[open] Shadows for Skin [ANY]

[Aela]

Obscene at least begins to speculate about what might have happened to Oceane and Ledger, and that was better for Aela than his brooding silence. It offered nothing; she understood he was in a foul mood, but weren’t they all? Hers made her want to strike out and lash at something, and unfortunately for the former Prince, that something was him.

Aela pressed at him in a way that she had never done before because she had no other alternatives. The repeated journeys to the Ruins, searching through the throngs of displaced equines in the Common Lands had yielded nothing more than what she already knew. And the rest of what she gathered was what Obscene was doing now. It was mere speculation. Perhaps the South sank because of the Dark God. Perhaps the kingdom was weighed down by too much pride. Perhaps the Faeries themselves doomed the fallen land.

Perhaps this was another Reckoning.

But whatever it was, it was done.

Cheri (as much as Aela was chagrined to admit this) was right.

The South was sunk and even if Aela eventually discovered the whole truth (which if Fyr was harmed, she would and there would be hell to pay), it wouldn’t undo what had been done. Her gold-tipped ears flicked back but the small-framed mare grew quiet as the appaloosa continued to speak. She would have to accept the explanation that Cheri gave her. Her only other option was to remain distrustful, but that did nothing for their newborn alliance. It would only doom it before they even reached the waters edge of Loess.

And even though much had changed, this had not: Aela could not abide by wasted time or effort.

So she acquiesced and told them of the Beqanna that they had returned to. The East was still ruled by Mazikeen, a name they should both know. The West had been taken over by a roosting pair of dragons. Many of the lands were quiet but inhabited (so far as she knew but Aela had always been a well-connected mare), save for two. There was Islandres, the former home of their favorite Cursed relation, Gale. A place best avoided for obvious reasons. And then Aela closed her eyes, because if the idea of aligning with Obscene and Cheri wasn’t ridiculous enough, what she was about to say next was.

”Taiga has been empty,” she said tersely, fighting back the contempt that wanted to so badly come out. Her pale lips curled at how easily this could all come together, that it would be in Taiga of all places. ”And Reave is now King of the North. If we wanted to re-group, that could be… a possibility.”

@Cheri