Out of Cryo | A Horizon: Zero Dawn Fanfiction

Chapter 5: Footing

Three weeks later

"Left! There you go! No, no, ouch!"

I dropped my spear immediately. "Shit! Shit, Erend, I'm so sorry! Are you all right?" I reached out where I had stabbed the end of the weapon into his side. An accident, and not a potentially fatal one as it was only a blunt-ended training weapon and he was wearing his armor, but judging by how hard he was coughing, there had been enough force behind it to hurt.

The large man held his side and backed away quickly while gesturing with his other hand for me to stand back. "I'm..." Cough. "Fine." More wheezing. "Nice...hit."

"Uh...thanks?" I replied, still super embarrassed about knocking the wind out of the poor man. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine, Becks, just fine," Erend said, though his voice sounded a bit off. "Why don't you uh...get ready for later?"

"You don't want to keep going?" I asked as I picked up my spear.

Erend grimaced as he looked up toward the late afternoon sun. "Erm...we can pick this up tomorrow. Aloy should be back soon anyway."

I nodded, but I was still concerned. "Okay...uh, let me know if I can get you anything." I cautiously stepped away.

"Yeah, will...do!"

Walking back to the cabin, it was hard to believe we had arrived in Nora territory nearly a month earlier. We had taken shelter in the snowy hills in Aloy's childhood home, a small cabin that she lived in with her adoptive father until she competed in the Proving and after that, his untimely death. Aloy's goal was to get back into the cradle facility where she had been born to try and find any other evidence that might help her get a start on rebuilding GAIA, but so far, she hadn't found anything useful.

The three of us being crammed into that cabin was not the most ideal situation, but the Nora were really weird about outsiders and Erend and I didn't exactly fit in. Aloy would leave for Mother's Watch every few days and be gone all day. When she would return she'd be up all night on her Focus. It got to the point where I offered to go with her a few times, but she insisted that she go alone. I suspected it was because she didn't feel like explaining to the tribe leaders, the matriarchs (who were basically a group of old women who worshipped a metal door – not even joking), why she was bringing an outsider near their "goddess". Or maybe that she didn't want to remind me too much of "my" past by taking me into the remains of it. Or maybe she was just really, really stubborn.

As time passed I gradually got used to being around Aloy and Erend. I missed my family, my home, and Jenna, but being around new people in a vast, new world (or really, the giant-ass forest in the Sacred Lands) helped keep me distracted on all but the worse days, and believe me, there were some pretty bad days. The days after that night camping when I had been less than polite to Aloy I barely spoke to either of them, instead responding with monosyllabic answers when prompted and going to bed early and sleeping in late. There were days where I just wanted to give up, hell I nearly did. It wasn't just the loss of people that hurt so much. I had a life back home. I had friends, sports, and a promising future - I was an engineering major and my dad had even arranged for me to get an internship the following summer at one of the nation's top software firms one of his friends owned. But that life was gone.

Then came the day Erend shook me awake around noon and declared that as long as we were stuck in "the most boring place on Earth" for a while longer I might as well pitch in because he was "tired of doing all the work while Aloy gets to go delving in dirt". And so they started teaching me to hunt.

I was really shitty at it at first. I looked like an idiot when I swung a spear. We rarely saw Aloy, so Erend took point on training me, beginning with self-defense. It was a lot of work and I was always exhausted after each full session, but I admitted to myself afterwards that it was a good workout and also pretty efficient at taking my mind off of the clusterfuck of a situation that was my life now.