#showing what Varl meant to him

[felrend]

“I wish to honour him by getting the inkards to mark me with his memory” aka Kotallo wanting to get tattoos in honour of Varl 🥺

[sockodot]

Writer’s Month Day 3: Outside

So this is about Aloy and Varl from Horizon: Zero Dawn. Varl goes outside of his comfort zone about the Old Ones and Aloy goes out of it by trusting him. This is a snippet of probably a larger work but here you go.

Word Count: 1073

   Varl stares down at the focus in his hand. “It’s Old One’s tech.” Forbidden is what he doesn’t say. Aloy doesn’t think, wraps her fingers around his wrist.

   “It was meant for you.” At that, Varl looks up at her sharply, confused. “This school, this place of learning was meant for the children here-” she squeezes his wrist “-your ancestors. If things had gone to plan, then everything would be different. The whole world would have been different. We would constantly be using Old One’s tech.” She looks away, bitterness creeping up. “Instead, Apollo’s dead and HADES was almost unleashed upon the world.” She still gets angry when she thinks about what she discovered at GAIA Prime. Apollo’s fate, the Alphas’ fate. Fucking Ted. Varl speaks again and she looks back at him.

   “You said All-Mother- GAIA created you to stop HADES.” Aloy tilts her head, not knowing where this is going.

   “Yes.”

   “Then you wouldn’t have existed if things had gone to plan.”

    He’s not saying anything she hasn’t considered before. This thought is one of the many that creep on her at night. But she’s not sure they’re thinking the same way. “And I don’t think I want to live in a world without you in it.” Definitely not what she meant. It’s like her breath has been punched from her with his statement.

   It’s still weird to feel wanted. All her life, being shunned and cast aside. She’s not used to someone wanting her around, it’s always came with a condition. Help me find my sister, take care of these bandits, find this person, stay in Meridian to become my second and let’s get together. Okay, she did forgive Avad for that but now its less embarrassing and more ridiculous. And she was happy to help her friends because it’s the right thing to do. She can help these people so she should. Rost’s last lesson…

   And Varl- something’s just different. He doesn’t call her Anointed anymore, has less of that reverence when he’s with her. She can be a person with him. And he wants her around, not for her to do anything for him but simply because he wants.

   “Oh.” Is what she settles on. Varl smiles at her, sheepish.

   “Yeah well.” He ducks his head, rubs the back of his neck. He stares down at the focus once again and belatedly she realizes she’s still holding his wrist. Jerkily, she lets go, lets her hands hang at her sides. Now she’s all too aware of them. “How does this work exactly?” Aloy breathes a sigh of relief. Old One’s tech she knows, feelings not so much.

   “It lets you read and see Old One’s tech and writings. Explains how they work. Shows valuables around an area, how machines work, their weaknesses, and tracks. It works for any enemy really.” She tilts her head. “It’s very… knowledgeable.” She scratches the back of her head. “I’m not entirely sure of the inner workings of it.” They meet eyes once more and she chuckles a little. “Didn’t want to take mine apart in case I couldn’t put it back together again.” He smiles.

   “Smart, but now you have a whole slew of them.” Varl spreads an arm around them.

   “True. In fact,” she walks over to another stall, and another, and another, gathering up focuses. “You reminded me on why I came here in the first place.” She grabs two more. Some to tinker with.

   “Oh?” Varl questions.

   “I said I was planning on going west?” At his nod, she continues. “Well, I have some ideas.”

   “You want to give the focus’ out, right?” She nods, once again relieved that he’s picking this up.

   “I- I’m used to working alone, fighting alone. But with the battle of HADES, everything I’ve learned and been through, everyone I’ve met… It wouldn’t be bad to have a few backups and a way to contact people given that I’ll be so far.” She hesitates again, still that small bit unsure, still just that much untrusting. She said it, she’s not used to allies, to friends. “And people want to help me. I’m…. trying to accept that.” She looks at Varl again, not sure when she looked away. His smile lights up the room better than the screens around them. He takes a step forward, and another one.

   “That’s good Aloy.”

   “Yeah.” She looks away again. They’re right back to feelings and emotions. And her plan isn’t even finished yet, by the sun its barely even a draft but- it seems useful, strategical, and there’s a part of her that wants it.

   Ever since she was a little girl she wanted that connection, that community. It’s gotten smaller over the years, of course, but it’s still there. She wants people, even if she has no idea how to interact with them and sort of hates doing so. There’s a reason she keeps company with ghosts and secrets, after all.

   “Anyways,” she clears her throat. “I should be able to like, sync these so we can communicate over distances.”

   “You can do that?” With Varl’s excitement she’s able to push away her own complicated feelings.

   “Yeah. Think of like a net across the world, linking focuses.” She uses Sylen’s own example because it just makes the most sense right now. For Varl and for her. “You just need to activate your focus.” She stares down at his hand. She meets his eyes. “That is, if you want to.” Once again, he brandishes the focus, lying flat in his hand.

   “Okay.” Varl looks up and a jolt of excitement shoots through her. He tilts his head, squinting. “Okay. Where do I-” She tilts her own head for him and seconds later he’s pressing it to his ear. Finally, finally someone she can trust is wearing one, is learning with her. Joining her.

  She steps forward, lifts a finger to poke it. “To activate it, just press it.” She’s close enough to hear the little whoosh it gives. She watches as he startles, just a bit, eyes wide as he takes in the new visuals. He looks her up and down.

   “You’re purple!” Aloy laughs.

   “Yeah! Allies and good things are purple. Enemies and their weaknesses are orange.” Varl looks around the room, eyes scanning.

   “This is so…”

   “Different?”

   “Cool!” He looks back at her with that wide smile back on her face.

  ��It makes her heart pound.

[moving-accounts-uwu]

My Masterlist will be updated when I post new drabbles, one-shots, series, etc. 

If you’d like to know who I write for you can check it out

here!

Key Guide: Smut (🔥) || Fluff (🌸) || Angst (💔) || Dark (😈) 

MARVEL

Bucky Barnes

Right Where You’re Meant To Be 💔🌸 (One-shot) Summary: Reader has a crush on Bucky the second she looked at him but she also has feelings of self-consciousness about her body and doubts she’d ever end up with Bucky or any guy like Bucky. That all changes one night at one of Tony’s parties.

DEFENDING JACOB

Andy Barber

Daddy’s Little Girl 🔥😈 (One-shot) Summary: Andy has been feeling quite lonely and useless, wanting someone to care for, that is until he finds himself his ‘little girl’ that he could love and care for.

FAR CRY 5

Seed Brothers

Home Is Where The Heart Is 🌸💔🔥😈 (Series) [In Progress] Story Summary: Serah is a young woman living in Fall’s End, Hope County and has lived there all her life. She owns her own farm and B&B, nothing very exciting ever happens in Fall’s End - except for the occasional chaos caused by Sharky Boshaw. That is until one day, three men show up with a broken down car and seeking a place to stay. Serah, being the kind and caring person she is, lets these men into her home with open arms, but she truly doesn’t know what she has invited into her life.

HORIZION: ZERO DAWN

Aloy x Varl

Little Miracle 🌸 (Headcannon) 

ORIGINAL STORIES

Zonnu

For Science~ 🔥 (One-shot/drabble) Summary: Reader finds himself in an unfamiliar room when he wakes up. He ventures to find someone for help and stumbles upon an alien life-form, Zonnu. She’s very interested to know how the human male anatomy works when sexually stimulated.

[in-crow-nito]

Light the Forge 18

Moving through the edge of the Embrace was… odd. Aloy had left several months back after helping many Nora with various odds and ends after the murders at the Proving and just running ragged as the jobs kept coming. Really, she hadn’t meant putting off going to Daytower but she unfortunately had. Lucky for her, Olin hadn’t moved much even due to her long delay and then, her delay to Meridian had ensured she had Ersa in her life now.

Also, she hadn’t even been back to see Vala since the night she reported to Sona about getting the fire arrows to Orn and maybe, she would have to go back even if it was just in passing and on the way to Rost’s grave again. That would give her enough time to get caught up with Sona, Varl and Vala again, check in on Odd Grata. It seems like the more she tried to run away from the Nora, the more people she came to care about there.

Going back seemed like the last thing she wanted to do, but she might have to. Maybe she could drag Ersa with her.

Speaking of… “How are you doing down there?” She leaned away from the side of the mountain she was clinging to, looking over her shoulder while holding on with ease by one hand and well placed feet. Aloy grinned down at her companion, Ersa having chosen to bundle up and follow her through the edge of Nora lands, past the Cursed Grounds, take out a bandit camp and run like hell away from a pack of scrappers that Mittens had antagonized. “You look a little clunky, are you sure you’re warm enough?” Aloy knew she was playing with fire by teasing Ersa but it was worth it when another glare was sent her way.

“Well excuse      me    !” Ersa huffed and puffed, lugging herself up another few rungs of handholds to get close to Aloy. “Which one of us is wearing fucking Oseram armor and the other traipsing about in Nora clothes?” She was almost in reach and would certainly smack Aloy once she caught up.

So, naturally, Aloy scurried up to the next ledge, pulling herself over with a sort of mad cackle on her lips. “That sounds like a personal problem!” She put her hands on her hips, leaning down to catch another glare and Ersa lobbing a loose rock up at her. Easy enough to side step and cackle about it while she waited for her to catch up, they were only about halfway up according to the rough map Othur had given her when they passed through Daytower on the way over to the entrance to The Cut.

New lands for her, strange lands of new machines and a strange corruption that drove them mad. Banuk lands, people who were more… open to machines and the truth about them from what she gathered from the few wanderers she’d met and the travellers who’d gone through Ban-Ur and the Frozen Wilds the people called home. Aloy was more than a little nervous, she had no idea what to expect when she got there, but it was a mission that felt right up her alley and it helped that she had Ersa with her.

Ersa who just tumbled over the side of the ledge, heaving for air on the ground in a desperate attempt to catch her breath after trying to keep pace with Aloy. Aloy grinned and looked down at her, hands on her knees this time as she nudged her foot against Ersa’s side, getting a weak slap to her ankle in retribution. “Fire and spit , I’m never following you anywhere again.”

“Aw, why not?”

“Who the fuck let you be so spry?”

“Rost, I told you he trained me.”

“I hate you.” Ersa glared at her again, all non threatening and a smile ruining her venomous words so Aloy just preened under the weight of the false words then pranced onwards towards the next set of hand holds. “I wish Mittens was here so it could bite you!”

“No you don’t, you wish it was here to have someone on your side!” Unfortunately, Mittens wasn’t a climbing machine nor could it fly, so it had to go the long way around to get to the edge of Banuk territory where it could sneak through hostile machines, hopefully not antagonize anymore scrappers or grazers then meet them outside of the first camp. Song’s Edge, if Othur was to be believed about his recollection of Banuk territory and honestly, Aloy was barely believing of it. If they hadn’t passed abandoned carts and packs at the bottom near Grave Hoard, she would have turned around but that plus Banuk markings encouraged her upwards.

Ersa finally caught her breath and took her time getting up the side of the mountain, following Aloy at an easier pace and letting her Nora friend scout ahead for these new dangers. She vaguely heard Aloy angrily talking into her Focus, presumably to the Sylens fellow that Ersa wanted to strangle more than once just from Aloy’s stories on him alone. Especially how he used her to crash the Eclipse network and didn’t even      warn    her about the Devil that was out to kill her was there, it was fucking there and turned dozens of Deathbringers and enemies on her to try and snuff her spark.

Yeah, if she met him in person, she was either going to kill him or show him the true meaning of Oseram steel.

She kept climbing upwards, idly wondering if Mittens was okay. The Banuk were easier going about machines, their blue light and everything but she still worried. She was like that, she cared no matter how much her gruff exterior normally kept people from getting too close to her. Ersa grinned as her fingers latched onto another hold, remembering Aloy and hers first meeting when she’d been wounded, blinded and more than a little deafened and instead of taking quiet pity on her, Aloy had sassed her right back, tending to her wounds and helped her keep her dignity intact.

There’d been no way Ersa was going to let Aloy go somewhere dangerous like the Cut without backup, not even to repay a favour, she would have done it just to go somewhere new and to keep who was effectively her little sister company.

“Get down!” Aloy hissed right next to her after she crested the next ledge, yanking her into a patch of tall grass behind a rock. Ersa’s adrenaline spiked, anticipating a fight and unhooking her warhammer from her back and following Aloy’s lead to the edge of their cover to see whatever was crunching around on the dense snow and ice ahead of them.

Once they had eyes on the large, black machine that was smoking and sparking, half damaged already with Banuk spears sticking out of it, Aloy tapped the side of her focus, scanning it to see what it was. Ersa waited for her diagnostic, almost admiring the dark machine and it’s prowling, not unsimilar to the way a Ravager looked but larger, almost leaner and a being that rattled with an angry fire to it that would put the Ealdormen to shame. Purple… growths almost erupted it’s neck, almost like wires, almost like it was corrupted but by something that was stronger and angrier than HADES was.

 Was this the Daemon? Not the machine, but the corruption of the machine.

Read the rest on ao3!

[gauntsghostsfieldguide]

In Remembrance

@the-fluffy-underbelly

“I honestly doubt any of them are alive any more. It's been sixty years since the hive war on Verghast, and Imperial Guardsman is not a career with long-term prospects.” I mean, it’s not. But still. ;_;

“When I read of their successes on Hagia and Phantine, I poured a glass of joiliq and sat in my studio, toasting their name.” This covers the two books after Necropolis, which is probably when the story was written.

“His name was Colm Corbec, and he was, incredibly, the colonel.” Well, it’s not like he was intended to be one.

 “ 'I'm sure you're very good.' he said kindly, 'I meant no offence. Me and fine art, we're not, you know, close. I wouldn't know an oil painting if it came and bit me on the arse. You a painter?'” Awww, Corbec’s being nice. And that is a heck of an image.

“flexed an augmetic shoulder“ See, now it’s just the shoulder! I’m pretty sure the narrator would have noticed an entire augmetic arm. If he can see the shoulder, he can probably see the rest of it, too.

“ 'Have you had a bath today?' he asked me.

 'Yes!' I said indignantly. 

'That'd be it. then,' said Corbec.

 'Lucky bastard,' said the other, Varl.” LOL

“We had this great nalwood mantle over the kitchen hearth back home in County Pryze. Me mam stood the photopicts there, each one in a little frame.” Awwww

“'I'm glad. That's what. I'm glad it was all over and done with like that. Your call, Ibram, good call.” I think the victory in Vervunhive convinced many of the Ghosts that Tanith got off lightly in some ways. The long recovery after a hard won victory can be worse than death, in some ways. Especially in the Warhammer universe.

“There were fragments of human bone in the litter underfoot, white and burned clean. At first I thought they were shards of broken porcelain, until I saw one with an eye socket.” D:

“I realised Larkin was crying. It shook me to see it. And, though I know what you're thinking, it didn't diminish him in any way. I'd known from the first moment I saw him he was an emotionally vulnerable man. He didn't falter in his duty for a moment. He kept up the pace, covered all the angles he was asked to. He didn't even seem to be aware that he was crying. But he wept.” Poor Larkin. He’s my favorite for a lot of reasons, but this bit, with him crying over the ruins, is one of them.

“'Maybe he could hold up a hand when he's actually being sarcastic for real,' Mktag suggested. 'Like a signal.' 

'Oh, that's a good idea,' said Feygor.

Everyone looked at him. Slowly, reluctantly, he raised a hand.” Poor Feygor. Shame the bit with the hand raising doesn’t show up anywhere else. Mind, he’d spend most of the time with one hand in the air.

“A dart of seething fire, tinged red, the size of a man's middle finger, so bright it hurt my eyes, so fast it was barely there.” I don’t think there’s ever really been a description of what a lasbolt looks like.

“I have no way of knowing what became of Trooper Bragg. I hope fate was kind to him.” Since this was written after Guns of Tanith, ouch. Ouch, I say.

“'You dare die,' Rawne was muttering at Gaunt. 'You dare die on me, you fething bastard. Die now and I'll never forgive you. It can't be this way I won't let it.' 

I started to back away, realising I had heard too much.” It took a couple of read throughs to realize that the narrator thinks Rawne is Gaunt’s lover or something. Not sure how I feel about that, given the lack of LGBT characters.

“You wake up and live so that I can kill you properly.” Oh, Rawne. And then Gaunt wakes up, because apparently threats are to him what kisses are to Snow White. Or something.

“It's not even specifically a Tanith Ghost, and it has no special likeness. One fist is raised, not in victory but in determination, a gesture like the one Baffels made. There is a set to the shoulders that resembles Colonel Corbec's relaxed stance, a set to the head that always reminds me of Trooper Bragg's reassuring backwards glance. There's Milo's honesty in it, I like to think, and Rawne's venom. It has, like all statues, Mktag's awful stillness.” I like this description and I like that there is this stature, in universe. Something that remains of the Ghosts, even after they’re gone. Even if they never get a trophy planet, some memory of them still exists, somehow. They won’t be totally forgotten.

[eri-223]

[Horizon: Zero Dawn] Aftermath

In the aftermath of the battle at Meridian, Aloy has to find a new way to think about the Nora. A missing scene. Aloy/Varl, 1.5k.

The city had been choked by the battle, but as soon as Aloy reached the southern gate Vanasha was there with wet cloths to put over their mouths.

“I knew you’d make it,” she crowed, and hugged Aloy and Varl in quick succession with a fierce assurance. Aloy had needed this, after standing at the Spire and overseeing the world. She had needed a person instead of a hologram. Vanasha lead them up the hill, past the wreckage of ravagers and the oil spilled from bellowbacks. Aloy looked downstream to find the deathbringer she had kneecapped with an Oseram gun. Already it looked old, even ancient, like an island with the water frothing around it.

“Tea for our heroes! That’s what you said you wanted, right? Anything goes.” Carja guards were forming organized lines to pass fresh rubble to the sides of the streets. Cries from the docks told Aloy that there were still people there, under the wreckage. She moved to go to them, and Vanasha hooked one arm around her shoulders.

Aloy startled under her touch.

“After that thunderjaw, I didn’t doubt you,” Vanasha said. Aloy recognized the look she gave under her armored helm, though; Vanasha was worried. Maybe Aloy had been drifting a bit, her eyes unfocused. The exhilaration of the battle was draining away like the river water, leaving her to count what she needed to do next. Find Elizabet’s home. Catch up with people she’d spoken to throughout the Sundom, to trade favors or make sure their families were safe. Look at the place the Nora called the Sacred Lands again and found out what it meant to her now.

Vanasha steered her to a supply tent. Erend disappeared into the bustle of a cleanup crew and came back with the fruity tea made by the Carja.

“A thunderjaw?” Varl sounded awed, despite the fact that he had just held off several bellowbacks and corrupters alongside the other Nora.

Vanasha propped her hip against the table and folded her arms. “She did. On the way to rescue the young king and his mother from Sunfall, she happened to deal with a big machine in the process.”

“They were just rumor in the Sacred Lands.” Varl shook his head. Aloy watched him from the other side of the table, wondering whether he felt more in place in Meridian now that he had been covered in the dirt of it.

Varl had a cut across the bridge of his nose, but it was difficult to tell how deep because of the river mud clotted on it. She had missed his eyes, Aloy decided. She had missed this expression, the clear-eyed kindness of it. She never had asked him what the blue mark on his brown skin meant.

“Avad mentioned that you declined to have an audience with him,” Aloy said.

“Sona and I talked about it,” Varl said. “It didn’t feel right, somehow. Presumptuous, but also … we came to help them, not to be celebrated.”

Shouts from the riverbank, and Erend marched off with a worried expression.

“I’m sure Avad understands that,” Aloy said.

“And you’re kin with the Sun-King now?” Varl’s mouth quirked.

Aloy knew her laugh was awkward. “Not exactly. I think he’ll make a good leader as he grows. He showed that today.”

“But still. A king. And I’m still struggling not to call you … never mind.”

Aloy smiled. By the Sun, by any oath or none - Varl was trying. Wooden beams snapped near the riverbank, something that might have been large as a house. Aloy tensed, wanting to run. There were repairs to be done, corruption to be cleared, and she had hands that could do it. Vanasha didn’t seem inclined to let her help here, though.

“Listen, we should go scouting,” Aloy said. “See what cleanup we can do in the south. It’s fertile land; there’ll be hunting.”

Relief made his nod exaggerated, but Aloy felt it too. “Yeah. It’ll be good to go somewhere … wild.” To the Sacred Lands, he didn’t say.

She heard it, though. Would she want to go back there? He wouldn’t ask her to - not now that she had gone into the mountain and come back out. How to explain that little shift in perspective?

“Vanasha?” Aloy said.

“Drink your tea.”

Aloy took a sip. It was lukewarm and swirling with dregs, but the flowery taste soothed her. “Can you tell Avad that I’ll talk to him soon?”

“Sure. Going to confer with the Nora?” Vanasha nudged Varl with her hip. “With a particular Nora?”

“Yes,” Aloy laughed, and Varl looked honored. When she stood, though, and saw the bustle of the lines there was a sudden uncertainty. She did not want to walk down the blasted path with the same certain urgency she had walked the verdant one. She did not want Varl to look to her for the blind leadership of the bunker.

Instead, he walked ahead of her, his shoulders hunched and his steps sure. That was good enough.

The land under the Spire was not untouched; corrupted machines had marched in the city’s shadow. Furrows were dug into the dirt. Animals had scattered, and so any pretense of hunting would take them farther away than Aloy would have liked. Smoke drifted in low patches.

Eventually they found themselves scanning less and just walking, bows and arrows held in loose fingers. Aloy remembered finding a herd of striders here, of clearing the lake of snapmaws so that a girl could mourn her friend. Maybe more snapmaws would clamber into that lake one day not long from now, peacefully, and clean the water. How ever did they do it? Maybe she would find more out about Gaia’s science, about both of her mothers’ sciences.

She lead Varl to the covered pagoda at the edge of the lake. Rested her elbows, saw the ancient armor spark with its awareness of the barrier. Varl leaned on the railing next to her.

“I know there’s been … a lot to learn,” Aloy started.

“That’s for sure. But maybe now … we’ll actually have time to talk about it.”

“Yeah, for sure.” Aloy pulled her gaze up from the murky water. “The goddess isn’t … some invisible force,” she said. Varl obliged her while she stammered, and they both knew it. “Well, it sort of is. I can see parts of it through my Focus. But it’s also a … system, an incentive, meant to heal the Earth. We’re here, the machines are here, because we lost so much of the previous civilization. Gaia - the goddess - wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

“And Hades was going to stop her?”

“Yes. Was going to eat up all the life in the world. I imagined what it would look like to see Mother's Heart stripped and I … hardly can.”

“I think your failure of imagination saved the world,” Varl said lightly.

Aloy shook her head. “We’re walking on the bodies of those Faro robots. I could do with a bit less imagination."

“And now when we look at the mountain, we’ll be reminded of that too.”

Aloy laughed. “That’s true.”

Varl nodded, looked out toward the still surface of the lake. Aloy watched him for a while.

“Do you remember when we first met?” she murmured. “You were outside the gate to the rest of the world. I saw you take down a machine, and I thought, I thought of course this person is Vala’s brother and Sona’s son. You have their ferocity. You have their beauty. And I was very impressed.”

“Oh, I …” He hesitated.

“Now that I’ve seen the rest of the world, those gates seem different. But I still remember you like that.”

He turned, pressed his back against the railing. “I remember you riding a strider over the bridge like an entire war party had your back.”

“They’re meant to clean the earth, did you know?” Aloy said. “The machines help things grow. Hopefully the snapmaws will come back here.

“I’d like to go back,” she said. “Not to forget what I’ve seen out here, but to know the Sacred Land differently. And I want you to go with me.” She moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder. Suddenly the prospect of putting her arms around him was unaccountably awkward; instead she leaned on the fence. Varl tucked himself against her with one arm across her back.

“But I have to finish other things first. I have to talk to Avad, I have to find … ” My mother, she did not say. There would be time to explain that later. What luxury, to have so much time.

“I know,” Varl said.

Strider lights bobbed between the trees on the other side of the lake. Evening fell, and with it a green fog that brought out the moss on the trees, the vines in the branches.

“You know I’ll be ready to meet you whenever our paths meet,” he said.

“Not as the Anointed?”

“I knew you when you were a Seeker, I knew when you were Anointed … But I keep waiting for Aloy.”

Now it was easier for her to embrace him, to lay her head against the furs at his collar. “You can stop waiting.”

The striders picked their way through the trees, blue lights in green evening. The fog grew cold and clear, and in time they walked back to the city.