How can someone who is losing everything comfort someone who never had anything to begin with? Erend/Aloy. May continue past the canon events of HZD. M rating for safety.

Outcast as an infant, Aloy grew up learning how to survive in a wilderness teeming with mechanical beasts. When her tribe's rite of passage called the Proving is attacked, destiny leads her outside the Sacred Lands in search of revenge, secrets of the Old Ones and the history of their world. She doesn't have time for love… or does she?

After defeating Hades and helping the Nora rebuild, Aloy returns to Meridian. There she is reunited with Avad. Aloy wonders whether this time they can be together. But before anything can be resolved between them, Avad is attacked. It doesn't take Aloy and Avad long to realise this wasn't just an attack, but rather the start of a coup.

[WARNING - 18 ] [Mild Spoilers] It's been one year since the defeat of HADES, Aloy having spent almost all of that time in the Sacred Lands, helping rebuild, and now it's finally time to return to the rest of the world. Upon arriving to the city, Aloy learns a devastating truth, and once she sees it for herself, she's baffled. Now it's time to find out what's gone wrong!

It has been a couple days after defeating Hades. Aloy is fixing up her house in Meridian when Erend pays her a visit. They finally confess their feelings for each other and finally get a moment to themselves. Sexual tension has been in the air around them for some time now, and now they can finally embrace each other.