Title: in many colours
Fandom: Horizon: Zero Dawn
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 417
Summary: Talanah introduces her Thrush to the joys of shopping.

Aloy is a practical sort. She will usually go walking among Carja nobles in her first truly Nora tunic, the one stitched by Teb, or the set she'd picked up for stealth with the shards collected clearing her way to Ring of Metal (where it had proved its use) if she was just in the area to report or about to leave for the wilds. Not that she ever really intends to be near the nobility of the Sundom - but they throng the palace and the Hunting Lodge, the houses and the market nearest the sun. It's not like they aren't going to talk about her - why go to the trouble of trying to fit the sensibilities?

Or, if it was as hot as Meridian usually managed to be, and she was trying to blend in with the crowd (which her hair did not easily allow, but she still tried), she used the set of simple silks she purchased for a trader waiting outside he gates during her first experience of the heat wave that is the Sundom. They were by far the easiest set of clothes to get the dust and sand out of, too. That's enough for her.

Talanah has other ideas. Avad and Marad do too, she thinks, but they aren't as pushy about it, or as likely to be walking beside her through the high market. And she hadn't agreed to be their Thrush.

It starts with calling a greeting to a stall owner - Talanah knows most by name - which leads to Aloy being pulled over to the stall to admire the many, many bolts of cloth. They are, she admits, fine work; bright and finely coloured, but she doesn't see why her opinion is required. Talanah is the one with the knowledge of what will be suited to whichever event she is procuring for - Aloy has attended only one such celebration at the Lodge, after Redmaw, and sworn to avoid all she could, in the aftermath - her head had felt like a strider had trampled across it for the next full rotation of the sun.

It is only when they and the three - three, blue and orange and red - bolts move towards the stitcher in the shade west of the Lodge that Aloy realises that yes, this is going to be a new outfit for the events and feasts of Meridian, but it's going to be hers. The Sunhawk really is an excellent trapper.