His hand has been bandaged thickly, his brother has been reassured, his ceremonial armor has been removed, and nobody seems able to locate his broken crown. Covered in ash, cracked and missing half it's 'wings', he imagines one of the healers must have mistook it for a peice of junk and tossed it. It's no scrap off his back, to use an Osaram saying, but he's now the only Sun King aside from Iriv who ever lost his crown. At least, unlike Iriv, the rest of him was... well not intact, but he was alive.
He still hasn't heard anything about the Alight defenders, and the sun has long since set. General Uthid and his surviving force have trickled in, along with Aratak and his werak. A few Nora have come in as well, but the last anyone saw of the people who'd likely defended the Spire was Aloy running for the Alight. The last he'd heard of the fire, anyone coming down from the Spire might be able to take the road along the river, but if they decided not to risk the wind shifting, they would probably go northeast up the jungle, circle through the rocky gully across from the quarry, and make their way across the bridge, up the river and into the quarry from there.
He can't seem to go even a minute without coughing, though he counts himself as one of the lucky ones; others are languishing with the inability to draw breath properly at all, and he has a dreadful feeling that most like them wouldn't make it. His hand wasn't as bad as he'd originally thought, but it still hurt tremendously. It was more a sharp sting now than the 'every bee in existence just got you' pain it had been at first, and most of his forearm felt like varying levels of pain ranging from 'severely sunburnt' to 'scrubbed too hard in the bath'.
He was currently feeling every blow from Helis make itself known again, all the while turning the dead man's focus over between his fingers, wondering if he might be brave enough to put it on despite the previous owner. Aloy wasn't here, but if this device held information that could give them an edge in Sunfall, could prevent as many deaths as possible, he needed to know about it. This could be the best opportunity to retake Sunfall and end the civil war they were going to get; sure, they were in bad shape at the moment, but that would strengthen the element of surprise. Any men Helis left behind wouldn't expect a counterattack so soon, and if it was Uthid at the head of the army, the oppressed in shadowside might step aside and let him take the place, or even turn on their oppressors as the common folk had during the Liberation.
Hence his predicament, because the last thing he wanted to wear was anything of Helis'.
It was during this dilemma between duty and disgust that the Alight defenders chose to return, and he could tell it was them because of the commotion that arose outside when they did. He shot to his feet, pocketing the focus, and, much to the healers frustration, went outside, dread and hope warring within him. He wove and pushed his way through the streams of people rushing to and fro, and those who had stopped to try to get a better look at the victors of the Spire.
The first thing he saw was, to his relief, Erend and Aloy both on their feet, though it looked like neither of them should be; they were leaning heavily on each other like a couple of drunks. Others are being carried or limping into camp after them, and people rush to tend them. The Sunhawk looks worse for wear, and though he can't recognize any of the Nora braves, most look terrible. Aloy and Erend seem to be a bit confused about the fuss, or otherwise looking for a place to deposit themselves, and Erend nearly falls over as Avad approaches, and his stomach lurches.
"What happened?" He demanded, rushing forwards to help stabilize his friend. He found that the Osaram's whole right sleeve was red with dried blood.
"Shot, we got the bullet out, the bleeding is..." Aloy gave an odd pause, and from the blood all over her face combined with her lack of a headdress, he can only guess that she's concussed.
"I'm fine." Erend tries to push them off, but his face is white, and Avad can feel that he'll fall down without them.
"That's a load of slag." Aldur injects as he's practically dragged past by a healer. "He's full of slag, he literally was!"
"Go swallow a coal!" The Captain yells back at him. Avad tugs him towards the tent he'd come from, heart pounding. They hadn't always been particularly close, but that had changed in the months since Ersa's death; grief had this funny way of bringing people closer.
"You're not fine." He insists. "Both of you, this way."
"Hades is gone." Aloy yells over the bustle as they approached the tent, practically carrying the full weight of a heavily-armored Osaram.
"We saw the flare." He tells her. "What happened to you?"
"Blown up. Electrocuted. Tripped on a root." She grunted as they pushed their way into the tent. He forces himself to stay calm as he waves healers over.
"Exsanguination, wound's in the right arm." He tells them as they pass Erend off.
"Don't stitch it shut." Aloy warns them as he leads her to another cot. "It'll get infected."
"Check her heart, she says she was electrocuted." He informs the healer who comes to tend her.
"Hey, where's the bullet?" Erend suddenly resists the healers trying to put him to bed. "Aloy?"
"Bullet?" What under the sun was he talking about? To his amazement and disbelief, Aloy reached into one of her pockets, pulled something out, and held what looked to be a small chunk of bloodied metal up for Erend to see. "Wait, was that in your arm?"
"Yeah, he wanted to keep it." The Nora Seeker tells him, gaze wondering in a 'definitely concussed' sort of way.
"Why in the morning light would you want to keep it?" He demands of his friend as he gently forces the huntress to sit down.
"Juuust cuz." Is all he gives before his healer threatens to strap him to the cot. Avad runs a hand through his hair as worry is joined by exasperation and a weird sort of relief that Erend was well enough to be Erend.
"You really are full of slag." This is only met with an irritated grunt, and Aloy puts the bullet back in her pocket as healers start prying her out of her strange armor and shooing the Sun King back to his own cot. Once there he tries to calm his nerves and stop his hands from shaking. Erend had made it this far, he would be fine. If there was anything too wrong with Aloy's heart, it would have given out on the journey, she would be fine. But how bad is the concussion?
He tries to take a deep breath, but it just triggers another coughing fit. Well, if that couldn't work, he could distract himself with what needed to be done. Perhaps burying oneself in work when attempts at calming down failed was unhealthy, but he was a the Sun King, which didn't always allow for healthy living between stress, assassins, and machine armies burning down your villages. So he took out Helis' focus again.
Grimacing, he placed it on his temple, and it latched on by itself. It felt like dozens of tiny hooks on his flesh, like a cat's tongue, and the strange noise it made once it was attached startled him, given how close to his ear it was. Unsure of what to do next, he first tries waving his hand in the air like he often saw Aloy do. When nothing occurs, he taps the device, and a loud noise accompanies the appearance of a spherical grid of lights surrounding him. All at once there were small boxes with Old Speak popping up, seemingly in relation to the people within a certain radius, and apparently 'attached' to them.
Araman had originally led their people out of the east by translating Old World leaves that taught about the sun and the stars. Using the stars, he had navigated them towards a Spire he had seen from the top of a mountain. To prove themselves worthy of his bloodline and legacy, and that they could repeat the feat if a dark day ever came and their people were made into wanderers once again, those of the Radiant Line were made to study Old Speak and constellations. Avad has never been so thankful for one of his family's more obscure traditions.
It takes him a few moments to realize the focus is giving him medical data about those around him, and he almost jumps up to try to use it to help the healers. Instead, he stops himself; he has a task to complete. He waves a healer over.
"When you get a chance, pass word that I may need to see General Uthid soon, and that I want him sent to me if he is fighting fit." The woman nods and rushes back to her task. Setting his jaw and forcing himself to focus, Avad gets to work.
For two days, the fire burns. The wind turns westward sometime in the first night, as Avad finishes his perusal of Helis' orders and personal files before writing up a plan of action with General Uthid (who is in remarkably good health despite the intensity of the battle he'd been in). The fastest messenger they can find is sent to Sunstone Rock to warn them of the fire, as the wind continues to blow west or south over the next days, though it's uncertain how any sort of evacuation could be reasonably conducted if the flames reach them.
There were many prisoners, and his forces would be spread too thin between protecting the camp, tending the wounded, and retaking Sunfall and Blazon Arch. It was, overall, a foul situation, and whomever Janeva had left in charge would have to make a foul call if worse came to worst.
General Uthid sets out with as many fighting-fit men as can be spared at the sunset of the second night. Reports indicate that Meridian Village is still smoldering, but by some miracle there was no indication that the city had caught, aside from the elevator landing.
By the end of the second day, the skies over Plainsong were red as the Blight, even the air in the Grove is smokey, everything has a fine layer of ash, and one Tenakth Marshall in particular is worried about the amount of smoke coming from the distant east.
Avad, for his part, when he isn't worrying over Erend and Aloy, worrying about logistics and medical supplies, coughing his lungs up, or worrying about every problem the damage from the attack would cause in general, is made to spend his time trying to sleep. It comes in short fits, inhibited by coughing fits and the various pains from the battle. There's a stock of dreamwillow, but he fights the use of it every time it's offered. He knows there isn't much left at this point, and others need it more; Erend and those like him who'd had holes punched in their flesh by Deathbringers, burn victims covered with blisters, those with worse smoke inhalation problems.
He's the King of this city, this languishing kingdom, and he has a responsibility to make sure they're all cared for first. It didn't matter if his eyes felt like they'd had acid poured in them, if his hand and arm felt similarly. When he does sleep, his dreams are of drowning, and faceless, shapeless shadows with jaws full of needles gnawing at his hand. No matter what he does, he can't reach the surface of the water, and he can't escape the grasping maws.
Sometimes a healer wakes him when he starts drowning in his dreams, and he coughs up a storm afterwards.
It's in one of the instances where he wakes on his own, he decides to forgo trying to sleep again. His eyes hurt too much, and sleeplessness has seeded restlessness, a cold sort of energy where his heart seems to beat too fast.
He can hear morning birds outside, and there's a chill in the air that forebodes the warm seasons are over. There would've been a harvest around now, if the maizelands hadn't caught. He finds a cloak to hide himself with- he would like some time alone if he could get it- and checks on Erend before leaving. There's more color in the Osaram's face, and no sign of fever. Better than most in his position; Aloy's advice about not stitching the bullet holes hadn't reached everyone, there weren't enough experienced surgeons to remove every bone shard from every patient, and he's seen some of the people who were suffering the result.
The Nora herself wasn't in her cot, and he could assume that she was restless as well. No doubt the healers would give her a tongue-lashing once she returns, she had several broken ribs in addition to her concussion, and a sprained ankle.
He pushes back the tent flap, hoping he goes unnoticed. The sky is a milky, morning color, but the sun hasn't risen over the mountains yet, and his breath clouds faintly in the air. Putting the hood of his cloak up and pulling it tighter around him, he makes his way towards the river. Along the way, he spots Aloy, seemingly doing something with her focus... and upset, it looked like. This gives him pause.
No... not upset. She certainly looked like tears had been shed, but he knew what sorrow looked like and this wasn't that. Not all tears were evil ones. Still, he hesitates to move on with his own walk, wondering if he should speak to her. Maybe she was fine, but maybe she wasn't; she had just seen the worst parts of war up close and personal, and he hadn't been fine after his first major battle. That one had been on such a smaller scale than this it was almost laughable.
In the end, he turns and moves on. If Aloy was going to talk to someone, if she wasn't fine, he probably wasn't the one she would want to discuss it with. He had apologized for his concussed stumbling of the tongue and mind after Dervahl's attack, but he still sensed a mound of awkward between them. It didn't help that the seed of attraction hadn't gone away when the effects of the brain-melting sonic torture device had.
If Ersa were here, she would either be pissed he was moving on too fast... or she would be laughing her ass off at him. Probably the later, if he knew her at all. By the sun, he could so easily imagine what she would say if he presented her with his predicament.
"The way I see it, one of two thing have happened; option one is you actually have a thing for her." She would say, looking as mockingly studious as possible.
"And what would the second option be?" He would ask tiredly. She would then don her widest shit-eating grin.
"You were permanently brain damaged, and you imprinted on her like a gosling."
By the sun, he missed that crazy, wonderful woman.
He fails to notice that Aloy spots him as he makes his way towards the river. Once there, he makes his way carefully around the cliff overlooking it, until he's certain he'll remain undisturbed for at least a while, and finds a patchy, grassy spot to sit on. The fresh cold air is sharp on his throat and lungs, and somehow refreshing at the same time. He looks towards the valley, where thin trails of smoke still drift up on occasion. To the west, he can see the smoke from the past several days lingering in the sky. I wonder if we've alarmed anyone out there. Fire was the enemy of all tribes.
He takes Helis' focus out. He's certain he's gotten all he could from it. The man's personal logs would haunt him for the rest of his life, it was one thing to read an account of events from a journal or report, it was another entirely to hear the gloating from the man himself. How he'd found a way through the Sundom undetected in order to attack the Nora Proving, how he was 'Chosen by the Sun', how Aloy was some sort of divine sacrifice, he'd even recorded her battle in the Sun Ring like the sick monster he was.
Avad had accidentally turned on that recording. He'd nearly torn the focus off and smashed it there, but his body had frozen much like it had when he saw Kadaman in that same arena. Trapped to watch until the bitter, horrific end, seeing Aloy but eyes also continually drawn to the spot near the east section of the ring where his brother had been left dead in the sun as a pulverized mess of blood and gore.
He'd thrown up after that, and hadn't used the focus since.
Now, he thinks, it's time to to silence Helis for good.
"Where did you get that?" Aloy's voice snaps him out of his unpleasant reverie, and he looks up in surprise, heart pounding. He hadn't heard her coming, or maybe had been too deep in though to notice her.
Her hair is loose, unbraided, and tangled horribly, something he hadn't noticed before, and the sight is so odd he wonders for a moment if it's really Aloy. He could see the stitched edge of her head wound, running from the center of her forehead to disappear up into her hairline, and she stands with the cocked hip of someone who's trying to keep weight off one leg. She looks like a mess. Somehow, the grace of her is still visible despite the grime.
"Helis." He answers, when he remembers how to speak. "I could infer from you that information can be kept on it, and I wanted to know if there was anything within that could give the men an edge at Sunfall."
"Oh. Guess it's unfortunate that everything written in there is written in English-Old Speak, I mean." She says awkwardly. She looks anywhere but at his eyes. "You should've asked me to look at it."
"As much as I wished to, you were hardly in the right state for it at the time." He assures, and, with no small amount of pride at being the one with the odd trick up his sleeve instead of her her adds, "And I can read Old Speak."
"You?" That gets her to look him in the eye, though with astonishment.
"It's a tradition in my family, to prove ourselves as heirs of Araman." He grins. "I never thought it would serve me so well, but I am now glad to have learned it."
"Did you find what you were looking for?" She asked, and she seemed to him to be nervous, though about what he couldn't be sure. Perhaps she knew Helis had recorded the Sun Ring fight and wished for nobody to see it. He wouldn't, in her shoes. The thought of it brought the disturbing imagery back to the forefront of his mind, and he forces himself, with the skill of a King, to put on a reassuring smile like he wasn't seeing her or Kadaman run for their lives on the lids of his eyes each time he blinks.
"Yes." He tells her, hoping she can't see the conflict between recent memory and old. "From what I could gather, the General should face minimal resistance. Helis put all he had into this venture."
"Good. That's good." She fidgeted with the skirt of her hunter leathers, before looking him in the eye once more, this time fiercely. "You shouldn't have jumped after me."
"Tell me why." He meets her gaze defiantly. He didn't regret what he'd done. There's a distant fear in his mind that she might have died if he hadn't gone down there, and if not that been severely wounded. Helis was not a man you took on alone, if you had to fight him at all, and for good reason.
"It was reckless. You could've been killed." That was the best she could do? "The Carja needed you."
"And we needed you in order to kill Hades, yet you jumped first." He pointed out.
"He needed to die!" She insisted.
"Yes, he did, so tell me why I shouldn't have aided you? Tell me why I can't fight for those I love, for the country I'm responsible for?" He stands on the patch of turf he'd found. "I had a calling to end him, Aloy. For my brothers, for the dead he left in his wake because of my mistakes."
"What's that supposed to mean?" The redhead challenged, gaze sharp. Avad took a second to compose himself before responding.
"We cannot pretend that many would be alive today were I a better tactician." He said slowly, feeling every pound of the bitter oversight on his shoulders. "I thought he would be by Jiran's side during the Liberation, that we would have to take both out, together. If I had accounted for the possibility of him fleeing with Itamen and planned accordingly, much trouble would have been avoided."
Aloy opens her mouth, shuts it, repeats the process with shock written across her face. He looks away, down into the valley, towards the still-hidden sun, anywhere but at her, because it's clear that this origin of culpability hadn't occurred to her, and the shame roiling in his stomach is too much to hide, even with a lifetime's experience in masking his emotions. He'd known about that hidden escape rout, and through months of planning, preparation, and foolproofing, it had slipped his mind completely. Everyone who was dead because of that, was dead because of him, from those Helis had killed in the initial escape to those who lay dying in tents near the quarry now. All the suffering led back to him.
Even Itamen's. Especially Itamen's.
The cliff and the length of the drop from it is suddenly, horribly tempting for several heartbeats.
"You're not..." Aloy starts, seeming to struggle. He still can't look at her. "It's not your fault."
"Those words do not work when others say them, they do not work from you either, I'm afraid." He tells her quietly. "Tactics do not lie, nor do tactical failures. But I do appreciate the sentiment all the same. Words will not fix what has happened, but a lack of them would make life more painful."
"I'm sorry." She says. "About that. I... and about the village. All of it, really. Your lives were a lot quieter before I came along."
"It's not your fault." He finally makes himself look at her, give her a small, forced smile as he throws her own words back at her. "We both know this fight was going to come whether you were a factor or not. Your warnings and skills kept things from becoming truly hopeless, and everyone knows it. I'm pretty sure I've heard them passing around ideas for a title for you."
He looks back out at the landscape, and for a few moments after that, silence reigned, like he wasn't the only one swallowing back a hot lump of misery and guilt at this point. Nice job, Avad, she might not have been upset earlier, but she definitely is now. It didn't help with his current mindset. He has half a mind to tell Aloy to go away, but he can't bring himself to speak to her again, and there are several shuffling sounds that might indicate she'll soon leave of her own volition.
"What kind of title?" She asks suddenly, awkwardly. Her voice is closer rather than further away.
"'Savior of Meridian' seems to be the most popular one currently." He informs her sympathetically.
"That's aweful." She comments. "Most of Meridian is burnt to the ground, in case they haven't noticed."
"The public tend not to care for such things; if they think you need a title, you're getting one, whether you think it sounds stupid or not." He dares to look at her. "It's better than 'Liberator', at least; Ersa used to joke that it sounded like the name a whore would go by."
"Ugh." The Nora makes a face, and for a moment, he can smile genuinely, because there's something strangely amusing about the way her nose wrinkles up. It's like a glint of light in a dark cave.
"Not to alarm you, but they'll probably want a statue as well." Her eyes bug out.
"Please stop them!" Now he can't help smiling, the real kind.
"I'm afraid the power to stop such a thing lies with the Architectural Council, not me. We Carja are very serious about architecture and city planning, so it was decided long ago that the King would not have too much sway over such things; only those uniquely qualified." She let's out an irritated huff, blowing a stray strand of red away from her face. "I can try to stop them from gilding it, though. You have my word."
"Great." She said dryly, the mood a sudden whiplash away from what it was before. "I delved through ruins, fought an army, saved the world, just to get immortalized in a stupid pose."
"Stupid pose? What are you imagining?" He asked, bemused.
To Avad's utter shock, the Seeker flipped her hair back, hiked her left foot up on the boulder in front of her, held one fist outwards as though planting her spear upon the self same rock, with the other hand her hip. She adopted an expression of severe stoicism, and stared out in front of her like she was made of stone.
He laughs.
He can't help it, it's so sudden and odd, he laughs at the sight of it, and she breaks down with a snort of laughter of her own. Avad laughs, genuinely laughs, for what might be the first time in months, because of a stupid, sudden statue impression done at the edge of a black hole of guilt.
From his perspective, he can see a woman who's been through maybe too much, who had shot off on a journey of secrets and war like a flare from one of the cannons she'd weilded days before, only to refuse to burn out or stop once she hit the target; she just kept going, through the target, just to seek a new one. One day, she would burn out at last or find something she couldn't bust through, and hopefully there would be someone there to pick her up, dust her off, and send her off again when that finally happened. Because it would happen, eventually, he's known people like her before. And here she was, a mess of tangled hair and concussion-influenced thought, making a bad joke at the edge of a cliff.
From Aloy's perspective, she sees stitched cuts on his face move as a sudden smile lifts his expression, sees his cloak shift and his fully bandaged hand peer out at her as if to remind her what could have happened if she was even a moment slower, what she could have prevented if she'd been a moment faster. She sees wounds he got at her side, reminds her how it felt to know that if she fell to Helis, he would be next because he'd followed her, reminds her how her heart leapt in her throat when Erend went down, and when a blast of debris had hit Varl, because they followed her. But most of all, she sees his face, hears his short laugh cut through the air; she couldn't describe his expression as one of humor, but it's like someone drew back the curtains in a dark room and there's light in the world again. Something in her twists, or soars, something, at the sight of it.
Their laughter is shortened by the grim mood preceding it, but it feels like pressure being released from an infected wound.
"I'll keep that one in mind if there's a proposal for one, for sure." He coughs, the brief laugh having triggered another fit.
"Ugh, no, that was awful." She shakes her head, brushing hair from her face.
"True." It's easier to look at her, now. Easier to give her a smile. "But if I wind up having to stare at you all day, I would rather be reminded of a joke than a terrible battle. I, at least, would find it far more inspiring."
"Noone else would get it." She pointed out.
"That is the point of an inside joke; everybody becomes confused when the laughter starts, thus making it even more amusing." He tells her. The focus is cold in his hand. "Now, I do believe I came up here to smash this. Care to do the honors?"
"That's a working focus!" She exclaims, jaw dropping. "People would kill to have functional Old World tech, and you're going to smash it?"
"Helis haunted me in life." He explained solemnly. "I won't let his shadow hang over me in death. If I do not destroy it, Aloy, I will keep coming back to it. I would know no peace in my own life, and therefore be unable to create the peace I seek to make for both my people, and those they hurt in the war."
"You want to..." her expression does something peculiar, something between stricken and realization, "...heal the world."
"Just this small part of it, if I can." He gestures to the half burnt landscape below them. "I never took you for a poet."
"I'm not." Her eyes dart about, and she stoops, clearing her throat as she scoops up a sharp stone. "This one should do it."
Avad smiles, and crouches down to set the focus on a misshapen rock that he decides to steady with his own hands in case the blow over balances it. He'd hate to start his morning watching Aloy pinch her fingers smashing Helis' Old World diary. Part of him is worried that, with her concussion, she'll accidentally smash his bad hand instead, but they've both committed to it now.
"Out of curiosity, what's next? For your idea of peace, I mean?" Aloy pauses, kneeling in front of him, turning the stone in her hands thoughtfully.
"Well, things are well with the Osaram, I daresay your tribe has had enough of me to last a lifetime, the Banuk are disinterested at best, and the Utaru don't return my messages." He summarized humorlessly. "Aside from working those problems, I suppose the Tenakth are next. Sun willing they forgive us for having the greatest, most high-stakes battle of the century without inviting them to it."
"They sound charming." She comments dryly.
"I'm sure they have their positive quirks, every tribe has at least one." He shrugs, and adjusts his grip on the stone. The gravelly earth beneath scrapes the back of his unbandaged fingers, pebbles and other stones dig into his knees. He nods down towards the focus. "Well?"
Aloy brings her rock down. The sun finally peeks over the mountains, it's first direct rays striking the landscape. At the same time, the focus shatters, caught between unstoppable force and immovable object. The sunlight sets Aloy's hair alight like someone struck a match, highlights the tired lines on Avad's face, catches on the glittering edges of freshly broken manufactured materials and the circuits that had been housed within.
The sun rises, and the voice of Helis is silenced for good, at long last, now doomed to only exist in memory until the day comes when they realize they can no longer recall what he sounded like.
I just really needed to get this out of my head, it wouldn't leave me alone and I couldn't focus on The Long, Long Walk because of it. I always found it unrealistic that everybody partied down right after the battle, I live in on the US west coast, I'm very familiar with how fires work, and given the raging inferno the village turned into, combined with a lack of modern-era firefighting capability, I'd say it would have been several days before they dared to go back to the city. They definitely would have had to evacuate the mesa because of the smoke, as well.
I also wanted to make further catharsis as far as Helis is concerned. The theme of HZD was Aloy becoming part of the world around her, it was about Rost's final lesson, and emphasis to the fact that she's not just become part of the world, but part of this larger story with Avad, the Freebooters, and the Red Raids, would have hit this theme home in a way nothing else could. The start of Aloy's journey is also the penultimate end of Avad's, with the death of Helis, and the idea having them sharing a moment where they put a punctuation mark at the end of this wouldn't leave me be.
All that being said, let me know what you guys think of this! I love feedback!
Without further ado, I now return to the Destiny/Mass Effect crossover hole I crawled out of. Fare Thee Well!
Fare Thee Well!