The miserable rain had at least stopped; now it was behaving like proper winter, snow falling heavily from an overcast sky and his long mane and tail whipped into a frenzy by bitter winds. He felt more at home in the howling of a blizzard than in sleet and cold-rain, and warmer, too; fortunately there had been a time gap between the rain and the temperature dropping again, so he'd made it through with neither hypothermia nor frostbite. And, as always, he felt a great deal more cheerful. To him, the heaviness of falling snow was not encumbering – to him, the blurred, gray line between heaven and earth was beautiful. Irma, however, preferred flying in clear skies, and had camped in a tree somewhere else, leaving him to move alone.

He didn't mind. Her soul never left his, after all.

While he often told others the Threshold was dangerous, mostly as incentive to get their asses out and into his herd, he didn't consider it particularly dangerous to himself. Perhaps it was an arrogant notion, but he figured that with all the traffic going through, predators would be hard-pressed to find stable hunting, and any nutcase who came in.. well, Mauja need only scream loud enough and someone would hear and come rescue him (he snorted to himself; screaming wouldn't be on the top of his list of things to do in such a situation, but he was thinking about it theoretically). So, while he paid attention to what was going on, he didn't pay that much attention, and the loud neigh had him jerking to a halt in his tracks, black-rimmed ears playing. Was someone else being assaulted by a nutcase?

Ah – no. A shadow, winged if the outline of her back and sides were anything to go by, disentangled herself from the rest of the forest. She seemed very dark from where he stood, black as coal, shorter, daintier; Mauja was no small creature, tall and powerful, imposing with his cold blue eyes. But, he forced them to soften, like snowdrift under sunlight, even summoned that small smile to his face.

This, was probably the most awkward thing he'd ever done.

"Hail, stranger," he called out in his rich baritone. "I mean you no harm." And then he was moving again, frosted hooves making dents in the snow-carpet, bringing his form forward with a fluid grace. "Welcome to Helovia. What do you seek here?" And his eyes shimmered with some kind of light, despite the gray sky pouring soft snow down on their backs.