If Aela abided by much of anything, she would know better than to wander the Common Lands. They were notorious for scandal and unfortunate happenings during the best of times; and these times - the Eternal Dark - was certainly not one of those better times in Beqanna. Everything was cast in shadow and as she stole another glance over her slender shoulder, Aela knew that it wasn't changing anytime soon.
The young palomino sighed and stopped, turning to look at the silhouettes of bramble before her. Something had rustled the spring branches and the tender sound they made alerted the golden girl that something was near. (Or someone but Aela still assumes the thought she shared with Gale: that those wandering now were either doing so for a thrill or because they had nowhere else to go.)
As she lifts her head and her flaxen forelock moves to one side, Aela knows why she is here. The creatures that roam - the monsters - aren't like anything else that she has encountered so far in her young life. Her abilities have allowed Aela to have a voice (and discover it), have led her from Taiga to the wider world and she now intends to use them to keep growing. Why stop at the escape of a foggy swamp? Why abate at only a few words?
There was so much more still to come.
She could feel it - in her bones, in her confident stride, in the proud of angle of her lovely head - that there was still more.
But today is about trying to find one of those creatures. Today is about understanding them (if they even could be understood). Today is about finding one.
Instead, she finds him.
She's disappointed because there is hardly anything fearful about him. The smaller mare stops a few paces away but she knows that he will hear her coming. It's then that the idea comes to illuminate her presence and the golden filly manages to glow for a few moments before the dark swallows that as well, leaving them to both readjust their vision.
Aela knows she isn't the type to be forgotten; she thinks that he will be able to gleam the stripes around her legs, remember the imperial blue gaze that levels on him. It's only when her mind reaches out to flash a few memories (her way of speaking that he didn't like) of their previous meeting that she encounters his melancholy. Her small ears flick back into the curls of her pale mane before they come forward again.
"Brooding?" she asks the grazing stallion. The edges of her pale lips are tempted towards a smile. "Bad patch of grass?"
@[Meyer]