now i don't know who i've become
and another day breathes
tearing at the seams
and i hope i don't come undone
The breeze, carrying the night’s cutting chill, scrambles through her feathers. Aloy would like to tuck them back down upon her back for comfort and warmth but does not. Those red and white appendages are not unfurled or open but held with ready tension. That breeze also carries his scent, and winds it around her, a challenge to the autonomic nervous system she already holds on a tenuous leash. Can she outfly him? Perhaps, she is small and swift. It has not been enough before though and so she stands her ground. When he does stop moving closer his size still diminishes the distance between them.
Casiell gives his name singularly, abruptly, as she had been taught to when she was young. Not for rudeness but for efficiency, so that one might get on to more interesting matters. Her mother would like him, Aloy guesses, though she is not sure if she thinks this because of the succinct introduction or because of something else. Of course, her mother has a tendency to like everyone; Aloy does not share her gregarious personality or open heart. Only her brother Valek does, and she cannot imagine that he would be of as much interest to Casiell.
“I was born here.” It’s an easy question to answer, and she surrenders nothing by answering it.. “I left for a few years, but I have family here and know parts of it well enough.” She has no idea that he will meet her younger sister in a few days’ time. Or even that a younger sister exists. None of the family she alludes to would claim her, or at least she assumes this to be true. “Why did you come here?” Aloy makes her own demands for information, cool but curious words cutting through the cool night air. She does not refer to the forest, she knows that many men like him—huge and dark, menacing by their very make—are drawn here.“To Beqanna?”
@"Casiell"