"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
10-30-2020, 10:04 AM (This post was last modified: 10-30-2020, 10:07 AM by Aela.)
It's a mystery how Aela lost her voice. Nobody seems to know where it had gone. Her biological mother had spent days trying to gently coax it from her and then she ran out of time to worry about anything else. Maybe it got lost along the Beqanna coastline when Aela (who doesn't remember this; she had been far too young) tried to outrun a Demon, her voice lost somewhere between the wild wind and untamed surf. Perhaps it got lost in the shadows when the Magic strayed and Aela resurfaced along the River instead of Nerine.
But none of these things concern Aela because she has never had a voice.
Not in the traditional sense, anyway. And the golden girl will never be one to leave herself at a disadvantage. Her Echoes worked well enough to convey any message she wanted to share, if she wanted to share one at all. But now, she wants to share this word over and over again with her new friend. Aela smiles - a dazzling thing that could eclipse the sun - and says it again. "@[Beyza]." Her (great) grandmother had taught Aela from a young age to be careful with her emotions and the yearling has often tried to emulate Heartfire, right down to the imposing stare. But Aela's youthful gaze is full of exuberance; she is unbridled energy and it's easy to receive the feeling that Beyza projects.
The happiness that Aela feels makes her eager - perhaps too eager - to show her companion where she had come from. It comes as a flash of memory first (second nature for Aela; tall Sequoias and large ferns cloaked in damp mist) before she remembers that she can say instead of show, "Taiga." She peers up at the pale girl and wonders if she was familiar with the territory. "There's a lot of fog so it's easy to miss. I don't even know how Mama found it in the first place." Aela gives her head a pretty shake, dismissing the phantom fog she can feel clinging to her golden coat.
She's much more interested in her new friend. Glancing up again, she curiously asks the lovely mare: "where did you come from?"
Although Beyza had not known the name of the place she and Caledonia had explored, she recognizes it instantly from the flashes she gets from Aela. Like so much in Beyza’s life, her opinion on Taiga grows complicated - she feels a fondness for it since it is Aela’s home and she thinks this girl is fascinating, but her actual experience in that land left a sour memory. She feels every rejection she has experienced as though it has just happened - and Aela may surely feel the confusion and bitterness rolling off of the white girl so she explains. “My twin sister and I went there once - we met a boy with a beard who did not like me very much.”
She’s still not sure what kind of horse turns down the opportunity to shapeshift and play games as another animal for an afternoon to escape their worries. The kind allergic to fun, certainly, though she supposes she could give him a break, even a few years later, considering his mother was being held hostage in Beyza's homeland.
“It is beautiful though.” She adds on, not wanting it to seem like she did not care for Taiga at all. She’s sure it was lovely and wonders if she could get lost in the fog.
When Aela asks after Pangea, Beyza tries to immitate the projection of memories again - the caverns, the cliffs, the coast, and the monsters are all presented with equal fondness. She does a decent job, she thinks, though the images are not clear and it is easy to lose her hold on them. “I’m from Pangea - in the east. My parents have moved on but it’s where I was born, and I’m very fond of it even though it might not look like much.” She watches, curious, wondering whether Aela had any thoughts on the eastern land - it had a reputation, Beyza was slowly learning, though she could not say she minded being associated with that reputation one bit.
12-08-2020, 05:43 PM (This post was last modified: 12-08-2020, 05:49 PM by Aela.)
It takes some getting used to, this talking thing.
But Aela smiles happily up at Beyza, happy to learn it for the sake of her friend. Even if the syllables on her tongue feel like her newborn legs might have once had. It's a puzzle for her though, trying to imagine why her Magical friend and her sister would have ventured to Taiga. The perplexion at that furrows on her petite brow but she listens as @[Beyza] tells her about her only venture into the Northern forest.
The confusion between the pair only grows but Aela knows exactly who the white filly is speaking of.
She frowns. "A bea-beard?" she asks, trying out the unfamiliar word. It takes her a moment to understand what she is speaking about and Aela imagines the rather large stallion from Taiga. She projects the memory between them: the horned horse with the golden star on his chest and the glowing mane. "Oh you mean the hair - the goatee," she says, remembering her mother once called it a beard. (Some horse had called it a goatee once when she had been small and Aela had liked that term better.) Shrugging her delicate shoulders, she dismisses any remaining fragments of the memory that might still be lingering about. "I don't think they like anybody very much."
That was the only conclusion that Aela could come to. Beyza becomes the physical proof of that. What was there to dislike?
It is just one more reason for her to dislike Taiga. Aela has little love for a place that would confine her. It threatened to stifle her spirit and that was something the almost-palomino would not tolerate. She was not a thing made for stifling.
"The trees are too tall," she says and looks to the pines that line the edge of the Meadow. "They smother the sky and the Northerners are too...," she starts speaking too fast and has to slow herself to prevent her tongue from tangling (and attempting to find the right word), "quiet."
An ear flicks towards Beyza and her projection and the hazy visions of Pangea fill the space between them. She sees the cliffs and the caves and the canyons. But it's what she sees at the end that fascinates her: "what are those?" The monsters, she means when Aela looks back to the Magician with awe widening her blue eyes. They look wild and wonderful and more imaginative than any memory she could ever hope to find.
