The Broken Skies

by Maelove21

(Kotallo x Aloy x Hekarro) Aloy's heart beats for Kotallo but her duty leads her to a political marriage with Hekarro. And somewhere along the way, she finds herself torn and confused by the affections of both all-consuming men. Keeping her heart beating is one thing. But keeping it 'whole? Well… that's the most perilous trial of them all.

22. The Filth Of The Other

Consider this as PART TWO of the previous chapter, hence the title. All I can say is… Enjoy ;)

A special thanks to Storm89 for helping me w/ my muse. This chapter is dedicated to you. Also, thank you to PathlessSpore93 for convincing me to post this chapter as it is. I was aiming for twice as long but she convinced me that this chapter was complete on its own.

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Ch. 22 The Filth Of The Other

What was it about kissing, that makes it feel so special?

So addicting. So right.

What is it about cracked lips meeting, of warm tongues colliding, of soft sighs erupting, that compelled even the sanest of men to lose all reason, all sense and useless pride? It seemed like such an odd and pointless custom. One that had withstood the test of time, solely from mundane instinct to fill the hollow void of mere existence.

And yet, Kotallo couldn't have enough of it. Couldn't have enough of her.

The Marshal supposed it had nothing to do with the act itself, but with who you are doing it with. For all the many empty kisses he had ever shared before, nothing and no one's, had ever washed the world away so completely, driven him so far to the steep brink of insanity than the taste of Aloy's lips.

They have been at it all night long; Laughing and grinding and teasing, doing nothing else but making out with their clothes barely on like a couple of love-sick teenagers. Both of them, acting like they have never been in love before.

He wondered if such was the case for her. If her heart had belonged to another, before she had given him a slice of it. She had once told him of another man, a nameless one, that she shared her bed with during her life in the East. And the most curious parts of him yearned to know if calling one a lover meant that they had once truly shared love as well.

Not that it would matter.

He wasn't the first to fall for her, and he definitely would not be the last.

But Kotallo knew with immovable certainty that she would be his first and his final. His one and only.

And when the unequivocal truth is as impenetrable as the one carved in his very soul; all the rest of everything else lessens and disappears… becomes minute and meager… corroded by the raging fire he carried for the two of them.

They denied the passage of time without remorse, savoring one another. Each languishing kiss and embrace entirely unhurried; unbothered by the breezeless fields and the smothering heat of the desert as they took solace in their little slice of quiet earth. Petals of every color fly all around, just to be crushed underneath their weight in each roll of their bodies, taking turns to be on top of one another, sharing all their griefs and regrets with a fevered dance of their hungry mouths.

It was as if the whole world had ceased moving; perfectly frozen just for them. In the still stagnant of the night, their time was their own. And in the merciful light of the starry skies, Aloy was his and his alone. (LINK-1)

"Say it again," he hissed as he swiped his tongue along the slender lines of her neck. She giggled at his request, until her laughter thinned to a high trill as he licked behind her ear.

"How many times are you gonna make me say the words?" Aloy teased, leaving crescents all around his shoulders as she writhed underneath him.

"I'll have you say it as long as you mean it," he said, licking the salt of sweat and muck off the goosebumps in her skin. She groaned at this, coaxing him to move lower, before she released the sweetest sigh.

"Yes. I will marry you in secret." Aloy cupped his face to kiss him. "Yes. I'll be yours." She pecked his scarred mouth again. "Yes, yes to everything." She bit his lips for the quickest moment. "And yes, I mean it."

"I pray that you always will."

He wondered then what it is about promises that would somehow make them real. Would it be enough to mean it with all your heart once uttered, so that will alone may lend its strength and never let it break? But if that were the case then wouldn't they be more than just two lovers by now, bound together solely by the slew of broken promises they shared with one another? And if saying the words were enough to shape reality to your very whim, then wouldn't they be lying here, as man and wife already, and not a heart and a half shared by two?

*&^(! / She is toying with you. /*#^%

His mind whispered on its own accord. The voice of it, his own but the origin, questionable. He shook it off, fending away the shadows with a stubborn growl. His hand motioned to unravel her shorn tunic, tearing it from the front to see every hidden part of her. Only to be stopped halfway by the same hands that also begged for more.

"D-don't." Aloy stammered, suddenly more somber as vermillion stained her dirty cheeks. "I don't want you to see." She shied away from him, hugging the very body he so wished to worship with his mouth.

"See what?" he hummed, holding on to every last bit of his hungry restraint.

"Everything," Aloy confessed. "My scars, my secrets… my sins."

It took one glance at where her palms lingered for the Marshal to find the root of her fears. And at once he understood; beneath her hands was a story that remained untold; a festering wound hidden underneath healed, translucent skin.

He didn't dare try to move her hand away from her stomach. Allowed her to keep her shield while he peppered her with unbound kisses. From her fingertips to her wrist… from her slender arms to the fragile bones jutting out of her shoulders. Adoring her in every exposed skin he could find.

"You have nothing to hide from me, settalah," Kotallo promised her in return, moving his mouth to the center of her ribs where his glyph had been. "I will take you as you are, any way you are."

The thin fabric peeled off her left breast little by little while his tongue explored her supple curves. "I will take all your sins, all your filth and I will wear them with you." She shivered in his hold then, scrunching her lids shut while she moaned. "And those that will not leave your skin, I will cover with my own."

"Sweet talker," Aloy chuckled ever so bashfully as she bit down on her bottom lip with tremulous fear.

Words are cheap and actions are louder, and before the huntress could protest, he had torn away her tunic and the remainder of her borrowed cloak. And though he thought he would be prepared with the sight of her scarred body, shivering beneath— he hadn't entirely accounted for the sensation of being punched to the gut when he found her adorned from neck to toe with the proof of Hekarro's lasting touch.

*^%$*&/ Just look at her. She is ruined. He has ruined her for you. /)*&(*^&*

He would have fallen to his knees if he hadn't been down on it already, seeing the blue imprints of another's hands on his beloved. And yet, the thing that struck him so far off-kilter, was how breathtakingly pretty he found her this way. Bared to him in all honesty; raw, dirty and unpolished; promised to another yet given to him.

It enraged him. Just how excruciatingly perfect she was.

Kotallo wasn't as well known to be a man of honor; A man of his words. No, that was a reputation proudly worn and wielded by the honest Chief of all Tenakth. But he would have slayed the very Ten themselves if they dared try to stop him from purging Aloy of her doubts and keeping his promise. Shaking off dark thoughts once again, he began to revere every part of her that had been desecrated. Adding to her debasement with the touch of his own. Kissing where she had been kissed. Biting where she had been bit. Bruising where she had been bruised.

"Just look at you…" Kotallo simmered. "So fucking filthy… So fucking beautiful." (LINK-2)

"Do you mean it?" Aloy trembled, mild and meek.

"Name a man that wouldn't say the same of you and I'll cut off his tongue," he swore above her heart.

And she welcomed all of it. All of him. Embracing him with the pollution of oil and blood and dirt that they alone had the guts to bear.

In the space between the two of them, there was no guilt. No shame. No past nor future. In the space around them, there was only her in his arms. Her sighs. Her smiles. Her laughter. Her cries.

"Did you enjoy it when Hekarro kissed you here?" Kotallo taunted with a dangerous glimmer in his veins as he did the same, laving the graceful curves of her breasts with his tongue.

Aloy gasped, unrooting flowers and weeds as her fingers clenched and plucked it from the ground. "I– y-yes."

The Marshal smirked, moving his mouth lower to the jutting bones of her hips where her legs began and another handprint remained.

"Did you like it when he touched you here?" he asked, running the edges of his teeth along the tender flesh.

"Ah! Y-yes!" the huntress whined, bucking wildly while she covered her flushed face, while he teased the sensitive spot. "I… I did."

He ran his hands from the side of her thighs to the inside, parting her legs like a splendorous curtain whenever dawn arrived. His cock throbbed at the scent of her desire, at the slick sheen of her lust for him, melded with the dried remnants of another man's want.

"Did you scream his name out loud, when he fucked you here?" Kotallo growled, smiling darkly while he burned brighter as he glared at her from below the rise and fall of her chest. He teased her with a finger then; gliding through her wetness but never sinking in.

"I… I d-don't kn…" Aloy babbled through incoherent words. He gave her a tentative lick then, warning her of what she would be losing if she withheld the truth in their dangerous little game.

"No lies," the Marshal simmered, entirely in control of her without the need for shackles. "I will have the truth from you, one way or another."

"F-fine!" Aloy hissed with taut frustration, the green in her eyes a blazing fire as she returned his piercing glare. "I screamed his name so loud that all of Thornmarsh heard. And I loved it!"

"That they heard?"

"That they know," Aloy groaned as he resumed teasing her again. "What's mine is mine."

His lips curved in a lopsided smile, satisfied with her answer. "Then I will simply have to make you scream my name even louder. So everyone may truly know whose is whose."

Without another wasted moment, he fucked her with his tongue and fingers, savoring the saccharine flavor of her insatiable lust. She screamed beneath the flick of his tongue at her most sensitive flesh, loving her harshly in his tender ways. She tasted even better this way: so much sweeter than a kiss. So much so that even if he hadn't taken it as a personal challenge to make her shout his name to the skies, he would still be coaxing every shattered cry he possibly could from her heaving lungs out of sheer hunger alone.

He would gladly feast on her for a thousand lifetimes, and he would still never be sated.

Kotallo teased her relentlessly, his gentleness a weapon of his own. Each stroke of his digits was paced and measured, excruciatingly slow as he sank in and out of her. The rhythm of his tongue intensified, sucking and nipping until she was at the verge of release, only to come to a screeching halt right before she could find her release.

Only then would he start all over again.

Only then would she scream for him louder.

Her knuckles were bone white as she gripped the hair in his head and squirmed under his mercy. The pink flesh of her mouth contorted, searching for words that never came.

$&)(*$/ Make her beg. Make her beg for you. /*/%$

"Tell me what you want and I shall give it to you," the Marshal simmered, mouth dripping with the most intoxicating nectar in existence.

"Y-you. I want you," Aloy babbled in a state of mess.

"Louder," he ordered before pulling out his finger in its entirety.

"KOTALLO! Please!" the huntress cried, seizing his face to meet the despair in hers. "I need you to fuck me. Now!"

He freed his aching shaft in a flurry of rushed movements. His shorts almost ripping at the seams from the strain of his engorged flesh. He laid her down in the field of flowers they had trampled, naked as the day they were formed. Hardly having the usual patience to prepare her for the entirety of his length, he stroked himself twice over, spreading her wetness all over his throbbing member before sinking deep into her.

She dug bright purple grooves through his tattooed arm and back, taking in all of him, little by little, inch by inch. The sweetest whine as his reward when he buried himself in her to the very hilt.

"Ah… so… deep," Aloy moaned, trembling as she took every part of him until they were nothing less than the most perfect fit. "You feel so good… inside me."

"I will always be inside you," Kotallo rasped, clenching his jaw from the assault of utter bliss. "I'm gonna fuck you so hard that you won't know anything else but feeling of my cock in you."

He folded her in half then, thin ankles splayed past both of his ears as they rutted against each other without any regard for all else. If the land around them burst into flames and consumed them, none of it would hardly matter.

For she had already immolated him into bones and ashes, and somehow, he had never been more alive.

"Do it," she commanded, arms desperately wrapped around his neck, sweat mingling with sweat. "Fuck me all night if you have to," the huntress bent herself even further, giving them both that much more space to adhere together. "Then fuck me everynight after that too…

… I'll take you every way you are, every way I can. I'll gladly take all of you."

And just as the world was lost, so did Kotallo lose himself; completely overtaken by an entirely different man.

No. Not a man, but a monster.

A monster with violet eyes and amethyst veins. Possessive. Wild. Feral.

He ravaged her then, pounding into lissome flesh that welcomed his every assault. He sought to punish her. Plundering her kingdom of ecstasy with his unending greed, staking his claim at the places of her where exile would be akin to death. All she could do was take him, again and again and again, the both of them finding pleasure where there should be pain, grunting and moaning to the symphony of their ruthless joining.

"Did you really think you could live without this? Without me?" He grinned cockily, fucking her roughly as petals dyed their skin. "Did you really think Hekarro alone could satisfy you, when you are so perfectly molded just for me?"

"I could never live without you, Kotallo…" she whined to his ears, her musical pitch getting higher and higher, "... but I would have died, trying."

"Then you already know it is the wrong choice," he growled, flipping her over so that he may use his lone arm in more productive ways. Such as pulling her up by the neck and grasping her tightly between her grime-covered cheeks, the two of them facing one another, with nothing but the corpses of innocent machines as witness to their squalid affair. "The most unforgivable thing you can do is to die. Especially for the likes of me."

"I could say the same of you, sedrevvah," She murmured at the crook of his neck.

"Then we die together, or we don't die at all," he vowed, bathing her in his lavender lights. "But tonight, we live."

"Tonight, we live." the huntress susurrated. Nodding heedlessly. Surrendering to his heavenly assault.

He speared into her with a wild rhythm, reveling in every little noise and keening wail she tried to mute with the crashing of their mouths. It doesn't take much longer before Aloy came loudly, his name in her mouth echoing across the dunes, her body unraveling and tightening all around him to the point of making him see stars.

*&%$%^/ That was hardly a punishment. Was it? /&*^%$

"No. You're not getting off that easy."

"No, I didn't think I would," the huntress replied, shivering with a crazed smile, sweat dripping all over her body as a moan tore right through her sultry laugh.

His hand drifted, caressing her in a scorching path from her neck to her ribcage, toying with her pillowy breasts before it made its way down her stomach, fucking her even harder as he staved off his own release. But when he reached the very edge of the scar from each end of her hips, a strangled sound escaped Aloy. Her palm flew from his cheek to his hand, peeling it off from her, yet never losing their connection.

"Someday soon, I'll tell you all about it," the huntress murmured, refusing to meet his searching gaze. "But for now, just let me forget."

He nodded, kissing her on the brows tenderly, pausing their magnificent dance if only for a moment. "Do you trust me?"

"More than anything." She pecked his lips then, as innocent as one could possibly be among the vortex of carnality and desire. "More than anyone."

"And should I cross your lines and your limits, do you know what to do?"

Aloy burned crimson then, her skin almost as vibrant as the

fire underneath the burnished black oil that soaked scarlet waves. Chewing on her lip, her copper eyelashes fluttered before looking up at him with moon-lit orbs. "Red Teeth," she mumbled far too quickly. "That's my stopword."

"You've done this before then?" he asked just as swiftly, not with outrage but with mild surprise. She had always seemed so new to everything. Not inexperienced, nowhere near virginal. But curious. Hungry. Open and insatiable.

Yet Aloy only shook her head before saying, "No."

Her hands cupped the unkempt stubble at his jaw, just before her warm breath caressed his underlit skin and the mess of paint he wore. "At least, not the things I want you to do to me."

Their mouths melded with one another for a heavenly moment, before Kotallo slowly bent her over to the iron body of the Plowhorn they had killed. "Remember to breathe," he warned, digging his hand into her hips, over the imprint of Hekarro's as his pace slowed.

"No promises," she sighed, her cloudy gaze mirroring the danger simmering within his.

She lost her nerve and looked away the moment his thumb found its way to the soft rim of her puckered entrance. And when he began teasing into it, spreading her wetness from her folds and easing it to her, her every muscle seized in resistance.

"Breathe, settalah." He reminded her as he pulled out his thumb then knelt before the altar of her beauty; the unpainted canvas of his devotion. "Breathe, and forget the rest."

"Kotallo! What are you— Ahhhhhh!" Aloy screamed, craning her neck to the skies as his tongue lapped on her everything. Her wanting lips, her every crevice, her every hole. He anchored her by her nape, pushing her down lower, dipping in and out to help himself to the feast before him, eating her like he had been a starved man all his life. His fingers found a dazzling beat in her dripping core to match his assault, and the sound of her nails scraping against metal harmonizing with her cries only spurned him to taste her even better.

And when he was sure she was ready, his cock found its way back inside her, sinking into the searing heat of her slick folds. Then in the lewdest way possible. he spat down, spreading his saliva and her cum all throughout her forbidden entrance before invading it with the longest of his digit. Testing at first, before she took him all the way in.

"F-fuckkk!" Aloy yelped, eyes rolling to the back of her head.

"Too much?" He said, pausing.

"N-no." Her lungs slowed deliberately, hissing through her gritted teeth. "I can take m-more," she said, unconvincingly, clearly at the very precipice of her limits.

Kotallo couldn't help but chuckle at her brand of defiant obeisance, pulling ever so slightly just to have her careening against his fevered chest. "Don't be so hasty that you push your pleasure back into pain." He growled against her ear. "The goal isn't to reach the point of breaking but the point of no return."

"I don't care if you break me, Kotallo," Aloy trembled, fingers entwined with his beaded braids. "You'll only be my favorite scar."

(*^ $ / Do it. Shatter her. /%$#%

He lost all mind then. All sense and sensibility as he trapped her between cold steel and warm flesh. Where his cock would pound into her, his finger would ease from the other. When he would unsheathe his length almost completely, he would dive with a digit and add another. Stretching her. Filling her. Reaching the crest of paradise as they rose in rapture from the inebriating ecstasy of it all.

"Whose name is in your lips right now? Who do you belong to?" The Marshal growled, a bright beacon in the dark, lighting up their vicinity so that their colors became awashed with the same violent hue of his blood.

"You! I belong to you!" she sobbed, hot tears leaking from her shuttered lids.

"Tell me you love this," the Marshal barked, teeth running through the crest of her shoulders.

"I… I love this!" The huntress cried, matching his warbeat with wanton unrepentance.

"Tell me you love me."

"I love you, Kotallo. I fucking love you!" Aloy exclaimed, declaring it to the moon and the stars. The sands and the skies.

"And I love fucking you," he growled, squeezing her throat before biting down by its crook as they reached the precipice of paradise and came falling down together.

There was a difference between the blood of the impure and the uncorrupted, the Marshal discovered. Where his was sour, acidic and bitter, hers was cloying, alkaline and refreshing like spring water.

Even then he didn't stop. Couldn't. Pumping in and out of her welcoming warmth as he emptied himself to completion inside of her. Their combined mix of juices oozed and dripped from her pretty, pink folds, leaking between their soft skin as he pumped slowly into her womb.

They stayed entwined for the longest moment, panting as they shared their breath and kissed one another. Willing time to remain frozen where they laid. Only when the lights in him had finally died down did he peel himself gently away from his wayward home, longing to return to her warm hearth the moment he felt cold amidst the desert heat. Finding the mess he's made far too beautiful to be washed away, he settled with cleaning her with his mouth.

She came again in a matter of moments anyway; Undoing his work, much to his prideful joy.

Both her hands reached for each side of his face, pulling him in for a slow, languorous kiss. She crooned at the taste of their climax on her tongue, before settling into the awaiting space in his outstretched arm.

"When I'm with you… it's like all the rest of the world is just… waiting," she whispered to him, a truth so fragile and small. He smiled at her, understanding.

"I know what you mean," he assured her, "But the world can wait. We have all the time we'll ever need."

He would buy every spare second of it with his blood as his currency, if only for her.

"Sometimes… I feel like GAIA made me all wrong," his beloved whispered, breaking the easy quiet between them with glazed eyes. She toyed with the wisps of dark hair on his chest, smearing the indiscernible mess of pigments with her delicate fingertips. "Sometimes… I feel like she synthesized every part of me to be exactly like Elisabet, except theres no synthesizing her soul. So I was made without one."

He listened to her intently then, not daring to pretend and understand the exact turmoil and torment that was branded on her since her 'birth'.

"I have always felt… hollow. Like a part of me was missing; something everything else had that only I couldn't find. And when I learned how to crave love… how to eat it and make it mine… I thought that this empty space inside me would be filled by all the best parts of the person I was with. That I could somehow borrow, just a little bit of the goodness in them and make it my own."

The Marshal caught himself before he could scoff at the notion, far be it for him to dismiss her melancholic pain. He just couldn't fathom the thought of her seeking virtue from another, when she had enough of goodness in her to sustain the world itself.

"I was younger then… young, stupid and naive," Aloy chuckled bitterly, unwanted memories flickering beneath her irises before she forcefully blinked them all away. "It took me too long to realize that love didn't always work that way. That instead, it was him that had taken all the best parts of me, while I took in all the worst parts of him."

Kotallo nodded, kissing her wrist. She relished each one he gave her, before gliding her hand and his to the thin, embossed line of healed flesh right above her womb.

"This mistake… this lesson; I had to learn it, over and over. More times than I'd like to admit. We would part ways for weeks, sometimes months even, just for us to desperately try to make up for lost time the moment we crossed paths again . Like two moths to a flame, wanting to burn alive. Until finally, the day came when my foolishness cost me everything," she confessed, allowing him to trace the filigree of her deepest regret. The raised indent on her flesh left him with a longing, so deep, so visceral, so persistent, that he could barely fathom the mute heartache she kept hidden from the rest of the world. "Then we both left each other with a bigger emptiness inside us than ever before."

A singular tear escaped her, trickling down until it seared his own skin.

"And now, it feels like no amount of love in the world would ever be enough to make up for what I lost… What was taken from me," her voice cracked through her smile. "That's how incredibly stupid I am."

"At least you know you are being stupid," he said, flicking her lightly on her freckled nose. "First of all, you do have a soul. I have seen it. And if you don't, you can have mine. Second, tell me who it is that has hurt you this deeply so that I may happily avenge your pain. And third…"

"Please don't tell me what I lost doesn't matter. Because I promise you, I will punch you right in the throat."

"Of course it matters, I could never understand the pain you carry for your wound, just as you can never fully understand mine, " He said, pulling up her chin. "But it was you who once told me that losing my arm has robbed me of nothing that we cannot make up for, one way or another. Can you not say the same of your situation?"

"I haven't exactly gotten past all my anger and grief yet to think of it," the huntress mumbled under her breath. "The wound may look healed but… it's fairly new. Much newer than your limb at least… I just had a lot of help from GAIA and Beta to place a graft over it."

Kotallo froze from the news, discerning a palpable nervousness radiating off her so suddenly. It hadn't been much more than a passing thought in the back of his head then, but now he realized that he had no previous recollection of a scar adorning her then, the night they had first slept with one another; drunk on ale, victory and sheer relief.

%^$%/ So many secrets. What else could she possibly be hiding from you? /#$^*

"I… I see…" he half-choked, a sinking revelation dawning upon him. "Well… when you are ready… you should know that there are many ways for you to become a mother. If that is something you truly wished for." His palm covered her most hated wound, hoping to keep her loathing for it and for her at bay with his gentle touch. "We could always raise orphans… or have GAIA make you any child you want, the same way you were made. Perhaps then, you wouldn't feel so alone in this world." he said, mind drifting with all the countless possibilities.

"We?" Aloy eyed with mild curiosity.

"Yes, we. Hekarro will surely be the absent father, you the loving mother, and I will be there next to you every step of the way, giving the tribe gossip-fodder until they grow tired of our endless scandals. "

"My best and worst kept secret," she giggled, snuggling closer.

"It is no secret to anyone that I adore you," he reminded her, memorizing her laxed features; for once devoid of the emptiness she spoke of while he kept all her troubles at bay.

"Thank you." Aloy sighed, glistening and lovely with the sheen of sweat. "For all your acceptance." She closed her tired eyes and settled into him, fitting perfectly in his half-embrace.

"There is nothing to accept," Kotallo whispered, lips on her brow while he pulled her closer. "I would wed you here and now, just the way you are."

"Not now, but… as soon as possible," she replied sleepily, closing her tired eyes. "Want… our whole family to be there."

"I'll make the arrangements as you wish, Chieftess," He smiled, thumbing her scarred cheek. "I am nothing if not your humble servant."

"Not my servant…" she yawned, grinning. "My soulmate."

"Just as you are mine, my perfect moonwife," the Marshal exhaled, kissing her brows. The sight of his wounds caught his eye then, and he couldn't help but stare at the bleeding scratches she had left across his arms, quietly glowing with eerie purple before the skin began to mend itself on its own.

"Mmmm. I like the sound of that," Aloy whispered, kissing his jaw as she slowly succumbed to the spell of slumber. "How did I get so lucky? I don't know what I've ever done to deserve you, but I hope you stay with me forever."

%$(*!^/ Let her sleep. Then SLIT HER THROAT. /+ ~%^$

Kotallo shook his head, willing its vicious pain to leave as his violet eyes watered. His fingers dug deeper into her, willing her effervescent warmth to be his anchor as he staved the darkness away.

He reminded himself that it was his name resting on her heartbeat. His beads tied on her braided hair. And when she dreamed before him in this very moment, it was his name that had softly, sweetly, come pouring from her swollen lips.

He realized then, that some forms of silence could echo much louder than any tattered scream.

His hand glowed brighter as he clung to her waist, the small rivulets of his blood hissing on the sands, leaves and petals. And the wounds it leaked and trickled from, already closed in a perfect, unscarred seal.

"Forever. And a day," Kotallo swore with a clenched fist, wondering once again what it was about promises that somehow made them real and concrete.

---

Dreams always came easy when she slept with a smile, and peace always followed, solely in the arms of the ones she loved. But finding dreams had never been the issue when it came to slumber. It was leaving its kingdom that was much too hard.

Aloy stirred awake with a wincing headache, parting her eyes ever so slightly to the sound of hushed murmurs and gasps. Still tethered by sleep, she barely heared Kotallo mumble beside her, somehow already clothed while she rested, wrapped in Hekarro's tattered cloak. And before them the voice of a familiar friend, hissing at him with outrage, melding with concern.

"You are playing a very dangerous game, Marshal Kotallo," Ivvira whispered, her mouth pulled taut in a thin line. Her eyes flicker back and forth, between Kotallo's smoldering amber and the slumbering woman in his arm. "Not even the Chieftess will be able to spare you from Hekarro's wrath if you push him too far.

All of the desert clan must have heard you two."

A flinch of pride passed through his features for the smallest fraction of a second, before morphing into the grimace of loss.

"Good," he retorted with petulance. "I want him to hear. I want him to know."

"You would antagonize him so recklessly. And to what purpose? For love or pride? " she hissed quietly in return, as if terrified of the very words she spoke out loud. "You know how dangerous the Chief can be when pushed to his limits."

"I do not fear Hekarro," Kotallo snapped, before softening his tone. "I only fear losing her."

"How do you think this is all going to play out in the end?" Ivvira challenged, seeking the answers out, more for her own benefit than anything else. "Do you truly believe that the Chief will tolerate your treasonous ways forever? Someday soon you will have to answer to all your crimes before the throne."

"My only crime is loving Aloy before he ever loved her," the Marshal spat. "If that makes me worthy of the Gallows, then so be it."

"You can be so naive sometimes! You know that!?" The lowlander paced around, scratching her head with restrained exasperation. "When has Hekarro ever done anything without good reason?

Do you really think that he proposed to the Chieftess, simply because of her reputation alone? How can you still be so blinded from the truth after everything that you've witnessed?"

"Seen what exactly?"

"I— Nevermind," Ivvira rolled her eyes, shaking her head violently. "I guess there is a reason why Hekarro appointed you as his blade once, and me his eyes and ears. You strike everywhere, without thinking or even looking twice."

It took him a long moment of deliberation, chewing on his cheek before he spoke once more.

"What you're insinuating is impossible."

"Not as impossible as the life you are dreaming of," Ivvira snapped. "The Chieftess is marrying Hekarro, that much has been decided. And the man has never once relinquished anything he truly possessed before. Not his rule. Not his kingdom. Not his people. And most certainly not his bride."

"Then he will simply have to learn."

The tense impasse between the two Marshals only gets disrupted as Aloy stirred by his side. She whispered his name and nothing else, followed by the softest whimper of fear and loss.

"Sleep, settalah. I am here," Kotallo crooned tenderly, soothing the woman dreaming in his arms with but the gentlest strokes against her cheek. The quiet snore that followed is a reward on its own, and a fleeting smile plays on his lips.

Ivirra studies them together, doing her best to stifle the look of worry etching lines in her brows. Finally, she heaved a deep sigh of defeat.

"Fine. I can stall for you two until sunrise. But any longer and Hekarro may just come for you himself."

Her generous offer stunned him into silence and Kotallo blinked in shock.

"I–You have my gratitude."

She off-handedly dismissed his thanks, turning away to face the yawn of the waking horizon.

"The Chieftess needs to rest. The next trials are coming and they will not be any easier than the last three. And it's not like either of you fools are giving her the sleep she needs," Ivirra scolded, pausing from the distance to observe the looming clouds ahead. She lifted up her palm to feel the looming gusts of winds, watching darkly as the sharp sands fluttered past her painted fingertips and said,

"Do you intend on protecting her through the rest of the Desert Rituals as well?"

"No." Kotallo rasped. "I intend to protect her. Always."

The Lowland Marshal grimaced, her features darkening to a somber frown.

"Then perhaps you should consider how much danger your affections will bring her; should Hekarro decide that your fragile truce is over.

Surely, you should know this better than I do. How your war for her heart will eventually tear her apart. You may not want it to happen… but it will."

His body stiffened, Aloy's ribs suddenly throbbing with a conscious ache the more his grip on her tightened.

"It will not come to that." He uttered through the grit of his teeth. "I will find a way."

"To keep her? Or to keep her whole?" Ivvira asked, her question rumbling like the dark stirring clouds.

"To keep her as she is always meant to be. Content. Happy. Unburdened. And nothing more."

"You can still protect her happiness from afar, but you and I both know that the path of the unburdened was never meant for her to walk." Ivirra sighed, shaking her head before walking through the markless path back to civilization.

"Not for she who is meant to be The Chieftess. And nothing less."

---

Thry don't return to Scalding Spear until the yawn of morning, in the brief window between day and night when all is washed with golden light. Each step Aloy took with her Marshal was relaxed and unhurried, each span of a moment, well-spent as they quietly walked together.

It was small perfect moments like this that she lived for; the inconsistent splashes of true joy lost beneath the chitter-chatter and the noise of the earth. The moments when her hands were entwined around the calloused one she loved, without a need for the words they already knew. Instead, their lips were curved in a soft smile, both of them content to bask in the few minutes where everything calmed down and they could just stop, take a breath, and stare at the sky as the colors change and the moon slowly disappeared behind the horizon.

Kotallo sighed beside her, and she squeezed his hand, pulling him against the breeze, hoping to stretch out the cool spell of the night before the sun arrived once more with a burning vengeance.

But when they make it to the formidable gates of the settlement, Aloy found Ivvira pacing in frantic circles, nailbeds bleeding as she chewed on it with tangible anxiety.

"Finally!" she squeaked, jumping on her spot the moment she saw them, before running to come beckon the huntress. "Chieftess! You must come with me, now."

Without much thought for propriety, Ivvira yanked Aloy out of Kotallo's hand, glaring at her fellow Marshal before dragging her superior towards some unknown direction. The urgency in her voice had Aloy's stomach coiling in knots, and the tremble in the usually calm and collected soldier all but assured her that the ephemeral spell of tranquility from her evening had come to an end.

She wordlessly bid goodbye to Kotallo as she was dragged away. In return, he jerked his head quietly, assuring her that he would follow her in time. And when his shadow was all but gone in the other direction, only then does she hear the last vestiges of Ivvira's agitation.

"... never once seen him like this. And I've seen everything."

Aloy paused, clarity suddenly dawning in on her sleep-clouded mind.

"What is it 'Vira? Has something happened to Hekarro?" the huntress stammered.

"I… it is… difficult to explain, Chieftess. You simply must come and see it for yourself," the loyal soldier shook, eyes wide and without her usual composure.

Her feet swiftly took her towards the spiraling staircases of Scalding Spear's tower; far too familiar with the settlement's labyrinth to need the assistance of anyone else. Leaving Ivvira in a dust trail that she would follow, Aloy sprinted, skipping multiple steps at a time in haste to find the other counterpart to her measly heart.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sight that waited behind the parting curtains of scarlet tapestry, hiding devastation from the rest of the world.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the stark darkness, assisted only by the slightest glow of aubergine lights. Sharp shards of splintered wood and shattered glass were strewn all around her. To her left, a destroyed table scattered with the discarded feast of cold food and wines. To her right, a bouquet of wilted flowers; not the thorned kind that grew in the desert, but the wild kind that flourished in the fertile soil of the very jungles where they lost themselves in passion. And at the very center, on a large cushion made for two, was Hekarro… slumped over as he shone in the radiance of his torment, holding the small wooden likeness of his Chieftess in his hand as its head swung back and forth before his clouded gaze.

"Ivvira," she commanded to the Marshal that had barely caught up; her voice suddenly made of steel. "Call for a healer. And send for someone to clean up this mess."

"As you wish, Chieftess." Ivvira squeaked in relief, running to her duties towards the other direction despite being out of breath.

As soon as she was out of ear and sight, Aloy skipped towards Hekarro with equal frenzy; Stepping through the path of glass without an ounce of self preservation to make a straight path to her fate. At her thundering heel was the Chief's bobblehead, cracked in places as it laid on the far corner of the wooden floor before it was left forgotten. But it didn't matter. That was just a child's toy, and the real thing was within reach by the palm of her hands.

"Hekarro… what happened?" the huntress grasped, cupping his jaw to lift his downturned face.

Neither blue nor gold could be seen within his eyes as he stared up at her, spattered with his own blood. And before she could have the time to react, the towering man had wrapped his hands around her throat, crushing her windpipe with such a force that Aloy was certain she would snap. Stars blinded her, dancing behind her lids as her head crashed against the wall, thrown and pinned by the formidable man, baring his teeth to her with utter heartbreak and disgust.

"Orrehna." Hekarro hissed viciously, tightening his hold around her neck. He glowed like a sinister beacon, the light from within him blinding his own vision. (LINK-3)

"It's m-me," she coughed, clawing against his hand as she struggled for breath, "A-loy…"

Her eyelids drooped, her head heavy as it fell with the curtain of her oil-stained hair. It wouldn't be long before the darkness claimed her. Not much more than how long it took for her name to be tested and whispered between the forlorn Chief's mouth.

"Aloy?" Hekarro simmered, the lights intensifying, squinting as if his vision had been blurred. Realization dawned on him before hot fingers released her just to crush her body against his heaving chest. "Aloy." He croaked, his voice tremulous and washed with utter relief this time around.

She coughed in his embrace, crumbling along with his weight as the two of them fell down the floor.

Hekarro brushed her dirty hair away from her dust-covered face. Searching her features through all the muck before he held her close to her once again.

"Forgive me, Aloy," he murmured weakly, so unlike his usual self, his voice trembling in the same pace that his body shivered. "This place… is filled with ghosts."

She shook her head, ice water bathing her veins as she realized the exact brand of torment that her beloved suffered while she had been wailing in the throes of pleasure. "Uh-uh. It barely even hurt," she lied, swallowing the knot tightening around the bruises forming around her throat. "All the ghosts are gone, Hekarro. There's only you and me here." She said, kissing his clammy brows.

"At long last," Hekarro whispered, clutching her tight as if she were the ghost herself, threatening to disappear at any moment.

"You have me." She assured him, along with a light peppering of kisses along the unmasked burns of his face. "I promise, I'm not leaving you anytime soon."

"I would prefer if you never leave at all," he said, steering the long strands of her blackened braids to expose the love marks around her shoulders. "But wishful thinking never did anyone any good. Did it?"

Hoping to change the subject, the huntress rose, pulling him up with her. "Come. Let's you and me go to bed." She murmured, noting his weary, sleep-deprived lids with guilt.

She was grateful that he followed, though his piercing study never once faltered as he took in the sight of her from head to toe. She didn't shy away from him, and instead coaxed him to the edge of the plush, enormous bed so that she may tend to his many cuts and wounds.

Oddly enough, there were none to be found. Though the amount of destruction and blood spilt all around her proved otherwise, Hekarro sat unharmed, absent of any wounds aside from the ones he carried deep within.

She settled with pulling up a singular chair to sit before him, the only one somehow spared from his fit of rage. All the while keeping quiet while she cupped his blood-stained face on her palm and wiped it with a clean fabric, hoping to rub away all the proof that he had lost his control. He resisted, pulling away from her offered care, so she settled once more with simply watching him with quiet fondness and remorse.

"I'm sorry. I should have been there when you needed me."

He simply shrugged her apology off like water on a duck's feather. "A Chieftess never has to apologize for any of her actions. I thought I've taught you this much, at least."

"I'm not speaking as the Chieftess."

"Then who are you, at this moment?" His skin was cold to the touch, so far unlike his usual warmth. His thumb studied her tenderly, gliding from her tear-swollen lids and puffy nose, to her muddied cheeks and down to her kiss-bitten lips. "If not my Chieftess, then how else should I regard you?"

"Can't I be just Aloy when the two of us are alone? Am I not enough, as I am?"

"Settling for what is merely enough is beneath us both. You shall never be anything less than what you are. At least… not in my eyes."

"And what exactly am I?" The huntress sighed, hoping he held the answers to a question that had haunted her all her life.

It was his turn to cup her cheeks then, smearing the black and gold that covered her to find flushed translucent skin underneath.

"Salvation," Hekarro whispered, yearning and melancholic.

"You think too highly of me," Aloy hummed, playing with his hair absentmindedly, heat congregating on her face the longer he looked at her like so. It didn't matter what color his eyes were at the moment; he was always hungry for her. It didn't matter whether the lights on his veins were absent or bright; He was always burning for her.

And she somehow, someway, always had enough tinder within her to blaze with him just as bright.

How difficult it must be… to hold all that fire inside.

"No, my heart," Hekarro chuckled, pulling her brashly to sit on his lap. "You simply do not see yourself the way I see you."

To that, she couldn't help but giggle, seeing enough of her reflection within the shine in his eyes to know how crazed she truly looked. "I think you need to get your eyes checked. If this is what looks good to you, I'd hate to see what you find horrendous."

Her lungs swiftly emptied out as he pinned her down into their bed. He jailed her beneath him with large, rippling arms, and Aloy found joy in the revelation that her heart still functioned, somehow, after it had skipped a beat or two.

"My eyesight is far sharper than yours, setarrah. I see you just fine." Hekarro rumbled, his weight, crushing her in every tantalizing way. "I see you, always. Even when you do not see me."

She couldn't help but giggle even louder then. Without arms, she craned her lips upward before pecking him on the cheek.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you've spying on me, my Chief."

He grinned at her for the first time, a handsome one at that; one that would have paralyzed her if she hadn't already been completely immobilized by his steady hold.

"Oh yes…" Hekarro smirked devilishly, not losing a beat. "I've had my eyes on you long before yours have ever met mine. There is no escaping me."

She couldn't tell if he was being truthful or sarcastic. And in the muddled trance they shared together, Aloy couldn't find it in herself to care.

"Maybe I don't want to escape." She pecked his lips again. "I'm just fine where I am right now."

An open invitation. Ripe for the taking,

If only Ivvira hadn't come barging in, true to her duties as she ever was. "Chieftess! I've brought the healer with meeeee—eeeeppp!"

The medic crashed against her back as the two of them came to an abrupt halt, with the startled woman swiftly turning around and forcing the healer to turn away with her before he could see a thing.

"My Chief! F-forgive our intrusion. I— I was ordered by—"

"You and the healer may leave, Marshal. I will send for you when I need you." Hekarro barked impatiently, not once glancing away from the pool of loving, verdant orbs.

"Get some rest, Ivvira," Aloy snickered, returning Hekarro's dashing smirk. "You've earned it."

"Thank you, m-my Chieftess." The Marshal saluted before shoving the yawning medic out the curtained door. "M-my Chief." She bowed with repentance, just before quickly sprinting off in fear.

They both rose from their current position, groaning from the loss of a hypnotic spell, untimely broken.

"Do take it easy on the poor woman," she chuckled heartily when Hekarro rubbed his face with mild annoyance. "I don't think she signed up for any of this when she swore fealty at the Kulrut."

"Ivvira is as indispensable to me as my own limb. I intend on naming her my High Marshal when the time is right. The honor will be a great reward for her loyalty and dedication."

Aloy rose, arms and elbows used as her steeple to show her excited approval.

"She would love that. And mind you… it's been a long time coming. She's been acting very much like your High Marshal since she swore herself to your cause."

"And whose fault is that?" the Chief taunted lightheartedly, stooping down to her, hands between her hips. "You were supposed to be my High Marshal. Only, you took the armor and the honor, just to run away with all of it when you were supposed to stay."

"I would have made a terrible Marshal," Aloy hummed, hanging her arms around his neck. "I don't take orders very well, and it's never been in my nature to stay in one place for too long."

"No… I supposed that much wasn't meant to be," he crooned, his lips so close to hers she could just seize it. "I am learning that I much prefer you as my Chieftess than my subject, anyway."

"Lucky me." she hummed, toying with the singular braid she had given him, just for it to unravel. And when the last strand fell from her fingertips, it was Hekarro that had seized her; taking a fistful of her hair as their mouths joined together in callous harmony.

It was this that she craved for, oh so dearly. This wholeness that seeped into her pores when she was in love and being loved in return. For as long as she dismissed the notion, long ago during the age of pure innocence, Aloy soon found that there was nothing like the touch of another to make her feel so real. So electric. So alive. For nothing was as wonderful as exploring while being explored; As capturing that sensation of being so engaged with the beauty of another; of being so drowned within it, that reality itself becomes disconnected, and for a fleeting moment, she could step outside her own body and see that beauty reflected within her too.

And there was nothing like Hekarro; nothing like his fire incarnated through the boundless rage he unleashed without restraint; nothing like the scorching blaze in his every kiss, his untempered roughness forming beautiful bruises over her delicate skin.

For if this was what it meant to be kissed by fire, then there would never be a need for another drop of water. If his very touch was what would destroy her, she would dare not ask for any glue to put her back together. What was the need for it anyway?

A shattered soul could float for an eternity in the vacuum of darkness, but even the smallest peek of light would be enough to envelop it completely, kept together by its threads.

Somewhere in the midst of their passion, the hulking man had lifted her. But instead of pinning her against the wall like she wished he would do, he carried her in the way she'd seen the Old Ones once did to their brides and brought the two of them outside.

The radiant rays of golden sun greeted her, blinding her temporarily among the newness of the morning. He carried her with ease down the tower, paying no heed to saluting soldiers and sleepy bystanders that crossed his mysterious path.

"Where are you taking me?" Aloy giggled, hiding from prying eyes within the shadow of his embrace.

In the most playful manner she'd ever seen him do, Hekarro scrunched up his nose, eyeing her warily. "I cannot have you sharing our bed when you are this filthy, setarrah." The stubble in his jaw raised goosebumps along her skin as he came closer to her, hot breath and lips barely brushing against her ears.

"Let me rid you of all your filth," he whispered, purple in his eyes yet much still him while he winked at her with mischievous promise.

She nodded meekly, biting her bottom lip while she allowed him to carry her wherever he wished. The city gates blur past them, crowds parting at the sight of their leaders, hazed in a world of their own.

"So many people…" she murmured, eyes lingering on the spatter of color amongst the armors of a new wave of incoming travelers.

"Expect more to come as the next rituals progress. The people are regaled by the tales of their Chieftess… and many seek to honor you by challenging me for your hand. The rest of them are simply eager to witness if the Chief they follow can ever be bested."

"Have you ever considered that maybe they all just want to see us succeed?"

"For a moment," the pensive man admitted. "But I wouldn't be where I am today if I never prepared for the worst."

"You need to believe more in the people you lead, don't you think?"

"I believe in the collected strength of my tribe. I believe in our capability to achieve greatness when united to a common cause. I believe that my people have a chance to flourish beyond the tragic shadows that the Red Raids and the Clan Wars have left among us, and rise as an empire that all other kingdoms would tremble to behold.

I, however, am not so much a fool as to delude myself into thinking that the people believe in me just as much."

"I believe in you." She assured him, meaning every word. "I believe that there is no one better to lead the Tenakth into the next era of change than you."

"With you, as the sole exception." Hekarro uttered off-handedly, resuming his quiet ways up until they reached the very border of the settlement, where a hidden grotto was marked by a carved and weathered rock. He dismissed the soldiers that guarded its entrance with a jerk of his chin and nothing more, just before setting her feet down reluctantly to the sands.

The path among the unmarked cave was dark and narrow; barely the width of his shoulders. It did nothing to perturb Hekarro, leading their way with confidence through the red, crumbling rocks. Her hands never left his, far too anchored by their entanglement to let go. Her pulse thrummed with the contagious excitement he wore, heartbeat quickening from the boyish grin on his gleaming blue eyes as he took her deeper into the lightless passage.

At long last, the stale air morphed into a warm, fragrant breeze as the long way widened. Aloy inhaled the refreshing scent of springwater, before she was met with the dazzling mist of a bubbling spring. A delighted gasp escaped her while she stood among a small pool of shimmering blue waters, entirely entombed around a cave adorned with rich red tapestry, vibrant paints, incense and burnt-out candles. (LINK-4)

"And I almost believed Drakka when he told me he just naturally smelled nice," Aloy snickered, marveling at the newest unraveled secret that the sands withheld from her all along. "I can't wait to see his face when I bust him,"

Two servants bowed at their Chief's arrival, immediately preparing the baths as they relit every candle around and presented them with a tray of fragrant oils. Hekarro allowed her the novelty of picking one for them; a task she took eagerly as she deliberated between the most decadent scents. (LINK-5)

They all smelled heavenly, and in the end, Aloy simply pointed to the vessel that drew her eye the most: a crystalline glass filled with glittering, amethyst oil. It smelled like black currants, cardamoms, amber and nectar. The most heady combination reminding her of everything she loved.

Another pair of helpers prepared an array of colorful clothes, tailored just for their leaders. She ended up choosing a sheer black tunic with subtle blue and gold embellishments to change into later, while Hekarro chose a similar trouser and nothing else. The design reminded her of their attire at the rituals— only more opulent— and a part of her suddenly wondered if Hekarro had all the many clothes made just for her after she had off-handedly noted how comfortable they would have been for everyday wearing.

"You know, without all the blood stains and singes," she joked at him, laughing while she peeked through one of its burnt holes, once upon a time.

Surely, he wouldn't.

The last servants among them began setting a table with the spiced wine she knew Hekarro favored, along with an array of exotic fruits that would put Drakka's so-called feast to shame.

Absolute power, as it turned out, had many different perks.

One among them, is that she may never have to hunt for food, ever again.

The servant's presence didn't bother Aloy half as much as their eager service when they began to assist with her undressing. But when one of the comely handmaidens began reaching up on Hekarro's shoulder to unclasp his armor with a flirtatious smile and a flushed giggle; a frayed thread the huntress didn't know was within her suddenly snapped.

She will not suffer jealousy. Not today.

Not in her own promised kingdom.

"You can go now," she said, glaring at the woman with a newfound icy demeanor; a sharper edge she only just discovered she even possesed. "All of you are dismissed."

The four scattered away with a reverent bow, quickly leaving according to her instructions. The servant besotted by her Chief however, merely shrank from her suffocating glower, hands immediately retreating away from where it didn't belong. She made no move aside from that, and instead looked up at Hekarro, waiting for his instruction.

"I shall leave under my Chief's command and no one else's," she insisted, stars in her eyes as she sought Hekarro for some sort of support.

He made no indication to even notice her, his adoring eyes fixed and entranced with genuine surprise and beguilement for Aloy alone.

Irritated by the woman's defiance, the huntress walked past her and Hekarro's statuesque form. She sighed deeply, hoping to control her temper, and slowly began stripping all her clothing on her own. She could feel Hekarro's hungry gaze traveling on her skin, watching intently as she undid the ties around her shoulders, then her waist, and wriggled out of them, smalls and all, one leg at a time.

She then walked past the table of decadent foods, plucking a crimson berry from its stem with lazy fingers. Unbothered by the unwavering study of curious eyes, she dipped her toes to the brimming hot water, then sank her body entirely, wading through the heavenly warmth that did wonders for her aching bones. It did nothing, however, to assuage the grating nuisance that remained in her teeth.

"You can either leave now, or I can have my husband drag you out of my sight." Aloy said calmly, turning towards her spectators with brazen nakedness as she popped the berry in her mouth. She licked off its juices from her wrist, savoring it… unbothered as it stained her fingertips and lips dark red. "Either way, your time serving him is over." (LINK-6)

In the quickest moment of hesitation, the handmaiden lost all choice in the matter, led towards the exit of the cavern by none other than the man she craved and followed.

"It would have been better if you defied me and not her. I would have forgiven you then."

"One cannot defy what is not in command," the woman insisted, repentant only to him. "The sands will show the truth in time."

"Look forward to it. And see yourself mistaken." Hekarro snapped, before summoning the rest of the lingering servants to take their comrade away. They do so eagerly, apologizing to their Chieftess with a clumsy curtsy before scolding the youngest among them along their way out.

They could not leave fast enough.

Aloy turned to the trickling waterfall among the stone walls, still far too annoyed to be facing Hekarro with the same ardor she had for him mere moments ago. Choosing to close her eyes and let the warm waters wash the grime away from her skin, she hardly heard Hekarro approach her up until his rippling arms had already wrapped around her waist.

He pulled her close to his broad chest, entirely devoid of all armor, matching her state of bareness. Abrupt heat pooled within her stomach, wrapping its long tendrils all around her bones.

"I should have known even jealousy would be a pretty shade on you too," he murmured, the pigments along his jaw, dripping down into her unpainted chest.

"I am the Chieftess. I do not get jealous," Aloy snapped, refusing to meet his beckoning gaze.

"You can stand to be more jealous every once in a while," he said brushing his mouth against her temple with a palpable smile. "Especially when it is for me."

"I don't get jealous, Hekarro," the huntress twirled around forcefully, pushing him to the smoothed stone of the hot spring's edge. She climbed atop the rigid musculature of his gloriously well-defined stomach, trapping him between her thighs.. "I get furious."

"I find your fury even more beautiful." Hekarro hummed, showing his approval by lifting her chin with a calloused finger, so she could see the truth in his eyes. "Wear it more often and no one shall dare defy you ever again."

He stretched out his shoulders then, both arms relaxing at the pool's edge while they sank deeper into the steaming waters.

"You haven't seen me at my angriest yet. I might just surprise you," she pouted, toying with the ink-black tendrils of his hair, floating lazily amongst the haze of mist and heady incense.

"Everything about you is a surprise. It astounds me that you continue to find ways to surprise me daily."

Aloy chuckled, wrapping his hair around her slender fingers.

"At least you know you'll never be bored with me."

His hands found his way around her collar boners, caressing her with a tenderness she's never known from him before. His touch was a trail of fire amidst water; gliding and teasing everywhere in her trembling body… everywhere except where she needed to be touched the most.

"I can do the same thing with you a million times, in a million lives and I would never be bored," the stoic man murmured serenely. "Your very presence alone is the anathema to all things dull in this world."

"And you're no small prize, yourself," she grumbled, eyeing his exquisite form, perfectly inked with valiant stories of his victories, carved along the strength of his muscles and above his vicious scars. "I suppose I should expect to see that girl among the challengers in tomorrow's rituals. With many others."

"Let them come," Hekarro chuckled against her ribcage, coaxing pleasant shivers to travel up and down her spine. "None shall triumph above you and I."

"They can try," Aloy snapped possessively before grabbing his face in her hands and taking his lips in hers. She bit down on it, hard and drawing blood. "But what's mine is mine and you're no one else's but mine."

If that painted her a hypocrite then so be it.

She was the Chieftess.

And the Chieftess has no need to explain nor apologize to anyone for her whims.

Aloy sat upright and settled her thighs on either side of his, springwater splashing in her wake. She shrugged off the curtain of copper clinging against her chest and tossed it to fall behind her shoulders. With an unabashed renewal of her voracious appetite, she leaned in to weave her hands around his neck and felt the prick of his nails tracing the curves and the sensitive skin of her back. They exchange an array of contented murmurs, the both of them testing one another with small scrapes, pecks and tugs in lieu of utter devastation.

Her own nails dug into the base of his scalp, winding her greedy fingers into a knotted fist of raven-black hair and gripping tightly. Her reward was the deepest, appreciative growl, vibrating from his mouth where it lay on her neck. She wasn't ever surprised when rough was the right answer; her own preferences tended that way and Hekarro could withstand more than his share of pain without flinching.

Not that she could stop from flinching herself the moment his girth caressed against the heat of her over-sensitive folds.

The ache only spurned her further. The hunger in her, as endless as the skies were high.

"Hekarro, I…" Aloy stammered, torn between honesty and deceit. Would she admit to him how near she danced within her limit, or would she simply ask him for mercy?

She decided in that moment, that the Chieftess also had no limits. And mercy, she had learned, was a notion best reserved for the ignorant and the weak.

"I know what you need, Aloy." Hekarro thumbed her cheek, slow and deliberate, swiping the mingling of condensation and sweat from her freckles down to her puffy lips. "Teach me how to be gentle… just for you."

Of all the sweetest words to have caressed her ears, his had always been the ones which led her heart astray. But even then Aloy had to make sure if it remained beating, when it faltered so sharply whenever he promised her the world and more.

"I don't know much about gentleness," the huntress confessed. "Maybe even less than you do."

"Then we will learn its ways, together."

Massive palms cupped her bottom, steering her towards his velvety hardness before allowing gravity to do the dirty work for them. She sank into him excruciatingly slow, reveling in every which way he filled her, stretched her, made every inch of her yield and make way for the mass of him that she would somehow find the space inside her for.

Every muted moan of hers echoed loudly among the sandstone walls, every hiss and groan rumbling from his chest, reverberating in symphony among the cascade of steaming waters.

Even his kiss was tender; safe, steady and controlled. It was as if he was trying to make up for the heedless way they coupled the night before; seeking penance in the carnal melding of their mouths and flesh.

"You're too good to me. You know that?" Her hand ran up and down the expanse of his battered back, spine arching while she rode him to a torturous pace. His restraint was evident in his haggard breathing, sweat dripping from his brows while he endured the price of chivalry with a set grimness between his clenched teeth.

"Perhaps, all the rest before me were simply inferior."

"You all have your own merits," she heartlessly taunted. It earned her a firm smack in the ass, and a sultry mewl escaped her while she relished its sting.

"And yet none of them will ever do, by the time I'm done with you." Hekarro rumbled with dangerous promise, blazing with the corruption that bathed them both among the light of purple fire.

He lifted her weight with ease, their bodies not once losing connection, both of them dripping wet while he fucked her, standing up. It wouldn't last too long, however, for his only intent was to flip them over; so that he would be her domineering captor, and she; the dominated. Her hips ground up to meet him just as enthusiastically as she could manage with her knees so spread and limbs refusing to obey any rational thought. He pressed his forehead to hers and she grasped at his hair by its roots, gasping as his grip tightened and he took over the pace.

The combined heat of the water and his embrace engulfed her with a dizzying fever, the passion of their joining so rapturous that surely the entire pool would boil over in a cloud of their lust. There wasn't a single width of space between them as he wrapped around the measly slight of her weightlessness, their friction so exquisite that surely they melted into one another. His overwhelming length slipped in and out of her in a harrowing rhythm, filling her magnificently, languidly, without a rush. His arm was her pillow; the stone and spring, her bed. Under Hekarro's sovereignty, there was nothing left for her to do but to take and take; her heart and body, a country oppressed by his magnate rule.

And she loved every grueling assault, every bright emotion he poured into her and filled her darkness with. Staving it away, if only for one glorious moment.

"Hekarro— I— I'm—"

Falling. Faster. Deeper.

To where; to which void… it hardly even mattered.

"I know, setarrah." The lost man rasped, fevered brows dripping sweat, remaining pressed against hers while he buried his cock to her very depths. And then even deeper. "I feel it too."

It took everything in her to hold on to him and refuse to let go. But the more she clung tighter, the more it felt like one of them might somehow slip away; much like the rivulets of oil and dirt running off her purified skin before dissipating into the blinding mist.

She grabbed onto him more desperately, drawing deep valleys of poison out of his tattooed back in wide canyons; bathing in its gorges; drawing from every strength stored in her weary bones to keep them just like this: Together.

Aloy would cry out to the heavens, if only she was certain that someone sat in the throne of paradise to listen to her most profligate prayers. Though the notion was questionable, a collection of voices coming from the mouth of the cave's passageway certainly assured her that some ears, at least, were indeed listening.

Her stomach sank at the sound of a familiar mountainous brogue; one that had made its home in her memories and her soul.

Kotallo.

In rushed despair, the huntress' mouth bit into the flesh of the Chief's right shoulder, hoping to muffle the shameless songs resonating from her lungs. Hekarro hissed and peeled her off, forcing her apart, tasting his blood on her lips.

"Let him hear as I've heard," he told her, pounding into her flesh harder. "Let him ache as I've ached." He said, gripping over the bruises on her hips harder. "Let him know that his touch can always be erased, and those that can't be washed away, I shall mark it with my own."

He always demanded more of her, almost just as much as she took from him. And who was she to deny him the very pleasures he gave?

"Hekarro… I need more."

"Mean it," her Chief commanded, pulling her hair to expose her tightened throat.

"HEKARRO, FUCK ME HARDER OR I SWEAR I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" She cried, slapping him across the cheek, slicing it with her nails and drawing blood. What was gentleness compared to rage anyway? If she herself could pick between a gentle fate and an all-consuming end then she would choose to be devoured.

The wound she had inflicted healed, right before her eyes.

Then, Hekarro wiped and licked the sparkling Corruption of his fingers, before rewarding her with a bone-shivering smirk.

"Good girl."

He reduced her into a dribbled mess after that. Drew out every cry and whimper, summoned every scream and shout within her, echoing brashly through their shared paradise. Somewhere along the way, she had gone from being beneath him to before him; with her as his exalted empress, and him, her lofty throne.

"I have dreamt of this since I first saw your vision, soaked in the rain,' he confessed through hungry lids. "But you, by far, are much better than any dream I've ever dared to have."

He flicked his tongue at her breast, sucking on it before marking the space above her heart, right next to the scarred, silver pendant where she wore another man's name. His kiss burned in her skin, painful and bruising.

But pain is temporary, whereas his possession will linger and last.

Even in his ferocity, Hekarro held her close; Tender and precious, cradled against his ramming heart. Their synchronized pulse, their perfect dance, had awakened something brand new and unknown within their collision, one that Aloy could only describe as a thing of absolute bliss and beauty.

And what is absolute beauty if not the connection with another? To belong in a place within the endlessness of the universe; to be a part of something, and it be a part of you. What is it, if not giving love and having it returned with more? To be simultaneously embraced so wholly while embracing. To be enveloped by light so completely, and yet still be shining from within.

"You are mine," Aloy sobbed, reaching the precipice of transcendence. "And I am yours."

"I am yours and you are mine," Hekarro professed with heightened ardor, loving her more than ever. Loving her more than she deserved.

The tidal wave of their joining came crashing upon them in perfect synchrony, and for one blissful moment, Aloy knew she was whole. Kotallo's touch still lingered inside her body, but mix it with Hekarro's adoration and she felt wonderfully, whole-heartedly filled.

Her shame for her greed had gone, somewhere along the way. It had morphed into a thing of glimmering hope, of happiness within reach, some way… somehow.

But that may just be the same greed, talking. Screaming through her contorted mouth. Intensifying as she exploded with the force of a collapsing star while he spilled his pleasure and mixed it with hers.

An eternity of this would never be enough.

They pressed their fevered brows together, basking in the afterglow of contrasting colors; the gemstones in his eyes flickering in contrast to the gold she bore on hers.

"I can't stop myself from loving you…" she whispered, "I couldn't. Even if I tried."

"And I cannot stop you from loving who you wish to, just as I cannot stop others from loving you," Hekarro whispered, kissing the golden ring delicately wrapped around her finger, while they remained joined together. "But only I will ever be your husband and your home. That will be enough for me."

And just like that, the hope was gone. Leaving in its wake the bitter taste of her foolishness. She raised herself from him and the warm waters, wincing from the sudden emptiness and the cold.

Her pruny hands made busy work with retrieving a glass of spiced wine upon the cushions, drinking one entirely before filling it up again and returning to her lover with both glass and bottle. Hekarro welcomed her with an outstretched arm, taking the half-filled vessel she offered before she sank back to his hypnotic embrace.

"Didn't you say settling for just enough is beneath us both?"

"And yet, I am willing to do it for you," he answered, hardly paying attention to the drink.

Her brows furrowed, suddenly so shy against his heated study despite all that they had done. Her teeth gnawed at her lips, tasting the blood and wine that had mixed between the grooves of it.

"But… why?" she couldn't help but wonder.

"Because you are you," Hekarro replied simply, gleaming with an apparent truth. "Because you are worth it."

The more she tried to read him, the less she was able to do so. It bothered her; how her husband before the Ten had an uncanny ability to be so attuned with her thoughts, and yet he was still as shrouded as ever to her; a man of choice words that said only what he meant and never more.

She would rectify the gap between them, in any way she could.

"Hey… would you humor me again, and play a game with me?" Aloy stammered, flustered with her own foolish request.

"I would love to but, I fear I might just truly break you if you don't get a moment of rest," the proud Chief chuckled playfully, amused at his own lighthearted jab. She smacked him lightly against his handsome, unpainted cheek.

"Not that kind of game," she coughed, blushing the same shade as the wine from head to toe. "I meant… a drinking game. Have you ever played 'Drink If You've Ever'?"

"The Lowlands have a similar game, but we call it 'Never Have I Ever'."

"Good," Aloy smiled, settling on his lap as they shared a laxed moment of buoyant bliss. "I'll play it my way and you can play it your way."

His stoic nod was her only reply, before the huntress had already begun the game, not bothering with the rules this time around.

"Drink if you've ever lied to someone to protect them."

Hekarro scoffed, "Haven't we all?" and they both drank together.

"Fair enough… Drink if you've ever lied to someone you loved." Aloy continued, staring at his wine-stained lips.

He nodded quietly and drank along with her once more.

"Drink if you've ever lied to me." The huntress whispered, seeking honesty as she sipped on her glass; admitting quietly that even she had lied to herself plenty of times before.

Hekarro on the other hand, did not move. She raised an eyebrow, laughing nervously at his sudden change in demeanor.

"Are you lying to me right now?" Her elbow bumped against his chest sharply, cajoling him out of his straying thoughts. He shook his head, clearing his throat.

"There is a difference between outright lying and withholding the entire truth," was the man's stoic answer.

"And what truth is it, that you are hiding from me?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't remain hidden now, would it?"

It unnerved her deeply, how even blatant honesty can somehow curtain a deeper meaning.

"Is that the type of marriage we have?" she said, facing him with utmost curiosity. "The kind that allows us to hide things from each other?"

For once, the man was rendered speechless; not by choice but by true inability to find the right words. But a man who knew everything, would soon have every answer as well. And Hekarro had somehow always known far more, even of herself

"There are two kinds of secrets, Aloy: Those that poison, and those that save. You may keep to yourself the latter, but never the other." He told her, pulling her close to his body, before tasting her smile. "The poison, I shall drink with you."

Aloy sighed sweetly, nodding in her turn to lose words.

"I believe I am owed my share of answers," Hekarro rumbled, refilling her cup. "The rules are the same, as well as the honesty it demands."

She relaxed her back against chest, sated and ready.

"Never have I ever met someone else with the very same principles as I do," the Chief murmured.

She easily drank, the wine, heady in her mind as the warmth of alcohol spread through her fingertips and cheeks.

"Sometimes, I feel like what I see, nobody else sees… or…"

"Or the rest of the world simply chooses to remain blind to the horrors we face."

"Exactly," she said, drinking this time out of necessity and not out of rules. Taking his cue, Hekarro spoke once more, swirling his cup.

"Never have I ever truly belonged among the people I choose to protect."

To that, Aloy could cheer a whole cask of wine; A child of exile without a mother, treading through rough territories and fighting to make it fit to be a home. To everyone except for herself.

"I'm pretty sure that's just my curse," the huntress snickered bitterly.

"It is our birthright," Hekarro countered. "A shepherd was not born to be one with the sheep, just as a tree would never bend lower to grow among the shrubs."

"It's not so bad though… when I'm here in the west. With the Tenakth.

In the east, I'm just some kind of prophetic legend. But at least here the people talk to me like I'm actually human. Even when they don't like me much."

"Those who dislike you, only envy you as you are because you remind them of what they can never be: beautiful, powerful and dangerous." He rasped appreciatively, drawing meaningless patterns on her skin with his free hand. She flushed at his flattery, emboldened whenever he looked at her like so.

"So are you." Aloy whispered, tracing the scar another lover had left on him, right atop the drumbeat of war upon his chest.

"So am I."

She had almost forgotten that they were in the middle of a silly game, but Hekarro had not, and so, she found herself caught entirely off-guard when he spoke to her again, his voice but a bare whisper above the haggard bubbling of simmering waters.

"Never have I ever known what it was like to be truly understood. Until you." Hekarro confessed, toying with one of the unraveling braids by her shoulder.

Her heartbeat faltered a third time and she emptied her glass, much to his pleasure. For every victory she'd ever earned, Hekarro had completed its counterpart on his own terms. In this game, they might as well drink from the very same cup. Because if destiny were woven by a thousand vibrant tapestries, hers and Hekarro's were cut from the same cloth; stitched together by the very same crimson-stained threads.

"Not even Kotallo?" Hekarro challenged with cautious skepticism.

Aloy shook her head with all honesty, finding no shame in her confession.

"Kotallo accepts me for who I am. No matter what I am. And I accept him. That much has always been enough for me."

"Then you are settling," the man smirked triumphantly.

"Not with him." Aloy denied immediately, refusing to entertain the notion for even a split-second. "Never with him."

She set aside her emptied glass so that she may free her arms and wrap it around his neck. "But no one, not even Kotallo, or anyone before him, has ever understood my burdens, my hopes and dreams as much as you do."

Following her lead, Hekarro drained his bottle and threw it across the cavern; letting it smash into stained-glass splinters without a thought. His blood visibly simmered, returning with the same intensity as when they rose and fell together.

He couldn't frighten her, even if he tried.

"Do tell me all about your previous lovers," the man sneered, grabbing her by her waist possessively before placing her on his lap. "All the ones that have foolishly staked their claim in my heart."

As it turned out, Aloy could find the beauty in his impetuous jealousy as well. But in this case, the vibrant shade of envy he wore was entirely unnecessary.

"I've tried to have my fair share of flings with both men and women though I can't say I grew a taste for it. But… before you and Kotallo, I've only ever come close to loving one other man."

The mention alone of the other darkened her mood abruptly; forming storm clouds above her head that only she could see. But if Hekarro could see, then he would find the sickly drizzle of blood pouring down on her, before it came crashing down and drowned her within its crimson flood.

"And?" Hekarro patiently waited.

"And he taught me everything that love was not," she managed to say with a straight face, palm lingering against her deepest scar.

The taste of blood was thick in her mouth; drawn from her lips before she had realized she'd been biting it hard. If Hekarro hadn't smoothed her hair over her shoulder, she would hardly have noticed how cold she had gotten, trembling amidst the heated spring.

"Let's get you out of the water," Hekarro concluded their game, understanding her affliction like she had understood his. She must have been dizzier than she thought, rising just to have her knees buckle under her weight as her vision began to swim. Luckily enough, it was the Chief's omnipresence that saved her, steadying her steps with his unwavering support.

But it was her turn to see ghosts then, and in her daze, she hardly heard the commotion of screams and shouts breaking out from outside; Up until a triad of fighting warriors had come barging into their private sanctum, nursing bloody noses, swollen eyes and gashed cheeks.

She met eyes with Ivvira first, furious as ever while she chased after another man. Beside her, violet eyes. Kotallo bled from his mouth, stomping with equal fury as the Marshal he overtook.

And before her, the mirage of the last person she'd ever wanted to see again, holding a green and gold dagger that was not his to bear.

"So it's true," the mysterious warrior stood, dropping the knife on the wet, stone floor while as he slowly removed the legendary helmet from his head. "You have found a taste for marriage as you have found your taste for the kill.

I must say, Aloy. I am completely heartbroken."

Grey eyes met with her veridian, colder than the ice in Hekarro's gaze. All at once, Aloy was set afire with fury; all the goodness inside her exorcized to make way for the most soulless parts to take over and take control. She tasted nothing else but vehement fury in her mouth. His name, as loathsome as the last time she allowed it to escape her in a broken whisper.

Only this time, the huntress roared.

"Nil."

She didn't care that she was naked as she lunged at him and pinned him to the ground. She didn't care how many pairs of stunned eyes would witness her coming crimes. With the speed of lightning, Aloy grabbed Kotallo's dagger from the floor and lunged at the trespasser until he fell below her weight.

She held the blade's sharp edge against crimson painted throat, slicing narrowly, deep enough to draw blood. It took all of her restraint not to carve to the bone, shivering with utmost temptation to inflict her wrath.

"Didn't I swear I'd kill you, the next time I saw your face?"

Her voice was unrecognizable, even to her own ears.

"You are as magnificent as ever, Sunlight." he murmured, smiling in the face of death as he caressed her scarred cheek. He wiped away the scalding tears that followed, with a tenderness which only enraged her more.

A new batch of Marshals echoed along the narrow hallways, announcing their impending arrival, far too late.

Aloy blinked away her tears but the flames of hatred only grew in her stomach. And in the moment, she suddenly couldn't bear to be so near him that they touched. She stood, just as rapidly as she had pinned him down, every part of her needing to be scrubbed clean once again wherever their skins met. Her shaking hands dropped the dagger, its metallic clatter, echoing in the mist. And then, the huntress retreated back to Hekarro's side and the translucent black fabric he wrapped around her body.

Forcing labored breaths through her nostrils, the huntress summoned her steel so that she could be nothing less than what she was, refusing to be reduced once again to be anything much, much lesser.

And when she turned to face them once more; she regarded each Marshal that had been sworn to her cause with the acerbic coldness of a tempest. With a chilling breath, Aloy released a singular command.

"Seize him."

The fight that followed was a violent one; with the very best of her warriors struggling to keep the singular man down. He would fall three of them before he was completely overcome, but not before a long exchange of brutal throws and violent punches until he had no choice but to yield to every blade that surrounded his throat.

Kotallo kicked Nil from behind, causing him to come crashing down on his knees, before gripping his head to a strained angle by his short, raven hair.

"Your soldiers could use a bit more brushing up," the man chuckled, sniffing through his bloody nose while he struggled to free his outstretched arms, held back by the other soldiers. "These 'warriors' are not going to be enough to protect you from the dangers coming your way."

"You are a slippery one, I'll give you that much," her most favored Marshal growled, veins lit up with corrupted fire. "But I assure you, Aloy needs for no one else when it comes to her protection."

"I like this one," the other winked at her, causing acidic bile to rise up her throat. "This one can stay."

"Would you care to tell me who this man is, my heart," Hekarro rumbled, stepping forward, donned with black trousers loosely hanging from his hips. His arm found his way around hers, standing beside her and her ruthless judgment.

"He is nothing. No one. Just another ghost in the desert, wearing a dead man's face." Aloy answered, icicles in her veins.

"I see…" Hekarro hummed, more amused than annoyed. "And would you prefer said face, removed from your sight, or simply removed?"

"I want him erased completely. So I can pretend like he never existed in the first place." She sneered with disgust.

"Is this how you treat the man you once loved?" The trespasser lightheartedly mentioned, unbothered by the lions whose den he had disturbed.

"I never loved you." Aloy spat. "Just the man I wished you were."

"Well, here I am. Everything you wished for, in the flesh and bone."

All she wished was for him to disappear. As soon as possible, before more questions came with the answers she never wanted unearthed. Glaring at Kotallo then Ivvira and the rest of the Marshals, the Chieftess decreed another iron-clad command.

"Take him away! Drag him to Meridian or leave him for the vultures. I don't care where, as long as I never have to suffer the sight of him again.

And if he resists, or dares try to come back, carve out his heart and bring it to me."

If she had ever been deemed cruel, she wouldn't dare deny it. But she would also argue to both judge and jury that this man had been far crueler to her own. And exile was still a slight mercy compared to the grisly end waiting for him if either of her beloved found out just how much she had truly been wronged.

You know what they say: 'An eye for an eye. A heart for a heart.'

And she was owed so much more than that.

Ivvira and the rest of her squad moved as they were commanded, only to be halted by the stay of her Chief's hand.

"Just who are you, exactly?" Hekarro asked the stranger in their midst, stoked by his dangerous curiosity. In her haste, she pulled his massive arm, hoping to distract Hekarro from the quickly unraveling truth.

"I told you already. He's nobody. Nothing he says matters," she squeaked octaves high, beckoning the man glowing brighter by the second. Her futile attempts weren't the only stones weighing down on her stomach, for when she looked up, she saw Kotallo, eyeing the man with equally morbid concern.

"Ivvira, I command you to take this man away!" she called out with anger, her pulse drumming to the point of a vicious headache. The Marshal tried to move, just to be held still by her Chief and superior, grasping her by the shoulder.

"You will follow your Chieftess' orders. After, I hear this man's name and purpose and not a moment sooner."

"No, he is my prisoner. I'm the one who defeated him. I'm the one who held the knife to his throat." Aloy snapped, this time at the very man she adored. She matched his corruption with just as much intensity; More ferocious than she ever was. "He's mine to do as I please with. What I say goes."

"I only want to know this man's identity."

"And I want him gone! Now."

"I… I…" Torn between her loyalties, Ivvira's hold on the man loosened, just enough for him to disarm her, shake all the rest of them off his shoulders and come dashing towards Aloy before he fell to her feet.

Her heart dropped the moment Nil opened his mouth.

"I am Red Teeth, her partner. Teacher. Lover. And if fate had been kinder, I would have also been a husband and a father," the warrior in Tenakth armor exclaimed. "And I am here to fight for what once was mine."

A chilling shudder of dread penetrated her very bones as Aloy closed her eyes. Her heart dropped to the ground, leaving cracks and fissures in its wake. Her knees trembled once again, and before she could protest, she heard Kotallo stomping forward, thunder in each step he took.

When her lids lifted from her daze, the sight of Nil struggling for his breath within her Marshal's unyielding chokehold welcomed her, squeezing the life out of him in such brutal manner with his one arm alone. Gray eyes bugged out of its sockets, frenzied hands clawing at everything and anything in a mad quest for air. In the last of his desperation, he swung out a silver blade of his own, slicing the Marshal across his arm in frantic, shallow strokes. In his final attempt, he buried his blade to the hilt within Kotallo's thighs.

She doubted Kotallo even felt it.

Each wound Nil doled out to her sworn protector simply healed before their very eyes; the violet lights from inside him burning brighter than the candles all around them, rivaled only by the richer hue of Hekarro's own fire. And when at last, the darkness had claimed the Carja, disguised as one of the people she ruled over, Kotallo dropped his unconscious body before her heels, presented to her like a precious gift.

The two men stood over her former lover, both warriors unrecognizable from the seething rage they wore in their eyes and skin. Kotallo growled, pulling out the silver knife from his flesh. The useless knife clattered on the floor with a hollow ring, while purple lights stitched even his deepest wound together with a hiss. Spitting to the ground, the radiant Marshal promised more violence to come.

"Fate won't be much kinder to you here either. Red Teeth."

She would have loved nothing more than vengeance, served to her upon a golden platter. But all Aloy could taste in this moment was the coat of iron in her mouth when Hekarro whole-heartedly agreed, shattering the silver blade into a thousand fragments under his bare heel.

---

End Notes: I know this was 90% gratuitous smut but I swear if you squint real hard there's alot of plot I wedged there. I hope you guys enjoyed your last breath of semi-relaxation. The desert trials are coming right up and with it, more chaos (and fun)

If you liked any part of this chapter, or any of my artworks at all, please let me know in the comments or simply leave a heart. I cannot emphasize to you guys enough just how soul-consuming this story is to write and try to make alive… and I truly rely so much on your feedback and encouragement for motivation to keep going. It's your words that inspire me and your support that gets me to overcome my self-doubts.

IMPORTANT: Do you guys prefer shorter but more frequent updates , or my episodic ones that go past 20-25k but takes over a month to finish. I'm running a poll so please let me know

I love you all. Updates should be more regular after the Horizon Big Bang Event. Keep a look out for that 3