"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
In the lull of the nearby crashing waves, Aela began to let herself relax. Her blue eyes closed and for a moment, she just listened to the world around her. It was one of the first times that she had attempted to use the full potential of her power since the sinking; she allowed her emotions out and surrounding ones in. This particular cave was empty, apart from a few memories. Voices came echoing from the past, murmurs that Aela couldn’t entirely make out. But she felt them, the emotions that came flooding in.
This particular cave had been a favorite place for someone. She could sense the peace and relief, the warm sense of familiarity and belonging. Perhaps that's why Aela had laid the initial claim to this one. It had reminded her of the one that Heartfire preferred, and coming back to herself, the palomino wondered just how many of these secret spaces her grandmother once inhabited.
The thought of the Seer made her smile, even behind closed eyes, and the thought of another turned that smile into a grin. In the weeks since she had returned to Taiga, she had felt the familiar flash across her sight (several times) and had known instantly who it was, as she knows now. It was only a matter of time before she and Reave crossed paths again.
Opening her brilliant eyes, Aela stepped towards the mouth of her cave and glanced towards the sky, searching the clouds for a glimpse of Rune.
Rune does not disappoint her. He knows as well as Reave where the golden mare lingers, his sharp gaze tracking the weather-beaten cliffs as he soars high above. Even without his frequent glimpses through the bird’s sight, Reave would have known. The visual pathways to his sister are familiar ones. Ones he would recognize anywhere.
After all, she had freely invited him in. And once that connection is made, it is difficult to sever.
She is in one of the many caves littering these cliffs. Always the caves. He had never found them as enticing as his other relations. He much preferred the open spaces and buffeting winds of the clifftops. He is hardly claustrophobic (his numerous ventures into the deeper caves prove that), but he does not care for that sense of confinement when he seeks comfort.
A grin is already stretching his lips when rounds the mouth of the cave to greet his favored sibling. They might not see each other often, but they did not need to. They are similar in so many ways that even across distances, an understanding remains. “Aela,” he rumbles, blue eyes glimmering with delighted impudence. “Missed the views, have you?”
He doesn’t keep her waiting, nor does he disappoint.
The palomino had still been looking for Rune in the sky - her lovely head still upturned, her blue eyes shielded beneath her flaxen forelock - when the voice of the Nerinian leader came rumbling out, echoing against the granite entrance where Aela stood. Her golden ears flicked forward, and by the time Reave emerged, his grin was met with a smaller, more demure version.
The tell-tale smile that she often wore.
But it was the warmth in her eyes that betrayed her. So much had happened since she last saw her brother, and even though their magical abilities allowed them to form a link, it was good to see him in the bone-armored flesh. Her blue eyes linger curiously on the etchings across his broad shoulders, something that wasn’t there during their last encounter, and tilts her head inquiringly towards the Guardian.
”Those are new,” she nearly hums the words before answering his initial question, ”At least one can see here.” Aela continues, finally glancing away from her brother and towards the sweeping views of Nerine. It was mostly open, and left a horse open to the elements. But it was better than Taiga, and its linked history with their grandmother made the moorlands more appealing to Heartfire’s descendant than any other place in Beqanna.
Pangea would always be home to Aela, but with rumors about a new ruler, she would bide her time here until she learned more. For now, she would have to content herself with Taiga.
”Though I trust you’ve seen clearly enough,” she adds, cryptically speaking of Obscene’s takeover of the wooded territory and Cheri’s return to the North. Aela glances back at her sibling, studying him again, and letting the silence settling between them serve as the invitation for Reave to freely speak his mind.
There is something about being in Aela’s presence that brings out both the best and the worst of him. It’s one of the many reasons he enjoys her company so much. And one of the many reasons their brother had expressed a distrust in him. But Reave has never been quite so attached to his emotions as many of his family. A truth exacerbated by his ability to read them so clearly in his youth, even if recent events had served to temper that ability into something both greater and lesser.
Though it is still an ability that serves him extremely well. The memories that flit through his golden sister are clearer, not tied to emotion as they once would have been. In many ways, it had been a boon, freed as they are from the cloud of feelings.
His lips twitch when she mentions the carvings etched across bone, a constant reminder of what he had helped unleashed on the mountain. A decent equine might regret his actions, but he is far from decent. Oh, he had regretted, but only the nightmare he’d been forced to live through. Sinking the south though? That he doesn’t regret.
“There have been a lot of new things lately,” he agrees mildly, though the glitter in his blue gaze belies that mildness. They had spoken of chaos not far from here once. Made vows to one another as they sought upheaval. Sought a cure for boredom. And chaos there had been.
Was she satisfied now? Or did she remain as unsatisfied as he? Perhaps there is nothing in the world that could truly sate him.
He chuckles when she makes her cryptic remark before shifting to peer out at the waves crashing against the rocky shore. “Yes,” he finally agrees after a moment of silence. He stares at the water for several heartbeats longer, gaze blank before it abruptly focuses and returns to Aela. A wicked grin tugs at his lips when he continues. “And I trust you’re keeping him in line? I would hate to have to step in.” His grin widens. It was a lie. He wouldn’t hate it all. In fact, he might very well relish it. “You all seem… very cozy down there right now.”
If Aela had known that Nashua expressed such distrust towards Reave, it would have made her smile. Even better, she would have told her half-sibling. What would Nash condone but the dull and ordinary? He would have reveled in the quiet, and that was all the more reason for Aela to detest it.
Her head lifts as she watches the Guardian’s lips quirk, and her own lift in reply. ”Fill me in on the gossip,” comes Aela’s reply. Those blue eyes fix on the mischievous glint in Reave’s and for the first time since arriving in the North, the restlessness in her soul begins to find direction. She was working with Cheri and Obscene, she often reminded herself, and it did no good to antagonize them. Wherewolf was another that she reminded herself to tread carefully with.
The golden days in the Pampas where she had free reign to do as she pleased were over; being forced to restrain her ambitions (for now) beneath the long shadows of Taiga’s trees was a constant reminder of that.
”I think Cheri is taking care of that particular issue,” Aela clarifies. ”But you're always welcome for a visit,” she adds, as if reading Reave’s thoughts on the matter. Obscene and Reave seemed to get along well enough; perhaps the King of the North could persuade the Taigan leader to lean more towards the route of chaos that they both enjoyed. Her smile continues to grow at the thought.
Until Reave mentions how cozy they all seem and then Aela scoffs.
For all that Aela despised their elder sibling, Reave never had. He may disagree with him more often than not, but even if he does not agree, he at least understands Nashua’s motivations. But that is the very reason Reave had sought to reclaim the throne in Nerine, and Nashua had been sensible enough to agree. Reave has always been much better suited for troubled times.
When Aela demands that he fill her in on the gossip, Reave tilts his head, eyes crinkling in amusement as he peers at her. “You can’t tell me you haven’t kept ahead of the major events,” he replies, tone teasing. She didn’t need him to do that. “Unless you have a sudden interest to hear all about who is banging who now?”
He laughs, but quickly sobers, gaze shifting towards the distant point he had been staring at a few moments ago. There is only one bit of news his sister might not have heard yet. As he turns his gaze back to her, he considers her potential reaction. “Gale has returned.”
Reave had kept a watchful eye out for that particular relation, for obvious reasons. Though he hadn’t been able to glean much yet, he could tell the cursed stallion was… different. He hasn’t decided whether it is good or bad yet though. Regardless, he would continue monitoring. Reave might not have a personal vendetta against him, but he had seen enough of Gale’s hunger for power to be wary.
At Aela’s scoff, Reave’s seriousness fades, replaced easily by a smirk. “And here I thought you just missed my company.”
”Surely there must be something,” Aela quips back to her younger brother.
There is something telling in her smile - almost a touch too smug - that says she is certainly aware of the current happenings. She had spent nearly a year in the Common Lands, playing the part of a nomad, listening to the rumors about the kingdom beneath the ocean and the creatures that had begun crawling from the sea.
Something neither Kelpie nor Nereid.
But those weren’t the happenings across Beqanna. Apart from the Sinking of the South, there were other things that Aela kept her attention on. She listened as the rumors reached her of the dragons ruling the West, as new leaders came and went like the sun, as well as the gossip that many residents of Beqanna fed themselves on like the grass they grazed on.
Aela almost teased Reave that if that was the kind of news she craved - who was warming whose bed - who better to ask than he?
Their teasing flees for a moment and the golden Empath tries not to scowl at the mention of another brother. There are so many of them, and many of them have managed to get in her way (Aela never considers that she might have gotten in theirs). ”Wherewolf asked about Islandres,” Aela says, mentioning one those accursed creatures by name. She assumes that Reave can see through her eyes well enough; she had found the former Nerinian at the Ruins, just as spiteful as she had last seen him. ”I told him, as I told Cheri and Obscene, it would be best to avoid that place.”
She stares out at the distance as well, imagining for a moment what a wonderful lesson it might have been for Obscene or Wolf to have their hearts torn out. Reave had been wise enough to avoid him.
”What are your plans for the North?” she asks then, because she doesn’t have the same ability that her half-brother does. It might help her to keep the Taigans on a particular path, if Reave had one in mind. Tilting her lovely head towards the Northern king, a conspiratorial smile touches at the edges of her mouth. ”You’ve never been far, Reave. But it is good to see you.”
The smug grin marking Aela’s lovely features wasn’t needed for Reave to know she had been keeping her dainty little hooves inside the currents. Yet he can’t help but respond with a rakish smirk of his own. She so easily wrapped almost everyone she met into her machinations that he would have had to be an irredeemable fool not to have known. So long as she did not forget Reave could be equally as sly as she. He might play at transparency, but he never revealed more than he desired. If he happened to be particularly forthcoming, one would be wise to wonder what more he was keeping to himself.
Just as easily as the pleasure had come to her, it wanes into a scowl at his mention of Gale. He is aware of her… indiscretions of course. It’s the reason he had told her of his return. His brows shoot up at her admission however, his lips tugging into a grin before he quickly quells it. “You surprise me,” he admits freely, the corners of her mouth still twitching beneath his restrained humor. “You must have had quite the change of heart if you’re warning him away from danger.” He pauses then, unable to fight the grin any longer, though this time, there is something impish in it. “Unless you were imagining he is contrary enough to defy your warning.”
Reave would have warned her away too had she sought him out before Gale, but fate had been too fickle for that. Her powers are seductive enough to be nearly irresistible to something as mad and power hungry as the curse. While Reave is not keen on having his heart eaten, he is even less keen on sharing what is his. That, more than anything, is the true reason for his avoidance.
Aela, appearing to return to herself then, quickly shifts the topic back to safer shores. He tilts his head as he considers her openly, blue eyes glinting in the muted light of the sea-cave. “I’m going to take back Craft and Anatomy,” he replies after a moment. In truth, Reave has never been a proponent of detailed plans. Reclaiming the entity is his first step, but after that? Well, the possibilities are numerous, and he has considered many. Too many to recount in a way that would satisfy Aela. So he smirks at her instead, head dipping slightly. “And I have a few other possibilities I’m… keeping an eye on.”
The old fire is in there, flickering. The old wants and desires to upend this world, to play a part in the machinations of making it spin and being one of the deciding factors of how it turns is still one of Aela’s many goals. But, fate had something different in mind than the golden woman standing before Reave. Chaos and devastation had come (and while there was still a part of her that marveled in the destruction in the sinking of an entire kingdom), but the price had been a heavy one.
All her years working in the Pampas – cultivating and creating - and just when it had been really beginning to thrive, all of that was gone. And here she was, beginning again in a mostly empty territory. Perhaps she was foolish to be starting over, but there was never another choice for Aela. She refused to fade into the thralls of Time. She would be more, even if that meant living in Taiga, co-habitating in that same territory with Obscene and Cheri, and Wherewolf’s biting temper.
They were all essential in their own way, and Aela refused to allow anything to sway them from that path.
Her pale lips quirk in quiet affirmation to what Reave says. It isn’t so much a change of heart as much as her determination to see what was rightly hers returned to her. ”If only I were so fortunate,” Aela murmurs to her brother with an exaggerated sigh. Perhaps, eventually, a visit to Gale could be added to the agenda. (Reave’s knowledge that the former King of Hyaline and Tephra was different certainly piques her curiosity, but she has no desire to be ripped apart a second time and there was always the chance that Gale might prove useful later on. It’d be best not to reduce him to tears just yet.)
Tilting her lovely head away from the pale blue sky, Aela glances sidelong back to Reave. He intended to take back Craft and Anatomy. He had tried before and had been unsuccessful, but the slender palomino can’t help herself; she gives him that small half-smile of approval for his tenacity. Mazikeen was well-known as a fierce (and accomplished) Alliance contender. ”Very ambitious,” the golden mare asks, not bothering to hide the conspiratorial glint in her blue-eyed gaze. ”Is there anything in particular I should be keeping my eyes on?”
He can so easily recall the last time they had stood upon these shores, chaotic ambition alight in their eyes. They had achieved that in spades, and yet he remains unsatisfied. Perhaps there will never be enough to satisfy the reckless yearning inside his soul. He can’t stop though. He never could.
As Reave eyes his sister’s lovely features, he wonders if he should tell her the territory is far from empty. Wonders if he should warn her how, in those woods, the shadows have fangs. In the end however, he says nothing. He knows they want for little more than privacy, and that might be a temptation his sister could not resist. A creature that no one could see, hear, or smell coming? Terribly alluring. And terribly dangerous.
Despite his chaos-loving heart, he would not wish to see his favorite sibling hurt trying to secure something too unpredictable to secure.
With a shake of his head, he returns the full force of his attention to Aela as she sighs. A faint, wry grin kicks up the corners of his lips ever so briefly. A commiseration for the pain she had experienced at their relations teeth, though he says nothing more on the subject.
He tips his head at her small, approving smile, his own features serious for once. He is unashamed of his failed attempt to reclaim the entity. He had told Mazikeen during their first battle that he would try again and again if he must. He would succeed eventually. In the meantime, he would learn and grow better. Others might view failure as an end, but Reave views it only as a stepping stone.
Reave chuckles when Aela asks if there is anything she should be keeping her eyes on. “Is there anything you’re not already?” he teases, eyes glinting with humor. Just as quickly however, they settle into thoughtfulness. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he continues after a brief silence before his lips slip into a devilish smirk. “So me for now, I suppose.”
