01-15-2021, 01:18 PM
She hears the sound of beating wings first and there is a brief flare of triumph in her slender chest as the creature flies away. Aela has gotten quite good at even unsettling the wildlife, if she wished it. The adolescent hadn't intended to scare a paltry bird but with so many creatures lurking across Beqanna during these dark times, she couldn't be too careful.
Her blue eyes are still searching through the dark, unconvinced that the offender had fled.
Aela had heard what sounded like hoofsteps - the two-beat gait of a trait - and unless her follower was a pegasi (which they could be flighty things), she wasn't ready to believe that it had just vanished. She remains as still as she can, imagining that Nerinian granite that she had just sent glimpses of. She isn't a shapeshifter and her shape will always be this one - golden and striped with a blue sheen that barely reflects in the dim world they currently live in - but Aela has found that focusing her thoughts during moments like these (when she isn't sure what) is out there allow her to remain calm and her thoughts collected.
But then a voice cuts across the dark from where a silhouetted mass forms. Aela narrows her gaze (though she doubts that the lurker can see it) towards the direction of the voice. That he is upset about the intrusion of his mind is not something that is unusual to Aela; it's that makes the ridiculous claim that he could strip her vision. There is only one mare she is aware of with that kind of ability and Aela doesn't think that is a kind of power that nearby shadow possesses.
He gets points for bluffing, though. Aela can definitely understand that there are some who wished to appear more powerful than they actually were. It's a valiant effort and she decides she won't immediately bombard him with more terrifying memories.
"Oh?" she asks him, a singular word that shows no trace of how she can struggle with them. The question is a direct one, a challenge. Could he really take her sight? Aela might have told him that she doesn't do favors, that she will never indebt herself to anyone but refrains. It's too many words and poses the problem of too many problems. There had been nothing direct in her visions - nothing of herself in them - and so she carefully adds towards the stranger with a practiced simper, "Who said it was me?"
@[Gale]