That the conversation lingers on the topic of her most favorite things is something that leaves the smile glowing and warm on the mask of the cold hearted Lady, her eyes watching Grimmrot but equally focused on the bronze contraption that towers over them, their flicker as they catch they light moving from one subject to the other obvious and unhidden.

In comparison, most mortals were ugly when appraised alongside the metal behemoth – she’d much rather look at the machine, in all honesty, but she does know enough to understand that eye contact is a simple part of conversation that simply has to be in place lest the subject feel ignored. It helps that this particular mare has offered enough talents and skills to the woman to satisfy even the most gluttonous of rulers – and so she earns that many more long lived glances from the Lady of the mountain.

"He is mute, without a mind of his own," she replies, her smile gaining a devious light as she thinks of those who are capable of wielding such a puppet of massacre, "simply metal programmed to react to certain stimuli. He’s quite the weapon when danger comes, but a poor conversationalist to be sure." Her laughter is tinkling and light, good humor found in the thought that the metal thing could speak or be much more than a hunk of metals designed to answer the summons of its master. Her gaze flits over to the half finished beast, searching for Ulrik, the comfort that rises in her heart at the visage of him, but he is off doing whatever it is a madman does when he is not working.

She shivers again, and the faintest darkening of the Lady’s eyes shows her concern for such things; it is a hard season for arrivals to come to the snow, to be sure, and the promise of a hard winter settles in the recesses of her thoughts, a warning that surely will come to play once the frigid winds of Frostfall start blowing hard and swift. For now, the hot springs and their caverns will suffice to shield them from the cold, and it is with some measure of concern for the newest member of the herd that she turns herself inwards, towards the path that would lead them to the balmy waters that were born from some fiery heart within the mountain itself.

The greed of the woman reveals itself again – for she surely does know how to read bones and scattered leaves, but wants the items to be given to her first. The Lady simply smiles.

She knows how deeply desire can run, how long those fingers of gluttony can stretch. Perhaps she will appease the dark one spared from a ravine, if only to earn herself that much more praise in the eyes of her God.

Selfishness is a common trait among those who walk the snow and ice.

"Bones are simple enough to come by, seeing as most living things wear them," she replies, nodding her head in agreement, "basins less so. I will be sure to relay the information to our gatherers, of course, to keep their eyes open for a stone or bit of wood that will suffice."

The words are concluded with a nod, gentle, though her eyes are harder than the gesture leads one to believe her heart to be and her mind works away at the subject; if the mare winds up being a wasted time and effort, Illynx has ways to regain the time and energy she has lost on her.

She has quite the assemblage of assassins, brutes, and thieves. Such a petty gypsy would be easy to remove from her playing field.

"Come," she says as the conversation turns to the cold, taking long strides in towards the heart of the land and pointing with her horn ahead towards their warm destination, "there are warmer places to discuss your new life here."

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.