Mauja the FrostHeart
ice cold man watches earth die, eternal winter takes its reign

The joke fell flat on its face when it turned out Snö had never seen a mountain goat (or if she had, no one had told her what it was). Aurelius goat-imitation, however, had been stellar, and Mauja chuckled quietly. "It's a long-furred animal that lives in the mountains, it has cloven hooves and horns like his," he told his daughter, trying to compromise the entirety of "mountain goat" into a single sentence of the most usable facts. At least, the most usable facts to an adult. Younglings tended to have such a skewered view of the world, focusing on different things, and it was hard to predict, hard to adapt, but he figured she'd be more interested in their appearance than their mating habits. .. besides, he didn't know their mating habits.

Most of the father's suspicion of his daughter being, uh, courted, had dissipated, leaving him grateful for Aurelius company. The short unicorn was wise in many ways, and had lived a life radically different from Mauja's; it would do Snö good to spend time in his company, learn of different things, acceptance within the race. He'd have to keep an eye on her interracial contacts, but better that she knew her enemy than not. He smiled, patiently. Of course such a common saying would be strange to the ears of a child. "Size of his body. He's talking about - love, acceptance. As far as I know, he's the only one of his kind in Helovia, but he's no less unicorn for being short." He tilted his head to the side, unsure of what else to say - what else he could say to explain it. The concept was just something she'd have to learn about as she grew.

But it was clear that she was restless, and the monarch motioned with his head for Aurelius to walk with them. Long legs started carrying him home again, and where each hoof fell down, a little frost lingered, quickly melting in the summer warmth. It pleased him to see that Snö's hooves carried the same coating of blue-tinged frost - she might not resemble either of them in color, but in that at least she'd taken after him. That, and her horn. "Psyche," he interjected quietly for Aurelius' benefit - the first night he'd told the stallion a little of the herd, and he was fairly certain he'd mentioned her then, but not her.. wayward ways. She hadn't been quite the stray back then, as she was now. Mauja sighed, flicked his tail. "She comes and goes, but goes more than comes these days." He gave a slight shrug. There was nothing he could do about it. Lena and Huyana would probably take to the child - it'd be good for her to have grown mares around, in stead of her mother. Hopefully Snö would take to them too, and be content to stay with them whenever he went out and about on his own business.