"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
11-13-2020, 06:45 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2020, 06:49 PM by Aela.)
Aela knows her eventual end goal. She will become something far greater than the girl she is now. She knows that but the uncertainty lies in how she goes from the girl to the woman that she imagines. As she glances up at Straia, the route she might take becomes clearer and clearer.
Act like you have nothing to fear, and it doesn't take an empath to know that the golden girl hears the compliment behind the painted Magician's words. There hasn't been much that Aela has ever been afraid of (water makes her uneasy but that, too, is something that could be overcome with Straia's help) but something in the filly swells when Straia tells her that and the beaming smile she gives the Dominus is a reflection of their shared secret. Aela's (known) family is small - a mother and a grandmother - and that has all she has ever known. @[Straia] replaces nobody and takes nothing from them but gains ground within the striped adolescent in a place all of her own making; just as Aela is coming to expect of the tobiano mare.
The golden girl smiles softly - an expression that she doesn't wear often - as the weight of her decision settles around her. Diplomat, she thinks. Aela, Diplomat of Pangea. The thought sounds sweeter with each repetition of it and the adolescent looks up to her mentor with youthful enthusiasm. Where will we go? she wonders, assuming that diplomats must travel around the various kingdoms. While she thinks that they have all heard of Pangea's greatness, she is excited to remind them of it again and the stripes around her ankles glow with literal excitement.
They only dim when her smile does.
I, she starts, wondering how to explain that she can't recall a time that she had a voice without Magic. Beyza helped me, once. Aela lifts her blue eyes to reveal another memory from when she had been much smaller and Beyza had seemed much bigger. The white girl and a young Aela stood in the Meadow, laughing and trading words like the palomino-looking filly had been born able to speak. Beyza had been her first word. She helped me find my voice.
Sometimes, she shares with the Dominus, I think I do feel it. But there is always a block somewhere, somehow the words always get lost in the transition from her mind to her tongue. Out of habit, Aela shares images of Kota, Heartfire, and a few other memories that hold the gravity of meaning and family behind them. It's like the words are trapped and they don't know how to get out. That's why the pictures come.
She stomps a front hoof and strikes the sandstone ground in mild irritation. Aela hesitates before asking, if I try to find them, would you stay? She doesn't know what this means yet but to her young mind, everything can be achieved with Magic. Their world is a direct reflection of that: those with the most powerful of Magics (like Straia and Beyza) remain at the top while those without linger at the bottom.
And Aela is not one to linger; she was born to rise.
sometimes we want what we want -- -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.
Where would you like to go? comes the reply. In truth, Straia has not been particularly demanding since taking over Pangea. She has worked on her own, letting the inhabitants of Pangea go on without much interaction from her. That may be a mistake, though in the end, she wasn’t truly interested in sending people on foolish errands. However, she did need to start making visits to other kingdoms, needed to figure out just how to remake Beqanna into something better. Aela would be an asset.
Maybe the problem was that she hardly knew the Pangeans at all and did not quite know how to use them. They were strangers to her, handed to her by a child and a long-known magician who supported her only for their shared goal of rebuilding the Chamber. Maybe the problem was that this was not truly her home. Not yet, anyway.
Aela shares a memory though, and Straia’s focus is back on the girl, for she is the most important thing in this moment. It is a memory of her and Beyza, trading words, and Straia smiles slightly to see it. ”Did you know,” she begins, speaking aloud now and it is clear she will stay with Aela and try to help her, though she doesn’t answer directly. ”That when I was born, I had no traits? Nothing at all. I took the throne from my father when I was little older than you. I didn’t gain my magic until after that. While magic is a beautiful thing, it is not what makes someone great.” She can understand the faeries in this, for though magic is wonderful and useful, it is the core of someone that matters.
”Whatever blocks your words is not a physical limitation. It is one of your own making, and as such, it is one you can learn to remove.” She gives Aela a nod, as if to offer strength, and then she waits.
-- straia
the raven queen
@[Aela]
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
11-20-2020, 10:31 AM (This post was last modified: 11-20-2020, 10:33 AM by Aela.)
Anywhere, Aela chimes and if she had spoken the word, it would have come breathless with excitement. And everywhere, she thinks. The filly peers up at her mentor from beneath her cornsilk forelock and her blue eyes widen with all the possibilities that her young mind can imagine (and for a girl as ambitious as Aela, there are many). Tephra with the volcano looming in the distance. Ischia with the beaches of paradise, waiting for a soul to get caught in the tides. (There is Islandres, as well. But she hasn't heard much of it so it remains a haze in her head.) Loess? She wonders because she has never seen the canyon country. What about the other places that claim loyalty to the South?
There is the Pampas, reputed fields full of wildflowers that extend for miles (and Aela who has never seen much use for such things imagines that they might burn it for something more useful, more practical?) Isn't there another territory in the South as well? she asks the Magician, still curiously looking at her.
Aela listens with pricked ears as the painted woman recalls how she was born without traits and her pale lips purse together as her slender head tilts to the side, listening and learning. She can't quite fathom Straia as anything than she is now. The white-splashed filly blinks and for a moment, there are images from another life; another place that she has never seen. Perhaps it's a kingdom that the magical mare intends for them to visit one day.
She dips her head, listening to her mentor explain that Magic is not the thing that makes a horse great. Her eyes widen again briefly in the belief that Straia is made from something stronger than the gift she wields. What is it, then? she asks and quickly tries to contain her Echoes as they rush excitedly forward. Her images flutter away from her in the beat of butterfly wings, dance away in a cacophony of eager heartbeats towards the Dominus as they reemerge in visions of the Magicians and dragonlings as they attacked Nerine.
And then as if Aela could no longer stand the inspiration flowing through her veins, the golden girl shifts her weight from leg to leg with delighted steps. I'll do it, she thinks brightly. I'll travel with you and help Pangea and I'll-, the reminder forces her thoughts to a jolting stop. She goes searching for the word and tries to make it emerge. Nothing comes as the words and the memories swirl together and get lost before they can ever reach her tongue. Her slender head bobs up and down several times in the attempt and Aela's frustration comes surging forward, as quick and angry as a riptide.
Her prancing in place stills and she huffs, disappointed in herself. I'll keep practicing. I'll keep trying and one day, I'll speak like you and Beyza and Kensley. She'll recall this moment in the days ahead; Aela decides that she'll drill herself until she learns this alternative way of communicating. If they couldn't 'speak' like her, she'd learn to talk like them. Determined to this, Aela nods and then smiles shyly to @[Straia]. It doesn't occur to her that she won't accomplish this task (whatever Aela sets her mind to is already a reality). When she does learn to speak, she'll surprise Straia with it.
A surprise and an offering to the Dominus that her confidence in her young protege is not misplaced.
That for the tasks and opportunities her leader means to provide, Aela intends to repay her in every way she can.
