[private] It's crazy what you'll do for a friend

[Obscene]

I can see through you, see your true colors
Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me

He knows that she could weave her magic and he might not be able to resist her. His hope is that, as his friend, she will not. They gaze at each other and he can feel something breaking deep inside him long before she opens her mouth to speak. It’s a spectacular kind of shattering, one that momentarily turns the scales across his back an otherworldly color as he faces the storm in her eyes. “Have I ever held you back Aela?” He finally asks her quietly but the answer is there, settling like a weight in his stomach.

It feels like drowning.
This strange shattering pain in his chest, the way that shriveled heart reached out one last time only to find the door firmly shut.

Giving all of himself to her was never going to be enough. She was a dreamer. A schemer. A visionary. What they had made here, together, in the Pampas was merely a stepping stone for bigger and greater things. They shared a vision but the meaning behind it differed for each of them. He can’t help but wonder if this path they were on would continue together or would they come a fork in the road? Had they just come to it now? There had always been safety in being awful and they did it so well. They took what they want and nothing seemed to stop them. But when asking it from her? Suddenly everything fell apart.

“Anything is possible.” He repeats, looking at her and wondering where exactly he had gone wrong. He had never searched for her because he had assumed she had not wanted him to. When she had spoken of not wanting to be at risk during the season, he had assumed that she would never be open to the possibility. He had assumed a lot of things, taking Aela for one who wasn’t fond of children. And then she had brought Fyr home and he came to realize that for as well as he knows her…. He doesn’t really know her at all. She was an enigma, a mystery. Obscene loved a good riddle but the feelings that he’s developed for the Empath before him are more complex then he can begin to understand. He doesn’t understand how he can do more for her. Had he not gone to Gale in Hyaline? Had he not gone along with every plot and plan she had? Had he not tried hard enough already? 

He had offered her territories to sack, would have razed Taiga to the ground if she had asked him to. Shall he start a war in her honor? When would it ever be enough for the likes of him?

The Champions name seems to still echo in the air all the louder for the way Aela pointedly ignores his last question. Her silence says enough. He knows deep down that it wasn’t a fair question, that she could have easily thrown it right back at him. Maybe he had always been the problem? He recalls vaguely the warning Wherewolf had given him. He remembers thinking how easy it would be to simply walk away. A fool twice over.  “It’s always been your choice.” He finally says because it has. She’s always been the one behind the reins, pushing him just where she wanted him to be. But always at a distance. Those barriers weren’t easy to cross either when he had so many up himself. “But once made… it’s made.” He says firmly and quietly before finally bringing his red eyes back to the storming waves of hers. 

And exhales slowly despite the way those shattered shards in his chest seem to splinter into even sharper pieces.

“We steal Sickle.” He says as that smirk settles firmly across his dark lips, his expression as cool and unbothered as it usually is. Like nothing had happened at all. Like they hadn’t ended years of exploring each other’s skins. Like it hadn’t hurt at all to lose her, like he doesn't mourn what was once between them like a death.

obscene

@Aela 

[Aela]

Perhaps this understanding had started with her grandmother. Heartfire could have ravaged Beqanna. With her powers and her vast knowledge, her grandmother could have brought another Reckoning across the Land of the Sunrise.

But she hadn't; Heartfire had left in search of a man who disappeared. A man called Dovev and apart from his brilliantly red coat, a man who her half-brother Reave strongly resembled. Aela knows that her granddam already had her infamy - from the craters left behind on the Isle, from her reign in Nerine, through her descendants (and to her favorite one, the bold and beautiful Aela). As she had gotten older, though, the other side of Aela's blood had begun to emerge.

Through her increased interactions with Reave (and therefore few encounters with Nashua and Yanhua), Aela had learned of Aletta. Another grandmother, one who had been a Queen to a land supposedly older than this one. And she had sacrificed that throne in search of her beloved, throwing away power and prestige for a man. And if she wanted to look closer, there was always the story of her parents. (There was even a memory here in the Pampas, where her handsomely-masked father asked her mother: 'How you find Taiga?' and the lovely chestnut had answered 'Taiga suits me just fine.' clearly not meaning the Redwoods at all.) Perhaps not unique, but Lilliana had loved Wolfbane, and he had made sure that she suffered for it in almost every way.

All Aela knows of love is that it is sacrifice.

And she dreams of tearing down worlds to rebuild them. She dreams of testing the lines and limits of Magic so they might redraw them. She aspires to create as the Gods do - and perhaps one day become a Goddess herself. Obscene has never held her back, but nobody has offered Aela more than what she has dreamt for herself.

"You've been useful," is what she tells him, as close to a compliment that Aela can come. They've helped each other and she doesn't understand why he feels their arrangement no longer feels adequate. (Aela can guess, but she had always thought that Obscene might be like her. That feelings were easy to overlook in the face of a greater aspiration.)

Her brow furrows slightly, as she tilts her refined head towards the Prince.

Of course, it had always been her choice. But hadn't it been his as well?

But once it's made... Obscene trails off, and Aela wants to tell him that he isn't seeing the broader picture. There are so many bigger things at play here - and they can continue to be useful to each other - but all he can see is a love that Aela may not give to anyone. He might smile as if none of this bothers him, but she feels the splintering within him inside herself as well. What emotions he is grappling with are strong enough to afflict the Empath as well and the slender palomino continues to move away from him, out of his sphere of pain so that she can settle her own senses.

"Let's go, then." and Aela continues to step out from underneath him, moving towards Tephra instead.

Never bothering to look back.

They doused your soul in water,
but the flames raged higher.
And they called you devil's daughter,
such a pretty liar.

@Obscene