Obscene shudders beneath her touch - and despite that the way she can't fight off so many unfamiliar feelings between them - this is familiar. The attraction between them is like wildfire; once the spark lights, there is no stopping the way that desire burns through them. For Aela, it flows molten through her veins and the palomino presses her gilded skin suggestively against the onyx stallion.
"What if the Pampas were to gain one of those territories?" she toys with the ideas much as Obscene toys with her silken mane. Aela has liked the idea of the Pampas as territory - much because like her title as Seneschal - it kept the wildflowers out of any direct line of fire. Loess hovered over the blooming meadows much the same way it did over blazing Sylva, shielding their treacherous reputation from any outside retribution. But their numbers were going, through steals and other means. Their little territory was growing with just as Aela promised: the gifted and the beautiful and some part of her thought, "What if the Pampas became a kingdom in its own right?"
But she doesn't speak of it further, because there is still the steal concerning Sickle and the outcome of that yet to reveal itself.
If they returned Sickle to Gale, would it afford the Pampas any kind of real protection? Or would her brother simply laugh in their faces for their naivete? Having a Tephran princess in their custody could become a bargaining chip, she thinks. A territory from the western kingdom in exchange for its daughter.
And it's easy to continue to allow herself to fall into their usual habits, allow the flames to kindle throughout her entire body. The breeze in the Pampas holds a chill - a reminder of the coming autumn - and she likes the way that the Prince serves as a buffer from the cold. For a moment, she is content to give way to his want. Until the laughter against her skin dims and she can feel his confusion rising in the air between them. It doesn't unsettle Aela. She never had any doubt that she would object to the child she has claimed as her own. It was another body for the Pampas, and perhaps in time, a possible heir.
"He is mine," she says simply, pressing the memory of the little buckskin boy into his mind. There is a small flower that he summons from flame, and it warms the heart in Aela's chest as it swells with pride. It stays there, until they move to the topic of Loess, and the palomino doesn't bother to hide the start of a scowl or the flames that have started to burn around them. Aela has always been a practical creature, though, and reminds herself that nothing good will come of losing her temper with Obscene.
She reigns it back in with a simple shrug of her shoulders, replacing the emotion with a subtler one: the contentment that had been there earlier.
Loess had plans, and while the part of Aela that was always infinitely curious about politics and the way they rippled out across Beqanna, she eyes the Prince hesitantly. "If you would prefer I come, then I will." She finally offers as the last vestiges of her anger flicker out. "But Nashua is far more likely to smite the ground I stand on, than talk politics on it." The Empath doubted he'd talk much at all, given that the current rumors were that the Northern King rarely left his Isle these days, secluded away with his grief over missing family members.
"We're going to steal Sickle," Aela tells him finally, understanding what he was asking but unable to provide him with any other answer. They had blurred the lines between them, and to her, she had never minded. They cultivated their desire much like they did the Pampas, and Aela had never doubted that either would grow. She had stolen, recruited for his territory. She had made no agreements with other kingdoms, made no promise that would implicate Obscene or his Pampas. And she had done nothing to jeopardize his rule. To Aela, she has always known that her heart would be the reason that started wars and toppled kingdoms. It was a flame within her - much like the ones that still blazed nearby - that once it met its match, there would be no stopping it.
Obscene always seemed to struggle with the scope of her dreaming, drawing limits where Aela would have none.
"What more do you want?" she asked him quietly.
They doused your soul in water,
but the flames raged higher.
And they called you devil's daughter,
such a pretty liar.
@Obscene