The snow and mud had churned into an oatmeal mess beneath the stamping of massive hooves. Lys paced and powered through the tangle of thorn vines only to burst out of them scattering shards of wood and leaf in various directions. With the long, waved tassel of his leonine tail and disheveled mane now littered with foliage and fractured branch, he’d lifted his foreleg and had slammed the hoof, hard onto something more forgiving than frozen soil. The roar of a whinny all but drowned the 'squeek' that was barely noticeable over the sounds of a large body crashing around in the undergrowth. He was sure he'd unwittingly stomped on a rodent of some kind.

The leaf silhouette of his ears pressed firmly against the back of his skull, and he narrowed his mismatched eyes as he stared down scornfully at the rhythmically swaying mesh of organic matter that had seemingly attacked him. It had been the culmination of a day filled to the brim with irritation and general angst. This being said, the massive form of the varnished stallion suddenly became motionless, and his ears shot to the summit of their normal position, pricked and almost kissing at the tips as his massive roman nosed features whipped round to follow the haze of colour that appeared just a few yards from the thicket.

He struggled to focus on whatever it was, straightening his posture and squaring his shoulders to better align his head and neck. With the warm hues of his eyes narrowed, and his nares dilated to better sample the breeze that betrayed pretty much anyone that it touched. It was a pale mammal, with the most piercing sapphire eyes. A canid type judging by the scent of the creature, a scent that hung warm in the otherwise freezing breeze. Lys blinked curiously.

Then the familiar sweet musk of a unicorn, followed by the steadily sharpening silhouette of pending materialization.

His expression fell and was somewhat, perplexed for a moment. The angle of his head altered, and his ears flickered on the oblique in a querying manner. The remorse he felt for his outburst of mindlessly throwing his weight around, in that split second was deep and actually, quite uncomfortable.

“I-uh...” He cleared his throat, his gaze faltering spectacularly to the ground before the plates of his hooves.

“I am... Thank you.” He glanced up from the relative safety donated by the shadow of a quirked brow. Lys's smile was crooked, and yet charming all the same as he offered his gravel edged tone. A set of softly spoken consonants and vowels; intonations and syllables that barely rose above the flutter of delicate flakes. He shook his mane, sending a swathe of silky tendrils into the atmosphere.

Through the large, well carved openings of his nostrils, he heaved a breath deep into his core. Sucked the frigid, snow saturated air and released it in a torrent of silver ribbons that wound and knotted around one another before being carried off and dissipating to nothing. The male dropped his head to the ground and nudged at the snow curiously, taking in the finer layers of chilled scent that hung close to the paw prints that gave way to hoof-falls, his top lip drawing circles in the snow before the convex shape of his muzzle was raised, and the warm glittering green hues of his eyes settled on the form of the mare who had approached-

“I feel I may have... Over-reacted, just a touch-” He nickered softly.

“Most stallions are closet drama-queens...” He pawed at the ground, ears pointing forwards and his tail kissing at his heels ever so gently, taken only by the movement of air.

“Even the largest brute could be spooked by a mere butterfly...” His expression quirked playfully as he subtly tested the air. Nipping at his coronet casually before straightening up, he inclined his features in a polite bow of greeting- “I'm ... Lysander.”

“...And I appear to have a phobia of thorn bushes. News to me.”