YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
Aela doesn't remember much of @[Leilan] (though he shouldn't take offense to that, she barely remembers anybody outside of Kota and Heartfire from her time in the North). What she does remember are those few terrifying moments - when she had still been young enough to feel fear - of his bronze scales glinting overhead the Taigan forest, of the beat of his large dragon-wings as he attempted to land somewhere in the Redwood forest. These had become a few of her more favorite memories - ones she used to terrifying monsters and innocents alike.
But when he is made of simply horseflesh, the palomino finds there is little to be terrified of.
When he admits to liking her, Aela turns her head to peer up at the Northern Lord. "Well," she murmurs with a small smile, "what isn't there to like?" It deepens a little, revealing the dimple that she shares with her birth mother. "Lovely, intelligent, -" her blue eyes seem to share the impish glint of their current conversation, "and humble." Aela tells him and then turns her attention to finding the next mirrored panel. A delicate ear flicks towards him as she continues to walk ahead, waiting to see if the draft stallion might have something to add.
It's the question that she's been trapped into that stops her.
She contemplates lying. It wouldn't be the first time for Aela. The end always justifies the means with her. And if she had to lie to gain something, she might have. But their deal had been to speak the truth. And that gnaws on her in some way - settles somewhere between her ribs and her heart - that they had made an agreement. She might call on him, someday, she thinks. He is a Dragon and therefore powerful; having his favor might be useful.
Really, everything was in his clutches, if his talons were willing to reach for them.
So with a sigh and a stop, Aela's expression turns cold, much like the ice they were surrounded by. "I was looking for someone," she admits, the only time that she has ever spoken aloud that Aela is searching for Skandar. Her blue eyes fix on a plane of ice that reveal nothing, not even her reflection (and how there is very much a mortal-like emotion of ire burning through her veins when she says this). "Pathetic," she deems of herself, while her pretty mouth purses into a line of disapproval. "To be looking for someone who doesn't want to be found."
When a reflection doesn't manifest along the wall she peers at, an ear flicks towards Leilan and then Aela glances at the Freyr. There isn't a mirror along this panel but she asks anyway (because among dragons and mortals and men alike, they are all her equal so she is entitled to question the Northern King): "why did you throw this Festival?"
