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It turned out winter was only slightly cooler than summer in Scalding Spear. The sun was still warm, beating down in the day, but the nights turned frigid, frost glittering on the sand until the sun came up the next day. Beta wrapped herself in her furs, staring out across the settlement, the setting sun causing the temperature to drop every minute. Sand swirled in the wind, kicked up more by the children that ran around the melee pit, laughing loudly. Beta’s heart gripped at the sight, and before she could help it, her eyes wandered over to where her sister and her pledged sat, wrapped up in each other by the fire. Aloy leaned against Kotallo, hands fiddling with his that rested on her large stomach. Kotallo leaned down, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh and Beta had to look away, the sight so sweet it would get stuck in her teeth like honey.
But, her eyes betrayed her and wandered back over to the sight and she felt that deep dark seed that she had been trying to squash rise back up again. She was incredibly excited for her sister, and to become an aunt, but the bitterness she had been trying to hide, to ignore, wouldn’t stay away. It had been contained when the only symptoms of pregnancy were the occasional puke and more often than not, cravings. But now, as her bump was unmistakable, that of a child, it roared with a vengeance that made Beta want to curl up and cry. She was happy for her sister, so why did she feel so angry, so sad?
But that was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it? Aloy had figured it out, figured out romance and life and family in a way Beta never could. It was the one problem that had her stumped. And though she’d long worked through the identity crisis that came with being the genetic clone of a living and dead person, she couldn’t stop the familiar sentiment from rising again. There was a less than one percent difference between them, yet the valley felt vast and wide. Because though Beta knew her strengths and joys lay in the medicine, mechanics, and knowledge she wielded like Aloy’s bow, she felt lacking in this regard. How had Aloy figured it out? What was she missing?
That dark nugget grew larger, the memories Beta had tried to keep at bay resurfacing. Because she’d asked this question before, wondering how Aloy had gotten it. When Aloy and Kotallo had finally, finally come together as a couple, Beta had wondered, how did she know she wanted that romance? And so, when the two of them had laid out under the stars, Aloy giggling about this new thing in her life, Beta had asked, asked her how she knew she was in love.
“What do you mean Bets’?” she had said, rolling over to look at Beta, who had continued to glare up at the sky.
Beta had let out a sigh, “How did you know you wanted love? Wanted them fully?” And Aloy had sighed, but happily, not in despair like Beta. Her eyes twinkled in a way Beta didn’t fully understand, and she looked positively happy.
“It was this feeling you know? I’ve never desired anything like this before Kotallo, but getting to know him, really becoming his friend, it changed things for me, you know?” Aloy had said, starry-eyed, and Beta knew with certainty that she did not know. “I wanted to be around him, and hold his hand and kiss him…and eventually have all of him,” Aloy had admitted, cheeks blushing. “Is there someone on your mind Beta?”
Beta had scoffed, turning her head from her sister, “No Aloy, I was just curious.” But at that moment, Beta knew she was missing something, something so small yet so large. Because while her sister took a while to know that she loved someone so romantically, and had to really get to know him, Beta knew with a gut-wrenching certainty that she would never want that. And why should she?
But watching her sister live this happy life, Beta wondered if she missed something. That if she really could be happier than she was right now, the happiest she’d ever been, and it would be more if she could love like that. Because despite the found family they had created, wasn’t romantic love just that much deeper than platonic? Enough to move mountains and part the seas and bring someone back from the dead in all the ways the Old One’s stories talked of?
And that was the real issue wasn’t it, that without such romantic love, Beta would never create the family that seemed to be the end goal here. Though she never desired it and was content without it, how could she really know? Every rom-com and holo-film seemed to end in the creation of a family of blood.
In her lamenting, Beta did not notice her sister coming in her direction, did not notice her until she sat herself down next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Beta? Betaaaaa? Are you okay?” Aloy asked, amusement on her face, “you seemed pretty far away there.”
Beta jerked back, “Yeah, yeah I’m good Aloy.”
But nothing slips past Aloy, especially when she has hung up her bow until the babe arrived. “Are you sure, you seemed pretty out of it.” She settled against the wicker house behind them, “Goddess, my back is killing me.”
“How did you do it?” Beta asked, eyes widening as the question tumbled past her lips, smacking her hand over her mouth. To her horror, it was as if the dam broke, and tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to pool over. Aloy looked thoroughly alarmed, grabbing her arm with a tenderness that made Beta sob, doing a pitiful job of suppressing the noise.
Aloy stood gingerly, then yanked Beta up with her, pulling her towards their lodgings, snagging her bow as they passed and pulled her out the gates. She managed to find a semblance of privacy amongst the decrepit solar panels surrounding the city before Beta’s thin control over her emotions snapped, causing her to break down into convulsing sobs.
Beta dropped to her knees, hands pressing into her eyes as she cried, desperately trying to get her breathing under control. She felt Aloy settle next to her after a moment, hand resting on her shoulder.
“Beta, what’s wrong?” Aloy asked softly, “is it something I said?”
“I don’t understand!” Beta cried out, clutching her hands to her chest, tears streaming down her face, “What gene am I missing? There is a less than one percent difference between us, yet I can not figure it out, what am I missing?” She glared up at her sister, pain filling her eyes, “I try every single day to imagine myself with someone like you have done, giving my entire self to someone else in a way that friendship does not cover, but I cannot fathom it.”
“Beta-” Aloy said, hand squeezing her shoulder.
“-No!” Beta cried out, “let me finish. You told me yourself that you never desired romantic love until Kotallo, but that will never be me! I will never be fulfilled in the way the world demands because I don’t desire it! I never have! But somehow, I’m still the broken clone, the one who cannot feel enough to be human.”
“Beta!” Aloy cried out, grabbing her shoulders roughly, “stop it! You’re as human as I am.”
Beta sneered, “But isn’t this humanity ranked in our families, in who we impact and leave behind?” Her eyes dropped to her sister’s stomach, “You’ll achieve a rank I never want with your child, one that you chose yet I’ll be shamed for not.”
That struck a chord in Aloy, whose eyes narrowed, “Don’t you dare try to place motherhood on this pedestal that shoves you down the steps. The Nora reveres motherhood to the extreme, and trust me, it always excludes the people you care about most. Please don’t fall into the same trap.”
Beta glanced away from the intense stare Aloy was giving her, which only results in Aloy following her gaze, “Listen to me Beta, you are not missing a gene because you do not want romance and children. There is more to the world than that.” She sighed, “The last thing I ever want you to think is that you are less than me, than anyone, because you do not desire it.”
“But aren’t I?” Beta asked quietly, hands clenched in her lap. “Romantic love is supposed to be so much deeper than platonic love, how can I truly understand love if I do not desire it, do not feel it?”
“Listen to me Beta,” Aloy said seriously, “The depth of my love for you, my sister, is the same as my pledged, it is different in format but no less important, no less valuable. I will not stand for you thinking the love you show our family and the world is any less valuable or meaningful, any less deep and whole than that of romance.”
Beta let out a sniffle, and Aloy wrapped her sister into a hug. “You are whole without a romantic partner or children, you are whole and complete as you are. It is perfectly acceptable and normal to not want those things.”
“I really don’t want them,” Beta whispered out, a confession. “I never have.”
“Then you don’t have to choose them.”
Beta sat back, eyes narrowing. “It’s not a choice Aloy, I don’t FEEL this desire. I never have. I was created this way. I always have been. I’ve been existing without the desire in the same way Alva lacks the desire for men, in the same way Kotallo finds desire in everyone. But where desire is for me, I do not have it.”
“It’s that!” Aloy cried out, “It is the same, don’t you see? It is not a lack of something, just a difference between them. It does not make you less than, as if you lack something, but just a different kind of existence.”
Beta blinked, casting her eyes down. Her hand found her sister’s, who gave her a soft squeeze. The desert air blew around them, silence sweeping up into the billowing sand. Her thoughts were running a million miles a minute, and she worked her jaw at the thought, at Aloy’s words. She closed her eyes, squeezing Aloy’s hand back, who seemed to understand that this acceptance would take time.
Aloy hummed, pulling her sister into a hug, “Then there you have it.” A beat of silence passed, “I’m sorry for assuming you had your eyes on someone when you brought this up before.”
Beta pulled back shocked, “You remember that?”
“I do,” Aloy said softly, eyes finding the stars. “You know, I thought about it often, how you seemed to have it figured out, that the gossip and drama that so often follows romance didn’t phase you. I was jealous, you know, that you didn’t struggle with it.”
“Wait, really?” Beta sat up, “you were jealous?”
Aloy ducked her head, “I was. You knew you didn’t want it, that it wasn’t a possibility for you and it just seemed so easy.” She glanced at her sister, “I know it’s not now, that it wasn’t just that simple, just a simple act of choice, but deeper than that.”
Beta smiled softly, “Thanks Aloy.” The two of them laid back, eyes staring back up at the stars. Sand found its way into Beta’s clothes and she knew it was messed in her hair but she couldn’t care less, feeling more at ease than she had been in weeks. Her hand found its way to Aloy’s stomach, rubbing soft circles as they watched the stars, and Beta grinned to herself. This was her life, the one she chose, and she was happy.
Because she did not need a partner to be fulfilled, a child to raise, but only her family she chose, the one she crafted. She was complete without such ministrations, complete in a way that so many others were with duty, with service, with skill or legend. The love she felt for her family, her sister, threatened to overwhelm her and she knew, she was right as she was, complete and whole.