She nearly purrs at his question of her theft of Islay. They doused your soul in water,
"They call themselves Chieftains, I believe." Aela says, herself nearly humming with approval. Her theft of the two-toned woman had been unplanned - and it had certainly been a test of her physical powers and limits - but the Pampas had one more resident to add to its Court that boasted the bold and the beautiful. "She had mentioned that there was another one," she continues, leaning slightly into Obscene, imagining that he must be as pleased with this turn of events as she was.
"Fenwe?" the palomino murmurs, and then reaches to lightly graze a familiar spot behind the dark stallion's ear. "I could try to bring her back for you," she continues on, imagining much of what Obscene does, though her impish voice implies that wouldn't be the only thing she would be willing to do for the Prince. What if the Pampas became more than just a territory of Loess? What if it became a kingdom in its own right? The idea was a thrilling one, and Aela was reminded of what Reave had told her.
That Obscene had played with the idea that Nerine didn't need to belong to the North. A rather intriguing idea to Aela.
Her blue eyes turn sharp when she glances up at him again, as he mentions that Tephra may no longer be quiet. He explains his meeting with Gale and Aela says nothing, allowing the stallion to tell his interpretation of the encounter rather than look for the moment in his memories. She'd warned him against it, at least until they knew more of what Gale was and what he could really do. It had been a bold move to seek the shapeshifter out and some part of Aela was surprised that the brindled stallion had left Obscene unharmed.
But the mention of a deal makes her wonder if her half-brother is like this trickster prince, with an affinity for mischief and the possibility of mayhem.
Aela can feel his loathing for Tephra, simmering beneath his skin like its volcano, and the striped mare decides to stoke those flames. "You should," she tells him, coming to slip prettily beside the Pampas leader.
After they steal Sickle, Aela decides they will raise the stake.
"And bring me with you to Tephra," she says, coming back to the present, "two is always better than one when it comes to steals."
There are other things to discuss. It doesn't surprise her that the dream wasn't really a dream. Aela had woken up with the ability to bring flame forward, something she had never been able to do before. The images were so real, so vivid, and as more time has passed, she has seen those same pictures in the minds of others. How many of them had been taken to that other world? And how many never made it back?
She shudders, imagining that fate.
Imagining many things, and then Aela feels the creeping sense of doubt preying upon her mind. It's not hers, but the nagging emotion doesn't settle well with the golden mare. It never has and she rarely allows it to linger. This is Obscene's doubts - after he has been the one making deals with Gale and pacts with Cheri - creeping on her conscious. He mentions her brothers, one of many conversations she'll have about them in the coming days, and there is a reason why Aela hardly mentions them (or the rest of her 'family').
Something she might have told him, if he had simply asked.
"How could I have forgotten to mention that?" the slender mare says, trying to keep her temper and Obscene's suspicions in check. She smiles, though it never reaches her blue eyes. They glitter, bright with the emotions that she rarely allows herself to feel. "My father attempted to drown me before I was barely old enough to stand," Aela says. "And then my mother foisted me on the first nurse mare she could find." He wondered why she had never mentioned any of her other relation's and so Aela harshly tells him with the anger rising as flames around her white ankles, "Apart from my grandmother, Reave has been my only blood relative to acknowledge me."
For reasons she had never understood, they had been forced to stay in Taiga. (She would later learn it was because of her father. A monster, they deemed him. And as Aela gets older, she simply thinks that he was a man with a monstrous desire.) She had mentioned Reave to Obscene because he is the brother that mattered, the one that Aela has considered an ally and a friend. The rest could be swallowed by the Taigan fog for all she cared, or perhaps Gale would do her a favor and tear them all apart.
But it's not them that Obscene was concerned with, was it?
"Perhaps you might mention this truce with Loess, since I wasn't aware of that."
but the flames raged higher.
And they called you devil's daughter,
such a pretty liar.
@Obscene