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The weaving in Aloy’s hands was vaguely taking shape into a basket. She squinted down at it, chewing on her bottom lip while she considered it. What had Zo said she should do, use the hand holding the square to space the strands as she went? Was she sure that this sparse mountain grass would even hold the shape of a basket? Aloy sighed. She was better suited to nocking arrows than this sort of domestic crafting.
“Your weaving not cooperating Champion?” Erravva laughed next to her. The Sky Clan hunter was a tall, sturdy woman with ridge wood trunk legs. She wore her long, blonde hair pulled into a simple club at the base of her neck and Aloy envied her its straight, cooperative strands. At Erravva's temple, a smattering of pink paint tangled in the fine tresses.
“Has the Champion finally met her match?” Sekkah quipped from Erravva’s other side. Sekkah was dark and petit to Erravva’s pale and tall, the white paint around her mouth creased from frequent smiling and her hair cropped short into spikes. The hands of the two Sky Clan women were occupied with the sewing together of hides for blankets. This left their minds idle, and they told stories, gossiped, and teased one another to pass the time. Their familiarity settled uncomfortably around Aloy, as though she were wearing someone else’s armor.
The three were surrounded on all sides by Sky Clan chatter and the flying hands of industry, stitchers mending armor, hunters restringing bows or prepping arrows. The scents of stews and curing meats wafted on the mountain breeze.
“Or maybe she’s got something else on her mind,” yet another woman, Wekka she was called, piped up from Aloy’s other side. Shorter even than Aloy, Wekka’s hair was strawberry to Aloy’s red but the two matched in complexion. She was meticulously restringing a hunter’s bow, and Aloy wished that she'd used this opportunity to check her gear instead of trying her hand at Zo's basket weaving technique. “I know if I got to look forward to climbing into a bedroll with that big beefy Marshal every night, I wouldn’t be able to focus on my mending either.” Wekka winked, and Sekaah and Erravva snickered.
Aloy spluttered, and the three women laughed. Several other people glanced in their direction, and Aloy hoped desperately that more Sky Clan would not feel compelled to join in.
“But really Aloy, you’re gonna tell us what goes on in that tent right?” Sekkah prompted once her laughter had subsided. She withdrew one hand from her sewing and carded it through her hair. “There’s no way a man like that doesn’t know his way around a woman.”
Their eyes rested on Aloy, expectant. She swallowed and stared down at her hands, but it was plain to everyone who could see that very little weaving was being accomplished. “He’s, ah, good?”
Sekkah cackled and Erravva snorted. Wekka elbowed Aloy playfully in the ribs. “Come on Champion, you can do better than that.”
“Does he treat you well?” Sekkah prompted.
“He seems like more of a giver than a taker, am I right?” Erravva asked.
Aloy was helpless against the barrage of their curiosity and the rising onslaught of her embarrassment, creeping along her cheeks in the form of a blush. There seemed to be nothing for it but to tell them some of what they wanted to know. Maybe then they would leave her in peace. “Kotallo is … patient,” she started. Her small audience tilted their heads towards her. They reminded her of meerkats peering simultaneously towards a sudden sound or a shift in the grass. She allowed herself a moment of distraction as a memory from last night stalked, uninvited, to the forefront of her thoughts. In it, Kotallo pressed open-mouthed kisses down her sternum in the gloom of their shelter, his hand on her hip holding her still while she writhed restlessly against his slow, deliberate descent. She blinked and shook her head, chasing the memory back, but not before it sparked a fluttering heat in her belly. Erravva and Sekkah shared a knowing smile and Wekka grinned down at her bowstring. “It doesn’t seem to bother him that I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Aloy continued. She shrugged helplessly. It was clear from their expressions that she was going to have to give them a little bit more, so she steeled herself against her nervousness. “And he’s, hmmm, very good with his hand, and his, uh, mouth.”
The women around her howled. “I knew it!” Erravva chirped. “Nobody moves like that and doesn’t know how to please a person.” Sekkah crowed her agreement, and the two devolved into an enthusiastic exchange about just what he might do with that hand.
“And there is the man of the hour now,” Wekka said, tilting towards where Kotallo stood across Cliffwatch’s central square, bare from the waist up and watching her with a small frown. Ikkotah was with him, turning away from Kotallo and moving towards the common area of Cliffwatch. The fading of the sun muted the white of Kotallo’s paint, but the jagged lines of the tattoos along his ribs stood out starkly against the planes of his abdomen. The women all turned to take him in, and several murmured their approval at the sight. A flush of embarrassment swept up Aloy's throat. She wished that she’d left her hair loose to hide the blush, instead of pulling it back into a practical ponytail, in the style that Talanah preferred.
She could hardly pretend she hadn’t seen him. Aloy raised her hand, palm outward, in wry acknowledgement. A smile quirked his lip and he raised his hand in a mirror of her salute.
“That is an impressive hand,” Sekkah hummed appreciatively. “You’re a lucky woman to get to feel that against your skin. It’s too bad he only has the one, but I’m sure he more than makes up for it.”
Aloy didn’t think she could blush any deeper. It was true that he was, uh, creative in adapting to the loss of his left hand, she admitted to herself. She remembered the night before, the way he had used the length of his forearm across her hips to press her into the bedroll while he undid her with his tongue, and the heat in her belly flared like grass catching spark from a flint. She dropped her gaze quickly from Kotallo's, back to her hands, but the neglected weaving had disentangled itself and was little more than a pile of kinked grass in her lap. She huffed, unimpressed, and tossed the whole thing toward the small fire. When the grass landed on the flame, the fire sputtered forth a burst of wayward sparks, and the sight filled Aloy with more satisfaction than she’d felt all afternoon. She glanced back up to where Kotallo had stood, but saw only his back as he followed Ikkotah towards the Cliffwatch cooking fire.
Wekka snorted in amusement at the sight of Aloy’s weaving writhing and burning in the small fire pit. “Can’t win them all, hey Champion?” she teased. The huntress tested the string of her bow several times and seemed satisfied by its twang and the tension of it against her fingers. She set the bow aside and stood easily, stretching her lean, tattooed arms over her head with a yawn. “What do you say we see about some dinner before the labourers beat us to it.”
Glad for the change of activity, Aloy stood and fell into step beside Wekka. As the pair made their way down the steep Cliffwatch steps and towards the cooking area, Aloy caught the scent of Mountain Caps stewing and her stomach rumbled approvingly. Aloy followed Wekka through the crowd around the cooking fire, glad for the other woman’s focus on dinner in the face of several people who attempted to stop and speak to her. When they finally made it through the throng, the cook Vikatto pressed a heaping bowl of stew into Aloy’s hands. “Well earned Champion!” he piped.
“Hardly,” Aloy laughed, but she accepted the dish and raised a spoonful to her lips, blowing carefully on it and taking a quick appraising bite. Her eyes lit up when its flavour hit her tongue and its warmth spread through her chest and into her belly. “Oh wow, I wasn’t expecting the frostriver fronds to come through so strongly in there!”
Vikatto beamed at the compliment. “I knew you were a woman with good taste!” he cooed.
“You gonna feed me some of that stew too Vikatto, or just fawn over the Champion all night,” Sekkah teased from over Aloy’s shoulder. She and Erravva had followed not long after Aloy and Wekka, and after some manoeuvring had also managed to make their way through the bustling swarm of Sky Clan around the cooking fire. Vikatto grinned sheepishly and turned back to his task of dishing out dinner.
Aloy dipped her head and eased herself through the crowd, holding her precious bowl of stew against her chest to keep it from being knocked by the waving hands of a chattering Sky Clan teen. Once free, she glanced around, seeking a spot to sit. Her eyes found Kotallo’s where he sat on a wooden bench built into the cliff face. His legs were stretched comfortably before him and crossed casually at the ankles. Ikkotah sat to his left, talking amiably. A small fire burned before them, just enough to warm their feet against the encroaching cold of night. Kotallo was nodding along to whatever the warrior was saying, but his attention was on Aloy. She crossed the space between them and lowered herself onto the bench at his right.
“Aloy,” he greeted warmly. He was still bare from the waist up, she noticed, but he had draped a large bear pelt, complete with rough brown fur, over his shoulders. He looked almost like a bear himself in the fading light, the bulk of him made more intimidating by the expanse of animal hide draped around him. It fell across his chest and upper arms and seemed to be working to stave off the chill that Aloy could feel settling against her skin.
“Hello Aloy,” Ikkotah greeted her across Kotallo. “How was your day? Did you make yourself as useful as our Marshal here?” Ikkotah clapped Kotallo on the shoulder, but Aloy noticed he was careful to place his hand further up, closer to Kotallo’s neck, to avoid the stump of Kotallo’s left arm. She liked the man all the more for it.
Aloy laughed dryly. “I doubt it,” she admitted. “Most of my skills are limited to hunting machines.” She shrugged. “I enjoyed getting to know some of the women though. They’re a, uh, spirited group.”
Ikkotah chuckled. “That is one way to put it! I hope they didn’t give you too hard a time.”
She flashed him a wry grin. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.” She scooped a heavily laden spoonful of stew into her mouth, using the tip of her tongue to catch a piece of winter paleberry where it landed on her lip.
Ikkotah laughed again. “I don’t doubt it Aloy. You faced down Regalla after all, I’m sure you did just fine against the teasing of a few Cliffwatch women.” He looked sidelong at Kotallo between them, who had said little. The Marshal’s head was lowered to the bowl he was methodically emptying, but he watched Aloy from the corner of his eye as he ate. He seemed to be waiting for Ikkotah to depart before paying her his full attention, so the Sky Clan warrior wasted no time. “It has been a long day,” he said, feigning a yawn and a tired stretch. “I believe it’s time to rest these old bones. Done with those meals? Let me take those bowls with me.” Aloy and Kotallo both finished their stew and passed their dishes back to the man with words of thanks.
Their dinner bowls collected into a stack in one hand, he waved to them both and set off towards the cook, chatting and calling to people as he went. Aloy and Kotallo were left in a peaceful silence. Above them an owl hooted. The small fire before them cracked and popped, and a cold breeze coaxed the sparks in their direction and sent an unwelcome shiver across Aloy’s shoulders. She adored her Utaru armor, its greens, whites, and reds the perfect complement to her eyes and hair. Each of its delicately crafted details was more precious to her for the flexibility and protection offered by its tightly woven strands, but they did little to keep out the sharp of the mountain cold. She had opted not to bother with the gloves today, and the joints of her fingers felt stiff with chill. Aloy flexed them against the grass fibres of her tasset.
Feeling her shiver, Kotallo shrugged one corner of the bear hide from his shoulder and draped it across Aloy’s back. “Thanks,” she whispered, and he nodded. She could feel the warmth of his body next to hers and the scent of his sweat and paint on the fur around her, and the urge to curl against him as though they were alone in their shelter overcame her. Before she could overthink it, she shifted closer to him and leaned her head against the bulk of his shoulder.
Kotallo’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and he spoke quietly to the top of her head. “There will be gossip.” He felt rather than saw her shrug under the fur.
“There already is, believe me,” she murmured back. “Might as well give them something to gossip about.” As though she hadn’t already done that, she thought blandly.
She felt his chuckle rumble through them. “Very well then.” Kotallo lifted his arm and tucked it protectively around her shoulder, sliding it under the fur around them so she might better share in his body heat. He heard her hum in appreciation, and she pulled her legs up to her chest and leaned into the heat of the bare skin of his side. If she was aware of the giggling and whispering from several women near them, she made no indication. “Better?” he prompted, and this time her nod made the high arch of her ponytail tickle against his jaw.
She had expected to feel shy about letting other people observe their closeness. It was still a tentative and unspoken thing, and she worried about whether their delicate web of intimacy could stand against the onslaught of prying eyes and whispering voices. Curled comfortably against Kotallo though, with the burble of talking voices and the occasional crack of sparking fires around them, Aloy found that instead of embarrassment or uncertainty, she felt mostly relief. Why shouldn’t she seek warmth and comfort from him at the end of the day? And why should her insecurities keep her from seeking that comfort whenever and wherever he offered it?
The tickle of Kotallo’s fingers in the loose hairs at the nape of her neck drew her from her thoughts. “You do not usually wear your hair like this.” His voice was pitched low and his lips ghosted along the top of her ear. This time her shiver had nothing to do with the cold.
“It seemed more practical I guess,” she replied as quietly. “One of my friends, Talanah – I’m not sure you’ve met her? – she always gives me a hard time about wearing my hair loose, so I thought I’d try a change.”
He wrapped a strand of her hair that had come free from its bindings idly around his index finger. “I like it this way,” he said, twisting his finger to disentangle the tress from it, trailing fleeting touches down the back of her neck as he did.
She laughed, a little breathlessly. “You do? Why?” Since when did she care what he thought about her hair style? She shoved the thought aside.
He hummed, considering his response. When he spoke next, she was certain he trailed his lips along the top of her ear on purpose, damn him. “It accents the elegant line of your neck,” he murmured, trailing his finger deliberately from her hairline down the back of her neck to where the hide was draped around her. “And the tips of your graceful ears,” he continued. He dragged his finger around to the back of her right ear. There, he traced it along the crease where her ear met her scalp, teasing the delicate skin.
She laughed again. “Can ears be graceful?” she teased, reminding herself dutifully that they were only steps from the cooking fire and now was not the time to clamber into his lap.
“Yours are,” he retorted, in a tone that brokered no argument. He rolled the lobe of her ear between his thumb and index finger, tugging on it lightly.
“You’re incorrigible,” she said, but he did not miss the breathlessness of her tone, nor the way she leaned further into his body as the tip of his finger continued its idle exploration from her earlobe down the side of her neck to where the red fabric of her armour blocked the path of his teasing touch.
“And you are remarkable,” he replied plainly. “It is no small wonder that I can ever be in your presence and keep from touching you.”
She pulled back slightly from him, far enough that she could turn and meet his gaze in the faint firelight. “Kotallo…” she started, but she didn’t know what to say next. There was heat in his eyes, the flame of lust that was familiar to her, but there was something else there as well, something brighter and more piercing, something that she felt in her chest, rather than in the pit of her stomach. He bent and brushed a tender kiss across her upturned lips.
“Well if they weren’t gossiping before, they definitely are now,” she whispered against his lips. She had meant to make light, but Kotallo pulled back and his gaze did not falter.
“Good,” he said low, “let them see that I am yours.” She swallowed and blinked owlishly. He was … hers? Feeling shy, Aloy tucked herself back under his arm and pulled the fur up around her shoulder until it covered her ears. Kotallo snaked his hand to her waist and folded her firmly against his body. She felt him rest his cheek on the top of her head and welcomed its weight.
He was hers. She turned the thought over for several moments, her unseeing eyes staring into the fire. Again and again she rolled the thought around, now upending it, then reversing it, finally returning it upright, until the edges of it were worn down and smooth like those of a rock on the bed of a quickly moving stream. He was hers. He had kissed her, a gentle thing but still a kiss, in front of the people of his clan. Later he would return to their shelter, unabashed. He would share her bedroll and touch her body with his elegant hand and his attentive mouth and the Sky Clan of Cliffwatch would know it. She snaked a hand down to his thigh and squeezed it gently. You are mine, she thought, and her blood pumped with the thrill of it.
Her touch drew him from whatever thoughts occupied him. “Are you alright?” he murmured.
“Never better,” she said back. After a pause she whispered, not turning to look up at him, “I’m yours too.” She felt his hand on her waist tighten and heard his breath catch.
“Aloy…” he started.
“Don’t,” she urged. She slid her hand down his leg and rested it closer to his knee. The cracks in his paint were familiar now, and her fingers followed them reflexively, palms smoothing the paint down where it was beginning to lift and curl. “It’s alright,” she assured him. “I know.”
“Do you wish to go to bed?” he asked against her hair. His hand trailed down her waist and settled on the swell of her hip, a haptic promise of things soon to come.
She shook her head and settled still deeper against his side, seeking the shelter of his body from the cold night and the uncertain future. “Not yet, let’s just sit here a little longer.”