#aloy/sylens

[eri-223]

situation: helping someone remove an accessory/article of clothing/armor/etc. not often removed? (i was thinking of necklaces, but...)

ah, friend, I asked for cute prompts, received many lovely ones including this one, and immediately started writing for you the aftermath of bloody violence. there are some cute parts in this, perhaps. I did not consult my fanfiction medical expert except to say like "I got this," so any mistakes are my own. for anyone who has been following my hfw opinions closely: burning shores exists in my headcanon only under certain conditions. this is one of those conditions. similarly, this story is not in signal-verse, although perhaps if I had written about one sentence longer it would have had to be, since these two need about thirty thousand words of buildup to get to the kissin. shoutout to the playstation cosplay guides, which provided turnarounds and useful information about materials and such.

aloy/sylens, 800 words, pre-ship 

*

Sylens slammed to his knees in the grass, green staining up his pant leg. The verdant jungle colors clashed with blood so red and free-flowing Aloy thought for a moment the machine might have taken off his hand.

Aloy and Sylens had gone to the jungle shore tracing rumors of a surviving Zenith mobile platform. Now, Aloy left her spear in the machine’s guts, seeing by the shudder and collapse that it wouldn’t rise up again, and hit her own knees hard. Craned to see whether she was about to have to figure out a prosthetic for the only person on the planet who could reverse engineer a Zenith shield.

Sylens winced and ripped a strip of cloth off his wrist. Repositioned it to staunch the blood pooling over the back of his hand. His metal brace hung at a broken angle; the machine’s flail had cut up and under the brace, through leather and linen. Aloy’s voice clenched in her throat. This can’t be what kills him. Not after everything. 

She wouldn’t fuss over him, and he wouldn’t want her to. But her throat relaxed when he spoke. “Need to elevate it —“

So he hung his head against the machine’s strange, smooth chassis and stretched his arms up, one hand clasping the other wrist. Closed his eyes and breathed hard. Aloy, breathing hard too and wanting to close her own eyes, started tearing the machine’s wrenched-apart limbs into scrap. Sylens wouldn’t necessarily tell her if he was hurt badly, but she’d be angry if he didn’t, angry that he valued his aloofness more than their shared venture, angry that … well, scared that he’d leave her again. They’d just gotten used to each other. They’d just started sharing meals with Beta at the base.

“Tell me that cut isn’t as bad as it looks,” Aloy finally said, half-way finished with material recovery. 

“It is not as bad as it looks.” Sylens struggled to unpeel tangled cloth from the metal brace as blood dried and turned tacky. 

“Let me help you.”

“The wound shouldn’t be moved now. Surely, you know that much.”

Aloy climbed on top of the machine. Flopped down on her belly and eased his palm off the metal from above. “It’s tangled.”

“I know.”

“Do you mind if I move this?” The brace — a strut from a Ravager, most likely — had nearly fallen loose from the wrappings. 

He sighed, exasperated, and she pulled back. Battlefield care was one thing. But the blood was clotting, the emergency ending, and she hoped to show some respect for him. She wouldn’t help if he didn’t want, out of both that respect and many years of anger. Grudging as it was, their last serious conversation — after her return from the Burning Shores — had left her with a smile and some mutual respect, and had left him working in her room, as comfortable there as he was in his own skin.  

“If you must,” he said.

She untangled the brace, pulling strips of blue linen with it, and tied it to her belt. After that he was quiet and watched her. The leather wrapping hooked around his thumb was ripped down to the big veins at his wrist.

“I have to cut this off,” she said, “Or it’ll stick in the wound.”

Sylens nodded. 

“This angle will make it difficult,” Aloy said, realizing as she spoke. “Put your hand down. The blood is clotting.”

He nodded. With both of them standing in the green clearing she could lay the golden edge of an arrowhead against his wrist and tear. The battlefield healing was nothing new to her — she’d helped other people with wounds after the battle of Meridian, and after some Tenakth or Utaru skirmishes — but since Sylens had always held himself so aloof, it was strange to see the calmness with which he presented the underside of his wrist to her weapon. Aloy found herself holding the back of his hand in the palm of hers to wash the wound. He kept his fingers curled up so as not to touch her. The flail had laid open a thin layer of fat on his lower arm, but at the back just below the first set of piercings, not near the vital veins. She had done all she needed to do now; he could do the rest. But … 

“I have herbs,” she said. “Let me fix this up before we start a long ride back.”

So she packed the wound too, and this let her feel the warm weight of his wrist in her palm for a while longer, let her look at the proportions of him and feel the pulse point under her fingertips. She hadn’t noticed such details before, the hair on his arm or the lines on his palm. All the while he looked at her with the new openness she had seen since he started living at the base, a sort of surprise that softened his face. People think Avad looks regal, Aloy thought, because they’ve never seen Sylens … 

His hand trembled slightly. Aloy had packed the wound all she could. She handed him the brace and the torn linen strips, which he took in a firm left hand. No tremble there at all. 

#writings #horizon forbidden west #aloy/sylens #hzd for ts #sylens #aloy

[owlswatch]

Six Sentence Wsunday

Some preliminary writing for The Long Fic. This may or may not be in the final product; it's most useful as a way to experiment with tone.

(Aloy/Sylens, 140 words)

Her fingers found the place where wire slipped under skin, traced the join and the strange ridge where the wire anchored. Dirty nails picked at the bottom of the blue cord. She liked the intimacy of it, the time she could take to explore the quirks of his body. Liked him quiet and soothed, knew how much disbelief anyone else would feel faced with the idea of him so still under her hands. 

He dozed quietly. She stroked his back. She wondered whether her next question would make him twitch.

“Who is the woman who runs the Sons of Prometheus?” She asked.

Sylens turned to look up at her, his face pillowed in the crook of his elbow. His eyes looked tired, blood-stained. Aloy’s hands stilled. She jabbed a finger between two cords, not roughly but more playful than soothing. 

#horizon forbidden west #aloy/sylens #writings

[fenyafaraday]

In case someone is yearning for a smutty little fanfic featuring my favourite enemies Aloy and Sylens, have this drabble I published yesterday:

#horizon #horizon forbidden west #sylens #hfw aloy #aloy #hzd aloy #horizon zero dawn #Aloy x Sylens #Aloy/Sylens #fanfic #ao3 link

[meggannn]

avad excited to finally ditch the crown to join aloy and leave the sundom, arriving at her mysterious base for his first adventure just to be greeted by a glowing machine that immediately knows his name and entire history, his missing vanguard captain and missing sunhawk, a tenakth marshal from the clan that nearly jeopardized his embassy, the first utaru brave enough to fight the carja in the red raids, and a bizarre person from an advanced imperialist nation across the world all sitting in a lounge archiving apollo and blasting jackson five while aloy is in the corner playing space invaders with one hand and coding hephaestus with the other next to her apparent fucking twin and the asshole who founded the eclipse threat that kept his brother prisoner and nearly ended the world

#horizon stuff #avad #did i get everyone? i think i got everyone #just imagine vanasha and petra are still on their way #aloy #kotallo #zo #erend #talanah #alva #beta #sylens #horizon forbidden west

[horizon-forbidden-memes]

Boops will survive the Faro Plague. Boops will survive the purging of APOLLO. Boops are eternal and Sylens cannot escape being booped.

#horizon forbidden west #horizon zero dawn #hfw #hzd #aloy #sylens #horizon meme #meme #boop #boop button #april fool's day #tumblr #guerrilla games #lol #funny #shitpost #mine #playstation #aloy despite the nora

[i-lavabean]

#my art #lavabean art #horizon forbidden west #art #kotallo #aloy #kotaloy #illustration #hfw erend #hfw zo #hfw alva #hfw kotallo #hfw aloy #mean girls quotes will be butchered #abandon canon all ye who enter here #GAIA Gang #who are they talking to? probably sylens

[astralpaint]

Holiday Picture with the Gang 🌱✨

#digital art #horizon forbidden west #fanart #hfw kotallo #hfw aloy #horizon fanart #hfw erend #zo hfw #alva hfw #beta hfw #sylens #varl hfw

[hartlesshart]

The gaia gang (plus the sunhawk) with their starter pokemon

This was the most fun I’ve had in a while!

Would love to hear others’ ideas for gaia gang pokemon

Bonus:

#horizon forbidden west #horizon zero dawn #aloy #beta #seyka #gaia gang #erend #varl #zo #horizon fanart #pokemon #alva #kotallo #talanah #sylens #elisabet sobeck #pikachu #rowlet #mudkip #starter post #hartless doodles #magnemite #dreepy #absol #lanturn #latias #rotom #i think erend and pikachu was the most fun #but so was alva and her magnet sphere #pokemon fanart

[catsharky]

Finally posting the HFW zine piece I did over a year ago. Meant to put it up a couple weeks ago and completely forgot, but it works out because today is Aloy's birthday!

While physical copies of the zine are sold out at this point, leftover merch and PDFs are still available to buy until the 6th here!

This artwork gets the award for longest I've ever spent on a single piece, clocking in at somewhere between 200-300 hours

#horizon forbidden west #hfw #aloy #hfw aloy #erend vanguardsman #hfw erend #hfw kotallo #kotallo #hfw alva #hfw beta #sylens #hfw varl #hfw zo #hfw talanah #hfw petra #hfw gaia #sharky art

[horizonedits]

IN MEMORY OF LANCE REDDICK (1962-2023)

#hfw spoilers #horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west #horizonedits #hzdedit #hfwedit #gamingedit #vgedit #sylens #aloy #gifs #lance reddick #my eyes are still moist :(

[han-ban-bam]

square up for a care bear stare nemesis

#horizon fanart #horizon forbidden west #care bears #hfw aloy #hfw kotallo #hfw varl #hfw erend #hfw zo #hfw alva #hfw sylens #as always I don’t know what brought this on my brain went places and now cute bears #This is the most ridiculous thing to date Is2g

[eri-223]

@soothinghymn tagged me in a "post the last line you wrote (from any wip)" meme, which I forgot about for a minute (but only a minute). I'm not going to tag anyone bc I do these often and pretty much know who my fic circle is, but take it if you want it!

Several of my most recent things are Secret (exchanges/deeply unpolished/just notes), so this is, uh ... two of those things.

"She turned to Sylens, smoothed out a wrinkle on his shirt, and tugged on his hand to get him to follow her out of the room."

#horizon forbidden west #Aloy/Sylens #horizon zero dawn

[owlswatch]

Aloy judged the camera angle again and lifted up to kiss him. 

“Wait,” Sylens said. His commanding tone was back, his interest focused entirely on the camera as he mirrored her to turn her face ever so slightly. His breath was warm on her face, redolent with the same familiar smell of him that had lingered in his camps. He looked back to the lens, back to her jaw. 

His thumb made the barest pressure on the scar across her neck, a frisson of changed nerves there playing like a new note in a chord. She glanced down at his hand. Idly he moved his thumb off the scar. She wasn’t sure whether he’d noticed the scar and changed his grip on purpose or not. 

It was hard for her not to lean into him, tilted up as her chin was. She kept her free hand resolutely at her side. Her right palm, still on his cheek, grew familiar with the texture and warmth of his skin. The mix of comfort and tension was maddening, and he kept looking back and forth at Travis Tate’s personal joke. For all Aloy knew, if the man hadn’t been dead one thousand years, Tate might have been watching a live feed.

Sylens was still not looking at her, holding her chin with one hand. She was sure the glowing piercings on his face would be lighting up the underside of her mouth.

She couldn’t stay still much longer. “Are you doing the math in your head, or —”

He stood so close that she could hear his lips part as he spoke. “Come now, Aloy, we don’t want to have to do this twice.”

#aloy/sylens #horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west #it's been a year since I've posted standalone aloy/sylens you've been mostly spared for a year

[valerierowan]

Erend, drunk: Aloy, why does Seyka call you babygirl?

Talanah, enjoying herself immensely: Yeah Aloy, why does she?

Aloy, mortified: How about we stop talking for a little bit.

Kotallo, completely serious: I had wondered that myself.

Alva, totally ecstatic: Wait, WHAT!?

Zo, meaning well: Come you guys, it’s her first crush, leave her alone.

Sylens, seething with contempt for all of them: …I’m leaving.

Beta, trying to stay on task: Guys could we maybe pay attention to what Gaia’s saying?

Gaia, causing drama on purpose: Oh no, I want to talk about this now.

#horizon #horizon forbidden west #hfw #hfw aloy #hfw erend #hfw zo #hfw kotallo #hfw talanah #hfw beta #hfw burning shores #hfw alva #hfw seyka #hfw Sylens #hfw Gaia #seyloy #yes I accidentally deleted my first version of this post #i’m new to tumblr

[xamiipholia]

Assorted Horizon 3 thoughts that have been bouncing in my brain:

I hope they take all the time they need on this. We can wait. A 2027 release feels likely given the more or less standard 5-year development cycle for Sony AAA titles.

We’ll have to see how they handle it narratively but at least as a concept Nemesis is a perfect overarching threat for the series and I will die on this hill. It’s more or less an inverse of GAIA and it makes sense to have Aloy and co face down a final embodiment of the failures of the old world. The series is about hope and renewal, but it is also a cautionary tale that is pretty up front with messaging that capitalism and the banal evil of corporate greed will destroy our world and kill us all. It makes sense to me to have Aloy finish Lis’ work by destroying the final specter of that.

On a practical note I’m really curious to see how Aloy and Sylens are going to keep Nemesis from being an immediately world-ending threat. As it is right now there’s nothing stopping it from lobbing asteroids at earth from orbit. There are a few audio logs where Travis Tate mentions the apocalyptic malware that FAS developed, and I wonder if we’ll see that come back.

I’m expecting Nemesis and whatever enemies you face that it creates to look like slightly more eldritch Zenith tech, since that’s what it’s based on.

I hope they just do what Remedy did and cast David Harewood as Sylens, there’s a scene in Alan Wake II where he channels Lance perfectly.

God I hope they take a cue from the Witcher 3 with their map design and have several biomes. I know Ban-Ur, The Claim, and the Great Delta would be a tall order but fuck that would be cool.

#horizon zero dawn #horizon #aloy #guerrilla games #horizon forbidden west #hzd #hfw #horizon 3 #Horizon theories #Sylens

[horizon-forbidden-memes]

Your consolation prize for losing a Strike game shall be this batch of text posts (says the person who still hasn't won a Strike game in HFW; I'd have better luck fighting a Tremortusk with my eyes closed and only the most basic bow at my disposal)

Horizon Text Posts: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

#aloy #sylens #kotallo #alva #varl #horizon forbidden west #horizon zero dawn #hfw #hzd #horizon meme #meme #mine #text post #lol #funny #shitpost #guerrilla games #playstation