YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
He had vanished for over a year and Aela had tried to push him from her mind.
It had been her fault. They had gone seeking their futures beneath Straia's once burning tree and Aela had thought she had caught a glimpse of it - that it hadn't been about conquering the world or descending it into chaos. It hadn't been about Magic or the way that they might increase their capabilities. What Aela had seen was them, without the world falling apart or into disorder. Without either of them achieving that godhood they had both been seeking.
They hadn't become deities but discovered each other.
And Aela wondered if Skandar had seen something similar, if he had understood how dangerous that was.
If he had realized that they might have each other but nothing else.
Or that they might have everything but not each other.
Aela understands she plays a dangerous game. There is Obscene who has given her everything that she has asked for. There is Reave who indulges her as a brother should. There are other pieces that she is considering - of where she might place them across the board that Aela is creating and the plans that she is crafting. It is Skandar that she has continually come back to, and how he had followed her back to the Pampas. She had realized that during their last meeting in Pangea that there is nothing she won't ask that the skinwalker wouldn't do.
She knows that she can go too far (but what good is a dream within limits?) and yet each time she has, there is Skandar ready to breach it with his shifting skin and vengeful eyes.
It is still dark when she seeks him out, with the last stars still hanging above them. "Come with me," she murmurs to the galaxy-marked stallion and then slinks through the Pampas grasses along the Sylvan border, knowing he would follow. She leads them on the outskirts of the Loessian border and then turns them towards Tephra. Dawn hasn't quite broken when they reach the border and though Aela knows they should wait to be greeted by a diplomat or a native, she thinks that Skandar's presence (the son of their beloved Svedka, brother to the Watcher and son of the fabled Warrick) will be enough.
Skandar's memories give her a glimpse inside the Western kingdom and the pair travels along the beaches until the molten glow of the volcano blazes on the horizon.
It softens Aela's face, making her look young and wistful. Her blue eyes travel up the mountainside, admiring the way that the magma runs down it. A smile emerges, hidden by shadows while the day still waits to break. "Do you remember the first time we met?" she asks and then turns her expectant blue-eyed gazed on Skandar.
@Skandar
