Aela and Obscene still meet to talk about the Pampas.
Though their conversations are no longer as enlivening as they once were, they mull over ideas and Aela mentions the new arrivals. The beautiful Aloy - a green-eyed beauty who should fit in nicely with other ethereal creatures, like herself and Enoch. Wherewolf seems to be playing some kind of perverse game with his mother, having her trapped in the body of a child. Sickle remains in the Pampas and for now, it still seems like the best option.
Skandar prowls through their Flower Country, taking a shape usually more unexplained than the last. (It makes her smile, the thought that he could pretend to be a Pampas butterfly and then with a flutter of lovely wings, become something far more lethal.) Islay doesn't fight against the terms of her imprisonment and in a rare moment, the two-toned female had even shown Aela a little of the way that she could craft starlight, and warp darkness.
Their Pampas was thriving.
And then there was Fyr, who had continued to thrive alongside the Flower Court since Aela had brought him back from the Den. Obscene had seemed to keep his space from the boy, but every so often, the Seneschal would glimpse the pair talking or walking through the flowers. Her initial worry that Fyr would take a liking to the nectar that Obscene could heavily favor at times started to fade, learning that the little buckskin was more likely to burn the petals than drink from them.
There is more to the spotted colt than his flames (like his mother), but Aela can never see the souls that he summons. She knows they exist though, having the wisps of shadows linger near her adopted son. She assumes that Obscene knows this as well, and something in her freezes when Fyr asks that she not tell him. The palomino fights the ice in her breast and gives her boy a reassuring touch on his shoulder as his molten eyes look to the ground.
(We never apologize.)
"It can be our little secret," Aela says, smiling in hopes to put Fyr at ease. There is nothing but empty air around them, the chill blowing in on the wind and through the now-frozen fields. But just because Aela sees nothing doesn't mean that it is so. She nudges her son again, "What are they saying today?"
@Fyr
They doused your soul in water,
but the flames raged higher.
And they called you devil's daughter,
such a pretty liar.