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There is a chill in the breeze, but layers of fur and leather protect Aloy from the bulk of it. She is familiar with thin mountain air and the tenacity of winter. She knows the signs of the first snow and the measure of the last frost. She knows which Machines know how to navigate a heavy snowfall and which don't.
What is new, however, is braving the weather in a community.
She is still surprised when people look at her, smile at her, exchange a word or two of greeting. Of course, some of the Nora still regard her with a certain amount of suspicion, and though it makes her uncomfortable, she carries some empathy for them.
The rules are arbitrary. They were made by those who walked this land many years before them. Surely it is just as odd to welcome in an outcast as it is to be an outcast. Joining the Nora means interrogating the world from an entirely new perspective, and that is made all the more confusing by the traces of that which came before, by the Focus on her ear and the many records that she stumbles across as she hunts and explores.
She wonders who it is that made these things, where it is that they all come from, but there are no clear answers.
Not yet, anyway.
In the meantime, Aloy keeps her curiosity to herself. When she speaks to other people her age, she narrows her topics of choice down to the things that seem to interest them. Their lives are very different from hers. There is a focus on relationships that she does not entirely understand, a focus on news that is insubstantial and does not concern the parties partaking in it, a focus on brushed fingers and held gazes.
Such things seem endlessly fascinating to her young peers, however, Aloy only feels awkward.
She is aware that there are unexplored parts of life, things that are reserved for those who are not outcasts, things that Rost was unable to teach her, but she is embarrassed to admit that ignorance to others. She does not want to be mocked and ridiculed, not so shortly after she earned a place among them. Such risks hardly seem worth taking.
But the curiosity lingers.
So, too, does her heart linger with it.
Ever so slowly, she finds herself regarding the young braves who completed the challenge with her in a new light, constantly increasing in intensity. She tilts her head as she sweeps her eyes up and down their bodies as she watches them work and play and rest. She wonders what it would be like to touch them, to feel that thrill that so consumes the wagging tongues of those who giggle and gossip. She stares at the men and women alike -- wondering, wishing, hoping for that missing piece to click into place so that she might be allowed to understand.
But still, she feels only the things that she has always felt.
It is only one night that same winter, when a friend's braided hair gets tangled in the strap of her quiver, that the tide begins to turn. Aloy steps into help. She is a gifted shot and a talented fighter, and steady hands are an asset at delicate work. She picks at the locks of brown hair with her fingers, carefully extracting it from the leather, but when her hand bumps against the back of the girl's neck, she feels the girl shiver beneath her fingers.
A chill rushes down Aloy's own spine in seeming disregard for the warmth that clothes her.
It is a strange sensation, at once terrifying and alluring.
She steps away once the task is done, hiding her hands behind her back as if guilty of taking something that was not hers.
The girl smiles and offers her thanks, and Aloy merely nods in return. Perhaps she should have said something -- after all, a Nora Brave ought to be courageous in every part of life -- but she lacks the words.
All Aloy knows is that she very much wishes to feel that feeling again.
Aloy and the girl begin to seek each other out. They patrol together. They sneak to the top of the wall that surrounds the settlement and gaze out across the snow-swept landscape. They talk of trivial things like food and weather and machines, but it is not longer before their conversations begin to escalate, breaching territories occupied by dreams and fears and worries.
Sometimes, the girl reaches out her hand as if its a silent invitation, and Aloy twines her fingers with hers. They fit perfectly, and Aloy swears that her heart beats so loudly that every Machine on the mountain can hear it. It is a desperate, primal scream. It is desire and worry and something else besides.
Aloy learns the word for it by accident one night while listening to meaningless jabber around the fire.
Lust.
It races through her body, heating the skin and boiling the blood.
Were it not for her devotion to her duties, Aloy would have easily allowed it to consume her. As things are, it is a constantly nagging distraction, a mosquito droning in her ear even on the coldest days when there is not a bug in sight.
It is satiated for the first time in darkness.
They are sent to scout for a hunting party that is meant to follow behind them later. Together, they hike over ridges, hopping felled trees and dodging the metal corpses of long dead Machines. Despite their skill, the ground gives way beneath them, and they tumble into a hidden cave.
Fear rushes through them as they fall.
A cry leaves the brunette's lips.
Aloy keeps a hand on her spear.
When they hit ground, Aloy finds herself on top of her friend, bodies pressed tightly together, their warm breaths steaming as they meet in the charged air.
It takes a moment for the shock to pass, and when it does, they begin to laugh -- loud and long and bright.
Perhaps it is instinct -- primal and unyielding -- but Aloy presses her mouth to the other girl's own.
Her heart sings. Her body roars. And for the first time, she feels that missing component click into place.
In that moment, her curiosity for the people of the past has disappeared entirely. Curiosity about this single person -- her heart and her mind and her body -- is a daunting mystery all its own.
And maybe, just maybe, it is a mystery small enough for Aloy to solve.