YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
Her relationship with Gale is something that fascinates Aela (apart from Reave, she has no interest in her siblings). And now it is even more fascinating because she can glean nothing from him. She had caught memories from Gale before and now there is nothing. Just darkness. Has he gained a new ability that prevents her from seeing him as she had before?
So she flashes images of horned Yanhua from when she had spied him in Pangea, of Nashua during their last meeting in Taiga (and hadn't he been furious with her! The prodigal daughter, it would seem, she was not), and even though he isn't technically a sibling, Aela flashes a memory of gilded Wherewolf because the scowling stallion always warranted a reaction.
Aela finishes sharing the images just as her glow finally fades and then there is nothing to contest with the celestial light above them.
"I encountered a youth," she explains, thinking of sweet Benjamen who wore his heart on his forehead. He hadn't been from Beqanna and that had been the sole reason that the palomino had entertained him for as long as she had. There were rumors of other worlds out there and Aela's curiosity (like her ambition) is almost as big as the heavens above them. "He told me that the stars above us are lives playing out in another realm." The striped girl glances up, studying the few constellations that Kota had once taught her. "When they die, their light goes out. A chosen few pass on and the rest end up down here."
Her mouth curves skeptically at the tale.
"What do you think?" she questions Gale with a conspiratorial look, "did we do something terrible in a past life?"
