Striking mights and maybes even more

A useless thing called life

It's a biting cold again

She was weak - that much would be obvious even to the blind. Her head jerked and muscles trembled, but always gravity reined her back in, soft, cold muzzle to the frozen earth. Defenseless against the weather. Mauja could've cursed under his breath. Cold could be a deadly foe, unless you knew how to fight it. Clearly, she didn't. Despite being well within the grasp of a long, in fact unending, freezing sleep, she rejected their presences with growled words lacking luster, energy and fervor. Normally, he was not one to intrude upon others were he was unwanted, but in certain cases, you simply had to assume they were too stupid, or too far gone, to understand what was best for their own selves. Quickly he labeled this such a situation. If they left her alone, she'd die. Whether or not she'd thank them for saving her sorry ass was another question, and one only time could answer. Midas seemed to be on the same page, saying that it was one of Mauja's kind - as if that somehow made it his responsibility. In a sense, the dethroned monarch guessed it was. And if he thought back on his other threshold ventures, he'd made a bit of a habit to rescue half-dead mares.

The other black and white stallion seemed to disagree though. While first concerned with the mare's well-being, her dismissal of their help seemed to have rubbed him the wrong way. Mauja tilted his head, gave one ear a flippant twitch as if to say is someone talking? I can't hear. A small, amused smile crawled across his face despite the severity of the situation. If that was how he wanted to deal with it.. fine. That was, after all, his loss, and not Mauja's. "So you suggest it is more gentlemanly to leave her to die?" He snorted, knowing that he spoke to a retreating backside. Giving a shrug, the King turned to look at Midas instead. "Sometimes you have to hold a rose towards the light despite its thorns. Come on, bud', we've got a prickly mare to save." Again, that small smile curved his lips, a teasing edge to it, something glinting in his moon-blinded eyes - a playful edge to the deeper concern. Gently he brushed aside the hanging branches of the tree, encroaching upon her resting place and caring little for her privacy anymore. If she got angry, maybe it'd help keep her warm.

With care and precision he stepped around her, frosty hooves connecting with frosty ground. He had no desire to step on her, after all. "We need to get her up, some place where food is readily available. As long as she has something to digest, she'll be able to keep her temperature. The question is... how to get her up?" Slowly, his large, pale head leaned down in the shadows, warm muzzle brushing against her cold shoulder. He stood parallel to her, tail sweeping against his hocks in silent contemplation. It was hard to force a frozen, unwilling horse to stand, but even if both stallions laid down beside her to keep her warm, he doubted she'd make it through the night. She had to cooperate at least slightly, or become frozen flesh for the vultures to pick apart.