Aela knows nothing about the events that brought her into creation.
She is oblivious to the paternity that gleams in golden stripes at her ankles, about the maternal bloodline that peers out through Aela's startling blue eyes. The flaxen-haired beauty had been brought up to think that spotted Kota was her mother and her only other known blood relative was Heartfire, her grandmother. There are gaps in her family tree, plenty of empty branches but Aela hardly minds anymore.
By the time that she reaches it - her destiny, her purpose, the pinnacle of her ambition - her name will be the only one that matters.
But for now, she is still attempting to achieve it. She is still crafting ideas and turning them over in her young mind, attempting to formulate ideas on how to reach her future. Aela has been forewarned about her aspirations and the gilded girl takes her grandmother's advice seriously, even more now that she has seen invincible Straia swallowed whole by her ambition. It's about timing, she knows. It's about patience, waiting for opportunities to both present themselves and for Aela to create them.
This trip into the Meadow hadn't been about that. Not at first.
It's hard for her to observe the pairs and trios and quartets that gather around the grasslands and not want to immediately dismiss them. Each dynamic that she watches all lack something. There is no luster, no shine, no spark. To Aela's adolescent gaze, they all looked tired and tarnished. They have all the ruination of time and she has no use for that, for them. Those that are so bogged down by the weight of their memories are not so receptive to hers, she's learned.
There is a sharp voice - one that cuts across the Meadow - and Aela hears the authority in it, attracting her attention.
With nothing else to interest her, the adolescent moves off in the direction of the sound. The stalks brush up against her and Aela follows a well-worn path towards a nearby creek. By the time that she arrives, there is a mare and her foal aimlessly walking away from another. Splashing in the shallows of the creek is a girl and Aela's mind is already wondering what (and if there is one) the connection between the three could be.
Her voice is still unsteady and unpracticed and this way of speaking - flashes of images, glimpses of memory - is an old habit for Aela. She takes another step closer to the other adolescent and projects the other side of the Meadow and the shout that reached her. (There is grass and more grass; there are fragments of her unenthused observations of the small groups of horses from earlier. There is the muffled command from afar: Leaf? Leave?)
There is an inquiring tilt of her lovely head and the gentle brush of her pale tail while Aela waits, already expectant of a reply.
@[alucarda]