YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
"Oh," she rebuttals his perhaps. He is close enough that his breath dances against her sunlit skin and Aela decides that if they are this close, what can a little closer hurt? The memory is there again of this other mare, of this woman that @[Obscene] is so badly (and poorly) trying to forget. She isn't sure if it is the way she reaches up to lightly trace his dark frame or if it is the Pampas Prince that chases the ghost away.
She'll remember her, for later.
"You shouldn't care what I think," Aela says and has the grace to smile. It's the closest to the truth that she has spoken with him in their entire meeting. She absentmindedly touches the dark skin nearest towards her, "my thoughts only seem to lead to trouble." Another truth, one perhaps that he can appreciate given their proximity. (Aela has always thought herself quite humorous.) One that makes her smile almost deepen when the rugged brute tells her there were other things that they might be doing instead of discussing politics. It does make her stop, and while she doesn't move far away, she's glad for the miles that her memories put between them.
Obscene is handsome.
And it makes her wonder if he is like her, that he uses his fortunate looks to his advantage.
What surprises her - apart from the way he grits his teeth, the way that he suddenly seems so on edge - is that his fiery gaze doesn't condemn her a witch. That when he looks at her, he doesn't burn her with the accusation. Aela takes a fluid step away from him but the Pampas ruler doesn't her get far. She stops and lets him loom close, tower over her, and press something fervent into her elegant neck. Aela stands caught in a current of emotion that she has made herself, a trap that has captured her. Desire that she puts towards him, that feeds into her. "I want everything," Aela tells him and feels no shame when she meets his gaze.
"But what about you?" she murmurs, because while they both want, she senses that do so differently.
