"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
you can run but you can't hide breath on your skin, I've arrived
There is a strange sort of peace that always seems to settle in the wake of chaos. It’s easier in the hush to find what she needs. To piece it together into a more complete image. But what she gathers does not stir her. Does not compel her to return to the life she’d once led.
She’d forgotten how comfortable it had been to watch from the shadows. Had forgotten her own preferences in the face of so many demands. And now, with her primary goal accomplished, she finds this most recent squabble a bit… tiresome.
It had not taken her long to come to the conclusion that what Straia had wished would lead to only one thing: a face-off with the gods of Beqanna. It is an impossible path, and one Heartfire has no desire to travel. So when the dust had settled, she had left them to their petty devices.
Aela had been her one concession.
Though she had separated herself from the girl for her own safety, it had been quickly clear that safety does not interest Aela. Heartfire cannot fault her for it. After all, it is not something she had ever sought either. So, in the end, what else had there been to do save encourage her?
Tucked in a shallow cave filled with memories, Heartfire stares out at the ocean for some time before reaching along the now-familiar tether in her mind. The very same tether that had woken her from slumber just a few short years ago. “Aela,” she whispers, though no sound escapes her lips. “Are you enjoying yourself, my dear.”
10-30-2020, 11:08 AM (This post was last modified: 10-30-2020, 11:09 AM by Aela.)
Aela liked the way that dawn came creeping across Pangea. Perhaps it was because of those years in Taiga. They never saw dawns like this - all brilliant oranges and reds rising until the days ended much the same way. There was no way in such a dense woodland. In Pangea, the dawns echoed the sunsets, wild death throes that argued across the horizon in dazzling shades that could have painted catastrophes instead of dusk.
She had settled in well to her new home (but when didn't Aela adjust well?). She had found Kensley before he had departed for the Alliance. She kept company with Beyza when she could and there was so much to learn from one as accomplished as Straia; Aela was filling her days as she was expanding her future and the golden girl could feel herself growing - both in her powers and herself. There was a whole horizon for her to find in Pangea and Aela intended to make use of every sunrise and sunset.
But for as hard as she works, she is still young.
And one morning, the golden girl had slept longer than she normally would. The sun had risen hours ago and Aela, curled up near the back of a cavern, hadn't noticed the trickle of daylight beneath her closed lids. If there was a croak from a Raven or the cry of a shifting predator, they don't reach Aela's delicately-tipped ears. She hears the crash of the ocean. She hears waves barreling towards the coastline and breaking over the Nerinian crags. (The ocean always makes her uneasy, for reasons she doesn't know.) Her blue eyes open to the dark as her heart beats erratically and her pulse races. The near-blinding dark is a comfort because it reminds her that this is not Taiga. It wraps around her like a blanket and the adolescent lets lose a sigh of relief as her slender comes to rest against a striped, glowing knee.
Not a dream, she realizes with a soft smile when the bond touches her mind. The image of a savage, gray sea comes again. A view from a cave that Aela has seen before. Hi Glamma, the girl thinks. Her voice is tender, full of love, and still drowsy with sleep. Always. She tells her. There are images of Pangea, of Straia, and the others. Of the ways that Aela fills her bright days. How is Nerine? I hope that horrible boy hasn't bothered you.
you can run but you can't hide breath on your skin, I've arrived
It had taken her quite a long time to realize why she had always come to the ocean when she wished to focus. When she wished to be left to herself. There is comfort in the wild, fearsome crash of the waves. An ancient familiarity that settled her deep in her core. She hadn’t truly recognized it until she had felt Aela’s wildly divergent emotions towards the ocean. Hadn’t realized that it had become such a deeply entrenched part of herself.
It reflects the deeply turbulent emotions she had always veiled so carefully. Where Aela feels calm and deliberate, Heartfire had always been filled with a furious intent. It is only hard-won discipline and experience that had drawn the impenetrable and icy facade over herself. By now Aela knew what the world saw was not the truth of her grandmother. But it is also clear she had understood how incredibly useful such careful deliberation is.
Heartfire cannot help the pride she feels in her.
Aela had made herself comfortable in Pangea. Though Heartfire would never feel affiliation for the kingdom, she is delighted by how easily and quickly the young mare had settled with the citizens. Of course, Aela could not be unaware of Heartfire’s own motives - of the way she kept such careful watch over Straia - but she must also know that, at this particular moment, Heartfire has no interest in interfering. No, her interest was purely one of observance. Heartfire may not be powerful enough to pose any true threat to Straia, but she suspects the entity had forgotten how powerful knowledge itself could be.
She doubts Aela believes her when the certainty that the Pangean leader is toying with powers far beyond her ability to handle arises, but then, that had always been the folly of youth. Of course, only time would tell. Either way, Aela would be prepared, even if only because Heartfire is.
The flaxen youth’s pointed thoughts draw Heartfire back from her musings, bringing a smile to her lips along with them. The first question is only answered with a flash of images - Nerine’s healing landscape. She knows Aela asks more from duty than true concern for the land, but it is heartwarming to know it is for her sake she asks. The second comment brings amusement. “He would not dare,” she replies with faint humor.
Of course, he would have to know of her existence first, but that’s neither here nor there. One day perhaps, but for now he would likely be better off without knowing her.
“You have gained a great deal of trust.” It is a statement rather than a question. One replete with approval. Of course, with Heartfire, there is always a but. “Be careful you don’t wrap too much of yourself into it, lest you become unable to extricate yourself.” It is a warning. One fueled by worry that Aela has begun to grow complacent. Trust has never been an easy thing to the blue mare, and even here in the North, where she has made her home for decades, she rarely trusts. But Pangea had always been a viper’s nest.
If anyone is suited to such an environment, it is Aela. Heartfire has never deceived herself as the true nature of her descendent. But even a viper could fall victim if she did not protect herself well enough.
"Good," Aela thinks sleepily with a playful snort. "If he did...," she implies, and Aela - confident in her abilities and herself - imagines exactly the kind of lesson she'd give the dappled boy if he ever dared to cross her grandmother. It's the kind of lesson that she thinks Heartfire would approve of.
One that doesn't involve brute force but tact and poise. Aela can't imagine that the buckskin colt does anything more than blunder about Nerine and scowl at the wind because it dared to cross his path. But, perhaps, she thinks she could do something about that.
"You saw what she did in Nerine, didn't you?" She feels foolish for even asking as soon as the thought trickles down their bond. Of course Heartfire saw. What was there that evaded her grandmother? (And Gods, does Aela strive for that kind of ability one day, want that kind of power for herself.) Straia had commanded the skies. Straia had taken control of the dragons - the Pangeans - a normally lawless lot. To her young mind, Straia and her powers seem infallible; it doesn't occur to her (yet) that reaching for the pinnacle of her powers would drag down into the depths of something that will swallow her whole.
"I'll be careful," Aela says. There has always been a certain grace to her grandmother that she has tried to emulate (though her youthful 'enthusiasm' sometimes gets in the way). The golden girl won't misplace the warning given by the Seer. But Pangea - with Kensley, with Beyza - doesn't seem so awful to the adolescent. Aela has been afforded more freedom here than she has ever been allowed. It's with that thought that the almost-palomino gingerly rises and stretches before stepping out from her cavern and underneath an unforgiving Pangean sun. The land is red and cracked but Aela sees the day - ready to seize it for all its vibrancy - and smiles to herself.
Still feeling the presence of her grandmother in her mind, Aela thinks: "did you know they say Carnage made this place?" Curiosity ripples down the bond and while the striped girl knows her ancestor has seen many things in Beqanna, she wonders if her grandmother has ever seen (beheld) the Dark God. It makes her curious about other things, too. "He's an ancestor of ours, right?"
image credit to footybandit
@[Heartfire] lmao i am dubbing this thread "Aela learns 1% of Beqanna is related to Carnage"
12-04-2020, 12:30 PM (This post was last modified: 12-04-2020, 12:30 PM by Heartfire.)
you can run but you can't hide breath on your skin, I've arrived
She smiles at Aela’s imagination, amused by her confident assertions of teaching her half-brother a lesson. It would be the wrong lesson, but Heartfire doesn’t say so. There are some things the young simply need to learn on their own. Sometimes it is far better to let others knot their own ropes, but in the heat and tempest of youth, it can be a difficult thing to do. After all, what fun is there in simply standing by and watching? What amusement is to be found in a carefully timed word in the right ear as compared to a rage-fueled confrontation of wits or blood?
Her next question brings a derisive curl to Heartfire’s lips, brief as it may be. Aela knew even before she finished the question what the answer would be. Heartfire had seen the devastation. Had wreaked her own devastation on Pangea to catch Straia’s attention. She might even have been willing to listen had the entity not responded with such overbearing arrogance. She had believed herself infallible, and in the end, that would be her downfall.
Those who believed themselves without weakness have always and inevitably been brought down by that very fault. Heartfire would not be part and parcel to such foolishness, and though she might wish Aela to understand, she would not place her in a bubble for her own safekeeping.
She would need to learn one day, just as Heartfire had learned.
It takes her a moment to respond, but when she does, her thoughts are level, her words plain. “What she did to Nerine was child’s play compared to what I have seen before.”
Beqanna has been remade so many times, though none quite so great as what she had experienced in her youth.
She is pleased when Aela concedes that she will use caution, echoing along the tether that binds them together. She wouldn’t try to keep Aela from her amusements, but she is glad to know the girl would be vigilant in them. It’s even almost enough to temper her apprehension at her granddaughter’s next query.
Carnage is a subject she had never attempted to broach before. With anyone. She had never personally met him. A very deliberate act on her part. As a seer, she understands so much more than the average equine when it comes to the dark god. He is one of the few she considers truly dangerous, and thus imperative to avoid. It’s almost amusing in the wake of their conversation about Straia. Her power pales in comparison to his, yet she believes herself invulnerable. Carnage, who is perhaps much more truthfully invulnerable, has many times demonstrated (without words perhaps, but Heartfire had long ago learned to read between the lines) that he understands he is not truly infallible. A fact that makes him so much more dangerous than the entity could ever be.
He would never put himself in a situation that might bring him harm. Instead, he would fling others into it. And that is far, far worse than a woman who would willingly place herself where she might be defeated by something more powerful. Because he would survive, always.
It’s ironic truly, because it does not escape Heartfire that she has frequently done the same. That she understands his motives.
There is some length of time before Heartfire responds. Though the girl could no doubt feel the sizzle of her emotions and chaotic flow of her thoughts along their tether, it takes her some time to formulate a sufficient response. “He is. Distantly,” she replies slowly, thoughtfully. “But I strongly advise against seeking him out. His descendants are legion, and he cares nothing for them. Next to him, Straia is an ant, and you less so. You might amuse him for a time, but he could just as easily step on you as humor your lust for power.”
12-08-2020, 04:24 PM (This post was last modified: 12-08-2020, 04:32 PM by Aela.)
It's funny that her grandmother mentions child's play because that is what Aela imagines. What Straia could really do was potential to be realized, something as mysterious as the entity herself and it had fascinated Aela. But the conversation between the Seer and her golden granddaughter is teaching the girl a valuable lesson.
Aela has aspirations. She might not be able to speak but she will be heard. She is small and slender and lithe, easy to overlook against the brilliant and dazzling array of magical horses that call Beqanna home. She plans to a presence that looms, that when she approaches others, they will feel her magic long before they ever see the golden girl that graces their presence. And while she has come to enjoy chaos (a wonderful courtesy she's learned from Pangea), she wants the ability to seize it and spearhead it towards something. (And all the better if that spearhead is aimed at something that Aela doesn't particularly care for, if it can be joined with one 'cause' or another).
But @[Heartfire] - tactful, cryptic, knowing Heartfire - is giving Aela a valuable lesson.
There is nothing wrong with wanting more.
But in the journey towards it, one needed to be cautious. Climbing towards some pinnacle - whether it be for power, magic, prestige - was all well and good but there would always be a risk with the ascent. Jump too far, too quick and you were liable to plummet down with the full weight of your aspirations, without your aspirations ever fully fledging into anything more than an idea. Aela continues to walk through Pangea, meandering towards the River that flowed through the canyon country while she contemplated the lesson that was formulating in her young mind.
Mind her steps, she thinks. Patience (which is such a hard thing for one so young and ambitious as Aela), she schools herself.
As the adolescent searches for water, she waits. Heartfire is still there. Aela - as perceptive with emotions as she is breathing - feels hesitation trickling down their bond and the girl frowns. Has she upset her grandmother? The question itself had been innocent (and Aela had considered her assumption practically fact at this point.) When the sabino shares her next thought, Aela feels her disappointment much closer than the distantly that Heartfire mentions. She feels it rather keenly.
(She has always assumed that the Dark God would be closer in relation. Aela is rather vain about her pedigree and though she rarely claims it, she is proud to call herself granddaughter to the former Nerinian Queen and fabled Seer.)
"I am not an ant," she stiffly thinks. Aela scoffs at the thought all way from red-dusted Pangea. (She refuses to acknowledge that she is less than an ant to anyone, even one as omnipotent as Carnage.)
If this had been anyone other than her grandmother, the striped filly would have happily supplied a few memories of the ants and other insects she had easily trampled beneath her small hooves. But this is not anyone. This her grandmother and Heartfire commands respect, regardless of where she is.
Breathing out some of her frustration, she closes her eyes again and tries to imagine Nerine instead.
"Don't you get tired of your shadows, Glamma?" she wonders.
01-08-2021, 01:24 PM (This post was last modified: 01-08-2021, 01:24 PM by Heartfire.)
you can run but you can't hide breath on your skin, I've arrived
Hearing her wisdom would never be quite the same as understanding provided by experience. Heartfire understands far too well. In many ways, the black and ivory mare had been fortunate to be able to witness the mistakes others made, sparing herself the need to repeat them. But she had found ways to make her own. Even with nearly the entire world open to her viewing pleasure, she is far from omnipresent.
In the end, Aela would need to make her own mistakes as well. But Heartfire could at least provide her some knowledge to make them less painful.
In the heat of the moment, it’s no surprise that Aela does not appreciate her bald statement about Carnage. It’s a rare horse that would, but as far as Heartfire is concerned, Aela needed to be made aware of just how insignificant she is to the ancient magician. Even if it is a brutal comparison, it does not lack for accuracy.
She can’t help the smile that causes her lips to twitch at her granddaughter’s petulant denial. Aela’s temerity would drive her far in this world, but only if tempered by sense. Heartfire has never been terribly good at offering advice without a sharp edge to cleave the way, but in many ways, she suspects that is exactly what the young girl needs. Better to learn at the hands of someone who cares for her that the world does not pander to sensitive egos than for her to find out at the hands of someone who would happily crush it.
“Ants understand patience,” Heartfire replies after a lengthy silence, her voice gentle despite the faint reprimand in the words. “And so should you if you wish to be something more.”
When Aela continues, clearly wishing to change the subject, Heartfire pauses to glance around the dim confines of the shallow sea cave. A brief wave of humor wraps around her thoughts before she replies, “Remind me to introduce you to a few more of our relatives some time if you wish to know why I don’t tire of shadows.”
She remains silent then for a heavy moment, considering how best to continue the conversation. To explain why she had really reached out to Aela this morning. Finally she sighs, deciding simplicity is the better part of valor. “It will need to wait a while however.” Pause. “I will be leaving for a time. There is.... someone I wish to find.”
01-10-2021, 02:26 PM (This post was last modified: 01-10-2021, 02:29 PM by Aela.)
Her ears fly into the fine cornsilk of her mane, as if she would banish the words her grandmother had spoken. Aela thinks again: she is not an ant. She is herself and Aela knows she is meant for great things. What greatness can an insect aspire to?
There is a long period of silence (as if Heartfire knows that one as strong-willed as Aela needs time to come to her own decisions) before one ear flicks forward and then the second, as the near-palomino catches a glimpse of Nerine through those knowing eyes. A single insect was only capable of being squashed, but a colony? A hive? A collective group of powers stands a better chance of surviving the perilous and turbulent times that Beqanna was known for. In the coming days after Straia's fall, Aela will come to realize the eerie premonition in this piece of advice.
She will come to wonder what might have happened if Straia had made the undertaking of changing Pangea into a collaborative effort. If their loyalty could have been bound to the ideals that the former Chamber queen had been attempting to achieve. Those events will spin a web of thoughts across Aela's young mind. Alone, she is one thing. But to be apart of something else? (And her mind is already thinking of Skandar, who takes her memories and gives them flesh. Her mind is already thinking of ways to build upon that, of others who would help create something more.)
The emotion that rings down the bond is a determined one. "I will be," she tells her grandmother, still unaware of how to make that a dream reality. But Aela has sensed the power emanating from the black-and-white Seer and the golden girl has always tried to create that within herself. It had been Heartfire who had first made her think that was destined to be something great, that she might follow the hoofsteps of her granddam to make a name for herself. She might never be a Seer as her grandmother is but as @[Heartfire] showed her, power not only stems from the Magic (that seems to flow from everywhere and everyone) but in the ability to have the patience in understanding that timing is everything. To learn the risks, to understand the calculations. To wait.
Patience, as her grandmother had so kindly reminded her. So this is what Aela schools herself with: patience.
Their conversation flows to other things. It moves towards family and this does pique the girl's interest. She knows little about the other branches that might claim kinship with the former Nerinian queen. Her delicate ears prick and curiosity radiates through the striped filly, wondering if her grandmother might elaborate on the shadowy limbs of their family tree. There is another silence and then breaking through the void comes a startling revelation. "Leaving?" Aela thinks, so surprised in the thought that she almost makes an actual noise. A sound like anguish that she swallows down.
"Who?" she asks, not wanting to make a demand but the word comes fierce and strong and blazing. But then another (milder) thought follows through the silence: "how?"
you can run but you can't hide breath on your skin, I've arrived
The elder mare has no doubt the younger will understand eventually. Will learn and heed her advice. The revelation that occurs to her on the heels of her anger fading is only the start. Collaboration is important, finding among a sea of strangers those you could draw to your cause. It had been one of the largest mistakes the raven queen had made. Had she stopped to consider her allies rather than her enemies, she might have found many more. Even Heartfire might have been, had she not seen so plainly the blindness in Straia’s lust.
She feels no need to add anything further however. She had already said everything she felt Aela needed to hear on the subject.
So instead as the conversation shifts, Heartfire considers the young girl’s reaction to her announcement. To Aela, it must appear that this desire had come entirely from left field. Truthfully however, this had been brewing beneath the surface for quite some time. She had allowed herself to care, and as a result, she had been opened to all the inevitable questions and insecurities that came along with it. It had been terrifying to realize and much too easy to deny.
But now, with nothing else to distract her thoughts, she could deny it no longer. She needs answers, one way or the other.
It takes her some time to formulate a response to Aela’s stilted questions. When she does, it is a slow and thoughtful one. “Brazen’s father.” And Dagen’s too, though she does not say as much. Aela would not recognize the name of her second son. “He is in the world beyond Beqanna, so that is where I will go.”
She cannot tell her more beyond that. Not because she doesn’t wish to, but because she doesn’t yet know herself.
It's never occurred to Aela that Heartfire would just... leave.
There is a bit of history between the Seer and Beqanna, she's learned. Aela has done her best to listen (and with little to say, it makes her an adept listener) for the stories and rumors that sometimes reach her golden ears. Her grandmother is not a horse easily forgotten; there had been stories about the craters she had left behind in Nerine (and Aela finds that she rather admires the idea that her grand-dam, who looks so small and slight, is capable of rather large explosions), political conflicts that always seem to find those in power, and then there is Heartfire's supernatural ability to see, that allows her to know so much.
Such talents have their uses and it has never once flickered across Aela's mind that her grandmother would take them elsewhere (or that she would want to).
Long pauses in their conversations aren't unusual. They often take place across different kingdoms and Aela knows not to expect an immediate answer to her question. Each second that passes feels unnaturally longer than the last, though. Her delicate ears prick and then swivel, as if she might hear Heartfire in Pangea instead of her mind. Her blue eyes cast across the red-clay landscape and she wonders why someone thought they could ever escape her Grandmother's sight. It's something she thinks that a simple border or boundary of Beqanna couldn't change.
Heartfire's vision - for those she bonded with - could cross worlds.
The answer that comes is that she will go to find Brazen's father. She had never met this daughter - her Aunt, she realizes - but she had glimpsed the chestnut mare through the memories of her grand-dam. There had been another one, a twin? Or had there been two sets of twins? Aela finds herself wanting to ask more questions but instead settles on this.
"Okay," says the girl who so often doesn't sound as young as she really is.
Love floods through their bond - as warm and golden as Aela's near palomino coat - and the adolescent comforts herself with that Heartfire said 'for a time.' She won't be gone forever. Just until she finds him, whoever he is. A search that Aela is still young to yet understand. "Tell him he was foolish to think you couldn't find him."
