#avaloy

Stories in Progress:

Road to Mainspring - Aloy/Erend In the weeks after the Battle of the Alight, Aloy is recruited to escort Dervahl to Mainspring with Erend Vanguardsman - a journey neither of them expected to go the way it did. Set after Zero Dawn, before Forbidden West. Rating: Mature/Explicit (for eventual smut)

Blood and Sandstone - Aloy AU re: Carja Red Raids An alternate narrative following the 'what if' of Aloy being kidnapped during the Red Raids for the Sun Ring instead of living her life peacefully in the Embrace, and what her life might've been like during that time. Features: Ersa, Erend (eventual Ereloy), Rost, Helis, Avad, Jiran and so many others... Rating: Mature/Explicit (for dark themes, violence, eventual smut)

Echoes of Enduring Hearts - Aloy/Avad Aloy and Avad navigate a complicated relationship before and after the events of Horizon: Forbidden West. Rating: Teen and Up (for now, who knows, will update if it changes)

Completed Stories and One-Shots:

A Breath of Fresh Air - Aloy/Kotallo (maybe completed, tbd) Set just before heading to the mission to the GEMINI cauldron. Kotallo notices Aloy getting antsy being cooped up in the base as they wait for Beta to prepare herself for the merge and finish the 'rig', so he invites her for an outdoor excursion. Rating: Teen and Up

As Avad and Kadaman grew older, the childish game fell out of favour. But sometimes, during the morning sun salutations or his history lessons or his sword drills, Avad would think about hawks. He would think about the way they floated gracefully on the breeze, and he would imagine the sudden breathless drop as they dove for their prey, and he would remember their confident departure as they disappeared into the distance.

Years went by, and reports about increasingly vicious machines began flooding the palace. A monstrous new machine called a Thunderjaw destroyed the secluded village of Morning Light, and Jiran’s strict-but-fair style of rulership began to twist into something harsh and uncompromising. Kadaman’s customary easy grin faded into a worried frown, and Avad found himself thinking about hawks every day. On the rare occasions that he spotted a lone hawk wheeling through the sky, he would wistfully wonder what it would be like to fly so free and untroubled.

More time passed. The situation in the Sundom became more dire, and Jiran’s stern lectures devolved into angry rants. Kadaman and Jiran butted heads over the alarmingly absurd things that Jiran would say, and it was left to Avad to try and keep the peace. Sometimes Jiran would ask Avad if Kadaman was trying to unseat him, and Avad would try his best to soothe his father’s constant fears.

“He is insane, Avad,” Ersa told him on the night that she left. “I know you want to reason with him, but a man like that can’t be reasoned with.”

“I have to try,” Avad whispered. He squeezed her hands, then kissed her knuckles on impulse. “Go. Quickly. May the…” He trailed off before finishing the Sun faith’s greeting that usually fell automatically from his lips. He swallowed hard, then said instead, “May you walk safe and free.”

He watched as Ersa slipped away into the dark. She might be sneaking silently through the dank and dirty sewers, but the fluttering corner of her disappearing cloak made him think of a hawk’s departing tailfeathers.

Then one day, after a particularly strident argument between the Kadaman and the King, Kadaman was executed.

On that day, the sands that had been shifting beneath Avad’s feet for years suddenly fell away. Kadaman was dead, and Itamen needed to be protected, and Avad was the only one left who could stop his father’s madness from spreading.

That was the day that Avad stopped thinking about hawks.

There was no place in his life for frivolous and self-centered hopes of freedom. There was no space in his mind for foolish wishes of peaceful resolution. Avad fled Meridian that same night with his most trusted allies and friends, and it didn’t even occur to him to think about the breathless flight of a hawk.

Many months later, after Avad killed his father and assumed the throne, he began to think about hawks again, but in a very different way than he had before. The thoughts of his youth were tinged with wistfulness, a certain selfish desire to be a little more free. But Avad was no longer a naive adolescent. He knew his place and his duty, and he knew he could never be a hawk.

Avad was the Sun-King, and kings had to be grounded. Every person in the Sundom was a life he was responsible for, a root that kept him tied to the heart of the Sundom. And if Avad knew anything about hawks, it was that they didn’t have roots.

Deep in his logical heart, behind the romantic wrappings that Ersa gently teased him for, Avad knew the truth: flying free and unencumbered had never been a choice for him. Avad was not a bird, and he never would be. If anything, he was a tree: a central pillar that supported myriad lives both big and small, firmly and deeply rooted in the ground.

It took a long time for the bittersweet taste of this truth to fade away, but eventually the loss became a small and manageable ache, like ocean waves smoothing the sharpest edges from a shard of glass. And eventually, with time, Avad became comfortable with the idea of himself as a tree.

Years later, under terrible circumstances, Avad would meet a woman who truly epitomized the spirit of a hawk.

She flew into his life with the suddenness of a hawk dropping on its prey. Her mind was as sharp as her gaze, and the flickering of her flame-red hair was like the russet tips of a hawk’s tail.

It wasn’t until Avad met this fearless Nora traveller that he realized something he’d never thought about before: hawks needed a place to rest. Their journeys spanned many lands, and they made discoveries that no machine or ground-bound beast could ever make. But hawks needed a roost to call their home, whether for a season or just for a day.