Aela knew that the three of them coming together like this was absurd.

She knew it in every fiber of her divine, and yet here she was, casting a skeptical glance towards the daughter of Yanhua and Amarine and the former Prince of the Pampas. She hadn’t known what to expect of what Cheri made of her proposal. The former Seneschal had even wondered if that might be the thing to make Obscene’s familiar scowl return.

But no.

The three of them stood there, contemplating Aela’s offer, and for a moment, the palomino wondered what her half-brother Reave might have thought of this whole situation. He would have found the irony in it, surely. He’d warned her over and over again that the future was an existence that expanded across numerous paths and there was never one straight path ahead. It would always twist and turn and twine in ways that would remain beyond mortal comprehension; there had to be so many improbabilities that led to a reality where Aela would willingly align herself with Obscene and Cheri, and yet here she was, contemplating if Reave would laugh at this circumstance.

Her words - the mention of Wherewolf and Fyr - seem to elicit some response in the onyx-and-gold stallion that stands beside Cheri. There is a flicker of emotion behind his burning gaze, and though Aela doesn’t withdraw her calculating stare, she recognizes the promise that lights there. Good, she thinks. Something was stirring within the large brute, and that was something she could use. Something they could all use.

”I don’t know how many survived,” she tells him, truthful and blunt. At least in this search they were about to undertake, Aela would not (for once) lead Obscene astray. ”If any at all,” the striped mare warns them. ”But Wherewolf went missing before the South sank, and perhaps he meant only to save himself, but I don’t think he would have willingly left his son and mother in my care without intending to come back for them.”

Atleast not Neverwhere.

Wherewolf had enjoyed his retribution - murdering his Immortal mother over and over again - to so easily give that up.

”He disappeared shortly after you did,” she continued to explain, moving from them both. Her steps were slow, though, waiting for Cheri and Obscene to follow. Her pale lips pursed into a thin line. ”I think he has something to do with the calamity,” and then a gold ear flicked back towards them. ”And I will learn what he knows,” she added determinedly, wondering (again) if the pair behind her had any part to play in all this.

"Baltians are what ... whatever came out of the sea calls themselves," Aela went on, concealing a shudder. She had a strong dislike of water - especially the ocean, thanks to her father. "And I don't know what this place is called besides Creepy." The Empath grew quiet again, and then checked to see if Cheri was actually able to keep pace. "Its what came after the South was swallowed. It stinks all the way to the Moutain and I'd rather be gone before low tide."

@Cheri

Perhaps it was because Aela was more familiar with Obscene that made her more aware of his emotions. The little palomino kept walking, kept herself moving, but the feelings wafting off the dark brute behind made her scowl as he did. His rising irritation became hers, and the only immediate solution that the Empath could think of was to keep a brisk pace and Cheri between them.

Cheri, in a strange way, reminded her of Gale.

The emotions and the feelings and memories were all there. Aela could sense them, she realized with an annoyed flick of her flaxen tail; maybe if she focused solely on the appaloosa mare, she might have been able to discern exactly what they were. Like her Cursed half-brother, they were hard to read, as if they were light refracting in different directions and Aela’s powers didn’t know which way to look.

So the striped woman scowled again when Obscene asked yet another question.

”Do you need me to explain that as well?” Aela chimed sardonically back to the former Prince who had once enjoyed his fill of nectar as he had women. She slowed her measured steps and then glanced behind her, staring up at the red-eyed stallion rather indignantly. It remained there for a moment until the corner of her vision began to flash dark spots and the feeling of an unbidden memory coming on. Her finely-tipped ears pinned and Aela gave her elegant head a shake, pushing whatever Obscene had been remembering out and away from her.

Aela had always prided herself on her cool nature, on her ability to keep calm even when her own emotions and those around her were not. She had spent a great deal of her youth trying to emulate Heartfire, who barely batted an eye at destruction or devastation. But this place… The Ruins often pushed Aela to the limits of her abilities. The ground was saturated with sadness; the very air was permeated with death and ruin. Multiple trips and repeated exposure to this place left her as something she very rarely (if ever) was.

She was vulnerable.

”You were gone months,” Aela said and began to turn around so she could face Obscene, momentarily abandoning their trek towards where the River met the sea. If he was going to take that tone with her, she would give him an equally sharp reply. Her anger began to light in her blue eyes, and it flickered there in warning. A flame sparked nearby, and caught one of brightly-colored (and to Aela, out of place) flowers on fire. ”Months before the South sank,” she cast a deliberate look to Cheri as well, because though she didn’t know exactly when the Loessian Queen had disappeared, there could be no coincidence that first Obscene had gone and then Cheri; that now they had returned together. ”And it's been nearly a year now since then.”

@Cheri

Aela has always been a mare of diminutive size. She was light-boned with delicate features, inherited from a mother she barely knew. It’s always been an asset to her - she has made sure of it - because her slight stature meant that it was easy for others to dismiss the palomino as weak or frail. She wasn’t wildly colored as some Beqanna-born were; she wasn’t jewel-touched as Cheri was or born with blazing red eyes as Obscene had been. Despite a few golden stripes on her forelegs and hindquarters, there was really nothing outwardly unusual about Aela.

Of the three horses gathered here (even despite Cheri’s fragile appearance), she was the smallest. And for a moment, Aela felt every day and week and month that had passed since she last saw the two. The lives lost, the terror, the fear of having a land sink beneath your hooves flickered behind her vibrant blue-eyed gaze as she looked between them. Cheri might be forgiven in Aela’s high-strung temper, because it wasn’t the appaloosa that had made her so angry.

It was Obscene.

He had vanished without a word. She hadn’t forgotten her conversation with Skandar where they had contemplated his murder. But Aela had said that he was more useful to them alive. She had allowed him to live and he had repaid her benevolence by disappearing. The least he owed her was an explanation of where he had gone, of what had made him leave behind the Pampas and the might of an illustrious Court that they had both been working towards.

Becoming exasperated with their questions and lack of answers, she wanted to tell them both to shove off (or take a dip in the Bastian-infested waters). Aela had come to the Ruins time and time again searching for any information; had remained in the Common Lands to listen for the accounts and retellings from survivors for any part of the story she might have missed when she might have sought out the immediate safety of a territory like Pangea or Nerine. They wanted answers to what she knew without offering anything themselves. The long stare that the former Prince gives the last Loessian Queen makes Aela wonder, but it isn’t enough to draw conclusions from. The only thing that it reveals to the Empath is that there might be some discourse between the pair (but what was a lover’s quarrel in the grand scheme of things?)

She turns away, moving ahead, and considers not saying anything.

But they were her best chance of finding Fry. They were her best chance of understanding what had happened, and if Aela were to ever try to put her sunken Court back together, they were her best chance of doing that. ”The Gray,” she said from over her slender shoulder. ”The gray pegasus from Loess. If there is anyone who has scoured this place more than I have, it would be him.” Cheri must know Tarian, she thought. The only time they had spoken, he had asked after her. ”He was searching for his children, Lady Oceane and her family, and you, Queen Cheri.” She continued to explain while stepping forward, and finally placing a hoof over the burning flower that had been roused by her anger.

"And no, there wasn't any warning." Aela added while her voice began to quiet. It had been one of the talents that her Pampas didn't have, there was no Seer in her Court who might have warned her of the Calamity. "There was only the shaking, and then the ocean came."

The ocean came, and that was she most remembered. Being overcome by nature herself, and then getting swept up in the emotional tide that came after. She remembered what it was to feel a hundred hearts stop beating, the fear that clenched their last thoughts and memories as the sea claimed them. Spurred by those emotions, Aela glared suspiciously again to Cheri and the now snacking Obscene. "You know nothing? Wherever you where, you felt none of it? The earth shakes? They said you could hear the Sea roar all the way from the Isle to Pangea."

@Cheri