Chapter Text
Aloy heard the Rollerback before she saw it. She motioned for the two Desert Clan teens behind her to stop, then gestured for them to crouch and trail her into the tall red grass that grew in patches alongside the shallow river to their left. Kotallo drew his blade and followed silently behind them.
When they were all crouched low in the waving grass, Aloy began her lesson. “There are two places you can start,” she whispered. Her students paid rapt attention, glancing studiously between her and the machine in question. Their matching Desert Clan hairstyles and Vindicator paint made it difficult to tell them apart as they looked back and forth between their instructor and their quarry.
“See the cooling cores on its back? You can puncture those with impact arrows.” Aloy tipped her head further towards its rear. “But first we’re going to take off its tail so it can’t attack with tail strikes. Do you have those tearblast arrows we made, Kitta?”
The Tenakth responded with an enthusiastic nod. Aloy gestured her to move closer to the edge of the grass, shifting over so she could speak softly into the girl’s ear. Kotallo watched Aloy as she bent towards Kitta. The resin-hardened fronds of her favorite Utaru armor creaked as she shifted on the balls of her feet. “Take your time,” she murmured. “Wait for it to turn its back and flick its tail up. You want the arrow to land just above where the tail connects.” Kitta drew her arrow, her hand trembling slightly in nervousness on the string. Aloy placed her own hand gently on the girl’s arm. “You can do this,” Aloy soothed her. “I’ve seen you make harder shots than this in the training ground.”
Kitta nodded, determined. She would not fail Hekarro’s Champion, especially not with the fearsome Marshal watching over her shoulder. Taking a steadying breath, she sighted down the arrow. When the Rollerback flicked its tail upwards, just as Aloy said it would, she loosed. The arrow flew true. It struck the machine’s tail, just above the spikes, with a satisfying crunch, followed by the low hum and the thud of explosion as the arrow's tear mechanism released. The machine’s tailspike tore from its body and landed with a splash in the shallow water of the river. Kitta pumped her hand in silent celebration and her companion, Rovvo, thumped her enthusiastically on the back.
“Good job,” Aloy murmured with an approving nod. “We’ve got its attention, but we can wait it out. Stay low and quiet in the grass. Slow your breathing. If we don’t alert it to our presence, it’ll eventually go back to its business.” Kitta and Rovvo nodded their understanding, their hair spikes bobbing in unison. The four knelt in the grass, the teens barely daring to breathe, as the Rollerback snuffled about, scanning for signs of movement. Eventually the yellow of its eyes turned back to blue, and it resumed its pathing.
“Alright Rovvo, you’re up,” Aloy whispered, gesturing for the boy to move up to her side. Kitta slid out of the way, shifting back through the grass to make space for her friend. Kotallo met the girl’s eyes and nodded his approval. A blush spread across her cheeks at such an alarming rate that Kotallo wondered briefly if he should be concerned. Further along in the grass, Aloy instructed Rovvo quietly.
“Kitta got the tail,” she murmured, “so you’re going to focus on the cooling cores. See them there?” She glanced at Rovvo for acknowledgment, and he nodded quickly. “Good. Whenever you’re ready. Take your time. Be patient.”
Rovvo knocked his arrow and squinted down the shaft. He refused to be outdone by Kitta. They had been companions since birth, and he knew without a doubt that she would be insufferable if he let her beat him. “Relax your shoulders away from your ears,” Aloy whispered beside him. He lowered the bow, shook the tension from his arms, and raised the bow again. “That’s good,” Aloy encouraged. Rovvo released the arrow on an exhale, just as he’d been taught from childhood. It flew straight, puncturing the machine’s cooling core with easy precision.
The Rollerback came alert immediately. It turned towards the grass where Aloy, Kotallo, and the Desert Clan teens knelt, and began to advance steadily toward them. “Easy,” Aloy whispered, holding her hand out to motion the youths to wait. “Breathe. Don’t panic.” Her voice was barely audible over the whisper of grass on grass in the gentle breeze. Still the Rollerback came. Kotallo could sense the girl beside him tensing anxiously. He clenched the hand of his machine arm into a fist, testing its readiness. It appeared he might need it after all.
The Rollerback was close now, so close that they could hear the clunk and creak of its mechanical limbs as it advanced on their position. “Back up,” Aloy urged quietly, “slowly.” Not turning her back on the machine, she began to glide away, soundless in the grass. Rovvo moved to follow her, glancing back and forth apprehensively between her and the advancing machine, its eyes as yellow and glaring as the desert sun at high noon. Unable to take in the ground, the machine, and the Champion all at once, his foot caught on a stone. He stumbled and landed awkwardly on his bottom with a graceless thud. The Rollerback’s eyes turned from yellow to red.
Aloy burst into action. “We’ve been spotted!” she shouted, taking Rovvo by his arm and dragging him to his feet. “You two! Those rocks over there!” She pointed to the teens, and then up to a salt formation several yards to their left. “Get up there and back us up with archer fire! Pick your shots! Kotallo, with me!” She broke into a run, drawing the machine to her right and away from Kitta and Rovvo. Kotallo followed wordlessly, his weapon drawn, his machine arm ready. Still running, Aloy shouted over her shoulder, “I’ll drench it in acid, trigger its elemental limit, then we take it down!” There was no hesitation in her voice, and Kotallo felt the surge of pride that often came when he fought alongside her.
“I’m with you!” he called back readily.
Aloy stopped, knocked three acid arrows to her bow, and sent them sailing cleanly into the Rollerback’s generator. The machine stumbled and toppled. “It’s down! Now’s our chance!” she shouted, and the two rounded as one on the downed machine. As soon as she was within range, Aloy leapt at the offending beast, wedging her spear deep into the tissue of its muscle, then ripping it free with a resonant crunch. Kotallo lodged his blade between a gap in the Rollerback’s armor, cleaving a panel from it with a powerful wrench of his arm.
The Rollerback began to recover, stumbling awkwardly to its feet under the onslaught of metal on metal. “Over here you stupid hunk of junk!” Aloy shouted from Kotallo’s left, waving her arm to catch its attention. When it swung its fearsome red gaze toward her, she sank three impact arrows into its eye. The machine screeched and moved to whip its injured tail toward her, but Kotallo caught the tail with his machine arm and slammed his curved blade into its length. The Rollerback shrieked and writhed between their attacks.
“It’s almost down!” Aloy called, dancing around it and slating her spear up under the plating around the machine’s face. Just then, an impact arrow flew past her head and directly into the machine’s generator. She barely heard Rovvo’s cry of victory over the sound of the explosion that knocked her to her back on the cold stones of the riverbed.
The Rollerback lay unmoving. Aloy groaned, rolled to her hands and knees, and rose shakily to her feet. “Aloy! Are you ok!” Kitta cried as she and Rovvo clambered from their perch and sprinted over.
“I’m fine,” she assured them, brushing dust and bits of metal from her tasset. She looked around. “Kotallo? Kotallo!”
“I’m here,” he groaned from behind the machine carcass. Aloy clambered over it and knelt swiftly next to him where he lay sprawled on the ground. His machine arm lay next to him where it had come unattached in the blast.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” she urged.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled, but the lines of pain around his eyes and the awkward angle of his left shoulder said otherwise.
“You’re hurt, I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have asked you to…”
Kotallo stood and dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “I said I’m fine Aloy,” he muttered through gritted teeth. He spotted Rovvo and Kitta peeking around the downed Rollerback, their spiked heads stacked one atop the other and their dark eyes wide with trepidation beneath the red and yellow of their matching paint. Kotallo stood and attempted to square his shoulders under their scrutiny and Aloy’s anxious gaze. It would not do to let them see him in pain. The young hunters deserved to celebrate their success, and he would not allow his injury to take that from them.
“Come, we should get our charges back to the Chaplain,” he said blandly. Not meeting Aloy’s eyes, he collected his machine arm from the ground, but did not reattach it, opting instead to carry it in his right hand. Aloy eyed him, worried, but it was clear he would say nothing more about it until they were alone, so she turned her back to him to allow him time to compose himself.
“Aloy, I’m so sorry,” Rovvo gasped. He and Kitta stepped nervously around the dead machine. “This was all my fault, if I hadn’t tripped…”
“Hey,” Aloy stopped him, placing her hand squarely on the boy’s shoulder. “Mistakes happen, it’s ok. Next time we’ll just make sure to pack some smoke bombs, hey?” She chuckled, and Rovvo grinned shyly at her. “Come on, let’s head back.”
Her charges settled readily into step on either side of her. The danger behind them but the adrenalin still pumping in their veins, they chattered about the hunt.
“I can’t believe you can fire three arrows at once!” Kitta said.
“And did you see the stupid dance it did when you rammed your spear into its face? That was awesome!” Rovvo pumped his fist, and Kitta practically skipped in her excitement.
Their enthusiasm was catching and Aloy laughed with them. She glanced back at Kotallo, hoping to include him in the mirth, but he was elsewhere. He stared blankly past her, unseeing, his machine arm dangling in his hand. The painful hunch of his shoulders made her gut clench with worry.
When they strode several minutes later into the open-air common area of Salt Bite, a group of teens and young hunters gathered around to hear about their pursuit.
“Did you get it? Did you kill the Rollerback?” one called eagerly.
“You should have seen it, Jaxx!” Rovvo crowed. “Kitta took its tail off with a tear arrow and I blew it up!”
Kitta poked him in the side. “Sure, after Aloy drenched it in acid and stabbed it in the eye with her spear.”
“And did you see Marshal Kotallo grab it by the tail with his machine arm? That was crazy!” Rovvo cried.
An impressed hum rose from the gathering crowd. Appearing to her left, a small Desert Clan girl tugged on Aloy’s hand. “Aloy, did you really drench the Rollerback in acid?” she asked, wide eyed.
Aloy laughed in embarrassment. “I did, but it was Rovvo who got the killing shot,” she said, directing the attention of the group away from her and back to the preening youth at the center of the circle.
“Hunters!” the Salt Bite Chaplain’s voice rang out. Chaplain Uttah was a small woman, warm and worn, but her words rang with authority. “You have done well today! Now let the Champion about her business, off with you.” Arms wide, the woman shooed the throng of young hunters further into the village. She winked at Aloy as she passed, and the huntress offered a quick smile in thanks to the older woman.
Free of the attentions of the crowd, Aloy glanced around for Kotallo, but he was nowhere in sight. Concern settled back into her stomach, heavier than ever, and she made her way quickly through Salt Bite to the small wooden shelter that had been afforded them by the Chaplain for the duration of their visit.
Aloy ducked through the ragged red fabric that served as an entrance to the structure and squinted through the gloom. When her eyes found Kotallo, the knot of worry in her stomach flared into fear. He sat cross-legged on his bedroll, his elbow to his knee and his forehead cradled in his hand. Black braids and loose tresses rested messy and unbound around his face. His cuirass and pauldron, usually tended to with meticulous care, lay discarded in a heap next to him. His Focus also lay discarded, blinking innocuously against the wooden slats of the floor. She had never seen him so unkempt, and the sight of it stole her breath and stilled her feet. Steeling herself, Aloy edged toward him, but paused again when her foot found the sharp outline of his headpiece where it rested on the ground, in the place it had landed after he had tossed it away. She bent slowly and took it in hand. “Kotallo?” she whispered.
“Leave me Aloy,” he ground through gritted teeth, not looking up at her.
“Kotallo…” she started again, taking one tentative step toward him.
“I said go!” he barked. The ice in his tone froze her in place.
Aloy turned the headpiece over in her hand and considered it, chewing uncertainly on her lip. She dragged her thumb along the blunted edge of it where it usually rested against the bridge of his nose, the weight of the thing unfamiliar in her hands. He had asked - no had demanded - that she leave him alone, but she could not bring herself to go. It was her fault that he had joined them on the hunt at all. She was the one who had asked for his help keeping the Desert Clan teens safe. She had thought his presence would soothe her uncertainty about teaching Kitta and Rovvo to hunt, even though the task was trivial and beneath him. He had agreed, without hesitation. Now he was unraveled by pain, and it was her fault. Before she could change her mind, she took several more quick steps and sank to her knees in front of him.
She placed his headpiece delicately on the mat beside them and turned to face him. “Kotallo,” she whispered again, placing her hand softly on his arm. “Hey, talk to me.”
“There is nothing to talk about,” he grumbled. The bite was gone from his voice, but the hurt that replaced it was worse.
“Doesn’t seem like nothing,” Aloy murmured. She slid the palm of her hand gently up the tense length of his forearm, tracing the cracking lines of his paint in what she hoped was a soothing gesture. When her questing fingers reached his hand, she took it in her own and drew it away from his face. The paint on his forehead was smeared where he’d cradled it in his palm, and the rigid lines around his eyes made her heart throb in sympathy. Still, he refused to meet her gaze. “Will you please tell me what’s wrong? Is it your arm, did you get hurt in the blast?” Kotallo stared at the mat. “Kotallo please,” she entreated, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
The muscles of his mouth strained and spasmed. “I shouldn’t need your help, don’t you see?” His eyes met hers now, and she bit back a gasp at the sight of the wild pain on his usually stoic face. He pushed her hand bitterly away. “What kind of warrior am I – what kind of man – if I cannot watch your back on the battlefield without,” he gestured at his stump and snarled, “this getting in the way? What good am I to you, Aloy?” His shoulders slumped in defeat, and he returned his palm to his face, massaging his temples with the pads of his fingers. “You should go from here, find a man who is whole to share your bed.”
Anger sparked behind Aloy’s eyes. “Is that what you want then,” she snapped, “for me to just leave you here to wallow in self-pity while I go off and find someone else to be with?” She pointed angrily towards the entrance of the shelter. “You want me to just pack my things and go?”
He drew his hand from his face and matched her ire with his own. “It does not matter what I want!” he snapped back. “It matters what you need! And I cannot give you what you need!”
Aloy rolled her eyes. “That’s not up to you, Kotallo!” she hissed, crossing her arms over her chest. She sat back on her heels and glared pointedly at him. “Besides, what about what I want? Doesn’t that matter to you, or do you get to make that decision for me too?”
Kotallo shook his head, sullen against the onslaught of her stubborn indignation. Even through the fog of discomfort that shrouded him, he knew better than to argue with her. Kotallo sighed and pushed the braids back from his face impatiently. “You could have your choice of men, Aloy. You should not waste your time on a maimed Marshal.” He returned his gaze to the shelter floor.
The sight of Kotallo so defeated doused the spark of rage within her like cool water on a smoldering fire. “Kotallo,” she implored, reaching tentatively for him. He felt the tips of her fingers slide along the line of his jaw. She cupped his face in her palm and used the pressure of her hand to ease his gaze from the ground, tilting his face up to meet hers.
“Kotallo, I don’t look at you and see a ‘maimed Marshal.’” Her words were so quiet that he had to tilt his head towards her to hear them. She dragged the pad of her thumb along a scar on his cheek, tracing the jagged line with her calloused digit. “I look at you and see the man who took on a charging Bristleback with his bare hands to save his friend. I have never seen someone do something so brave for another person.” When Aloy shook her head in wonder, the beads in her hair clinked and rattled.
Slowly, carefully, she brought her other hand to his face and cupped his jaw between both palms. “Look at me,” she urged. He dragged his gaze reluctantly up to hers, her face close enough now that he could feel the puff of her breath across his cheek. “Then, just months after losing your arm,” she continued, “you fought with me and helped me take down the Zeniths.” When he tried to look away, she held his face fast between her hands. “Listen to me. Don’t you get it? I’m here because I want to be. I’m not leaving, ok? Just talk to me, let me help.”
As Aloy’s whispered words began to sink in through the haze of pain and embarrassment in his mind, Kotallo felt some of the tension ease from his neck and back. The heat of shame cooled as though she had pressed ice from a mountain pond to a fresh burn within his soul. Words abandoned him, and he considered her in the low light. The desert sun through the red cloth at the entrance of the shelter cast the space in hues of flame, and her hair burned brightest of all. Fierce sincerity sparked her green eyes golden. She was breathtaking. What a fool he had been, he thought, to try to send her away when all he wanted was to keep her near.
Where words failed him though, actions did not. He lifted his hand to hers where it cupped his face and took hold of her fingers lightly. Aloy quirked an eyebrow as she watched him, attentive in the low light of the shelter. Holding her gaze in his, Kotallo angled his head and pressed a tender, worshipping kiss into the palm of her right hand. “Forgive me Aloy,” he whispered against the soft skin there, “I spoke harshly before.”
She sighed in relief, the argument between them already forgotten. “There’s nothing to forgive,” she murmured back. There was nothing else she could say now that his lips were pressed delicately to her skin. “I’m just sorry I dragged you on that stupid hunt.”
He huffed a dry laugh and reluctantly released her hand from his face. She drew back but stayed close, eyeing him as he tested the motion of his shoulder and winced in pain. “Was it the explosion?” she asked again, motioning to the offending limb.
“Yes,” Kotallo admitted, rolling the shoulder again. “I had hold of the machine when Rovvo’s arrow struck. The blast knocked me back and wrenched the arm loose.” His grin was wry through his pain. “The boy is a good shot.”
The relief that Aloy felt at the sight of Kotallo’s grin, even wreathed as it was with the lines of disquiet, was palpable. She nodded and hummed her understanding. “Is there…anything I can do?”
He shrugged, then winced. “The only thing I have found that soothes this pain is an Utaru balm that Zo once made for me at the Base.”
Aloy’s eyes lit up. “Then I’ll make you some!”
Kotallo sighed, but there was fondness in his gaze, creeping in around the pain. “I do not know what was in it Aloy, or how it was made.” He reached up to push a loose braid back from his forehead and grimaced as discomfort jolted across his shoulders and down his spine.
“Maybe not, but Zo does.” Aloy tapped her temple where her Focus glinted silver and flashed him a disarming smile. “Wait here, ok? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Before he could protest, she stood in a single, smooth motion and moved determinedly toward the shelter’s exit. Maybe she couldn’t heal him, she thought, and maybe she couldn’t make him see himself like she saw him, but this she could do. With a flutter of red fabric and the quiet crunch of boots on sand, she was gone. Kotallo was left with only the heat of her hands where they had rested moments before against his jaw and the ringing earnestness of her softly spoken words floating faintly in the still air of the shelter.