I love Erend. He's like a big, mohawked, bearded teddy bear with a hammer who drinks ale and smashes faces. It's cute when he tries to sound confident and nonchalant about all the stuff Aloy gets involved in then freaks out when it's really weird ("There's two of you now!). I hate I had to kill Ersa, but, like Rost and Aloy, it was a major moment in his development. She told him he "couldn't keep playing around and had to grow up", but how much more of an impact will that have as the last words spoken between them than just the words on her deathbed? The regret and guilt!
(Sorry for the format; this site doesn't like me doing this like a bullet list.)
I own nothing except my AU. The characters of Horizon Zero Dawn and the sequel game Horizon Forbidden West belong to Guerilla Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Mathijs de Jonge.
~Aaron "Erend" Vangard~
Police Lieutenant
-He followed his elder sister, Police Captain Ersa Vangard, into the force out of a sense of obligation, but after she was killed by the right wing extremist Dervahl, he stayed so he could keep people safe from those like him.
He met Aloy when she visited the courthouse to give testimony for a case she had been hired for. She impressed him with her drive and fiery spirit, and he told her he'll be looking forward to when she has her license and suggested that maybe they could work together on a case sometime.
-Their friendship ended up saving him from a life in the bottle when Ersa died. Their last conversation had been Ersa reprimanding him at his apartment on his lazy attitude at work. She told him that, as a lieutenant and her younger brother, he was held to higher standard than others in the precinct. He fumbled and told her that she didn't understand what is was like to be the little brother of "The Vanguard" and that she should back off. She got upset and told him that he couldn't stay like this forever. She knew he could be so much more than what he currently was, but he had to grow up if he wanted to have a future in the force. He told her to get out. When she left, neither knew she'd been targeted by Dervahl to get at Mayor Avad and she was taken.
~-The next morning, he discovered she was gone and raised the entire force to look for her. They were too late to save her life, but all she could say when Erend found her was "About time, little brother," before dying in his arms. He started hitting the bars longer and harder, and eventually Aloy found him. She wouldn't let him fall so far and forced him to shape up; if not for himself, then to honor his sister and her own hope that he could be better. In his grief, he had forgotten that she acknowledged him alone when they found her, and realized that she never gave up on him. He vowed to do better for Ersa and decided that he'd aim for the captaincy at his first opportunity. She believed in him, so he would too
He enjoys drinking (he has a high tolerance), wrestling with Kotallo (he struggles against him, so he enjoys the challenge), chess with Varl (they have a fairly even win-loss ratio; neither have beaten Kotallo), rocking out on his guitar to heavy metal music, and tinkering with it to get the best sound with Beta and Aloy (their technical knowhow helps him with the tuning).
He cares deeply about Aloy, but he's unsure if it's romantic or platonic. So scared of losing her friendship by pushing, he's decided to wait and let her make the choice.
Plays the role of another older brother with Varl for Beta and does his best to make her feel safe.
-Doesn't mind his real name, but he let Beta give him one to help her feel safe and to bond. It comes from his willingness to be her "errand boy" of sorts to make her feel better.
Varl and Zo's casual PDA (kissing, cuddling, and thinly veiled requests for intimacy/ "studying" 😏) irritates him a bit. He doesn't mind that they're together, but the constant sappy stuff gets annoying.