01-15-2021, 12:56 PM
It's never occurred to Aela that Heartfire would just... leave.
There is a bit of history between the Seer and Beqanna, she's learned. Aela has done her best to listen (and with little to say, it makes her an adept listener) for the stories and rumors that sometimes reach her golden ears. Her grandmother is not a horse easily forgotten; there had been stories about the craters she had left behind in Nerine (and Aela finds that she rather admires the idea that her grand-dam, who looks so small and slight, is capable of rather large explosions), political conflicts that always seem to find those in power, and then there is Heartfire's supernatural ability to see, that allows her to know so much.
Such talents have their uses and it has never once flickered across Aela's mind that her grandmother would take them elsewhere (or that she would want to).
Long pauses in their conversations aren't unusual. They often take place across different kingdoms and Aela knows not to expect an immediate answer to her question. Each second that passes feels unnaturally longer than the last, though. Her delicate ears prick and then swivel, as if she might hear Heartfire in Pangea instead of her mind. Her blue eyes cast across the red-clay landscape and she wonders why someone thought they could ever escape her Grandmother's sight. It's something she thinks that a simple border or boundary of Beqanna couldn't change.
Heartfire's vision - for those she bonded with - could cross worlds.
The answer that comes is that she will go to find Brazen's father. She had never met this daughter - her Aunt, she realizes - but she had glimpsed the chestnut mare through the memories of her grand-dam. There had been another one, a twin? Or had there been two sets of twins? Aela finds herself wanting to ask more questions but instead settles on this.
"Okay," says the girl who so often doesn't sound as young as she really is.
Love floods through their bond - as warm and golden as Aela's near palomino coat - and the adolescent comforts herself with that Heartfire said 'for a time.' She won't be gone forever. Just until she finds him, whoever he is. A search that Aela is still young to yet understand. "Tell him he was foolish to think you couldn't find him."