She considers - briefly - telling this other girl that no, without the aid of Beyza's magic, she has never uttered a word. The white Magician was wonderful in many ways but the thing that had made her most enchanting was the way that her Magic allowed Aela to find her voice. Aela has been searching for it ever since, convinced that her sheer determination to speak will make it so.
Aela hadn't minded the quiet as a young filly. While she was still learning to reign in her memories, life was much easier without the presence of other echoes that could tangle around hers. Stumble across a soul - one seething with anger while recalling an argument, sullen with sorrow over a heavy loss, bubbling with laughter from a shared joke - and suddenly, not only was communicating nearly impossible, but the memories that would flood Aela wouldn't be hers.
(Maybe the realization should strike some chord of empathy within her, because isn't that what she has done to Radiance? Isn't that what she had done to the others? But the string rings hollow in her golden breast. Without her Echoes, there would be no voice for Aela at all.)
Radiance says her name - testing the word on her tongue - and Aela smiles, a demure thing that makes her look far gentler than she is. But there is no reason for her to be anything else with the tri-colored girl. Her gold glimmers in the midmorning sun, a brightness in what otherwise would be a pallid winter day. The name she was given (or perhaps she named herself?) was fitting; the filly was radiant. A stark contrast to the tendrils of shadows that languish at her hooves like fallen idols, waiting to be called up by their Maker.
But like her companion, she is so fixated on the conversation - on the shadows, on the gleaming gilt of her markings - that Aela doesn't notice the tobiano colt. Not until he is close enough that his voice cuts through the frigid air. She turns her blazed face to regard him, as unabashed in her appraisal of him as he is of them (she's only returning the favor, after all). Aela glances to the side at Radiance, curious to see what the other girl makes of this new arrival. Her blue eyes widen - shocked - when the adolescent disappears and then flashes back into view.
Marvelous, Aela thinks appreciatively. Radiance's expression softens and the near-palomino turns to look at the colt again. She considers flashing a few memories for him but decides against it. Whatever her ability might have explained, Radiance surmises her situation it in a few sentences. A ghost of smile cracks the freezing cold on the other girls dark face and Aela tries to answer with a soft snort; a plume of silver-smoke that hides the brief look of irritation that crosses her lovely face.
If only you could read minds, she thinks about the still-circling colt. Aela continues to watch him, wondering much the same thing that Radiance had. What was he doing, spiraling around them like he was a shark and they were minnows in a lagoon?
@[crowns]