[Thunder rumbles close enough to make the earth tremble beneath their hurried footsteps. It and the wind shake the treetops overhead, and Aloy’s head briefly lifts to see them sway precariously, pulled backward against their will. She catches a cold blue glow, a bright flash of metal in the dark. There were machines in the branches — Clamberjaws, by her reckoning, unaffected by the weather, forever unsleeping and watchful.
She’s been quiet all day, responding in a neutral murmur at Zero’s complaints about the lean-to shelter that shifts unsteadily, buffeted by the wind. It’s dry enough to serve their needs, and even if it wasn’t, Aloy’s too brooding and distracted to care. They had survived worse nights, and so would survive this one. Only once she feels the telltale snag of their binding does she turn, catching Zero in her arms by weary instinct. Her gaze is distant. She’s still thinking about the village from earlier, how the plague had covered everything in a blanket of poisonous red foliage, left spores too thick to breathe through without coughing. How many of those villages and settlements they’d passed like this in the past couple of weeks of travel, and how it reminded her again of the time she had, how much of it was being wasted.
Zero’s tired demand brings her back to earth, if only for a moment. Their closeness was not unusual, becoming little more of a footnote throughout their day to day — a bizarre and symbiotic existence. Aloy had never been so close to anyone before, not even Rost, and yet she feels distance all the same, that barrier that seemed to always separate her from others made more evident by the physical contact she and Zero were always forced to maintain.
Aloy gives the bedding a longing glance, and then her gaze flattens out — it was pointless to argue, she’d long since realized.] Yeah.
[It’s the first thing she’s said for hours. Her hands move by muscle memory, automatic and dispassionately removing Zero’s tunic for her. Zero’s skin is cool and clammy, even against her rain-soaked gloves. She tries to ignore it, and finds herself saying anyway:] You need to sit in front of the fire after this. If you get sick, we’ll have to stay sheltered for days.
no subject
She’s been quiet all day, responding in a neutral murmur at Zero’s complaints about the lean-to shelter that shifts unsteadily, buffeted by the wind. It’s dry enough to serve their needs, and even if it wasn’t, Aloy’s too brooding and distracted to care. They had survived worse nights, and so would survive this one. Only once she feels the telltale snag of their binding does she turn, catching Zero in her arms by weary instinct. Her gaze is distant. She’s still thinking about the village from earlier, how the plague had covered everything in a blanket of poisonous red foliage, left spores too thick to breathe through without coughing. How many of those villages and settlements they’d passed like this in the past couple of weeks of travel, and how it reminded her again of the time she had, how much of it was being wasted.
Zero’s tired demand brings her back to earth, if only for a moment. Their closeness was not unusual, becoming little more of a footnote throughout their day to day — a bizarre and symbiotic existence. Aloy had never been so close to anyone before, not even Rost, and yet she feels distance all the same, that barrier that seemed to always separate her from others made more evident by the physical contact she and Zero were always forced to maintain.
Aloy gives the bedding a longing glance, and then her gaze flattens out — it was pointless to argue, she’d long since realized.] Yeah.
[It’s the first thing she’s said for hours. Her hands move by muscle memory, automatic and dispassionately removing Zero’s tunic for her. Zero’s skin is cool and clammy, even against her rain-soaked gloves. She tries to ignore it, and finds herself saying anyway:] You need to sit in front of the fire after this. If you get sick, we’ll have to stay sheltered for days.