Thunderjaw Heart - Horizon Zero Dawn Fanfiction

Life file

He sat against a log, deciding he walked enough for the day.

With a look at the sky, he noticed the first stars were already appearing as te moon was glowing brighter and brighter. He sighed, reminding he still had a long way to walk to Meridian.
He wished he could ride one of these machines...
But for now, he only needed to get some rest. He was perfectly aware of the fact that he couldn't sleep for long, for his own safety, because of these Watchers that might notice him and call bigger machines.

He took a handful of dried fruit in his bag and started to chew absentmindedly, staring at the ground. As he was going to take another one, his hand went in the wrong pocket and the top of his fingers grazed Aloy's focus. He stopped chewing and slowly took it out, examinating it. He had no gift with these things. He always wondered how to make it work. 

He thought about the way Aloy wore it, and remembered that she usually placed above her ear.
With a careful hand, he put it on the side of his head, waiting to see if anything happened.

He jumped out of fear and almost tossed the focus away when it bipped and when he got trapped in a kind of bubble made with thin blue triangles.

He sat back against the log and tried to calm his breath, his fingers on the focus.
Scary...

He fastly understood that there wasn't any button to press on the device and that touching it only helped the owner to focus on it. He also understood that he could use his hands to make the hologram move.
He spent five minutes just getting used to it and, once he got the move, strated to dig into the files a bit.

He felt so excited to see what was in it. Firstly, he stumbled upon some holograms of fights against machines. Apparently the woman had thought about recording it to remember the machine's weak points. It was only scrappers, but he had to admit that an entire horde was a tough battle.
He didn't find it really interesting and searched for another file.
He was quite surprised to find one containing only pictures. His surprise grew even bigger when he noticed it was pictures of Kïma.

She was standing next to a huge machine with spikes all over its body. There were also other people, who looked like bandits but hard to tell, since he could only see their backs.
What was that machine though ?

Intrigued, he skipped to the next picture. He chuckled a bit when he saw the black haired woman standing on a leg, with her arms in a weird angle. She was apparently mimicking a Longleg. Hard to tell why, though.
Focusing on her face, he noticed she was younger than when he met her. Like one or two years, maybe three years younger.

The next picture was her again, now riding the metal beast, apparently walking away. He wondered when this picture was taken. He watched it a few more minutes, trying to understand what kind of machine it was. It was a brand new type, that he never saw. It looked so impossible to defeat...

His attention got caught by another file, apparently containing holograms as well. He was about to open it when he heard a crack behind him. With a jump, he turned to look what made it.
He sighed when the focus only highlighted a rabbit's silhouette.
This thing was definitely useful.

He went back to his researches and opened the file.
The first document was a video. It lasted more than ten minutes and was apparently really old. More than 12 years ago.
He watch the hologram begin and started to understand what it was.

The scene was filmed with a low angle of view, which meant 'young Aloy'. She was apparently walking in the forest, kicking rocks and mumbling.

There was then a kind of quake in the hologram. The girl was apparently facing the ground, after a little scream. He could see she was holding her forehead, but why ?