Chapter Text
Nil had never gone this far into Nora lands before, not that he had ever had much occasion to. Remarkably unfriendly folks, those Nora. The valley nestled within the mountains could be described as peaceful. No thundering steps of a Behemoth or Thunderjaw this far South, only the passive Tallneck in the forbidden ruins across the river. The waters were clear of Snapmaws, but teaming with silver salmon and trout that would leap up against the flow of water to travel upstream. The trees stood evergreen, whether in the warmer valley or snow-capped mountains. The air had a playful bite, even in the late Spring, and it made the areas of exposed skin on his chest tingle deliciously. He could see why some people might covet this life. How droll. As boring as these corpses around him.
He was examining footprints in the dirt, calculating the probability of his needing to find a new partner, when the Nora girl walked up to him like the answer to an unspoken prayer. Everything about her was strange, from her sunset-colored hair, to the confident way she just walked up to a man surrounded by corpses and blood. The most odd thing about her was that she was alone. The Nora's Sacred Lands were unusually dangerous right now, and none were foolish enough to walk it alone. Even he had a partner, though it was not for fear of any dangers in these lands.
She was dressed for war, more than the few braves he'd seen from afar. A spear, bow, tripcaster, and pouches along her belt no doubt filled with bombs and healing supplies. But her bearing and wide, green eyes did not show the signs of formal training. But from the looks of these Nora, how formal could their training really be? The Carja called them savages, but he had met savages in every tribe.
Her unpainted eyes looked at his Carja armor, the blood staining the dirt and grass, and then the cooling bodies around him. "Is this your doing?" Her voice defied her youthful appearance, hard where her features were soft.
He chuckled softly to himself at her phrasing. "It was theirs," he nodded to the corpses. "By choosing to ambush me."
Her considering frown tilted just a little towards disapproval. "Bandits. Varl told me they had been taking advantage of the chaos." She looked up at him skeptically. "Interesting time for a visit, outlander." Her words prodded at him like accusing fingers.
He was no stranger to Nora distrust of the Carja, but something about the suspicion plain on her face was oddly endearing rather than mildly inconvenient. Something in the way that little nose scrunched up, maybe. "As the bandits are drawn to chaos like an infection is drawn to a wound, I am drawn to bandits, slavers, killers. The kind that give honest killers a bad name." He placed a solemn hand on his heart. The skin of his chest felt cold, far from the light of the sun.
"So you're the medicine that heals the infection?"
"More like the fever that burns it out." A plan formed in his head before he even realized his own intentions. He gestured to the fresh corpses around them. "I'm not always lucky enough to have them come to me. Sometimes I have to sniff them out. They've holed up in a camp to the north of these ruins." His head gestured over his shoulder, where crumbling walls covered in ivy and fog obscured the mountains beyond. "I had a partner, but he ran off ahead. Probably dead by now." He shrugged. Thresh hadn't been his best choice, but his pickings were slim. This Nora girl's lack of fear was a good trait in a potential partner. They could consider this a trial run.
"You want me to clear out the bandit camp for you?" She sounded tired. Did people often ask her to do such work for them? If it was unusual for her, then not a brave. A simple huntress then. His knowledge of Nora customs was negligible at best.
He laughed. "And let you have all the fun? No, girl, I could wipe them out just fine on my own. But I make it a rule never to work alone."
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "If it will make the roads safer… No one else is able to do it Right now." With news of deranged machines and the mysterious men that wield them, he was not surprised the Nora didn't have time or manpower to clear out simple bandits. Rumors that an attack on their people had wiped out nearly half their warriors had spread even into Carja territory. Dangerous kinds of rumors. "But I have business that can't wait."
He shrugged his shoulders. "No rush. They'll still be there, ripe for the killing. Follow the smoke over the ruins, I'll set up watch outside their camp. Come find me when your urgent business is done. I only have patience for three days, however." He held up three fingers for emphasis.
She nodded in understanding. "It shouldn't take that long, I hope."
"Then I look forward to working with you. Call me Nil."
"Aloy."
Aloy of the Nora Tribe joined him on the second night of his vigil over the bandit camp. He had not been completely idle in his wait: scouting the camp and taking down nearby machines, so he would not have to deal with them being drawn towards the sound of battle, occupied him plenty. Such work was a chore, the oil and coolant spurting from a machine not nearly as exhilarating as the spray of blood from a man's neck. Nil knew all the best places to turn a man into a geyser. And sitting so near to his quarry had him caressing his bowstring often. So his mood was greatly improved upon sight of her.
Aloy did not seem as enthused as him, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Temperance was what he valued most in a partner, something the overeager Thresh lacked.
"I'm glad you came," he told her honestly.
"I'm surprised you waited for me. You didn't seem that worried about taking on the camp yourself." She rolled her shoulder, massaging the stiff joint. Judging from the scrapes on her cheek and where her bare arms peeked through her armor, she had been pretty busy.
"It's not the bandits I'm worried about." He didn't elaborate, even when she shot him a curious look. "My partner and I had been tracking them from the west. He's an excellent tracker, but short on patience. He rushed on ahead." He turned to gaze out toward the camp. Amongst the trees as they were, they were hidden from sight of the archers posted up in the towers around the entrances. "I get it. You start to get antsy, fingers go to your bowstring. But it's what makes him a poor partner for me."
"And what makes a good partner for you?" She cocked her hip to the side in a sassy manner. Sun above, she must have been a nightmare to handle as a kid. Everything about her felt like a challenge.
"Someone who can be the sun to my moon."
"…What?"
"Don't think too much on it. So," he held out his hand to her, "partners?"
She looked at the appendage like she had never seen such a limb before. Did the Nora not shake hands? He had to admit, his knowledge of their culture was limited to their battle tactics.
There was an awkward beat, before she extended her hand in a mirror of his. He finished the gesture, grabbing her hand to give it one simple pump, and then releasing it before she could yank it back jealously.
After giving her the fruits of his scouting, they decided on a plan of action. Unlike Nora braves he had briefly fought in the war, she was an ambush hunter, preferring to stalk close and then gore them with her spear, hands over their mouths so their dying cries could not be heard. Fools might call such tactics dishonorable, but Nil found himself enchanted by her movements. She prowled through the tall grass, the red leaves at the tips matching the red of her hair. Nil would not have spotted her had he not known she was there. And the sentries posted up in the watchtowers heard the Voice of Our Teeth before they could hear her take down men practically double her size. In no time flat, they had taken out all the guards outside the walls. Now was for his favorite part of the plan.
Stealth was abandoned in favor of running into the makeshift courtyard to make as much noise as possible to draw out the remaining worms hiding under the rocks. The girl had protested this part, saying it would be easier and safer to take out as many as they could quietly. She had even wanted to disable the alarm so as not to draw in reinforcements. How cute. But some of the scum might run if they suddenly found their comrades dropping like flies. They were more likely to stick around if it was twenty against two. Nil hated to leave a job unfinished.
The alarm, a disembodied Longleg head, gave out an ungodly caterwaul. Like rain, it drew the worms out from the mud. Shooting bandits in the neck was good fun, but close combat really got the blood pumping. He pulled out his dagger slicing through an armpit and into the soft spot of the cheek of some waifish boy. His lifeblood splashed across Nil's face, warm and salty with that tang just a step off from metal. A larger prey stepped up to the challenge, a woman with more muscle than brains, carrying a maul that could break bones like toothpicks. Her eyes were like two little black marbles.
The fight was a good one. She nearly took his head off a couple times, his heart laughing with delight each time death danced around him. Hers was the death of a thousand cuts. The bruiser could swing that maul with surprising speed, and he only had but a few heartbeats in between each one to slice at her. But as the crimson blood trailed down her body like tassels, she began to slow until he had shoved his dagger in between the ties of her breastplate and leather armor, between the ribs, and pulled across in a crude facsimile of a smile. Her guts came tumbling out like coins from a slit purse. And that look in those marble eyes, cracked, raw, real. She saw death, saw him devour it like a ravenous beast and knew him for what he truly was. His body felt warm down to the bones.
A pained shout drew his attention to where Aloy was facing off against two men with spears while an archer up the stairs to the broken building pelted the ground around her feet with arrows. He took no moves to help her, instead watching the spectacle in rapt attention. The Nora was a force of nature, constantly moving, dodging both arrowhead and spearpoint, but she was on the defensive. It would only be a matter of time before they wore her down. And they all knew it.
With an annoyed yell, Aloy swept the legs out from a man in a boarskin cloak, knocking him into the other. Instead of pressing her advantage on them while they were momentarily prone, she leapt over their bodies and hurled her spear like a javelin. It landed right in the middle of the archer's head, pinning her skull to the wooden barrier behind her.
Unfortunately for Aloy, that spear was lodged pretty deep in, and she could not pull it out before the other two bandits recovered. So she whipped out her bow, nocking an arrow in the blink of an eye and sending it through the bandits' own eyes in quick succession.
Her form, if it could even be called something so regimented, was beautiful. It held none of the stiffness of a soldier or trained warrior. Each movement had the force and flow of river rapids. It was something wild and free. Feral. She turned to him as he approached, bloodlust still in her eyes as she pointed an arrow at him. There was fear there, yes, but the simple kind. The kind that expected an incoming attack and was prepared to end the one who wished her harm. Staring her down was like staring down a Ravager.
His mouth watered.
Just as quickly as the arrow was pointed at him, it lowered to the ground, ready to pull up at a moment's notice. Some part of him couldn't help the stab of disappointment. He would love to fight this girl. Killing her must be like swallowing the sun.
Another time, perhaps.
Her eyes searched for the answer he already knew. The battle was won, the quarry defeated, and he felt alive again, renewed like a full moon. "You feel that?" he asked her.
"Feel what?" Still alert, still prepared for another fight. A Stalker crouched in the dark, prepared to pounce.
He searched her eyes, like desert glass, and they were blazing. "You do. I can see it in your eyes."
She gave him that glare that said he was being weird and confusing, before throwing her bow back over her shoulder and going to pull her spear out of that lady's head. Then she went about freeing the captives the bandits had kept for playthings, helping these boring civilians (outcasts, he learned later) turn the bandit camp into their own base of operations. It was all so very quaint and boring, so he left for his scouting post in the trees. Such a good fight had worked up a mighty hunger, and hunting down a boar would be a good cooldown exercise.
The boar did little to assuage her frustrations at being left alone to deal with the clean-up. Nil would rather just leave the corpses to rot. Let someone else remove them if they wanted. It's not like he got paid for his services, after all. He wasn't going to do boring work if he didn't have to.
"Just who are you, really?" She verbally jabbed at him. "That armor was fitted for you, the headdress has more feathers on it than I've seen on a turkey, and the way you fight… You are no simple traveler with a vendetta for bandits."
So she had been watching him just as closely? He was flattered. "I travel, and I kill bandits. But you're right. I was a soldier once. Well, I was a soldier longer than there was a war, if you follow."
Something in her face hunkered down. "You fought for the Carja?" And all that implied.
"Yes." He didn't flinch from the truth. "War brings out the shadow in a man. And not all of us can just stuff that shadow away when others tell us to walk in the light now."
Her face was frozen, and yet it was still so expressive. He could just see all the thoughts and emotions flitting through her head like a hail of arrows. "So now you kill bandits as penance?"
He laughed. What silly little thoughts were going through that head? "Penance? No, no… For sport." And now, the breaking point. "I'm a killer. I enjoy it. With no war to sate my hunger, I prey upon those no one will miss. And do the world a service in clearing up the infection." He watched her closely, silver eyes reading every minute twitch of muscle for a sign of disgust.
Her eyebrows lifted up. "A killer with an honor code."
He shook his head. "A killer with standards. There's nothing fun in stabbing someone who can't fight back. You kill a tribesman, their clan hunts you down. You kill an animal, and people complain about wasting meat."
She scoffed, crossing her arms across her chest. "Why not hunt machines? They're plenty challenging."
"Sure, but they don't have that look in their eye… It's like fucking a statue. Totally lifeless."
She curled a lip at his crude analogy, but some part of her seemed to get it. At the very least, she looked more exasperated than disgusted.
A grin pulled at his cheeks like a taut bowstring. "You understand. You're a killer too."
Her affront was so powerful, it knocked her back a step. "I am not like you. I don't enjoy it." A denial of similarity, not of lethality. He desperately wanted to know what her first kill was like. First animal. First human. Did she feel alive? Or did she feel as though she killed a part of herself too?
He nodded in agreement. "Which is why I want you to be my new partner."
The rejection was instantaneous. "No, I'm already on a mission. I don't have time to go hunting down bandits with you, as helpful as that may be."
"You hunt bigger prey?"
"The ones who attacked the Proving and are corrupting machines. There was a man, in particular, he…" Pain, something of the heart, flitted across her face before she was able to wrestle it behind her walls. "I need to go to Meridian."
Hmm, he was not fond of the idea of returning there, but having Aloy as his partner sounded like so much fun. And a hedonist does not deny himself pleasure.
"Then it seems like a mutually beneficial partnership." He gestured with arms wide in glee. "I am a hunter of men. I will help you win your vengeance, and I can guide you through Carja lands to Meridian. In return, you will be my partner."
She shrugged her shoulders in what he can only describe as sassy confusion. "Why are you so dead set on a partner, anyway? What is it you are expecting me to do?"
"Be my conscience." He shook his head, long, red feathers drifting behind. He clarified, "You decide who we kill. Therefore, ensuring I only kill those no one cares about. Who deserve it. You," he pointed a finger at her, "would never harm an innocent. You kill without malice or joy or honor. It is to stop those who would harm the peace, right? Simple as defending yourself from a rabid animal."
She stared at him, nearly slack-jawed. A man could get used to a look like that. But a huntress like her was never stunned for long. Soon, her composure was back. "I could use the help. And I suppose it's better to have you where I can watch you."
He grinned wickedly at her, all teeth. "If you don't mind me watching back."