Manly bonding time for Nil and Erend

What happens if you take Aloy’s boyfriend and best friend and throw them in a bar together with some Scrappersap? XD

Dedicated to @vythika96, who inspired this oneshot! xoxoxo!!

As Erend and Nil moved through the crowded tavern, Erend became aware of a change in the quality of the chatter: boisterous conversations hushed abruptly before breaking into even louder talk. Erend was fully aware that the presence of a Carja in their midst was the reason for the commotion. Technically anyone was welcome in The Twisted Cog, but in practice the clientele was still primarily Oseram, and the outlanders brave enough to venture into the noisy Oseram-style establishment were few and far-between.

Nil, in particular, was probably the one Carja whom the occupants of the bar would least expect to see in Erend’s company. Most of the Oseram that Erend knew had very mixed feelings towards Nil: on the one hand, he was still perceived by many as the Shadow Carja prince, the raider who had killed some of their finest Freebooters during the Red Raids; on the other hand, he was the mate of the flame-haired Nora huntress whom many Oseram viewed as being an honorary Oseram herself.

Erend held his chin high and solicitously clapped Nil on the shoulder as they reached the bar. Creepy or not, Aloy’s fiancé was his guest tonight, and Erend would make sure he was treated with the utmost hospitality.

“Hey, Lorna! Two triples!” Erend held up two fingers to the bartender, who winked heartily at him while she simultaneously filled three other orders. Then Erend turned towards Nil, who was leaning back against the bar with his arms folded.

The erstwhile Carja prince’s face was a picture of haughty boredom as his pale grey eyes flicked dispassionately around the tavern. He couldn’t look more like a royal Carja ass if he tried, Erend thought with amusement, and he punched Nil amiably in the arm.

Immediately Nil dropped his regal posture and frowned at Erend. “What?”

“You stand there looking like a pompous slag, someone’s gonna think you’re looking for a fight,” Erend told him.

Nil gifted Erend with a slow, chilling grin. “Now that would be my idea of a good time. Shall we start a brawl?” He tilted his head quizzically to the side, a benign expression that was offset by the predatory smirk lifting the corner of his lips.

“Uh, maybe later. Let’s have these drinks first, yeah?” Hastily Erend swept up one of the tumblers that Lorna had slid across the bar and shoved it into Nil’s hand, then gulped at his own tumbler of Scrappersap, finishing half the drink in one gulp.

Read the rest on AO3.

makocartwheels:

Fanfic posting and reading questions

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Niloy fam: I wanna know more about you!! ❤️ Your answers to any or all of these questions would be awesome!

I have nothing clever to caption this shot with. I just LOVE his expression here.

He’s all, “Come on, Suntress, you know you want to fight me. You want to feel that rush of joy through your arms as you pull back the drawstring on your bow. You want the satisfaction of aiming your arrow precisely between my eyes. You know you do.”

Or maybe he’s just like, “You know I’m a handsome bastard.”

Either way, I love it.

vgtravlr:

Horizon Zero Dawn | Aloy & Nil {-_-}

Straight Shooter

Nil: Hey, would you like to go haunting with me from outpost to outpost for Halloween?

Aloy: Did you mean hunting? Either way, I don’t think that’s how it works.

Nil: I thought the point was to scare people to death?

Aloy: How do you plan on doing that?

Nil: I’ll let them see me coming.

Aloy: You’re incorrigible.

“The last humans, we went out not with a whimper, but… a whisper. You know, in caves, ending like we started: huddled around a flickering glow.

The heads of state, Fortune 5s, the leaders and lottery winners and life cults, all of them buried in their little shelters… Some believing they’ll live it out, some way, somehow… Or Elysium, or us here at GAIA Prime, no different. A multitude of tiny societies taking hold, flaring, and dying.

Some will be beautiful, some horrific. And none of them matter.

Short-term civilizations. One last gasp…

One last gasp before the long-held breath.”

– Log: Margo Shen, GAIA Prime

simplytheanthropic:

My all time favorite animal.
The red-bearded vulture.

The bearded vulture, or lammergeier, lives on a steady diet of bones (more specifically the marrow) and dyes its own feathers blood red.

Bearded vultures come in various shades, from pure white to orange-red. Soils stained with iron oxide give the birds their fiery appearance. Lammergeiers apply the dirt with their claws and then preen for about an hour to ensure a bright orange/red glow. They are also attracted to other red things, like leaves and red wood. Captive birds also partake in this behavior, which suggests the activity is instinctual, not learned.

The soil doesn’t have any practical purposes; it certainly doesn’t make for good camouflage (though the birds have no natural predators anyway). Scientists have noticed that the birds’ age and size are directly correlated to the intensity of color. It is theorized that the hue is a status symbol. More soiled feathers indicates that the lammergeier had the time and resources to find an adequate place to bathe; the brightest-colored vultures should have the most territory and knowledge of their surroundings. Interestingly, these baths are done in secret, so most of the information gathered has been through spying on captive birds.

Bearded Vultures are most commonly monogamous, and breed once a year. Sometimes, especially in certain areas of Spain and France, bachelor lammergeiers will join a pre-existing couple to create a polyandrous trio. Females accept secondary mates because it increases the chances of producing offspring and doubles her protection. The birds usually don’t lay more than three eggs, so they can use all the help they can get.

These giant birds can grow up to 4 feet tall. They have a wingspan between 7 and 9 feet and usually weigh around 10 to 15 pounds.

In other words, this bird is awesome and I love it forever.

Kind of a weird thing for me to repost, but a Tumblr friend suggested this bird would be Nil’s daemon (like Golden Compass style) and UM FUCK YES IT WOULD

Source: simplytheanthropic

“My humble heart may be blackened with the clotted blood of all the enemies I’ve slain… but for what it’s worth, it belongs to you. Forever.”

– Nil’s vows, from Carja Wedding

Made my way back to Nil again and got some snaps of him and Aloy looking sad as they face off. *sob*

Suntress took a deep breath and raised her chin, then crushed all his hopes under her sandaled foot. “I won’t fight you. That’s my decision. You can respect it or try to shoot me in the back as I go,” she said firmly, and there was a fierce determination in her face.

Nil stared at her, dumbfounded. How cruel she was, to turn his own fighting style against him! Suntress knew he would never shoot her in the back. There was no honour in that.

They stared at each other for a long, tense moment, then finally Nil bowed his head. “Then it’s over. Your last arrow is the cruelest.” He raised his eyes to her face once more. “It’s true I offered you the choice, but my heart is broken.”

Suntress’s fierce expression softened, and suddenly her eyes shone more brightly in the fading light of day. “Goodbye, Nil,” she said. Then without another word she was running away.