Aela doesn't give up what she has easily.
So while he fights back with powerful magic to restrain her, to try and push her into some mindset, Aela pushes back. She pushes back with that wildfire tug of her smoldering smile, with the brilliant blue blaze of her firestorm eyes, with the memories that she tries to rail against him with (each one an attempt to beat down his psyche). He could command her where to walk, he could attempt to try and force himself into one place or another but he wouldn't do it without Aela trying to thwart his every attempt. She had been a headstrong girl and grown into an even wilder woman.
Trying to take control of Aela would be like attempting to control a hurricane.
She blows North and South, hot and cold, through all the corners of her soul while she tries to push Narcisus out. She tries and tries until he-
He laughs? Aela stills and regards him cautiously (when she can regain enough control of her herself) from beneath her dark lashes. He laughs, strangled (and Gods, she relishes the way it struggles). Her sides have darkened and her slender neck has started to stain with sweat. She has not exhausted her powers yet but the pegasus has tested her more than anyone else ever has. Aela had wanted to find a worthy opponent today and the buckskin has proven to be at least that. The striped palomino had challenged him and the ochre-eyed creature had risen to it.
But now, now what was she to do?
Her blue eyes continue to watch him wearily. Just because a snake in the grass stops moving doesn't mean it wasn't able to strike. She is waiting for it; his rebuttal, his venom, the vitriol that he would spit back at her.
The dark wings drop to the ground. His head lowers and Aela lifts her elegant head. The memories that she keeps reciting to him like a prayer start to slow (because even Aela has her limitations). They start to dim and the golden girl doesn't expend so much of her energy on replaying them. Maybe he understands. Maybe he sees the message beneath the memories and maybe he understands the greatness behind them. These were moments of power: of raw Magic and that is where Aela's true curiosity lies. It wasn't so much of her way as it was wanting to know how their kind attained such abilities.
Carnage - the dark God - was whispered to be mortal once. How had he attained his godhead? Straia had been a Queen from another time and yet she had been resurrected as something more (she had been swallowed but Aela attributes that to her quarrel with Pangea's creator). These were all questions still dancing in Aela's young mind, a bright interest that kept the young mare testing the boundaries of her Magic and the powers of others.
What happened when they existed at the fringes of it? Was there an existence, some ascension to be found at the edges of their abilities? If there were powers found at the Mountain, what happened if someone attempted to crumble the peak?
Perhaps there was nothing. Perhaps there was only exhaustion. But Aela was determined to try and find out.
Her improbable fantasies have a price. The pegasus, no longer dull, flares his wide wings and comes to life. He barrels towards her and the only thing that the young mare can do is tuck her head down in an attempt to protect herself. She is quick but perhaps not swift enough to escape his direct attack. Aela is seething when she glares at him and speaks when she finally finds a moment. "Do that again and I will strip those wings off your sorry hide," she threatens.
@[Narcisus] have another novel