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Beyza had found her voice when Pangea had been in danger. Not that she had been without the ability to speak in other ways - her conversation with young Aela had shown her all the ways you could still communicate. And there had definitely been a thrill involved with speaking directly into the minds of others. Especially the reaper.
Her voice and her magic are back and yet she can still feel something different. Something still inside her, her souvenir from the world beyond death, and for a long time she has thought that was the only thing that has changed. But there’s more. A power beyond her magic. Lesser but separate. Ungoverned by the same rules. She’s spent the autumn trying to uncover it, trying to figure out what’s there, but it is not something that she can figure out on her own. It’s not a trick she can use on herself.
There’s just the faintest chill to the morning air as Beyza wanders and just the faintest glow to her pale body as she wanders. She’s not looking for anyone in particular, just company. But naturally, since she's looking for company, there seems to be no one about.
Aela has never found fault within herself for 'lack' of a voice.
As far as she is concerned, she has always had it. It was just left the recipients of her language as to how they wished to interpret it. Her echoes - the waves of images that she would send washing over the mind of another - was just how she spoke. It never occurred to her that the invasion of their minds could be considered rude, that it might be considered intrusive (apart from Skandar but he seems to be the exception to many rules).
The golden girl is starting to think that the way she speaks is rather like an art; words are rendered meaningless when blurred together along the lines of her memories and others. She paints pictures and illuminates what other minds might miss.
But sometimes, with the help of Magic, Aela doesn't need hers to speak. The day she had met Beyza, her first words came rushing out and the striped filly had loved the sound of her voice. It had been crystal and clear, like melting spring water, and it had been the pale Magician who had helped her discover it. Since then, the adolescent had been practicing words, tying together the vowels and consonants to form sentences.
But -
But there had been a stammer.
No amount of practicing had alleviated it. She could say one word, then two and three but eventually, her tongue always tied. It would trip and stumble and then stammer. (And if Aela is anything less than perfect at what she does, she will not do it at all.)
Thankfully, the presence tugging at the consciousness of her mind doesn't require speech. It just requires acknowledgment and Aela steps forward from a small copse of Acacia trees to reveal herself to Beyza. She is smiling - an honest one - when she looks to the faintly glowing mare. It's been some time since they have last met and Aela is glad to put it behind them with a few approaching steps. She tugs at the bond and welcomes the Magician into the folds of her thoughts.
@[Beyza], she thinks. The way that the white mare is traveling makes her wonder as Aela comes to a stop directly in front of her. Are you looking for something?
Although there had already been a faint, friendly sort of smile on Beyza’s expression when Aela steps out of a copse of trees, it blossoms into a brighter, more genuine grin when she follows the invitation into Aela’s thoughts like placing her crystalline hooves down a beloved trail. Rightly or not, she takes some credit for the string of words that are the chestnut’s own and not a collaboration of memories from others stitched together.
It feels appropriate to push her own thoughts back instead of speaking out loud - something that she had been practicing herself when her voice had been lost.
And it amuses her to think that someone else might walk by and not catch any of their exchange - that they could be a pair just standing here staring at each other.
“Hello Aela. Nothing specific - just some company, it’s been odd here - unsettled and I’ve been feeling that echoed in my mind too.” She doesn’t think she needs to explain since when. Although Beyza does not know how Aela had come to be here in Pangea, or why she was there the day the earth swallowed the raven witch. Her head tilts slightly to the side as she projects one of these questions, the tone of her thoughts light and curious. “Are you here to stay?”
The bright smile on Aela's blazed face is fueled by the one that the Magician offers to the younger filly as she approaches. With those that Aela cares for, she tries to care where it comes to her mind and her memories. Aela thinks that her friendship with Beyza is an easy one because she has to do no such thing with pale-sheened woman. All Aela has to do is open her mind and Beyza comes drifting in, as familiar to her as the Taigan fog had been when she was small.
(And Aela has gotten an odd look or two for her social interactions. It was always a thrill to correct an onlooker who didn't seem to realize there is always so much more lurking beneath the lovely luster of her coat.)
If somebody were to walk by @[Beyza] and Aela, she finds the thought an amusing one that they might sense nothing. It makes her shining smile tug towards an impish grin. Her blue eyes momentarily flicker across the Pangean landscape, reflecting on that unsettled feeling that the other mare had mentioned. Life in the canyon country had come to an almost stand-still, had returned to some semblance of normalcy but it seemed like the quiet was festering with unanswered questions. What had swallowed Straia? Would the earth devour more?
She glances back to Beyza, not wanting to waste good company. "I think so," she thinks. There is a pause because Aela isn't really sure how to explain that Pangea was a choice. It had been her very decision and she feels rather strongly about that; before coming to the East, Aela had never been outside of Taiga or Nerine (apart from a random excursion or two to the Common Lands). It makes her wonder about Beyza who had been born here, of that anchoring feeling that never took root within Aela while she lived in Taiga: "Did you ever think of leaving?"
At the question about whether Beyza had thought about leaving does not require any self-reflection. The answer is instant. “No.” There’s a weight to the word as Beyza pushes it from her mind and to her friend. An explanation is close on its heels, though - as she relives the emotions she had felt that day. It wasn’t always that she felt them so strongly, but a few arcs of electricity spark on her coat now in an echo of how they had raced across her skin by the dozens when Pangea had been changed. “Of course not. I would have fought with all my strength to bring Pangea back and not let it be bastardized by a mad mare.”
She doesn’t say the words but she believes Straia got what she deserved. That she felt that changing Pangea was rejected by Beqanna itself - and that was why they saw such a fantastic display. It must mean she was in the right. These emotions push out from her on the tail end of her thoughts, and though Beyza notices this projection - she’s confused by it.
But she doesn’t try to pull it back, she’s not even sure she could - which is an uncomfortable feeling.
She’s curious to see what Aela thinks of it, however. If she will pick up on that current beneath the thoughts.
"I'm glad you're here now, though." She adds, honestly, even if Aela's 'I think so' did not appear to be particularly sure when it came to staying in Pangea.
No, is the answer that Beyza shares with Aela and the golden mare manages a glance at her pale friend.
Her parents had been from Pangea, she remembers Beyza once sharing with her. Some part of Aela had wondered if familial ties would have tugged the white Magician in whatever direction they had gone and yet she had stayed, either out of loyalty or love for the land or the for the bonds she made within it.
There are flashes of that day sparking across her almost-palomino coat and Aela catches glimpses of it; Straia swallowed whole, the way that the land had rebelled against the changes the former Chamber queen had tried to make. Even Carnage had risen, much to Aela's surprise, to give warning of what might happen if another attempted what Straia had.
Aela can't say that she would have fought as Beyza would have to bring Pangea back if it remained lost but she finds that she appreciates her friend's fire; the white mare has a flame within her that Aela thinks is the fire that will fuel her on to great things. "I didn't grow roots in Taiga," she finally shares with Beyza, a thought that comes softly between the pair. "It wasn't until coming here that I felt...," she tries to explain the happiness she had felt at the realization that not only Beyza was here but Kensley as well.
Those who have mattered at all to Aela have been here and she'd rather be with them, for as long as they would permit her to stay (and with this realization, she decides to seek out the new Pangean leader). She had never handled the gentler side of herself well; most who saw Aela ever saw the gleaming edges of her ambition and the sharp-point of her memories that she always keep cautiously waiting. Their world - as they both had seen - was not a gentle one and Aela had no intention of allowing herself to be devoured by it.
(And she wonders for a moment why her own emotions feel so out of control, like this admission comes from the way that she suddenly feels so strongly about Pangea and Beyza and the role she hopes to play.)
She smiles a little for @[Beyza], "I'm glad to be here with you." The telempath shares, uncharacteristically shy. Aela glances out across the canyons and ravines again, feeling the mood settle into her bones. "I've never felt this way about a place before," she admits. "I never knew how home could... feel."
Beyza nods as Aela’s thoughts trail off, understanding what she’s getting at. She thinks so, anyway - that Aela discovered what Beyza had always felt here. Her family, her mentor, her first friends - Pangea had housed them all. This land means so much to her.
Perhaps, if she were wiser, she might be concerned about that. She might force herself to accept that one day this place may in fact change. Even if not physically, than in her ties to it.
But such thoughts do not cross Beyza’s mind, she feels secure in her attachment to her home and certain that now especially it is sure to have the strength to endure all things.
Her smile grows when Aela states how she never knew how home could feel. That’s not an emotion Beyza has felt personally, but she thinks she understands it. “It’s pretty great, isn’t it? I don’t know exactly why it matters… but it does. To me, anyway.” Truthfully, Beyza doesn’t know whether there is something specific about Pangea or if her feelings of adoration for this land would have occurred wherever she had grown up.
She keeps her own blissful thoughts to herself before remembering a memory they had shared when they had first met and there's a spark in her eye when she asks next. "Have you had a chance to see the armoured creatures yet?" Anaxarete's monsters had been conspicuously absent during the recent drama - but then, they were more like wildlife here than anything else. And none of the other lions or birds ever attended such meetings.
She glances to the side at @[Beyza] and her blue eyes catch the pale gaze of the other mare. The tug she feels towards the other pulls a smile from Aela and she can't help but share: "It is." Aela thinks this so completely - so assuredly - that there is no room for anything but her certainty that there could be no better place in Beqanna than Pangea.
It was a land supposedly rife with terrors; with fire-breathers and dragons, a history of the Dark God ripping it apart to create its bottomless ravines, with supposed monsters and terrors that the weaker minds crafted from fearful imaginations. It was full of wild wonders (at least to her) and Aela was coming to appreciate the way this place for the way that it was perceived and what existed beyond the borders that so few seemed to cross.
The layers of Pangea went deeper than just canyons that cut across the fierce landscape.
At the mention of the armored-creatures, she nods. She's seen them but as with some of the other inhabitants, Aela has kept a respectable distance. Her first sighting of the armored-beings had created such a strong memory that Aela has used it once or twice. A coy smile graces her pale lips and she shares it with Beyza now (a memory colored with awe and admiration): the fluid motion of a knife tail slicing the air, the proud crowns of their heads, the curious language they used (Aela's favorite; their chatter is something she finds fascinating). "I have," she thinks to the white Magician.
Aela frowns slightly and a crease mars her golden brow as she realizes, "though not recently." Her last glimpse of the creatures had been in the dark but that was back when day and night still existed. "Do you know much about them?" she wonders. Was it common for them to be absent from the borders so long?
Beyza’s smile grows a little more when Aela shares images and sounds of the strange monsters. They are such magnificent things, she thinks. At the question, she nods “A little. They’re my kin.” It had been an accidental discovery, but one that had made Beyza laugh and one that brings a softness to her smile now. She’d been idly practicing with her magic one day when she had accidentally tapped into the mind of the largest creature and discovered that they shared a mother. What Ryatah thought of her daughter that patrolled the borders of Pangea and feasted on flesh, she wasn’t sure it was polite to ask.
She keeps most of these thoughts to herself - locked behind barriers. Much as she cares for Aela she’s wary about sharing personal information about anyone other than herself.
Beyza projects other thoughts instead. “They answer to Anaxarete more than this land, though, and where she’s got them roaming this morning I do not know.” She smiles a little more as she looks across Pangea in the dawn light - picturing the armoured creatures slinking into the shadows of the canyons. “Sometimes they hunt in the canyons more than patrol the borders. But even without their particular attention, this place is well protected either way.” She is not the only magician that calls this place home, after all, and there are powers that protect it even beyond that.
Something akin to shock and awe shadows across her blazed face before it gives way to a smile.
Beyza is kin to the armored-creatures that roam the Pangean hills and protect their borders and Aela can't help but feel a twinge of admiration for her pale friend. Of course, they would be related to each other in some way. They were as dark as night and Beyza was as brightly white as the first fallen snow and yet something in Aela thinks it is fitting that the knife-tailed protectors and the Magician share some tie to each other.
Magic has worked in wilder ways.
Aela doesn't know about the memories that cross Beyza's mind. She doesn't know the pale Magician is thinking of Ryatah or her connection to the plated horses that roam Pangea. For Aela, this is one of the many reasons it is easy to share a confidence with Beyza. With others, the palomino has to be conscious of the memories and the emotions that can come crashing off their skin like waves along a coast. It means that Aela always has to be in control of herself (and while she can be, Aela harbors no doubts in her own abilities), it is relieving to be with Beyza and not to worry about the ghosts that haunt the minds and memories of others.
'I don't know much of Anaxarete,' she admits to her companion. 'She is another magician, yes?' Aela wonders curiously. The smile on her face softens, 'My grandmother mentioned her once or twice but she has mentioned many things.' The smaller palomino thinks. Heartfire had told many things to Aela before she had departed for the Beyond and there is an ache that blooms in her golden chest at the thought of her blue roan grand-dam.
It's the thought of someone missing that stills the smile and eventually replaces it with a pensive frown. It infuriates her that part of her still worries for Skandar and yet it has been weeks without any sight or sign of him. 'Beyza,' she starts tentatively, unsure of how to explain star-marked stallion. He remains an image in her mind, golden skin and swirling cosmos. Her skills are limited; while Aela is talented at many things, there are limits to even what she can do and with Beyza, she explains this.
'Does your magic allow you to... find others?' she asks.
