Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The pain comes roaring in, merciless and wrenching and singly persistent. But not until much later. Not until the rush of the fight evaporates from her blood and pulse — taking with it those final defenses — leaving her to fend with her depleted flesh and weary mind alone. By the time it does, Aloy is gone from the Palace of the Sun, having left Avad to his affairs, Erend to his thrill of fulfilled vengeance, and Dervahl caged in his cell.

After the day’s events, the Sun-Priests chant their twilight hymn with more resonant gratefulness — as though the sun can claim responsibility for any bit of the deliverance. Even so, the Carja Sundom’s great god sinks away, gleaming in their veneration. Yet another cycle of light and shadow is completed, and the Sun’s crown city is immersed in dusk. Daylight’s stubborn remnants seep through the balcony window of Erend’s apartment, smattering the space with patches of oblique glow. Aloy studies them as she stands just inside the doorway. Stands very very still, like reluctantly inviting the frenzy of the day to come catch up.

But still another part of her holds it all back.

And that particular part blinks tiredly at these new accommodations, offered to her for the evening by their occupant, who Aloy is absolutely certain will be drinking the night away — but joyously, now, in celebration of victory and beloved remembrance of Ersa. The villa is small, but not inhibited by its size, and marked by what she can tell is an odd marriage of Oseram utility and Carja luxury befitting the Captain of the Sun-King’s Vanguard. With a pang of something muted and unidentifiable, Aloy finds herself wondering how much of it’s been left untouched since Ersa last rested here.

And now, Aloy is to rest here. Something about that feels strange and nearly profane, and the invitation had been downright unexpected. Any invitation at all still manages to feel unexpected, truly, no matter how time passes or how many impressions are made. No matter how many accolades and favors are collected.

And yet.

“It’s much better than a bedroll on the ground of some campsite,” Erend had pointed out as he slipped her the key. “Consider it a puny little bit of the ridiculous thanks I owe you. Please. Take me up on this one.”

In that moment, Aloy couldn’t draw on any patience to argue with either Erend or herself. She took the key with a quick nod, a slight squint, and a taut mouth that probably looked to be more grimace than smile.

Now comes the struggle to justify her choice of accepting Erend’s offer. Somewhat more secure than another fireside sleep, she reasons, as she considers the door bolted shut behind her. The walls hem her in from the streets’ idle evening stir. But even sequestered from it, faint voices from below still break through, carried in on the gloaming. Most of it is simply more of the inconsequential chatter she’s grown used to overhearing as she dashes through the alleys and courtyards of Meridian. But the breathless phrases explosion earlier and those winged machines swarming the Palace have weaved their repeated way into the typical conversations. Every so often, she might catch hushed utterances of that formidable Nora outlander as well — fragments of claims she only manages to partly believe are about her.

“...she didn’t hesitate,” she hears now. “She stood between the assassin and our Sun-King and…”

The voice passes out of earshot. Aloy remains still. Closes her hands at her sides into careful, firm fists. Feels the energy of holding that position simmer from fingers to wrist to forearm, and lets them fall open again, empty, slack.

Another suitable benefit of being here: the calm, tidy bedchamber is certainly not the throne terrace, left doused in blood and littered with Glinthawk scrap (and this suddenly makes Aloy ask herself, not for the first time: why is it always Glinthawks?). It gives a tolerable measure of separation from the skirmish with Dervahl — yet another instance of being drawn into a situation that she doesn’t own, but bears some undeniable connection to the baffling and relentless questions which she does. And somewhere even farther removed, buried deep inside — out of the view of the ogling Carja, of the Sun-King, of Erend, of everyone, almost including herself — Aloy makes a silent admission.

It’s exhausting. It drains her in ways she cannot allow herself to remain drained. Every answer breeds another question and she still has so far to go.

That imparts the final point of warrant. Rest. She needs it, and needs it soon. Needs it now. Her eyes fall on the bed. Unfamiliar, so detached from her. But Erend was right. It looks more comfortable than camping outside the city limits. Inviting. It’s neatly-made, too, like it hasn’t held a body for weeks; she tries to simply accept that fact and not speculate as to where Erend’s been laying his head. There are some things she’s truly better off not knowing.

With her own head still thrumming through the steep comedown, Aloy shrugs off her spear, bow, and quiver and takes the seven steps to the bed, forcing motion through the clumsy heaviness of fatigue. The cushion cradles her weight as she sits atop it, shoulders rounding, flattened palms skimming against the silken bedcover. Aloy swallows. She sighs, filling her lungs and creaking her ribs, hoping to pull in some of the unaffected calmness surrounding her.

And then she winces, hard, body going rigid before curling inward on her center.

“Damn it,” she hisses, half-choked, through gritted teeth. Eyes squeeze shut against the first onslaught of angered pain, ignored and avoided for too long now, invited to fullness of sense in that instant of loosening. Aloy freezes, takes a labored breath to keep her pulse steady, and makes herself remember what Rost taught her.

(And in remembering, Aloy misses him. She always misses him. It siphons away just a bit more of her composure.)

Eight years old. Hard fall from a trail she shouldn’t have tried, but couldn’t be told no. Snapped wrist, swift and agonizing — gasping fright, hysterical tears. Rost had knelt in front of her, voice firm but even, almost to the point of detachment, as he coached her to get control of her breathing before she keeled over. Locking onto Aloy’s distress-blurred gaze. Telling her with no room for doubt or debate: think, Aloy. Your wrist. It needs to be set, and with haste. Out here, you need to learn to help yourself. So, what do you need to do?

(Make a splint, she had coughed after a bleary second’s deliberation. Then she had bitten her lip, braced against the tears, and done exactly that, under Rost’s careful watch. Weeks later, the wrist healed stronger than it had been before.)

And though another wave of this pain sends Aloy nearly buckling, the fact that she can feel it now means she can unravel it. Decide what she needs to do. With another shuddering breath, Aloy takes appraisal.

For all the victory, she sure took a beating.

Her legs feel mostly unimpaired, aside from the exertion’s sore pull at every one of the muscles. She parses out the numb swollen sting of a busted lip. An inflamed sort of ache, too, in her right eye. Not from direct impact, she determines, but from a wallop at the eyebrow just above. It’s split, she knows. She had been blinking blood away for most of the fight. But all things considered, nothing terrible.

Below the neck, though...much worse. Aloy’s mouth contorts as it ratchets up and through, ripping from her body and into her awareness. Her skin still feels tender — no — raw from the incessant torrents of Glinthawk Chillwater. There’s a wrenching burn deep in the thews of her right shoulder, and a twinge nagging at her ribs. But those are almost immediately blotted out by the fierce searing of slashed flesh at her left side. She winces again as she presses a reflexive hand against the wound. Her silks are torn and soaked all around the gash. Warm, saturated slick. A quick deliberation at the touch: just grazed, whether by spear or arrow or claw. Each cause, the same effect. Had to be pretty shallow if it had truly gone unnoticed until now.

But when Aloy looks down to study it more carefully, she sees fresh blood in the spaces between her fingers, a lot of it — enough of it to worry her. Maybe it’ll need to be sewn up, and that’s never pleasant to do for oneself. Scarlet is rendered near-black in the dim light. Something about that makes it more foreboding. Heat bristles at her chest and neck.

Okay, Aloy. Another few breaths, shallower, markedly more strenuous. Think. This is nothing worse than you’ve suffered before. What do you need? It’s difficult to think of what she needs when her head is spinning. Why is it spinning, all of a sudden pounding? Why are the edges of every thought so frayed and fleeting? She can’t hold onto any of them. With her eyes closed she sees distorted shapes but can’t make sense of them before they slip from her grasp. Like gummed-up gears, or too-thick oil.

And then, a swirl of blinding memory. She had been running. The warehouse. Fire at her back, taking her off of flailing feet and sending her soaring like a rag doll. Stomach plummeting, the ground coming closer and closer. A lame attempt at a midair twist. Skull, connecting with stone.

“Ouch.” She flinches at both the delayed recollection and the unbidden way she groans at it. A little shake of her chin, maybe to dissipate the haze — bad idea, it aches, pressure like her eyes are both trying to flee from this mess entirely. No, concentrate now, she thinks, bracing against the sloppiness in her head and wobble of nausea it provokes. Her body is fickle and reactive, but practicality and practice trump that. They have to. So she calls on them again. Endure the pain and find the remedy. What does she need?

Bandages, she thinks, plunging deep, remembering what those are and that they exist. She has to get the gash packed and bound tight so she can move freely without its edges pulling back open. There must be a cache of them somewhere in these quarters. And they’re probably made of silk. That would be very Carja — it doesn’t feel like the right moment to roll her eyes but she’s too unsteady to suppress the visceral response. Poultice first, though, before binding. This is one of those spiteful wounds that will waste no time in festering; it’s already pulsing a fuss under her palm. Some Hintergold, too, to chew while she works on the rest. Curb the pain enough to get at least fitful sleep. To sleep is to heal — to survive the body’s idle fight against itself and emerge stronger.

And the exact moment she’s healed enough from this (and absolutely not one heartbeat longer), she can set out for the Rockwreath. Where Olin waits, unaware of her pursuit. Where she can finally regain her own selfish momentum.

Specific directionality negotiates. Having a plan of action makes Aloy feel less a spiral, more a true-aimed arrow.

She reaches into the medicine pouch at her hip — and curses again, tight and near-incredulous, when she realizes there’s nothing there in the leather.

Other pockets mock her, too. Just some metal shards, and more wire than she’ll use in a decade. No plants, no poultices, no potions. Heart pounding, vision doubling, she can’t remember using up the last of them. But she must have. So much for being prepared. This whole situation is swiftly scattering into shreds she can’t keep gathered. A fresh surge of hot dampness at her flank makes her shudder despite the way she’s trying to keep her heartbeat low.

“You’re fine,” she tells herself with quivering defiance, out loud this time, pressing harder against the wound and steeling her jaw. Her injuries keep up their stubborn rebuttal — most vehemently the one in her side. It’s becoming harder not to be swayed by the sweat that breaks out across her temples. It’s beginning to feel suspiciously like fever. “Think, Aloy.”

A bit of pain serves to sharpen; a lot of pain dulls. Her head is brittle, like flaking rust being chipped away by the flat of a blade. Yet all at once, the disembodied threads of exaltation from the street seem to grow closer, louder, loud enough to make her cringe. Words spread here like a flame through the driest brush, perpetually fueled and billowing beyond containment.

“She was incredible! She stopped Dervahl without breaking a sweat. I had no idea the Nora were so fierce!”

It doesn’t matter that Aloy can’t see who spoke. She knows they weren’t there, and they hadn’t seen. Because it was just her there, set upon by man and machine and besting both in a spate of soft flesh and scorched metal — but at a price, apparently. Another jolt at the seamed skin below her ribs. All in defense of a city and a god-king, neither of which is hers. And now, she reels in the aftermath, surrounded by voices that have begun to glorify her without the slightest clue of who she is or how she began. Or how now she’s hidden away, wounded and ill-prepared, with her blood dripping onto Carja silk sheets in an Oseram’s villa. And now she wonders if recognition is something that should be desired in the first place. For all she wanted it, she never anticipated that being seen comes with the weight of expectation.

Nora outlander, they call her. Nora girl. Nora machine rider. Always the identifier. Aloy of the Nora. She’s Nora by land, Nora by teaching. But still only just barely Nora. She still bears the scorn of her birth even when they look to in desperation. Her face has become the ballast of an entire people — a people from which she was shunned for an entire life, before being thrust beseechingly into this new role by a slim majority. Dizzying whiplash. Motherless outcast to blessed champion. An anointed Seeker who hasn’t yet found any of what she’s supposed to be seeking — only the threads of crisis and conflict and tension in these other tribes.

Caught between all complex things, and still no true place for her in sight. So she sits here instead, bloodied up, torn open at the side, with a shamefully empty medicine pouch.

Aloy’s eyes water through another wave of pain that threatens the boundary of her strength. Everything hurts. She sucks her teeth and blinks away the brimming. Her eyes fight against her intentions, wanting to just stay shut tight. Her breath is coming much faster than it ought to be. But over the rasping heave of it, her bruised-blunt mind gives rise to Rost’s stern guidance. Think again, and think harder. Lean away from the out-of-control thoughts. What does she need? Can’t just stay here. Can’t freeze like this. That’s not how a wrist’s bones knit or a bleeding wound mends.

So she gropes for a solution through the punch-drunk blind. More quickly than expected, one boils to the surface of the mess, raddled but authentic. Passed-down wisdom presented, with a proud smirk, as an emblematic covenant. A promise, and another new moniker. Aloy’s not used to carrying the yoke of so many names. But this was not a vow pledged under confused duress. It was bestowed after being seen in a rare way that makes her make sense. Earned in legendary ways. Makes her feel integral, genuinely understood, worthy without caveat, like all of her fragments fitting and bearing down. The place where she’s found fond gratefulness instead of all this inflated adulation.

Somewhere to which she can turn.

Rost’s ghost still cautions her from straying from their embedded way — turning outward will leave her even more exposed. But her resolve is already splintering, even though she’s never thought of needing it before. Not a merchant, not a mercenary, not a monarch. She can’t comprehend how to ask for it, but she knows where to find it. And she’s losing time, losing blood, losing sight of all the grave arguments stacked against this.

A half-lucid decision thunders down. A line crossed can’t be uncrossed, but that quick thought withers away into dizzy bits of oblivion. Her empty hands make it too easy to latch on.

Standing takes effort in more ways than one. But Aloy does it all the same, wincing at the way the motion strains from rib to navel, imploring her trembling legs to hold her weight.

Remaining faceless in the dusk is an exercise in futility. Given everything else, the curious and enrapt gazes of the evening crowd are unsurprising. The color of her hair and the way her movements must say Nora instantly give her away. Along with the fact that she’s blatantly bloodsoaked — probably an absurd sight in the face of finer Carja sensibilities, for whom even battling with machines is deemed an ornate, delicate affair. Aloy makes a noble attempt to avoid (or at least ignore) all of the gawking, though, as she treads through the streets of Meridian by sheer grit and muscle memory alone.

The cobblestones rock beneath her feet, tilting dangerously, perception addled by pain-haze. Whetted reflex helps her compensate. Lean directly over the toes of her boots with each step, keep her momentum going in a straight line, don’t dare look to either side. Like passing over the widest stream imaginable on a fallen log. Use her sighting. The lessons of the Sacred Lands are still useful here, where these impossibly-high rooftops dwarf her as they jut into the descending night and steal all but the smallest stripes of stars and sky. In her current state, Aloy can’t decide whether this is comfort or curse. Night, just as day, smells of heady foreign spice, and it makes her stomach roil.

Time and distance turn strange as she presses on, like they hardly register at all through a growing delirium. Maybe it’s all the blood. Maybe it’s the flush setting in across her cheeks. The day had been sweltering but the evening’s taken on a chill; it bites at the sheen of sweat breaking on her neck and temples. Maybe she’s simply preoccupied trying not to stumble sidelong into any walls or farming displays. Whatever the case, before she realizes it, she’s managed to ascend several sets of staircases and her still-reluctant destination glows before her. She blinks in disoriented surprise and considers it a small victory that she’s still upright, having apparently not crawled up on hands and knees.

Another blink — this one long and steadying, to push against the uncertainty at the pit of her gut — and Aloy lurches across the threshold of the Hunters Lodge.

Inside, surrounded on all sides once again, it’s bright. It’s so bright. Like the sun decided to burst back into the sky to garner more adoration from all of these faithful worshipers. And those are aplenty in the grand room, in spite of the way the preceding hours had brushed up against peril for the city. A body in every seat, speaking over one another in carefree tones that rabble into distortion — none of it would make sense even if Aloy’s head was clear. She catches just one piece of it, the loudest: a group gathered at the bar raising glasses in salute to a young Banuk fledgling and her first Ravager trophy. Music in a dance rhythm swells over all the rest, percussive and buoyant. The traditional Carja three-piece. Each beat of the iron pendulum slams into Aloy’s skull, through her clenched jaw and down her spine, a steadily-recurring reminder of her head hitting stone in front of that warehouse.

But even with her fraught body protesting all of the overwhelming stimulation, Aloy forces herself to straighten her back (as much as she can, at least) before hailing Ligan. No turning away, now.

“Is the Sunhawk around?”

Must not have straightened enough. Ligan’s habitually-cordial expression wilts at the sight of her, eyes widening, jaw falling just short of what could be considered impolite gape. As though he hadn’t expected to see an incapacitated Nora come staggering in and was woefully unprepared for it.

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to scrape together a dignified response. The answer comes on its own.

“By the Sun! Look at you.”

The strong voice cuts in over the clamor. Aloy turns her head towards its source too hastily, causing her vision to double. It’s brutal, and makes her stomach spasm. But when the warped blur settles over itself, what Aloy sees gives an unexplainable but welcome flash of distraction from her body’s malice: Talanah Khane Padish, chin high, brow notched, descending the stairs from the upper level with a slow and unbothered sway of her hips. The strings’ sound — much gentler than the thumping metal drum — lilts over her graceful movements. Awash in the warm glow of the oil lamps and torches, hard-earned and well-deserved glory seems to both cling to her skin and radiate from it. Talanah wears all of that much better than Aloy. Her Hawk stands so tall on so many shoulders. Another reminder that Aloy has no idea where her own balance rests.

Light glints off of Talanah’s headpiece as she comes ever closer. Aloy’s flighty gaze pulls to its gleam. And her half-dazed mind wonders how Talanah won it. If the rope around her chin ever becomes uncomfortable. What she looks like when she’s not wearing it. The odd last thought blooms abruptly and at speed; it also lingers longer than the others, until she makes an actual conscious effort to move beyond it.

“Greetings, Sunhawk,” she presents the customary respects, even though the words feel too thick for her tongue.

Talanah draws near, hand on one hip. Her brow notches further at the strangeness of Aloy’s formality, but she doesn’t address it. Instead, concern creeps into her eyes as she looks Aloy up and down once, twice. But after just a moment, she hides it well; a tight little smile breaks across her mouth as she speaks.

“News travels quickly, especially news like today’s. I can’t say I’m surprised that you were at the center of every tale I’ve heard.” Talanah’s amber eyes brightens as they bore in, anchoring Aloy’s dizzy vision. “Now the rest of Meridian— no, the rest of the Sundom has joined me in debt to you. I was planning to call on you tonight in hopes of hearing the whole of it. Imagine my delight that you’ve come here anyway...and mostly in one piece.”

Under other circumstances, Aloy would have been able to gather together a more eloquent response. But that ability predictably eludes her as she tries not to double over, still holding her torn-up flank. “Not much to say.” A lie, but one she’s so used to telling that it hits the air indistinguishable from truth. “Wasn’t easy,” she admits, voice clipped. With the way it hurts to talk, she hopes her words are making sense. “Plenty of men with heavy weaponry and other Oseram devices. Glinthawks, too. I had to bring down the whole damned flock on my own.”

Talanah gives a soft chuckle. “It’s always Glinthawks,” she says, shrugging. Ligan, having made a rebound from his shock, nods in sage agreement. “I like the way you tell it better. The pieces fall together a lot more simply. Though, I guess I do have one more question about the matter.”

“What’s that?” Aloy croaks.

Talanah, eyes narrowing, shifts her weight and crosses her arms. “Did you leave them looking worse than you?”

Caught off-guard, Aloy manages a weak but genuine smirk, pulling up one corner of her mouth to show teeth. Must be odd to look at, but it’s all she can muster. She nods, eyelids drooping. Talanah laughs quietly again, grin widening — and a smile earned firsthand like this, instead of from a sightless distance, relieves a few heartbeats of bite from Aloy’s injuries.

“That’s my Thrush. I had no doubt.”

But the reprieve doesn’t last. Aloy winces, partly as the pain settles back in, partly in reflexive inhibition of the next thing she needs to say. Her head pounds as she wrestles against the instinct to withdraw and deal with this on her own, as always. She can leave. She can turn and stumble away to devise a new plan that doesn’t involve baring herself like this.

She doesn’t. And for a moment, that surprises her.

“I’ve found myself short on supplies,” Aloy sighs with no lack of effort. Talanah doesn’t need to know the empty and utter extent of her unpreparedness. “Bandages, medicine. I was hoping you might have some to spare.”

“Of course.” The way Talanah answers at once and with certainty almost makes Aloy feel foolish for her misgivings. But. “Come with me so I can look at that wound. See what we can do about the bleeding.”

Aloy balks, hackles raising. Her voice cracks as she says, “That’s not necessary.” Much too fast, words splintering in her mouth. “I only need the supplies. I can take care of the rest myself. Really, Talanah, I’m fine.”

Talanah frowns and tilts her head in doubt. “Are you sure about that?”

And it takes a long moment of confusion for Aloy to realize why Talanah is frowning. In the space of speaking, she had listed sideways far enough to lean against the ornately-carved pillar that’s served as Ligan’s post every time she’s come here. Jerking back to attention is yet another bad idea discovered too late — her balance suffers and the pain escalates again when she overcorrects, barely keeping herself from toppling in the other direction. It’s all Aloy can do to silently fume and bid the room to stop spinning, beg her side to stop screaming with every single movement.

“That’s what I thought,” Talanah says with gracious consideration for Aloy’s partly-conscious pride. “No reason to keel over in the middle of the market. I know you’re stubborn, but please. Come upstairs with me.”

A pointed look flares in her eyes, then — calm and gentle, but also purposeful and firm. A look that rivets Aloy. Disarms her, burning past the pain into something much deeper. And when it’s lasted long enough to prove whatever it’s attempting to prove, Talanah turns and starts for the stairs, leaving no room for a retort. Not that there’s one coming. Aloy’s head is cleaving. She’s paralyzed from every side, worn out by reasons both for and against, both past and present. And the few words Talanah has spoken are so much more than the hollow noises she’s been hearing in this city. That she’s been hearing for longer than she’ll admit.

To argue more would be like fighting another flock of Glinthawks. The thought of saying no makes her spilling blood go cold with some dismay she can’t name.

So slave to her body’s desperate agitation, Aloy follows. It feels as though the creaking floor rolls up under her feet to carry her into step with Talanah. Compelling, forceful draw toward Talanah’s heels. Her original intent for all of this fades into obscurity as they begin the ascent. Talanah waits patiently as Aloy grasps the banister to move herself along.

In the midst of it, Aloy’s mind strays again, unwitting, unruly, irrational. This persuasion — the one that has her following close — must be convenient during the hunt.

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.