YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
She grits her teeth but Aela doesn't budge. He could kill her. Skandar could crush her trachea, tear her throat out; with his shapeshifting abilities, there was an infinite amount of ways that he could end her. And Aela realizes at that moment, she might even endure all those deaths for him. That if this was the only way to bring him this close to her, she would conceive a thousand ways to die if it meant he might touch her in a thousand different ways.
Aela who has never considered anybody but herself (though perhaps Kota or Heartfire) thinks of him and every inch of her golden body is on fire. The heat drives out any of her fear and for Skandar, she stands patient beneath his grip.
But he pulls away and the palomino is momentarily disoriented with her vibrant blue eyes looking down to the ground where her blood trails from him. Her gaze follows the path and then it lifts again, rising to meet Skandar's furious gaze and Aela has no trepidation in matching it. They have long talked about their aspirations. With Skandar, it had become an even more private thing because she had shown him the things she envisioned for Beqanna. Chaos across all four kingdoms. And as she comes closer, Aela takes the chance to share with him the small amount that she has started. She shows him the red spires and turrets of Loess, the pearlescent pegasus she had met that is known as their Queen. There are flashes of the conversation that she had between the diplomat's Ledger and Cheri and the discontent that had started there, fueled by the presence of the self-appointed Pampas Prince. Aela shows him the glimpses of iron-drab Nerine where her bone-armored brother ruled and how he shared a similar dream; that they might awake Beqanna from this lull of peace.
There are other moments: another brother - Gale - who consumes her heart in the dark and her expression smolders. There is another in Taiga and Aela shares the image of the dream that she has, (fueled by her hatred for it) that the Redwoods will burn again someday. Another of Tephra - his birthplace - and the ways that they might ignite the volcano. She fills his mind with so many thoughts and pictures that Aela thinks there is only one choice left.
Skandar is looking at her neck that is still dripping blood and she comes closer, well aware of the danger that she is courting. She angles herself alongside him, moving down his galaxy-marked barrel because the truth has never been clearer for Aela. "I would have you come with me," she tells her companion, and her blood stains his beautiful coat as the striped mare continues to move. It's a future in her mind, an image as apparent as if her fortune-teller brother had prophesized it. "There is no doing this without you."
@Skandar