That she had approached to offer comfort to the winged beast was immediately forgotten when her sharp words struck the Lady's ears, a scowl embracing her features and her own ears pinning to her crown to match the aggravated position of Destry's. Her tail strikes viciously at her flanks with a crack in her irritation at the smart mouth of the girl, irate at her lack of respect or appreciation for the protection that Illynx had offered her over the seasons she had been without her family. Was she really such a fool as to think that she had remained unscathed by chance? The golden mare's memories flicker to the meetings of the Plague, the myriad faces of their wicked coven that resided upon the mountain; how many of them would have already spilled the child's blood across the frozen ground had herself and Ulrik not guarded her from their ill intents? White teeth gleam from blackened lips as her head snakes towards the snotty girl, disdain for the babe's actions written into every inch of the warrior's sinew and face as her voice growled forth in response to the foolish half-breed. "Still your tongue, foolish girl," poisonously snapped the bitch, "or I'll rip it from your mouth. It could not waggle so if I hadn't insured your safety." Proudly her head rose, irritation still plastered across her form as she glared down at Destry, shifting her position so as to press into the invisible bubble of space and imposing her superior height and build upon the still growing unipeg. Her point would be made here and now, as concise as she could possibly make it. "I will forgive your impudence this once, but do not think I will keep the wolves off your scent any longer if you cannot appreciate what I have done for you. Hate the mountain if you must, but I am your savior."

The scent of flowers draws her hateful gaze from the thankless brat, her eyes falling upon perhaps the most beautiful child she had ever seen in her life. Flowers sprang from her silvery locks and lilted to the earth in her wake, her brow adorned with an ivory horn rising from her charcoal smeared face. The sight immediately softened her mood, her intrigue in the babe lifting her ears from their flattened state and drawing her creased brows back into a more relaxed position. Even more lovely than the girl's appearance, however, was the fact that she wore a face of innocent distaste as she observed the hybrid; the grim line of Illynx's mouth bloomed into a smile as the child turned her broad eyes towards her own, the blame cast upon Destry in the inquiry most delightful to the golden backed mare's ears.

She had no time to answer, as the hybrid's mood seemed to have changed with her own as the child had approached. Oblivious to the fact that the question had not been asked of her, the red tinged filly responded with a gleaming grin and a pride that sickened the bigoted woman, the flexing of her wings adding to the ash and flower scented air the smell of feathers; her nostrils wrinkled compulsively to seal out the stench until it faded away under the delightful odor of the flower-child, a snort erupting from her as the child described herself as "crowned" - if she wore a crown, Illynx was a turkey. "Destry is a hybrid," more definitively answered the Lady, her eyes smiling upon the silver foal and her lips a cruel sneer, "the daughter of a traitor and a foolish man, making her worth less than the dirt upon which we tred." Her gaze slipped to the half-breed, a haughty and unkind mask worn to mock her for being so short tempered before the Reaper's daughter had arrived. Maintaining her personal opinions of the other breeds to herself had never been her forte, and so scalded was her ego by the sharp words of the child that she was willing to risk exposing herself as what she was to dig knives into the girl's heart, to render her spirit broken and weak.

There was a river once,
with many round stones
enchanted by shallow hopes
of embracing the ocean;
water is peculiar this way,
how its life is a line
that cannot bend or change
without the approval of its bed.