[ The silence between them is the first flash of lightning that night.
They both move as fast as they can without running to find shelter for the night, though Zero doubts either are desperate for cover because of the weather. It is a long walk to the shelter about a mile and a half away (if it can be called that- Zero had complained, it was basically just a tent pitched up where no one can hear you) but they make it in record time. When they both stumble in (rain patters against the hyde and canvas roof above them - it is barely much taller than Aloy herself) they are sopping wet from the storm. Zero's teeth chatter as she pulls off her outerwear, all of it ten pounds heavier and requires more backwards force than she is capable of. The alien bond between them chooses a perfect time to glitch and cut short, pulling Zero backwards as she tries in vain to pull her tunic off.
Zero falls toward Aloy unintentionally; any other time it wouldn't be anything of note, in the time they've spent together a strange familiarity had developed between them. Never had they embraced, or held hands, nothing two lovers would do. However they had no qualms sleeping beside one another, often pressed up against one another or tangled together. They groomed one another- not really in the way female friends might primp one another- but like mated animals, performing some bonded ritual.
It was alien, and it was fucking weird. But Zero embraced it, maybe even started it.
(It made her feel insidious. Like she was stealing something.)
Zero stands there silently, half out of her clothes, and when Aloy sounds like she has moved on, she finally speaks. ]
I'm not getting out of the way until I get out of this.
[ Their blankets and sleeping bags were on the other side of the tent, just past Zero. ]
[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.
[ She gives Aloy a hard look, too wrought to speak her frustration but obligated to let it be known. She's in a bad mood, they both are.
Zero sits by the fire in her underclothes, wringing the water from whatever she can. Listening to the command is an unspoken acknowledgement of whatever quiet loyalty she had to Aloy. She cared enough to not be a burden.
Her stays focused on the task before her though her mind is dull, somewhere not quite here. Violence was a consequence of existing in the same world as other people; it means nothing to her because she lists it as an inevitability on the same level as growing hungry or becoming sleepy. ]
What about you? You're leaving puddles everywhere.
[Aloy sounds distracted — she's turned halfway toward the entrance of the shelter they're in, watching the rain fall in heavy and torrential sheets. She is often like this, when things become so quiet that she can fool herself into thinking she's alone. Always waiting to leave a room, or anywhere, never settled.
She can tolerate storms, she thinks. Were she alone, she would go out in it — rain had never bothered her, but she can't in good conscience drag Zero around like that. It's a strange consideration to have to make. Today it aggravates her, to be slowed down by the simple fact that she had to think about someone else even in her rare moments of true solitude too, though this comes with a heavy dose of guilt. It wasn't as if Zero had asked to be attached to her and her mission either.
Still, she drags her feet to the fire, stripping off the rain soaked armor with quick, efficient movements. There's still Desert Tenakth paints on her skin, running down in red and sandy yellow puddles, black like tar. In her underclothing, she prepares to sit across from Zero, but the light binding them shortens so quickly that it almost drags her over the fire. She curses, tripping over her own feet, and stumbles to sit next to Zero instead.
There's a tight exhale, but little else. Their arms are touching, skin to skin, but she can barely move without the binding going taut, so.
Eventually, she thinks past her growing frustration to remember to be courteous.]
[ They feel like little kids who have been forced to make up. Zero was obstinate only to a point where continuing would only grow to make her more frustrated.
She can feel her goosebumps seeking the warmth of Aloy's skin, she doesn't mean to lean in when she gives her noncommittal response. ]
Like it's your fault.
[ The thunder rolls in, so loud now in between the silence that followed lightning, the cavern shakes. Their fire flickers when the draft rolls in and when that cold hits her spine she shivers, tries to ignore the beginnings of her paranoia.
She refused to fall ill again.
Zero pops open her flask she always kept on her person and takes a swig. The amber liquid inside offers some placebo comfort; it's warm even on her lips.
[The unfortunate truth of the matter was even things that weren't Aloy's fault, she takes responsibility for. She offers a noise of agreement in response. Outside, the rain pours down like it has a grudge against the very earth it falls upon. Or perhaps, simply a grudge against the two lonely young women left to its mercies. Given her luck as of late, Aloy has to convince herself that it isn't the latter.
Zero leans into her and she's annoyed and ashamed at herself for feeling comforted by it after all the bickering and arguments they'd had over the past several days, fed up with one another and the increasing dead ends surrounding GAIA and their whole... trapped together predicament.
Aloy takes the flask without looking, just as she shuffles closer to Zero without thinking about it, only having noticed her shiver. She frowns at the flask, then takes a swig, and... immediately begins to cough, eyes watering.]
That's... [Another cough.] strong.
[Wiping at her mouth with one hand, she hands Zero back her flask with the other. The drink works through her, making her throat burn and her stomach feel warm. Eventually, she remembers:]
Thanks.
[Her voice is still a bit hoarse. She looks back over to the entrance to the cavern, and mutters almost absentmindedly:]
Should find something to block off some of the wind. [Even bone-tired, she was almost always thinking of something to alleviate someone else's discomfort.]
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no subject
They both move as fast as they can without running to find shelter for the night, though Zero doubts either are desperate for cover because of the weather. It is a long walk to the shelter about a mile and a half away (if it can be called that- Zero had complained, it was basically just a tent pitched up where no one can hear you) but they make it in record time. When they both stumble in (rain patters against the hyde and canvas roof above them - it is barely much taller than Aloy herself) they are sopping wet from the storm. Zero's teeth chatter as she pulls off her outerwear, all of it ten pounds heavier and requires more backwards force than she is capable of. The alien bond between them chooses a perfect time to glitch and cut short, pulling Zero backwards as she tries in vain to pull her tunic off.
Zero falls toward Aloy unintentionally; any other time it wouldn't be anything of note, in the time they've spent together a strange familiarity had developed between them. Never had they embraced, or held hands, nothing two lovers would do. However they had no qualms sleeping beside one another, often pressed up against one another or tangled together. They groomed one another- not really in the way female friends might primp one another- but like mated animals, performing some bonded ritual.
It was alien, and it was fucking weird. But Zero embraced it, maybe even started it.
(It made her feel insidious. Like she was stealing something.)
Zero stands there silently, half out of her clothes, and when Aloy sounds like she has moved on, she finally speaks. ]
I'm not getting out of the way until I get out of this.
[ Their blankets and sleeping bags were on the other side of the tent, just past Zero. ]
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.
no subject
Zero sits by the fire in her underclothes, wringing the water from whatever she can. Listening to the command is an unspoken acknowledgement of whatever quiet loyalty she had to Aloy. She cared enough to not be a burden.
Her stays focused on the task before her though her mind is dull, somewhere not quite here. Violence was a consequence of existing in the same world as other people; it means nothing to her because she lists it as an inevitability on the same level as growing hungry or becoming sleepy. ]
What about you? You're leaving puddles everywhere.
no subject
[Aloy sounds distracted — she's turned halfway toward the entrance of the shelter they're in, watching the rain fall in heavy and torrential sheets. She is often like this, when things become so quiet that she can fool herself into thinking she's alone. Always waiting to leave a room, or anywhere, never settled.
She can tolerate storms, she thinks. Were she alone, she would go out in it — rain had never bothered her, but she can't in good conscience drag Zero around like that. It's a strange consideration to have to make. Today it aggravates her, to be slowed down by the simple fact that she had to think about someone else even in her rare moments of true solitude too, though this comes with a heavy dose of guilt. It wasn't as if Zero had asked to be attached to her and her mission either.
Still, she drags her feet to the fire, stripping off the rain soaked armor with quick, efficient movements. There's still Desert Tenakth paints on her skin, running down in red and sandy yellow puddles, black like tar. In her underclothing, she prepares to sit across from Zero, but the light binding them shortens so quickly that it almost drags her over the fire. She curses, tripping over her own feet, and stumbles to sit next to Zero instead.
There's a tight exhale, but little else. Their arms are touching, skin to skin, but she can barely move without the binding going taut, so.
Eventually, she thinks past her growing frustration to remember to be courteous.]
Sorry. It's temperamental today.
no subject
She can feel her goosebumps seeking the warmth of Aloy's skin, she doesn't mean to lean in when she gives her noncommittal response. ]
Like it's your fault.
[ The thunder rolls in, so loud now in between the silence that followed lightning, the cavern shakes. Their fire flickers when the draft rolls in and when that cold hits her spine she shivers, tries to ignore the beginnings of her paranoia.
She refused to fall ill again.
Zero pops open her flask she always kept on her person and takes a swig. The amber liquid inside offers some placebo comfort; it's warm even on her lips.
She offers it to Aloy. ]
It helps.
no subject
Zero leans into her and she's annoyed and ashamed at herself for feeling comforted by it after all the bickering and arguments they'd had over the past several days, fed up with one another and the increasing dead ends surrounding GAIA and their whole... trapped together predicament.
Aloy takes the flask without looking, just as she shuffles closer to Zero without thinking about it, only having noticed her shiver. She frowns at the flask, then takes a swig, and... immediately begins to cough, eyes watering.]
That's... [Another cough.] strong.
[Wiping at her mouth with one hand, she hands Zero back her flask with the other. The drink works through her, making her throat burn and her stomach feel warm. Eventually, she remembers:]
Thanks.
[Her voice is still a bit hoarse. She looks back over to the entrance to the cavern, and mutters almost absentmindedly:]
Should find something to block off some of the wind. [Even bone-tired, she was almost always thinking of something to alleviate someone else's discomfort.]