[open] I know who you wanted me to be

[Aela]

Where Beyza water walks, Aela keeps her sights firmly on the landbridge ahead.

(Though the small palomino would never claim to be afraid of anything, Aela has no love of water. The further she is from it, the happier she is. But there is much to be reclaimed after so much has been lost, so she keeps searching for it. She no longer goes to the Ruins as much, not since her last find had been Cheri and Obscene. However, there are still other places to search and so Aela keeps searching for any sign of her son.)

Keeping her blue eyes fixed on the horizon of Tephra, Aela reminds herself that the journey won’t be a long one. She can make it there and back before the sun sets. She has time to make inquiries about Fyr, to learn about the new rulers and bring that information back. But there is a haste in her stride, moving her quickly towards what used to be Loess. The buttes and steppes of the once-kingdom jutt out from the ocean, as if reaching towards the sky from a watery grave, as if they too wanted to escape the same fate that claimed so many others.

She comes closer to the beginning of the coast, and her pretty head rises to cast a careful glance over the embankment ahead. The last few trees of the Forest shadow her back, and with only a few more steps to go, Aela forces herself to climb over the rise. She had expected the ocean and the churning of a still-angry sea. What she hadn’t expected to find was the strikingly familiar form of the White Magician.

Beyza stood over the ocean, commanding the currents in a way that appealed to Aela. Why take the landbridge when Magic decreed she didn’t have to? It made the slender palomino smile as she stopped on the top of a higher bank, hoping that the vantage point might allow the other mare to see her.

@ Beyza