Aleida Erikson ⚙ Aloy of the Nora (mechanical) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-08-17 23:16:00 |
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In her young life, Aloy had experienced her fair share of disappointments. She had experienced heartbreak and uncertainty and anger. There had always been a part of her that had felt so direly misplaced, and all she wanted was to know where she belonged. There had to be somewhere in the world where she fit. She had been close to those answers. The reward for winning The Proving was a boon from the matriarchs. She had been about to ask for that boon, a great swell of hope and pride at her success welling in her chest, when that had all been destroyed in a moment’s notice. Only a few of the Braves had successfully escaped from the ambush that took place on the mountaintop. She had watched a girl that she hoped to be friends with die, her life so fragile that it was taken from her strong body in just seconds. Then the idiotic, Bast had to run after Valla and they were both gone. It was just her. She didn’t know how she had successfully taken out all of them, but perhaps her focus had given her an edge that she had never anticipated to experience in that kind of situation. She had taken down plenty of machines in her life, but she had never killed a person before. It felt wrong, but there was no shame in survival. She had stooped over the leader of the assault, and much to her surprise, he had been wearing a focus much like her own. It glowed brightly, and she examined it curiously before stowing it to be examined once she left this massacre behind her. Only she hadn’t taken out every enemy, it seemed. Rost would have been disappointed at how she let her guard down, she thought, as the impossibly strong hand of a towering man wrapped around her throat. He carried her at an arm’s length towards the edge of the mountain, his hand crushing around her throat so tightly that she could not breathe as she grunted and flailed, trying to kick out at him. She braced one hand against his arm, trying to give herself some kind of support in hopes of getting air while she lashed out at him with her other hand. She had lost all of her weapons. She was going to die just like all of the others. He pulled a blade from his belt, and she expected him to drive it home through her armor. Instead, he held the knife higher, just above his thumb at her throat. He pressed that cool metal to her throat and gruffly demanded, “Turn your face to the sun, Child.” The arrow that hit his shoulder was a surprise to them both. The knife drew across her throat, leaving a painful gash, but he had dropped her there at the cliff’s edge. She hit the cold stone and snow, and it was nearly as unforgiving as the crush of his grip at her throat. She tried to gasp in a breath, to say something. All she could do was stare in horror, too weak to stand, as the man fought the archer who had saved her life. It was Rost. He had been watching after all, it seemed, though perhaps he had been too far away to help her before. Or maybe he had helped and she just hadn’t seen his involvement until that moment. It was a clash of hands and spears and knives. She could hear the sounds of their effort in huffed breaths and frustrated cries. The shuffling of their feet in the snow echoed in her ears as loudly as the beat of her own heart. Rost braced his spear against the enemy’s blade, but after a struggle, the assailant brought his knee up and broke through the strong spear, driving his knife into Rost’s stomach. Aloy braced herself on the snow, one hand at her throat, “NO!” The effort of that one word had been draining, but she tried to push herself upwards. To get up. To stand. She needed to help Rost. She needed to get him to the mothers. Anywhere but here. She could not lose him. She watched as he collapsed to the snow, and though she tried to move, she couldn’t. Her efforts were for naught, as the edges of her vision faded to black. She didn’t know how much later, but she heard her name, “Aloy.” It was Rost. He was alive, and so was she. Maybe she could tell him, then, how much he meant to her. Maybe she could say that he had been a good father, even if that wasn’t what he had wanted to be. Maybe Aloy would abandon her task of finding her mother and they could live out their lives as outcasts as they were meant to do, certainly. She would take that life. She would find peace with it, if it meant keeping him. She felt his arms, still warm, pull her from the ground and into his lap like he had only done if she was ill when she was a child. Sometimes when a fever would take her ease from her, he had held her like this until she was comfortable again. He had always protected her, and he had cared, even if he had tried not to. Though he wasn’t much for coddling, there had been few, rare times when she had experienced the affection that he normally wouldn’t trifle with. That, perhaps, had made those times even more significant, “Aloy.” Though she could hear him and feel the shift of her body, she couldn’t find a way to make words pass her lips. She could not form them on her tongue. Everything felt too heavy and wrong. His breathing was labored. He must be badly wounded. She would have to snap out of this to help him off of the mountain or they would both die here, “Survive.” For the briefest of moments, his hands tightened on her, as though he did not want to let her go. Then...she was moving, pushed from his embrace in a rolling motion. She tumbled over the snow, unable to stop herself. The panic sent a jolt of adrenaline through her, shocking her enough to allow her a little more awareness. She blinked as she fell from the edge of the mountain, and her sight gave her focus. She saw him. The silhouette of the only parent she had ever known, standing at the edge of that precipice that he had just pushed her from. She was falling, nothing behind her but crisp, cold air. Then, an explosion. His figure vanished into fire and smoke, and the breath caught in her chest. He was gone. Just like that...Rost was gone. Snow and debris from the explosion fell with her, cutting through nothingness until the whole world disappeared and pain made her world go black and silent. A gasping breath rattled in Aleida’s lungs, and unthinkable pain radiated through her body. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her throat was raw and aching, and a sob welled up in her chest. She broke down into tears, but the dream was paralyzing. Her mind couldn’t seem to figure out how to move her body, though she could feel her arms and her legs. Through the haze of the dream and her own tears, she realized that she was not the only one crying. Swaddled in the bed with her, Adelaide had begun her own small wail that was now rising with Alee’s own tears. Their afternoon nap had gone very awry. It took time. As the grief and heartache settled into her chest, stronger than any physical pain - real or imaginary - Aleida felt weighed down by it all. The persistence of Adelaide’s rising cries were what kept her motivated, and after several seemingly endless minutes, she finally convinced her brain that her hands were functional. It was quicker, then, her mind waking up other parts of her until she could at least sit up. It was with shaking hands that she reached for that small bundle of blankets where Adelaide was wrapped up tightly. She took her into her arms and tried to soothe her, but her own tears must have been unconvincing. Alee could still feel the pain. She could feel every bruise and cut and ache, and the profound loss unlike which she had ever experienced before. Scrubbing her hand roughly over her face and drying her tears, she sniffled and brushed the tears from Adelaide’s cheeks, too, “We’re okay, baby girl.” Though her voice cracked, it must have worked some kind of magic over her daughter because those wails turned into a concerned, scrunched up pout. She understood, in a way that Aloy probably did not, that Rost had done what any parent would do in such an impossible situation. He had tried to save her...even at a great cost to himself. He had sacrificed so that she could survive. There was no greater act of love from a parent to a child. She brushed a shaken kiss across Adelaide’s hair, and held her close to her chest, “We’re going to be just fine.” |