Mauja Frosthjärta

[ I just need to express my undying love for this thread. It cracks me up. <3 ]

Oh, if he only had enough sense to appreciate the situation, and laugh at the irony of it all—there he was, mood doing backflips and usually landing in grumpy land, d'Artagnan looking like he wanted to start crying, and Nyx, oh, poor devil. What had she gotten herself into? There was a nearly hysterical edge to her response, and Mauja stared at her, baffled. She clearly didn't mean what she said, though some part of him wanted to appreciate that she was trying to fit in, at least. But even that just looped back to honesty.. He said nothing about it, though, just stared at her with a kind of what are you doing? look. Was it truly that frightening, the idea of Aramis going about Helovia and ripping hearts out? Wasn't it.. sort of.. normal? He kept his face smooth, but frowned internally. He had a horrible, sinking suspicion that his view of the world was skewered, and really out of joint with what was "socially acceptable". So maybe he couldn't line up with the Plague anymore, because the idea made him feel both terrified and vaguely nauseous, but aside from that.. it all seemed pretty normal, actually.

Maybe it was because he knew d'Artagnan, though. Maybe because anything but killing hornless would have him wonder if his friend was ill, or had been replaced with someone else. Such as, staring at a mare's chest with lowered eyes, while said mare had actually averted her gaze as if to say oh really I am a lot less harmless than you. If he hadn't been busy feeling like some kind of detached, confused idiot, he probably would've laughed at them. As it was, he just kept staring, listening to his heart pound. Mostly, he just wanted Nyx to go away, so he could talk to d'Artagnan, but he had to admit that she was quite entertaining. And as she turned her attention back on him, fortunately missing out on the Doctor's sudden transformation from heart-broken to murderously staring, he found that he didn't quite mind.

After all, she was opening herself up for more torment. A slight smile, vaguely devilish in nature, curled his dark lips as he inclined his head. "Oh, believe me, the pleasure is mine," he assured her with a smooth voice, timbre dropping down into his chest; a masculine rumble, and his eyes took on a gleam that hadn't been there before. "Do you have a heart-ripping dog-demon as well?" It was an effort not to chuckle. He wanted to, desperately, and maybe to answer why, of course, but he wasn't interested in lying to her about it. No—he just wanted to.. have a bit of fun. It had been a long, long time since he'd been anything but a broken, serious thing. A long time since he'd sent his ice to startle the unwary, or done anything else playful for the matter. Briefly, he looked at d'Artagnan over Nyx's gray back; he was still glaring murderously. Oh, well. If he wasn't going to pounce on opportunities... Mauja wasn't going to pass it up anyway.

"Actually, I don't," he replied in an offhand way, as if just commenting on the weather. "I have an owl—she likes the eyes better." And with that said, he gave a slight shrug. He had no idea if Irma liked to claw eyes out or not, but she wasn't really equipped for heart-ripping, at least not when it came to horses. They were a tad too big for her. "I don't judge her, though, but..." His gaze flicked to her face, intense and sincere at the same time as he leaned forward slightly, as if to confide something in her. ".. hearts are better."

Back on the path, Irma gave an owl's variant of a snort.

It's a mad world