Luckily for Illynx, she had never really been the new girl, even when she in truth had been. She owed her confidence and her stalwart beginnings to a woman who became more and more a myth within the memories of the golden bitch with each passing day that their absence from one another grew. Where once the Lady had floundered and felt the air stretch for miles beneath her without the Empress alongside her, she now felt strength and resilience, a shining, metallic emptiness lingering in the holes that Psyche had once filled; her son helped, as did Ulrik, and the various tasks of the herd, but occasionally, the sorrowful thought that she was alone again slipped in, or the fact that she owed it all to a woman who had vanished and couldn’t ever be properly thanked.

Not that she ever could, as Illynx was concerned; she had saved her, that dark mare with her war adorned mane, a heart fierce as burning coals and sharp as a fine blade’s edge, and now she was gone.

Thankfully, the game at hoof keeps her minds from straying too long in the dark corners of why she is far smarter and learned of this land than she deserves, and she slips into the same, weather worn guise she’s put on a thousand times. Without a single rebuttal the stag agrees, saying he’ll go alone as she thought he would; most of the spies kept to themselves, she had come to note, even sweet hearted Arah.

His next question draws a rippling bout of laughter from her lips, her smile large and her head shaking gently from side to side in humor. How foolish the new arrivals to the realm were! Even if the man was mad and had no idea who he was, he was just as dangerous as he had always been unless he’d lost a leg or two as well as his memories. While it was a good joke that one of her greatest enemies was lost in the currents of time by some cause unknown to her, there was little to be gained from it other than the knowledge that the Throat was weak in his absence.

"He’s still as dangerous as he ever was, knowing himself or not," she manages finally, her eyes blurred with the tears of laughter and her lids humorously crinkled, "the most that can be gleaned is that the Throat is weakened. You’ll go and see if my assumptions are right, perhaps tail after the lost man to see where fate leads him and if our window remains open if you are interested." Seriousness sweeps her suddenly, her somber face turning rather hard eyes towards the golden stallion in hopes that he heeds her warnings. "Do not engage him in combat unless you have some powerful spells up your tricky little sleeves, Thranduil, and do not let him know he is being tailed. We will be quite sad to go collect what is left of you."