have. The only things I can offer anyone are war and death.”
“Aloy,” Kotallo interjected. He gave in to his instinct then and placed his hand squarely on her left shoulder so that she looked up at him in surprise, green eyes meeting brown. “Varl chose to follow you because he believed in you, believed in your cause. You are not responsible for his choices. You are not responsible for what happened at Gemini. Varl’s death is not your fault. Certainly you know this?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes but did not shrug his hand from her shoulder. Kotallo forced himself not to dwell on this. “I know I didn’t kill him but that doesn’t mean I’m not responsible. If he’d never met me, he never would have come to the West, he never would have been at Gemini, he wouldn’t have died and I…” A ragged sigh escaped her, and she wilted, curling in on her broken heart, her shoulder caving under his palm. Her whisper was little more than a breath. “I wouldn’t have to do all this alone.”
Slowly, deliberately, Kotallo moved his hand from her shoulder to cup her chin. Her bones felt fragile in his grasp and, not for the first time, he marvelled that a woman so small could be so deadly on the field of battle. “Aloy,” he whispered, matching his volume to her own as he tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “You are not alone.” He did little to stay the roughness of emotion in his voice and willed her to believe him.
Aloy’s eyes widened in surprise and her mouth rounded into a small “oh.” She looked back at Kotallo in the pale light of the just-rising sun, considering him fully for the first time since she’d woken with a cry from her nightmare. She believed him, she realized, and her stomach clenched in uncertainty even while her shoulders began to relax away from her ears. She did not trust her voice, but she met his gaze and nodded. Whatever he saw in her eyes satisfied Kotallo, and his hand dropped from her chin back to his own lap. She lowered her gaze again and returned to fidgeting with the braid, twining it between her fingers as though it were an arrow.
Kotallo broke the silence between them first. “There are still several hours more before the sun crests the horizon. We should sleep. I’m sure the Desert Clan will have no shortage of tasks for us tomorrow.” Though he tried to keep his tone light, there was no denying that something had shifted in the air between them, and a sliver of doubt punctured his thoughts. Perhaps he should not have touched her? he wondered, uncertain.
She nodded once and lowered herself carefully back into her bedroll, rolling to her left to turn her back to him. The desert heat was already beginning to build with the rising sun and Aloy opted not to pull the furs up around her shoulders, instead leaving them tangled around her knees and thighs. Kotallo sighed, stood, and moved back to his own bedroll on the other side of the shelter, a small fire pit containing only ashes between them. He pulled the furs back and was moving to ease himself into it when he heard Aloy’s small voice across the pit, her back still turned to him. “Kotallo?”
He stilled and responded quietly. “Yes Aloy?”
“Could you, um, do you mind moving … closer?”
Kotallo froze. “You want me to,” he paused and cleared his throat, “you want me to move my bedroll closer to yours?”
“Only if you don’t mind…” her muffled whisper trailed off and he saw her shrink further away.
She only wants comfort following a nightmare, Kotallo reasoned with himself. Out loud, he responded, “Of course,” and bent to collect his bedroll with a single broad sweep of his arm. He crossed the shelter carefully, as though moving too quickly would break this spell between them and would see her banish him back across the space. He shook the bedroll out onto the ground next to her still and laid down quickly atop it. From here, he could hear the shallow sound of her breathing and see the faint outline of her against the dim light of the rising sun, her hair splayed across her neck, her shoulder blades, and down her arm.
Kotallo sighed again and shifted onto his back. He watched her out the side of his left eye and waited until her breathing evened before he strayed back into his own restless sleep.
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For the second time that morning, Aloy woke first. Through her still-closed eyes, she could see the red light of the sun through the leather of the shelter and estimated it to be several hours past sunrise. The furs of her bedroll were tangled around her knees where she’d left them last, and Kotallo was … Aloy’s eyes flew open. Kotallo was laying on his left, his right arm draped heavily over her waist. She could feel the whisper of his breath on the back of her neck making her hair flutter gently against her skin. She could feel the hard plane of his chest firmly against the mostly bare skin of her back. She could feel the expansion and contraction of his ribs as he breathed deeply in sleep.
Aloy lay still for several moments. She had never woken up in the arms of another person before, and she admitted wordlessly to herself that she was not sure what to do next. Despite a slight urge to pee and the combined heat of the desert sun and Kotallo’s body, which should have been stifling in the small space, Aloy found that she was rather comfortable and had very little desire to move. If she woke him now, would this pull between them be severed? Would he be embarrassed to find her encircled in his arm? Would he be annoyed by her hair in his face and the mingled sweat of their bodies where their skin was pressed together in the morning heat? Not keen to learn the answers to any of these questions right away, Aloy lay still and wondered at how the whisper of his breathing across her skin could bring her so much contentment.
Kotallo shifted in his sleep and began to stir. Not quite awake, the Marshal lifted his arm into a stretch above his head before settling it back around her. She barely dared to breathe as his hand trailed across the bare skin of her stomach and came to rest on the protrusion of her hip bone. He caressed small circles into her hip with the calloused pad of his thumb and murmured something unintelligible into her hair, pulling her back more firmly against him. Aloy felt a stir of something unfamiliar, something much more immediate and overwhelming than contentment. Her breath hitched in her throat.
Kotallo came awake suddenly. She felt his body go rigid with realization. When he drew his hand away and shifted to put distance between them, Aloy felt a small pang of disappointment. Faced with what seemed like no other alternative, Aloy rolled towards him, moved to pillow her head with the crook of her arm, and met his wide-eyed gaze.
“Aloy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…” Kotallo started in a rush. Still laying on his left side, he brought his hand up and buried his face in his palm. He took several steadying breaths before starting again, still speaking into his hand. “I did not mean to overstep. I meant only to sleep next to you, to offer you comfort, not to…” his words faded when he felt the press of her palm against the centre of his chest, still sticky from sweat where their bodies had pressed together.
“Kotallo,” she murmured, “it’s ok. I’m not upset.”
Slowly, he lowered his palm from his face and met her eyes searchingly. “Are you not?”
She shook her head, still cradled in the nook of her arm where she lay facing him. When she moved her hand from his chest to fidget with a wayward braid, he felt its absence on his skin. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it and,” Aloy chewed her lip and looked away from him in embarrassment, “it was nice?” There was a hint of question in her voice, and her gaze was shy when she met his eyes again.
Kotallo could think of nothing else than to mimic her dumbly. “It was nice?”
She laughed quietly, and he swore a fist reached through his chest then, right where her palm had rested, and clenched around his heart. He had never felt its like before.
“You didn’t think it was nice?” Aloy’s shy question cut through Kotallo’s confusion. Focus, Marshal, he cursed himself.
“I, hmm, I did think it was nice.” Kotallo nearly winced at the foolishness of his own words. “I just did not think it was something you … welcomed.”
Kotallo tried not to stare as Aloy worried her bottom lip between her teeth. He could see her analyzing, organizing her thoughts before speaking again. To see her so clearheaded and so much more like herself than she had been last night eased some tension from him despite the barrage of unfamiliar emotions that were rendering him dumbstruck. When she returned her eyes to his, he did everything in his power to meet them, to focus on her words, and to not think about how easy it would be to close the space between them.
“I think it would be ok if we, um, did it again? I mean, if that’s something you want?” Though she met his eyes boldly, Kotallo could see a flicker of uncertainty there.
If this is something I want? he thought incredulously, as though his body hadn’t, only hours earlier, been screaming to hold her against him while she cried. As though, for a moment before waking, he hadn't reveled in the texture of her skin under his hand and the press of her body into his. He returned her gaze, as steadily as he could. “That is something I want very much,” he murmured, his voice nearly unrecognizable in his ears through the gravel in this throat. He saw Aloy swallow and tried desperately not to watch as a flush of embarrassment spread across her pale chest and up her throat, so close that he could have reached out and trailed the path of her blush with his fingertips.
She nodded once then, suddenly and decidedly, as though the matter had been settled between them, and moved to stand. Strapping the pieces of her armor efficiently into place, Aloy strode with purpose towards the flap of the shelter. She paused at the entry and glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Thanks, Kotallo,” she murmured, before disappearing in a flash of red hair through the opening of the leather tent.
Kotallo groaned and flopped onto his back. It was nice? he cursed himself, shaking his head and running his palm over his forehead where the sweat of the desert day was already building. He had awoken with the soft expanse of her skin under his hand and the earthy scent of her wild hair in his nose, better rested than he had felt in months, and the best he could think to say to her was It was nice? He cursed himself again and moved to rise, taking extra care with his armour to give him time to compose himself. He stood for a moment before the flap of the tent and squared his shoulders. Next time, he promised himself, if there was a next time, he would tell her how it truly felt to wake up with her body against his. Kotallo sighed and moved to exit the shelter.
The desert sun was moving steadily higher in the sky. It would be a very hot day.