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Talanah wanted to strap the entire royal court to poles and use them as target practice for the fledglings of the lodge.
She was the head of one of the oldest and greatest houses of the Carja, and Sunhawk of the lodge.
Any man in that position would have been able to seat and unseat councilors on a whim. Talanah on the other hand had to threaten that the lodge would relocate to Sunfall before she could even get an audience with the Sun King.
When she had finally gotten that sun cursed audience, one of his valets had "accidentally" scheduled it at the same time as his radiant highness's dinner. Meaning she ended up looking like the rude one, for daring to take 10 minutes out of his feast to discuss the safety of his people.
In hindsight Sunfall was definitely still too close to Meridian and it's bickering, Maker's End sounded much more pleasant.
Of course, it wasn't enough that the nobles talked to her like she was a child, and schemed behind her back, now they wanted to wed her off too!
Yes she was young, Sunhawks always were, it took the courage of youth to challenge the greatest hunter in the lodge. The nobles had laughed at that statement, until she had pointed out that it was her father's words, not her own.
According to Carja tradition it was the responsibility of the father to ensure that his children were married at "a reasonable age". It was practically unheard of that tradition to be invoked before the age of 25, which was still 4 years away for her, though of course not strictly disallowed by the laws.
Somehow the nobles had managed to convince the Sun-priests that with her father being dead, the closest thing she had was her great uncle twice removed Narhat (not someone reasonable like say, her still very much alive mother).
Narhat was a member of house Pir, with little influence and less spine.
So Unless Talanah did something, she could look forward to becoming the wife of an arrogant man twice her age, most likely of house Jageer or house Morza, and most likely with plans for using the lodge to further his own goals.
Talanah's first thoughts went to Daradi Khane Solaviy, they were similar age, they had been friends as children, and the house Solaviy were just the right combination of respectable to desperate, that no one outside or inside the house could complain about their union.
Talanah hadn't spoken with Daradi except through letters for years, she had been busy keeping her own house from shrinking further, and house Solaviy's inactivity during the reign of the mad king had driven a wedge between them.
However when Talanah met with her, and learned how devastated she still was from the disaster that hit her house a year ago, it didn't feel right to proposition her any more.
She didn't begrudge Daradi in the slightest for being torn up, Talanah of all people knew the sting of losing your family.
Talanah also remembered how vulnerable she had been in that time, bringing Daradi into the middle of all the nobles nonsense when she was in no state to understand what she was agreeing to, was outright cruel.
Meaning Talanah had to come up with a different candidate, since she didn't have the political sway to tell the sun-priests to go kiss a sawtooth.
Well not alone she didn't, but if a close personal friend of the sun-king and a hero to the Carja people backed her up... Buried Shadow she could have the entire priesthood form an orderly line to make out with that sawtooth.
As luck would have it, her Thrush was all that, and an avid hater of tradition. Talanah knew that it wasn't going to be hard to get the not-quite-Nora to support her.
A lot of people thought it was hard to get in contact with Aloy, but as her hawk, she made sure to keep tabs on her to know if she was ever in trouble.
Officially Talanah was travelling south to deal with a herd of Scrappers that were roaming a bit too close to the nearby villages for comfort.
Unofficially, she knew Aloy was in the area, and that was exactly the kind of situation she would help out with.
Things went more or less as expected, with Talanah showing up just in time to see Aloy sick a ravager on the unexpecting group of scrappers.
"I thought I'd find you here Aloy despite the Nora." Aloy turned towards the sound, and her heart skipped a beat.
"Talanah." She said a lot louder than she had meant to, as she half-ran over to greet her Hawk.
"What are you doing here?" Aloy asked when they were half an arm apart.
"Well I thought I was dealing with some angry scrappers, but you seem to have that handled." Talanah answered, gesturing to the scrappers being turned to shrapnel by the ravager's cannon.
Aloy couldn't keep herself from giggling. "Then I'm sorry for making you waste your trip."
Talanah looked down from Aloy's eyes, what was she looking at? did she have something on her face?!
Aloy hurriedly wiped her face with her sleeve, completely missing Talanah taking a deep, steadying breath.
"Actually, that's not the only reason I came, I need your help for something."
"Anything you need." Aloy said without a moment's hesitation.
"It's a long story, let's get this done first, then I'll try to explain." As if on cue, the front half of a scrapper flew by behind Talanah.
"Let's start with salvaging that one then." Aloy said, smiling as she bounced towards it, Talanah not far behind it.
Thinking back, Aloy realized just how long it had been since she and Talanah had been out together.
Aloy didn't know how to sit still, as she had learned in the days following the battle for the spire.
Avad had asked her and the Nora braves to stick around for a few days for a ceremony to honor the fallen.
On the second day of mourning and celebration, Aloy had eaten so much she felt like her gut was about to explode, and her feet ached from too little walking.
Talanah had helped her slip away for a day, and together they had gone glinthawk hunting.
Had that really been the last time they had been out hunting together?
Aloy had gone back to the sacred lands with Sona to teach the braves how to fight corruptors and deathbringers.
The few times she had been back in Meridian, Talanah had been too busy working with the lodge to do more than talking.
The Carja had lost a lot of soldiers fighting the eclipse, so Aloy and the rest of the lodge had been working themselves raw to keep the roads safe.
Aloy got so lost in memories, and Talanah's company that the day went by in a flash.
One moment they were arguing over whether a scrapper heart was whole enough to carry along, and the next they were sitting around a campfire and Talanah was trying to figure out how to best explain her problem.
Sun, how did she even begin to explain her idea to Aloy? Did the Nora even have a concept for marriage?
"My problem is... Well you know how much the nobles hate having to listen to women" Talanah diverted her focus to their roasted rabbit for long enough to cut off a piece, and pop it in her mouth.
"What else is new?" After Talanah had been appointed Sunhawk, Aloy had endured a lot of rants about the never-ending idiocy of the royal court.
"Well the court got the priests to invoke some ancient tradition that more or less lets them pick a partner for me." Talanah cut off another piece of rabbit, this time more aggressively.
"What?! That's stupid! And terrible! Isn't there something we can do?" Aloy flailed angrily, accidentally sending her rabbit leg flying off into a bush.
"Which is where you come in, I have a plan to sabotage them, but I need your help." Aloy's face suddenly turned the same colour as her hair, which had Talanah worried.
"Aloy, is everything okay, you don't look well?" She reached out to put a calming hand on her, but Aloy swatted it away.
"It's nothing, it's just very sudden... I mean of course I will help you, and you aren't half bad, actually you're really nice, and you smell pretty. I just... you... I'm not very, clever, on this..." As she spoke, Aloy had her arms going everywhere, in a way Talanah would have found funny, if she wasn't so confused.
"Aloy, what do you mean?" Then Talanah realized what Aloy thought her plan was. "No, Aloy it's not like that, I would never ask that of you, I just need you to talk to the Sun King."
Aloy drew a breath of relief. "Oh that makes more sense, I can do that." A moment later her eyes narrowed at Talanah. "Wait. never? Why never?"
"Uhm..." Talanah had completely forgotten how to breathe, much less talk.
"Why not?" Aloy demanded to know, and that unknowingly hit the nail right on the head.
Because Talanah couldn't really explain why not.
Sure she had a lot of excuses, Aloy was younger than her, but only by a couple of years. Aloy was her thrush, but that didn't actually give her any power over Aloy, and even if it did, Aloy would absolutely ignore it.
Which was to say nothing about just how... how everything Aloy was. She was beautiful, and snarky, and funny, and had freckles, and chubby cheeks that made her face light up like the sun when she smiled.
Reading her silence as awkwardness, Aloy tried to probe for an answer. "Is it because I'm a woman?" She cautiously asked.
"No!" Talanah yelled without thinking. "I mean... no, It's because you're just so perfect, and I'm plain and boring, you'd get bored of me in a day!"
Aloy playfully rolled her eyes at Talanah. "Well we won't know for sure unless we try."
"I'm not sure you understand Aloy, you don't have to marry me." As she spoke, Talanah shuffled around the fire to sit next to Aloy, to make sure she could hear her clearly she told herself.
Aloy put a hand on her face, and without thinking about it, Talanah leant into it and put her own hand on top of it. "What if I want to?" she whispered,
Talanah rested her forehead against Aloy's "Then I want to too."
Aloy sighed, and moved her head in for a kiss.
The kiss was... wet.
Aloy had missed most of her lips, and pretty just licked Talanah's left cheek.
"It seems your aim isn't equally good in all things." Talanah chuckled.
Aloy opened her eyes in confusion, and saw the wet spot on Talanah's cheek.
Realizing what she'd done Aloy blushed. "No, I, this was my first."
"I'm not sure that counted, do you want to try again?"
"More than you know."
"I'm not so sure about that."
Neither of them could stop smiling, and neither of them made a move to initiate a new kiss.
Aloy was the first to act. "So, about that kiss."
Talanah gave her a flirty wink. "I'm just waiting for you my love."
That turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to say, as Aloy's eyes popped out like they were trying to escape her face.
She took Aloy's hands in her own.
"Sorry I'm so bad at this, life as an exile didn't really teach me how to kiss." The Nora apologized.
They looked into each other eyes, and before Talanah knew, she had planted a quick peck on Aloy's lips. "Kissing is a skill like any other, you'll get it down in no time, and until you do I'm happy to help you practice."
"I hope you'll still will want to kiss me, when I master it." Aloy said it like it was a joke, but Talanah thought she could hear a hint of worry behind it.
Talanah pecked her lips again, a habit she was quickly getting addicted to. "You're the best archer I know, and I will never get tired of hunting with you."
Aloy shuffled around on her spot in the dirt.
Her hands were sweaty, and she was sure that at any moment Talanah was going to withdraw her hands to wipe them off in the grass.
Which would be terrible, because Talanah's hands were really nice, and soft. Holding them made Aloy's heart soar, she couldn't imagine ever letting go.
"So uhm, that kiss?" She eventually got the courage to ask, though she had to look everywhere except Talanah's face while doing it.
"Still waiting for you." Aloy thought that Talanah really needed to stop winking, or her heart would burst into a million pieces.
Aloy took a deep breath, pursed her lips, closed her eyes, and leaned in.
"Aloy." She stopped in her tracks, and opened her eyes, to find her lips hovering an inch from Talanah's eye.
"Maybe try with your eyes open." Talanah laughed, and Aloy joined in, trying not to feel embarrassed.
She thought about what Talanah had said, about it being a skill, and so had to be learned. She remembered how it had been when Rost had started teaching her to shoot, at least here the chance of pots getting smashed was much lower.
With that in mind it became much easier to ask questions. "I thought you were supposed to have your eyes closed."
Talanah smiled and looked like she was going to kiss her again, Aloy really hoped she was going to kiss her again. "You're not supposed to do anything besides purse your lips, whatever comes after is about what you like. Though if you ask me, it's a great shame to hide away eyes as beautiful as yours."
Aloy felt like she was fighting a whole herd of thunderjaws with the way her heart was beating in her chest. She placed her hands firmly on Talanah's face, and used them to guide her lips, as she mashed their faces together.
Aloy then knew what melting felt like. If she had thought Talanah's hands were soft, it was nothing compared to her lips.
This was what love was, Aloy was certain! she wanted to sit there for all eternity, and let time waste them away, while she tasted the dirt and paint on Talanah's lips.
Eventually she had to come up for air, she tried to resist it, to will her lungs to fill through her skin. It didn't work.
When they eventually broke the kiss, it was with a loud gasp from Aloy, as she struggled for air, and almost fell unto her back.
With air back in her lungs, Aloy turned to Talanah, who looked to be a million miles away.
"What?" She asked, a little angry that Talanah had just spaced out on her.
"I just realized that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you, and I don't think I've ever been so happy." She explained while staring dreamily at Aloy.
Aloy's plan was to pull her in for another kiss.
What ended up happening was that she bumped their noses together really hard, and they both pulled away to rub their aching noses.
"Here let me kiss it better." Talanah said after a moment.
Aloy removed her hand to give Talanah access, and looked on in love-struck awe as Talanah moved in to place a delicate kiss on the very tip of her nose.
"Little lower next time please." Aloy said, feeling very proud of the fact that she had regained her ability to joke.
"I'll show you a little lower." Talanah said and pressed her lips hard against Aloy's.
Aloy gasped into the kiss, and something weird happened.
Talanah's lips parted, and her tongue slipped into Aloy's mouth.
Aloy panicked and scrambled backwards.
"Too much?" Talanah asked, the concern and apology clear in her voice.
"No, just... unexpected." Aloy was trying to keep an open mind with everything being so new to her.
"Are you sure?" Talanah asked again, this time sounding like her hawk, not her wife-to-be.
"Okay maybe a little, you have to warn me before doing weird stuff like that." Aloy admitted.
"You're right, I'm sorry I got caught up and forgot to think about you. I'll take it slow from now on."
"I appreciate it, but you know what I would appreciate even more?" Aloy asked, happy she got to be the flirty one for a bit.
"No, please tell me." Aloy bit her lower lip, committing the look Talanah was giving her to memory (both her own, and that of her focus).
"More kisses." She said, only after having gone through her answer in her head 3 times to make sure she didn't stumble on it.
They kissed, and they talked, and they kissed some more, until the remains of their dinner was charcoal, and the night had gotten too cold to sit in.
They leant on each other, as they got up to extinguish the remains of their fire, and unpack their bedrolls. They couldn't be bothered to take off more than their most restrictive armor.
With their bedrolls lined up side by side, they went to sleep, as they would after any other hunt.
Except, it didn't feel right to Aloy, she twisted and turned, and thought about it for a long time.
Then she scooted back first up to Talanah. "Hug me." She demanded.
Talanah mumbled something incomprehensible, and vaguely adorable, before wrapping her arm around Aloy's tummy.
After a few moments of enjoying the comfort of Talanah's arm, Aloy's curiousity got the better of her. "This is how mates sleep right?"
"Is this how you want to sleep?" Talanah murmured into Aloy's hair.
"No, this is a plot to steal your furs while you sleep." Aloy joked, and pushed her back further into Talanah's chest.
"Never change." Talanah kissed her hair, and fell asleep moments later.
To say Talanah was nervous about meeting Aloy's father would be an understatement.
According to Carja tradition, a wedding could not proceed until the father of whoever was to be married off had agreed to the union. (The couple's own agreement was considered a luxury rather than a necessity.)
Talanah had expected Aloy to protest, because it was a stupid rule, and what did it matter what anyone except them thought about their union. It's what Talanah would have done in her place.
Instead Aloy had just smiled slyly, and told Talanah that her father wasn't in his best shape anymore, so they would need to visit his cottage in the Embrace.
Actually, just visiting the Nora lands scared the life out of her, there had always been bad blood between their 2 tribes, but having their lands ravaged less than a year after they had reopened trade with the Carja, hadn't exactly brightened the Nora's view of the sundom.
Furthermore, the Nora was well known for their willingness to kill outsiders on a whim.
Talanah knew that she and Aloy could handle what may come together, she wasn't worried about getting lynched, she was worried about a diplomatic incident.
Talanah had done her best to prepare.
She had wanted time to study, to learn the traditions and values of the Nora, to have diplomats teach her how to act around a people so rightfully hurt and angry.
Not to mention practice her introduction to Aloy's father.
Of course, Aloy as usual had no patience for that stuff, so they had headed for Nora lands the day after they had agreed to get married.
Aloy didn't talk a lot about her father, Talanah knew he had been an outcast like Aloy, and that was about it.
When Talanah pushed her for information, Aloy had just smiled that smile that made Talanah's knees turn to mush, and told her that there was no way her dad wasn't going to like her.
Talanah sincerely doubted that, considering her temper, and her record with old men.
She was probably going to put her foot in her mouth and either swear up a storm, or say something incredibly embarrassing.
Either way her marriage was doomed before it had even begun, and she just had to find a way to accept that.
Aloy's unbreakable happiness and sass certainly helped.
Aloy was pretty sure Talanah was about to be really angry with her.
She hadn't meant for this to happen, it was just a simple misunderstanding that she was now committed to seeing through, to avoid having a very awkward conversation.
When Talanah had told her that she had to ask permission from Aloy's dad, Aloy had told her she didn't think that would be a problem. She thought she'd already told her what had happened to Rost.
Talanah had insisted that she had to actually go and ask him, so Aloy figured it was just another one of those stupid Carja traditions.
Then Talanah had started asking questions about how to talk to her dad, and Nora traditions, and stuff. Suddenly the shard had dropped for Aloy, and she'd realized that Talanah thought Rost was still alive.
Maybe it was for the better, Aloy would have gone straight to his grave with the news either way.
She liked to keep Rost informed about her life from All-Mother's memory or wherever he was with his mate and daughter.
This way he wouldn't have to take Talanah's niceness on Aloy's word, he could judge her for himself.
He would have liked that, he trusted Aloy, he just preferred to make sure himself.
They climbed up the last cliffside together, and walked through the gate.
"Well, uhm, this is him." Aloy said her voice cracking slightly, as she gestured to Rost graves.
Talanah looked confused around the ornate stone, until realization struck her. "Oh..."
"Yeah, sorry I wasn't sure how to tell you." Aloy said with an apologetic smile.
Talanah smiled back, she had no idea what else she was supposed to do.
Aloy sat down a little bit to the left of her usual spot at the grave, and patted the spot next to her.
After a moment's hesitation, Talanah came over and sat down next to her.
They automatically wrapped an arm around each other, and squeezed.
"Hi Rost." Aloy said, then paused, suddenly feeling very silly for talking to a stone.
She looked at her wife, and the encouragement in her eyes, gave her the courage to continue.
"A big thing has happened, and I'm not sure where to begin with explaining it." Talanah gave her another squeeze, as Aloy gathered her thoughts.
"Start with the most important, that's what you would have said. This is Talanah, she's going to be my mate. I say going to, because you know how the Carja is: you can't do anything without asking the sun in 5 different villages, and only when the seasons are right." Aloy could feel tears welling up at the edge of her eyes, but she carried on through it.
"Though in a way, I have tradition to thank for us getting together. The nobles wanted her to mate with someone she didn't love. Well they can't make her mate with someone if she's already mated with me right?" Aloy's voice broke on the last syllable.
Talanah wrapped her arms around Aloy, kissed her forehead and cooed into her ear.
"It's not fair." Aloy sobbed into Talanah's neck. "It's not fair that you never met him, he would have loved you. You could have shared hunting tricks, and made sure I ate my vegetables, and he could have told you embarrassing stories about my childhood."
They sat like that until Aloy felt better, then they sat for a while longer, just looking at the stone and savoring its presence.
Eventually the cold started getting to Talanah. "I think I'll go start a fire for dinner." She said as she brushed a stray hair away from Aloy's face.
Aloy took her hands in her own, and gave them a squeeze. "There's a fireplace inside the hut."
Talanah nodded in understanding, and began walking up the stairs to the hut.
"Wait." Aloy called out to her after her 3rd step away.
Talanah walked back, and Aloy pulled her into a kiss. "Okay now you can go." She said smiling ear to ear.
Aloy turned back to the grave. "What do you say Rost? Do you think we'll be happy?" She said and smiled, before walking into the house to help her soon-to-be wife prepare dinner.
And somewhere, very far away, Rost smiled back, and said: "I know you will".