After the Sinking, Aela had first thought about seeking out Reave.

His power would be the most obvious, and the most straightforward, for the answers that she had been seeking. Even if he didn’t share a bond with the horses that she was searching for, he had the ability to see the future (or atleast, versions of the future; he had explained it to her once as something always changing and there was never any one straight path forward).

She had been making her way towards the North, but a journey on hooves took much longer than one on wings, or those born with that fortunate power to teleport. Aela had always prided herself on not being the malingering kind, on always being able to look ahead and formulate plans and schemes, and yet even as she knew that she should go North, maternal instinct had (surprisingly) overridden that perfectly logical plan.

Aela kept going back to the Ruins instead of Nerine, searching for a sign of her missing son and any of the others that had been lost with the Pampas.

It was that instinct that pushed her into such a forward pace. Cheri and her fragile state began to fade in her restless mind, her thoughts coming almost as fast as her careful steps. The other woman’s voice finally broke her stride, and Aela tried not to huff her indignation at being slowed down. Her golden ears flicked back when the palomino stopped and Aela listened as Yanhua’s daughter continued to speak of clairvoyants, fighting her own disappointment when the appaloosa admitted that she didn’t know of any.

Her mind is still on the journey ahead, the amount of time that it will take to get to Taiga while Cheri was still so weak, and the prospect of facing the redwoods themselves that what the other mare says almost surprises her. It turns her disappointment into something else: curiosity. What the once-Loessian Queen was proposing was something that had always intrigued Aela, and what she had once hoped might transpire in the Pampas.

Acquiring powers from the Mountain, or inheriting them, was all well and good. But what Cheri was speaking of was what Aela considered an untapped power source. The possibilities of what happened when magic was pooled together from multiple sources seemed endless.

Turning her head, she regarded Cheri carefully.

What an Empath and whatever the other woman was (something powerful enough that her powers evaded Aela’s) could be interesting. At the very least, the combination of their powers might hasten their journey North.

”Alright,” Aela acquiesced, fully turning around to face Cheri. The appaloosa had spoken about a puff of smoke; a few small literal fires began to kindle around the pair and the Empath could feel it then - the power that allowed her to fully feel everything around her and adapt to her surroundings - rippling beneath the luster of her golden coat, ready to channel itself into the other mare.

Beqanna was peaceful and quiet, except for the crackling of Aela’s open fires. Cheri stood with her wings tucked, watching as the empath spun her magic flames out of thin air. The golden mare was quick about the business; no sooner had Aela agreed to the pact than the flames sprung up around them, and that was impressive. Cheri was impressed with Aela’s speed and precision, knowing full and well how fickle elemental control could be. Her suspicions were as good as confirmed:  Brilliant, bold, beautiful Aela - the closest thing Cheri ever had to an enemy - was powerful.

Closing her eyes, the withered pegasus took a lungful of the smoke-tainted air and held it in, pondering.

“I’ve only ever done something like this with Ledger, so be patient.” She huffed at last, looking head-on at a pair of eyes so blue they almost didn’t seem real.

We take this step-by-step, the mage breathed slowly, soothed by the familiar snap and hiss of fire burning dry grass. Her gaze never left Aela’s.

“You might feel something.” She warned before the prick.

Cheri was a healer. It had been her first act of magic, fascinating her ever since. She found patients dying in the forest and later applied her gifts to many; little animals with broken legs or wings could count on her ability to seek them out and mend the pain, and anyone traveling through Loess or Taiga was offered her services. She practiced and pondered, and tried to mold her healing into balms or patches or fast-acting injections, all to a high degree of success. Healing is what she knows best, so that’s where she begins.

In her mind she fashions a link between them, something she thinks of as transfusion. It’s something Cheri is comfortable and quick with, like Aela and her flames, and something she’s always given to others… at the cost of a mild reaction. She knew pain, knew all its levels, and aimed to give the least amount possible to the immortal Palomino (with a warning) before going any further.

If she was as good as she always was, (and Cheri thought herself pretty damn good at this point) then Aela might not even feel a thing. Just a slight tremble on the web of magic flowing out of her in waves, which Cheri could now visibly see all around them. Aela, the fires, the wind and light: everything looked like spectrums of gleaming, beautiful vibrations. The Empath’s magic was so strong it was nothing short of a force surrounding her, and Cheri felt awed in its presence. She held the link to Aela’s magic carefully, but with a relaxed control - and then when she felt steady enough she connected herself, allowing her own malleable powers to flow freely between them.

“Okay.” The mage proceeded. “Now listen carefully: my function is all over the place. Literally. I’ve teleported, healed, summoned bad weather, blown a damn light beam out of my head, and that’s just the beginning.” Cheri lingered over every word with an unnecessary amount of importance. She’d thought about this long and hard, after all. “I need you to focus. My powers work best when there’s a need, so start thinking, remembering, or trying to connect; I don’t care.”

Just do it, She glared. The wind picked up, blowing renewed life into the flames and adding to their hunger. They ate the grass, scorched the earth, and stretched into a circlet very much like a rune when seen from above, enclosing the mythics within. Cheri’s heartbeat slowed, and she waited for a sign that it was happening - more careful than ever to balance the link between them as the forest trees groaned their displeasure.

The rage of her fires burned all around them. It seemed to cut them off from the rest of the world, and for a moment, the only thing in existence was this ring of fire and the two mares encircled in it. The power that flickers around Cheri and Aela is also burning in her eyes, the blazing aura that was always burning beneath her golden skin threatening to emerge. But the appaloosa was not her enemy.

The things that had divided them in the past no longer existed.

Be patient, Cheri advises, and a sort of peace takes over Aela. She lets it flow through herself, through the mare before that shares her brother’s blood, and begins to think of the emotion like a hymn. She becomes reverent with it; thinking again and again of what they might achieve if they succeed, and in typical Aela fashion, she never considers what might happen if they fail.

They won’t.
They can’t.

Linked as they are, she feels the sensation of prodding against her magic. It feels like a shiver in a web, a leaf in fall not yet ready to abandon its branch. It was fluttering; it was straining, she realized. It was caught somewhere between the layers of their powers as they tried to combine. Aela never left herself vulnerable. If not for the sense of calm that she had been pouring into their woven net - the blending of their talents - the palomino might have felt true fear for the first time since Wolfbane had nearly chased her into the sea and Beryl swallowed her into the darkness.

Her gaze never wavers from the other mare. Aela never looks away or flinches when the link between them finally latches. Cheri had done something like this before (with the old Loessian lecher, Ledger) and the Magician speaks of how there needs to be a connection deeper than the one they’ve made. Having already given her own powers to Cheri’s growing arsenal, Aela glares back at the onyx-and-green woman.

A need, Aela nearly scowls.

It is the one thing in life she has purposefully avoided. She has never allowed herself to need anyone. To count on another was to inevitably find failure. Her son was one of those presumed missing - most likely dead - and Aela never allowed herself to succumb to the sorrow of that reality. Her one equal in this life never clawed his way back from beneath the waves, and Aela had to accept that whatever was beneath the sea was something greater than them. She refused to let that stand in the way of her ambition. And as much as she trusts Reave, Aela knows better than to need his partnership. It’s why they work so well together; it's a relationship of mutual offering and understanding.

But with the wind blowing wild and the fires growing higher, Aela begins to imagine the one face she has trusted her entire life.

She pulls on the deepest bond that she knows, one that goes back to a time when Craft and Anatomy had still been in the Taiga, when Aela’s desperate mother had pleaded with them for protection from the very man who had brought her into creation. Their daughter had been gifted with a link to an infamous ancestor, Heartfire. It had been her grandmother who had guided her into adulthood, who had taught Aela the importance of power and how to wield it in their brimming world of magic.

What would she make of this? Aela wondered. Her lips twitched briefly up in a smile, feeling the familiar warmth in her chest at the memory of her guardian, finally allowing the last of Cheri’s power in.

"Do it,” Aela gritted out, sensing everything in that moment so keenly that it felt as if every memory between them might implode into nothingness, that between them they might create an entirely new depth of feeling and then swallow the world into it. "Now."

It was impossible to expect any single outcome from the combination of Cheri and Aela’s magic. They couldn’t have guessed what would happen when the source of their powers connected, and most likely any wise or seasoned magic-wielder would’ve cautioned against either of them attempting it, but there’s something between them that ‘clicks’ anyways. In the midst of all the chaos, Cheri had a peculiar clarity of mind as well.

It could’ve been Aela’s strength and determination, making her the unexpected counterweight that refused to budge in the face of untempered power. Or it could’ve been Cheri’s flexibility and awareness, all her previous knowledge finally coming into play and giving her guidance. There wasn’t any way of telling; Cheri thought it was probably both of them.

One thing she knew for certain was that sometimes unexpected and wonderful things happened, if one was brave enough to risk trying.

The moment Aela commanded her to work a spell, Cheri did. It was a snap response and so the reaction was nearly instant, too: the shards of crystals embedded into her skin began to flicker with a pale white light, and the smoke billowing out from Aela’s fire rune swirled around the two immortal mares at a dizzying pace.

“Look! Cheri yelled over the roar of the flames as an image began to take shape.

She gripped the thread between them a little harder, feeling her energy pulled in too many places all at once. Just a little longer, she grit her teeth together. The image was coming into focus now, making itself stand out from the thick, oily fumes. It was…

… a stallion. A young stallion, in the prime of his early youth and wearing a pale golden coat that flamed like a morning sun. There was no mistaking the distinct pattern all along his back; he was galloping across a flat terrain, barren and scorched from the sun, and right before the image dimmed you could just make out a range of mountains in the distance.

“I can’t hold it any longer,” Cheri strained against the growing pressure, “is that all … you need?”

She hoped it was, because her ears were starting to ring.

Aela hadn’t known what to expect with them coming together like this. She has wondered thoughts like these a thousand times. It had been that drive to fill the Pampas with the most talented and gifted individuals Beqanna had to offer for a moment like this. So that they might pool different powers together to see what the outcomes might be. To understand the barriers of Magic, and perhaps a chance to better understand the laws that made them.

She had just never imagined that when her chance would come, that it would be with the mare that Aela had considered a rival.

But the slender palomino had never been one to waste an opportunity, and despite Cheri’s weakened state, together they became a powerful force. It was intoxicating; the surge of potent magic all around them gave Aela a strange aura. The chaos all around caused the whites of her eyes to show and yet, despite the way her golden skin quivered at all the strange sensations surrounding them, the Empath never moved away from where she stood. Her bright, bold gaze held on to the vibrant green of the dark mare directly across from her.

The fires all around them continued to burn. They crackled and spit angry sparks into the storm-filled air. And then, when the crystals adorning Cheri’s dark coat began to glow, a shape began to take shape through the haze of the smoke. He was older than she had seen him last. But she immediately recognized the golden pattern of dapples. They were brilliant beneath the sheen of a burning flame, and a surge of pride (as well as emotion) surged through Aela at the sight of her son.

There were mountains behind him. She took a step forward to better see the image taking shape, but as flames are apt to do, they began to flicker out. As quickly as Fyr had been conjured, he was gone. The moment was over too soon for Aela, who was left peering into the empty smoke.

”He’s somewhere in the East,” she murmured, almost disbelieving. Gods, he was alive. She had spent these last months trying to brace herself for the worst - assuming it - because she wouldn't allow the confirmation of her son's demise to become her own. But Fyr was alive and that changed everything.

Remembering her counterpart in all this, Aela sharply asked, "How swiftly can you travel to Taiga?"

@Cheri