Chapter Text
It’s no less strange — maybe even stranger — the second time that evening, bleeding all over an unfamiliar bed. And the one in the Sunhawk’s quarters, tucked away in a corner of the Lodge’s upper level, is softer and more welcoming than the Vanguard Captain’s. It makes Aloy’s aching body beg to tip over sideways and tuck her knees into her chest, folding around and protecting all the parts that hurt. But she keeps fighting this relentless impulse, sitting upright and stiff, like she has been since she was ushered here with reluctance shrieking in her chest and Talanah’s hand hovering just behind the small of her back.
Across the room, Talanah recorks a cask, places it back onto a shelf, and approaches Aloy with even but purposeful steps.
“Here. Take this first.”
Aloy peers at the Sunhawk’s offering with bleary suspicion. A small metal vessel, filled with an unnamed clear liquid she just poured from that bottle. She’s holding it close enough for Aloy to smell, and it’s certainly not water. It would probably look both peculiar and even more distrustful to scan it with her Focus, and the device’s output lights would likely make head spin. So Aloy simply asks instead, too dizzy to curb any bluntness.
“What is it?” Her voice sounds like it’s making a valiant effort not to be a groan.
“Not your common Scrappersap, I promise. Much finer than that,” Talanah replies. “But still more than strong enough to ease some of the pain right away. You look miserable.”
Aloy feels miserable. She clenches her hand over her side, guarding her wound, as her entire skull throbs.
Talanah, calmly unrelenting, prompts her again with a tiny flick of her chin. Sighing and hoping not to regret this, Aloy takes the liquor with her free hand.
“All at once, now. It’s easier that way.” Talanah raises her own hand in empty tribute, giving Aloy an encouraging grin. “To the hunt.”
Aloy’s mind is working too slowly for second thoughts. And the glimmer in Talanah’s eyes — the way Talanah is looking at her, seeing her like this — dizzies her even more. Like one of Dervahl’s sonic devices, bending her defenses, chiseling at her resolve, pressing down into her very being. But also different — fundamentally so. Reaching instead of forcing. Devoting instead of seizing. It staggers her that these stark opposites can lead to the same effect.
(She must have hit her head harder than she thought.)
Talanah is still watching. Still waiting. Aloy doesn’t bother acknowledging the toast before she blinks hard, brings the vessel to her lips, and drains it in one gulp. And — immediately — she gags, face contorting, as it burns its caustic way down her throat to her already-unsettled stomach. It tastes like the char of a bitter brush fire and makes her eyes brim.
“That’s awful,” she chokes when she’s mostly sure the words won’t be accompanied by vomit. Talanah takes the vessel back, hiding a smirk, as she grimaces again and shudders.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Talanah admits. “Not bad once you’re used to it, though. Even pleasant.”
“Then why don’t you have some, if you like it so much?” Aloy mutters under her breath, though it was meant to pass by in silence.
And with her back turned as she sets the cup aside, Talanah doesn’t miss a beat.
“Because I’m not the one who looks like she decided to lie down for a nice nap at a Trampler site.”
A fair point, and entirely deserved. Changes nothing about the horrible taste, though. Aloy, resisting the urge to gag again, watches as a quizzical look rolls across Talanah’s face like a hesitant afterthought.
“Have you eaten anything?” she asks.
“No,” Aloy nearly scoffs, mouth still watering, trying in vain to rid itself of the aftertaste.
“Hmm.” Talanah narrows her eyes, rubbing at the back of her neck. “I probably should have asked that beforehand.”
This is worrisome. “Mind telling me why?”
“You might start to feel a little drunk.”
“Great.” As though the head injury isn’t enough and she’s really wishing for more unsteadiness. She thinks of the drunken Brave from the night before the Proving — the one who refused to come down the lodge roof — and how, just for a bit, he had replaced her as that evening’s spectacle. And with drawing back from memory comes the realization that Talanah had spoken truly: the stuff’s already coursed through her, diminishing the pain from a roar to a slightly quieter roar. Her face is a little numb. Her fingers tingle. These mild and novel sensations divert her attention from the ones plaguing her with more severity.
Talanah returns with a cloth soaked in what Aloy really hopes is water, and not more of whatever had been in that cup. Standing before her, Talanah brushes her fingers against her chin, angling it here and there, taking inventory of her bruised face. Aloy doesn’t resist these manipulations. But she does tighten her fist in the bedcover as warmth spreads from Talanah’s attentive touch and mingles with what she now can’t deny is a budding fever. Suddenly, she’s parched, mouth completely dry; she swallows at the nothingness, trying to keep her gaze trained anywhere but on Talanah’s contemplative face. This is, for some reason, a challenge.
So she occupies herself with examining every corner of the room instead. High ceiling, soft amber light, all the elaborate comforts of Carja nobility in a smaller space than she would have expected. Incense-scent hangs bold in the air. For once, Aloy finds that it doesn’t cloy at her lungs. And she has no idea what the tribal adornments and decorations symbolize, or if they mean anything at all, but she does wonder which of them are here by Talanah’s personal touch — like the featherlight pressure of her nimble fingers on Aloy’s chin.
“So you, uh.” Talking is more of a challenge now, too. But she forces it anyway for want of preoccupation from any number of nebulous things swirling deep, mouth clumsy both from the head-throb and the way Talanah’s hand is right there. “This is where you stay when you’re not being lavished with trophies?”
“Sometimes,” Talanah replies, glancing absently at her inherited quarters from the corner of her eye. “I keep a villa across the Mesa, and I prefer to stay there. But this space comes in handy when waiting for late hunts to return, or when I’m forced to be here to settle disputes into the small hours. And for when my Thrush limps in from the street like a heroic disaster, apparently.”
The good-natured jab finally makes Aloy look at her full-on, concussed and chagrined. This time, Talanah doesn’t bother hiding a smirk that dimples at her cheeks. Gently, she swipes the damp cloth over Aloy’s split eyebrow and flushed forehead, bringing away the dried blood and battlegrime. Aloy can’t help but sigh at the cool kiss of the water.
“The look of the fight becomes you. Your face is as fine as ever. These will heal without a mark, unlike this spot above it.”
The pad of Talanah’s thumb ghosts across the small, uneven scar above her right eyebrow. It makes Aloy think of a rock, of another sting that still bellows across time. And of Rost, again, kneeling before her — the last one she can remember touching her with hands that hoped to heal.
“That one’s old,” Aloy mutters in partial truth, barely audible, coiling inside, hurtling back to when her name meant less than nothing.
And she blisters at the subtle way Talanah notices. A fleeting look of remembering coming across her features, eyes darkening, mouth tightening. But she says nothing, and Aloy is bitterly and fervently glad for that. Some wounds don’t need to be prodded.
Instead, she returns the rag to the basin. “I’m more worried about your flank. Take off your silks and lie back so I can have a look?”
The suggestion more than enough to rip Aloy out of the forsaken past and toss her back headlong into her body, weakened but still shocked. It’s absolutely ridiculous that Talanah’s request rocks her so deeply — of course her garments need to be removed before the wound can be cleaned and dressed. It’s not supposed to feel complicated like this. It should be simple. But logic crumbles down in the vise of injury, and her clothes are the final margin of consequence. Lifted away, they’ll leave her exposed, steeped in discomfort and frustration and grief. Her head wrenches as Rost warns her again, grave and resigned, of an outcast’s cruel reality. Only her. What happens when this tenet is shattered? There are two sides to all things, the same way the Nora take with one hand and give with the other. From curse to Seeker, but with absolutely no change in her between the two. Thinking of it so plainly costs her a wince.
Talanah, pausing, heeds her hesitance. “Leave the breastband if you’re concerned about modesty,” she says softly, still understanding only in part. “Though, honestly, I can’t imagine that Nora bodies are any different from Carja bodies.”
And then she faces away, busying herself with preparing a second cloth — a disguised gesture to grant privacy.
Talanah’s unassuming even-tempered manner — an open display of what should be effortless — should only hack at Aloy more. But washed in this battle-haze, it penetrates the turmoil, stripping the situation to its pith. This wound needs to be wrapped. Her instincts howl in dissent, but preservation prevails. Disrobing becomes a prudent, if not still begrudging, eventuality.
There’s just one problem. When she thinks of lifting her arms, her body freezes in apprehension, predicting on its own how motion and musculature will pull at the gash in agonizing ways. Aloy puts up the folly of a fight for a few moments, but it’s no use. Squinting exhausted and apologetic eyes at Talanah’s back, Aloy calls out, incredibly tense and impossibly quiet.
“Talanah.”
Talanah turns. Aloy sees her dark eyelashes, fumbles for words. They eventually materialize too slowly in punch-drunk, piecemeal ways, like the shrapnel of an unclean kill she can’t do anything to salvage. Quivering and uncertain, they take flight.
“I would do it myself if…”
And then, silence cuts in, as though the rest would crack this tentative air. Aloy swallows, eyes slipping closed, so heavy, so unsure, so ashamed. What she’s said is not a request but it is permission shuddering into existence. And fortunately, Talanah needs no elaboration. Aloy’s eyes come open at the departure of pressure — Talanah lifting her headgear from her tousled braids — and they connect with Talanah’s without roving. There’s no scorn cast over Talanah’s gaze, no affront or derision. Just wordless patience. It lances right through Aloy’s chest.
The rest follows, from shoulder plates to boots, until the outer pieces of her silks — her vacant attempt to mask herself here — are pooled on the floor. The last layer peels from her skin with the stickiness of sweat and, at the wound, half-clotted blood. Talanah’s assured hands guide it over her head. The air is mild, but it stings at her Chillburned skin, left laid bare aside from breastband and undergarments. Her battered body unveiled sets her heart flailing. Talanah’s hand cradles Aloy’s naked shoulder, jolts her perception. She seizes up and regrets it when pain floods her system.
“Easy now. Lie back,” Talanah says, hand skirting away as she gently bids Aloy down. And then, looking at the red-stained bunde of torn silk in her other fist, “These are pretty much ruined. I have to ask — why didn't you wear your Blazon armor?”
“The silks are fortified,” Aloy states in groggy defense. Her head is like dead weight against the pillow, and the room spins in reward for the audacity she had to shift position. “Besides, an outfit change wasn’t exactly convenient.”
The slight laugh Talanah gives laces into the storm meandering through Aloy’s vessels, summons her attention, makes her burn from gash to cheeks until she’s like a glowing ember immersed in stronger flame, daring to be noticed amidst the blaze.
“I guess that makes sense.”
What doesn’t make sense is the state of being barely-clad in someone else’s bed. It clenches Aloy’s stomach, sinks lower, provokes wayward shuddering. Aloy ignores it. Tries to. Stares at the ceiling instead, bidding the architecture to stop whirling around. Minds her breathing as Talanah gingerly rubs the cloth against wrathful skin, trying to soothe as much as she unavoidably irritates. The cold water raises gooseflesh all over. Jaw stiff, grinding her teeth, Aloy doesn’t make a sound, even when she wants to thrash and cry out. She doesn’t watch. Doesn’t want to quantify the blood. Just waits for the rawness to pass, tallying each time she hears Talanah wring the rag into the basin.
She’s tolerated six when Talanah speaks up.
“There.” Damp cloth set aside. A soft, dry one in its place, dabbing at Aloy’s torn edges, finishes the job. Aloy lifts her chin (the world breaks into triple before slowly settling) and realigns her gaze on Talanah. Sees her calm face silhouetted by lamplight. Aloy realizes her lungs are held full, and lets them deplete. “You’re luckier than you looked. It’s a fussy one, but not a dangerous one. A lot of bleeding, though it seems to have stopped. The wound itself isn’t deep and it doesn’t call for stitching. Salve and bandaging will do.”
“Good,” Aloy replies, thick-tongued, eloquence rendered a casualty of everything happening in and around her. “Thanks.”
As Talanah steps away to rinse her hands, Aloy glances down at herself — just once, and only long enough to instantiate the prognosis. What she sees is a relief. Clean skin split harshly but superficially, and left with neat margins. Mustering grit, she glares at it, flexes the sore muscles there and watches as nothing seeps. For the first time in what feels like (and probably truly has been) hours, she lightens, sinking back against the cushion.
Talanah returns to her side holding a small pot containing what Aloy assumes is a prepared poultice. Assumes, because it doesn’t smell earthy and wild like any recipe of The Embrace — the kind she’s accustomed to and would have mixed herself. The scent of this one is much more complex. Fresh, sharp, bright, with subtle but clever heat, like mid-morning sun-touch. Arresting, alluring. Like Talanah. This thought is unexpected but not specifically unpleasant.
“It still looks painful. I’ll be gentle,” Talanah promises by way of both warning and seeking assent. After another breath, Aloy closes her eyes and twitches her chin in the affirmative.
Talanah coats her fingertips and begins.
And Aloy’s backbreaking attempt at composure ruptures at the first touch.
The wall of dissonance she’s tried to erect between lonely past and weakened present topples into pointless wreckage as Talanah spreads the salve along the gash with careful strokes. Her skin-to-skin touch is kind and reverent, like a hallowing, like an anointment. But all at once, she’s touching more than flesh and ichor and sinew. No, the connection branches deeper, becomes something perilous. Delves without warning into the scattered scrap of Aloy’s life. Nobody outside has ever come this close to her or this invisible, egregious, unrevealed flaw she’s carried her whole life. And it claps Aloy’s ears, casting the world into deafened blur, ripping apart the tenuous grip she’s kept on herself. Too late to keep contained, to stop it from spilling over, every fragment of loneliness. Her heart pounds, blasts, drums against her tense ribs. Her tongue presses against her teeth and she bears down and she thinks too much. She thinks not enough. She thinks will I ever.
Talanah’s fingers splaying over her skin graze something intrinsic, something radical and angry. A fundamental truth — the part of all this that finds her alone and questioning, over and over and over. Aloy, no longer laid out half-bare in the Sunhawk’s bed, but cramped, bent, crooked in the cage for which she’s grown too large. Stuck between, here and not there, lost in the haze. Her bones bow against the trap as she tries without avail to climb out, trapped in the parts of her own mind she rarely visits. Sometimes her head is a hostile place to live. So many questions borne of selfish desires. Every broken wish deferred again and again threatens to burst out, to come like light from the craters in her depths, collapsing into existence with tears and gnashing teeth and shocks of abrasive revulsion.
And yet she’s consumed. Talanah’s fingers enthrall her as they give sure and steady clemency. Her touch works to root out and then smooth down the raggedness she feels everywhere, all the time. Every recrimination between her and her homeland. All the things she can’t change, all of the things that elude her, that wisp away in the wake of being seen as her. Being cared for as her. This matters. Care. It matters. It’s always mattered, but it’s never belonged to her as plainly and unquestioningly as this. And Aloy doesn’t know how to let it matter — how to let all of her names matter and bear their own weight, and reflect back onto her in ways that don’t make her feel like a pretender. How to let herself matter, to find the space to move beyond, to let the bruises go pale. To find any measure of the peace she’s still seeking.
She’s so exhausted. And even cradled in comfort, her head is still pounding like a close-approaching tempest. Clarity whips away, taken by stone and drink and sweeping hand. Torrents of uncertainty broken free and allowed to crash over her drive her to weakness. They wash away every posture and semblance, betray unnerving desires. Propel her out of control. Reveal how she wants to be held and to be beheld in ways she can’t fathom, can’t fully grasp. And lying there, paralyzed in this diametric frenzy of both wanting and spurning at once, Aloy doesn’t know if she’s about to shove at Talanah’s hand and lunge away — or grab her wrist, creating fuller and more frightening contact, palm to belly then pulling upward, sternum to collarbone to throat to cheek, leaving a tangible mark of this daunting grace over unclaimed, trembling barrenness.
But before either reckoning can come to pass, both outcomes are torn from possibility. Talanah’s hands leave her skin — the break in contact is like a break in everything, and Aloy feels it all over. Stinging eyes flail open, demanding an explanation for the disruption. Aloy forces them to train upward. When her vision chases clear, Talanah is at its center, finished with the task. But there’s apprehension crawling through her gaze where there should be calm satisfaction.
It takes a few careening pulse-fits for Aloy to come back into herself and parse out why. To realize that her own chest is heaving, frenzied, unrestrained, all senseless desperation for air’s relief. The way the rawness of it clings to her throat, and the way the rest of her body’s locked up in strain to keep motionless. How her now-open eyes are teeming, threatening to spill over and cut her fevered cheeks with salt tracks. Aloy squeezes them shut again to halt that particular betrayal. The rest is already too far gone and too obviously-noticed to hide. Her stomach plummets.
“Did that hurt you?” Talanah asks, voice echoing in the closed-eye darkness, and Aloy hates how collected she sounds even after seeing that. Everything inside of her curls at the edges.
Aloy brings in one more rattling gasp and holds it there, letting the incense scent seethe in her lungs as she bears down, pleading for this to pass. Smother, subdue. Survive. When she finally opens her eyes and exhales, it carries a fragile sound — something between cough and moan — which she covers with a pinched, thin response.
“No. Just not used to…” Being touched. Being cared for. Being looked at the way Talanah’s been looking at her all night. Actually having these things she craves within reach, but being terrified of them. The stark absence of Talanah’s hands overruns her thoughts.
“Getting roughed up?” Talanah teases in the loaded silence. “Or accepting help after you do?”
That suffices. Aloy swallows hard, lets her gaze flicker around without aim or direction.
“I’ve always done this myself.”
“Well, fortunately, you don’t need to anymore. A Hawk never abandons their Thrush, even when they become Sunhawk.” That smile again, then. Tight-lipped and uneven as always, but genuine, crinkling the corners and lighting the golden-brown of her eyes. “Tarkas, may the Sun shine on his patience, had to patch me up almost constantly when I was a new — and woman — Thrush, left with an old family name to uphold. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way. When you’re in a better state, I’ll have to tell you about the time my pride led to me literally getting my ass kicked by an especially hateful Longleg.”
Imagining that particular scar is another unintentional and unfamiliar side effect of Aloy’s threadbare lucidity. But her thoughts don’t dwell there long, because the mention is also a potent reminder: there was a whole world happening outside of her own while she was cutting her teeth on rejection. And that there’s shadow in Talanah’s past, too. A homeland exodus and wretched grief, leading to the imperative to right every wrong. A name on her shoulders, at her throat, and a legacy to both perform and transform. And it brings on a rush of profundity, the way such dissimilar beginnings can cross in fortuity and then meld in natural and tacit sameness. A chance to be affixed, to be understood, to see herself reflected back.
And yet, barely above a whisper:
“I’m not this useless.”
(Aloy means much more than she says.)
“No, you’re not,” Talanah agrees with a firm look, eyes sharpening. “Far from it. You’ve proven that over and over. If you were, I never would have even entertained the idea of sponsoring you.”
“Tell that to my empty supply pouch.” And the way she nearly just burst into pitiful tears at Talanah’s touch. (The second reason goes unstated.)
“You sought help when you needed to. That’s not uselessness. Pride is the path to a fool’s end,” Talanah says with conviction Aloy knows comes from experience. “You’re not alone. This is loyalty. Trust like this reaches beyond the hunt.” Her voice drops and Aloy feels the change in her own chest. The gaze they share is captivating, devouring. “You are Aloy despite the Nora. But you don’t have to be Aloy despite Everyone. Now, sit up so I can bind this wound already.”
It’s not a one-shot arrow of startling revelation that strikes sense right to her center. It’s not like falling to her knees and letting the sun bleach her sight. It doesn’t enact instant change, but it’s another mark of an oath kept. To stay, steadfast, and to be stayed with. And that’s a place to start.
Despite everything, taken by Talanah’s words, Aloy heeds the request. Her body’s capitulation is like cloud-parting.
The bandage-wrap Talanah uses isn’t delicate Carja silk. It’s linen-weave, thick and sturdy, swathing all the weakest parts of her. For the first time, the pain truly starts to pull back.
When it’s tied and finished, Talanah helps guide Aloy back down to the bed. Aloy turns her cheek against the pillow. “The poultice will help draw out any infection, but your skin was already inflamed,” Talanah tells her. “You might still have to sit through its grip. Do you feel feverish?”
“No,” Aloy lies without knowing why, visibly shivering. “I’m fine.”
It’s impossible to tell if the short hum that comes from Talanah’s throat is one of acknowledgement or gentle repudiation. But the cool hand that comes to rest on Aloy’s sweltering brow nearly takes her under.
Without making a counterclaim, Talanah pulls a quilt snugly around her. Aloy accepts it in equal silence, too tired to double down. The cover is warm and everything feels better from skin to stomach to skull. It’s a battle to keep her eyes open, and this one she concedes.
Time passes. How much, Aloy can’t estimate. She just remains supine and still, save for the occasional shiver-fit, floating in the bottomless rift between waking and slumber. Heavied by everything. The band is still playing downstairs, muted by distance, and she feels the rhythm with her slow pulse. At the periphery of her awareness, she also hears Talanah across the space — the sound of water splashing, a half-registered promise to see what she can do about cleaning Aloy’s silks, and that she knows a particularly adept seamstress who could maybe mend them. But this is all still so strange and lying there, Aloy doesn’t care about the silks. Aloy doesn’t want Talanah on the other side of the room, out of reach. And this fact comes with the urge to quicken a new muscle — to spark a new tendency.
For as long as Aloy can remember, Rost prayed to the Goddess. Kept up all the rituals, refused to turn his back on that private connection to the tribe. He taught Aloy every bit of it, too — but she had no such connection to strengthen or maintain, and his efforts fell on unwilling ears. She only harbored questions and flaws and anger and longing and brooding that all changed shape as she grew, but never faded. Aloy’s only link was to Rost. Bast had been right, that night. She didn’t know the words that blessed the Proving. Not a single one of them. And any prayers she might have fumed into being all went unanswered and withered away. But she’s learned so much more since then.
Now, far from the Embrace, an entire world away, Aloy has no idea who to ask — or how — to have Talanah come closer again. To feel connected, and maybe hold on this time. For her, the sun has only ever been a source of light and blazing heat, an impersonal arbiter of the day's beginning and end. And All-Mother only just started listening when Aloy stood before Her in Her mountain, breathlessly asserted her presence — her very existence — and was told, yet again, to wait.
But as it happens, Aloy doesn’t have to wait for acknowledgement from anything beyond. Maybe she made some nondescript sigh, or maybe she articulated a name with full clarity, or maybe it’s just one more in a long line of coincidences. Regardless of the reason, Aloy hears a stool scrape up next to the bed. And even though she’s bone-weary, she wrestles her eyes open to confirm that Talanah reapproaching isn’t part of some wishful fever dream.
Turns out that vision does nothing to settle the matter of reality versus stupor. What Aloy sees, all slow white-edged vision, surprises her. Tugs at her stomach, whittles at her bones. Talanah, leaning in so close to her, relieved of all her armor and Sunhawk finery — just resplendent silk and sun-touched skin and lean muscle. Her dark hair is left loose now, tumbling around her shoulders and framing her face. It steals Aloy’s breath like an uphill sprint — captivated by the sudden awareness that Talanah is choosing to let herself be seen in a new way, too. Like it’s easy. Like Aloy could learn how without splintering, and be given the marks of things found instead of only things lost.
“Did you want me?” Talanah asks, mindful of the proximity, voice a hushed murmur from low in her throat.
A long pause, floating in tender balance. Under the quilt, Aloy curls her hands into fists and pulls them in closer. They flood with warmth. And then she nods against the pillow, just once, but once is enough.
Talanah stays.
It takes a moment for Aloy to siphon out the will to speak again.
“What happens now?”
Exhaustion laps at the syllables and Aloy knows the question sounds ridiculous, but it surges from a place of true uncertainty. She hasn’t been here before, but Talanah has. And Aloy can try to trust.
“You sleep.” Favorable, for sure. Sleeping will be the easiest thing Aloy’s done all day. “And tomorrow, you’ll wake up confused, and sore, and starving. Likely a little embarrassed, too. But I’ll be here to help you deal with those small things.” Talanah’s hand moves, then, and Aloy’s heart leaps into her throat. The Sunhawk smooths a few wayward strands of hair from Aloy’s sweat-damp brow, the small ones that have escaped from a disheveled braid. The feel of it is nearly an undoing. The way Talanah touches her is intimate but no less relaxed for it — like it’s mired in natural ease. Like it means nothing. But in meaning nothing, it means everything. Meaningless gestures, Ahsis had once accused. As Talanah carefully tucks the hair behind her ear, Aloy can tell that nothing Talanah does is meaningless. “I’m no healer, but I think you’ll find yourself feeling much better.”
And despite the fever and the sheer tiredness and the way Talanah’s palm has come to rest on the quilt just over her collarbone, there’s a flutter of clarity. A jarring and brand-new truth that’s been churning below the surface since she departed from Erend’s apartment. It arcs just beyond her awareness, and her willingness to be aware, until it finally makes visceral impact — vaulting into vivid and unbroken view, delivered by Talanah’s hand.
Aloy, weightless and overcome, thinks, I didn’t want a healer, I wanted to come here.
Aloy, raspy and softening, says, “Thank you.”
Aloy, breathing slowly, means both.
Talanah smiles in silent acceptance. Transfixed, Aloy swears she can see her reflection in Talanah’s eyes. And seeing herself like this isn’t as loathsome as she might have thought. It makes her want to say more, to keep speaking. The thought of not saying more fills her with more of that undefined dread. But she’s wearing every bit of weariness like a second and more persuasive blanket. Eyelids droop, soft light and subdued sound begin to fade out, and she has no idea what could be left to say.
Through the spiral into sleep, Aloy fastens to the first haphazard thought that crops up and slings it into the air with abandon.
“Your Sun-King,” she mumbles, eyes already shut, mouth half-open and slurring through the words. “He, uh. Propositioned me, earlier today.”
Her sleep-caught eyes refuse to open again for the reaction. But she hears Talanah laugh — real and full-hearted, a sound that sends brightness cascading into every space of her backbone.
“I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t,” Talanah says. “Now, rest.”
Talanah uses none of Aloy’s names. Just a tender hand passing through her hair once more, then again, and again, so slowly — soothing out all the remaining shiver and stiffness and agitated misbelief, guiding her to that space of effortless dissipation where her body finally goes slack.