Bellona
To win the war, but flee the battle, is one of the Gods' greatest sins.

The darkness is unfavorable for the maiden, who has found herself at a slight disadvantage in the presence of the hunter. While her eyes are struggling to form the outline of the brute that had managed to catch her off guard, he is able to scrutinize his gaze all over her vibrant body. Normally it would be a rather uncomfortable situation for a fae like her to be in, but she welcomes the abuse that his probing eyes inflict on her body. Unlike most mares graced with the beauty that decorated her body, this vixen does not thrive on the hungering stares that she unconsciously attracts. It is not the attention of potential lovers that she seeks, but instead the attention of her prey. They came to her like moths to a flame, all yearning for her touch, all quaking with desire, all so superior to a lonesome mare, but all unaware that she has wishes of her own. The sensation of her hooves cracking against the skulls of her victims is all too intoxicating for her, and she now understands why her ancestors had such bloody tendencies. There is nothing more pleasing in the world than to offer the blood of your victims to the Gods, and know that they are expressing their thanks by providing you with the opportunity to initiate more bloodshed to appease them.

The sonorous voice of an approaching male in enough to wrench the warrior from her thoughts, and her fan of feathers snaps upwards with surprise. How many more times in this sunless day would someone stumble upon her with her guard down? More importantly, how many more times would she let them?

Unlike the bumbling stallion that had come before him, this creature is one that she can respect. His scolding tone has struck a chord taut with annoyance deep inside the grounded pegasus, but she chooses to force her bad mood away, and instead greets him with shadowed eyes. He is right, after all; underestimating strangers is dangerous business, miss. Oh, it simply would not do to have him refer to her as 'miss'.

" 'Pecky little girl' is not a name that I wish to keep." Pale orange eyes accept the challenge that golden ones possess, and they latch onto his peculiar gaze as she bluntly adds, "My true name is Bellona, and I come from Arto." Her tone does not drip with the venom that it had when she spoke with Tingal, but instead with a weary snap.

While her fiery orbs had been engaged with his, the vixen had been able to detect the faintest outline of shaggy fur surrounding each metallic pool. Her cobalt crown jerked backwards in minor shock when the light of a glowing tree washed over his hulking form; his voice had sounded exclusively equine, apart from the deep bass of his tone, but once she was able to truly see him, he was hardly an equine at all. Was everyone in this land a mixture of two beasts, herself included? A snort of amusement sounds from her white-rimmed naves as she realizes that the three of them made nature's famous parody: an avian, a feline, and a canine.

Is this some kind of joke?

Only slightly stunned now from the strange company that she had managed to get herself involved with, the Aztec switched her gaze back over to the striped beast, who had fallen silent with the arrival of the wolf. Unsurprisingly, Bellona found that he was much easier to deal with when he wasn’t letting loose words that diminished her respect for him. Her patience was wearing thin for the tiger, but the other member of their party still acted as though he were a contributing member, and he was much more open towards the stag than she was. Perhaps she should follow his example, and stop wanting to tear out every throat in range of her deadly teeth.

"I know that the three of us don't exactly negate attention, but that shouldn't force us all into silence," her words are blunt and tinged with rebellion, daring either of the towering stags to fill the void that had grown between them. The warrior tosses her head, causing thick tendrils of mane to beat against her supple nape. This conversation was heading nowhere.

Turning her white-laced head to the glowing tree beside Osiris, the pegasus reaches out with one of her feathered appendages to brush against its softly glowing bark. Her touch lingers there, waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. It does not give off heat nor cold; all it seems to do is radiate light. Briefly the peacock puzzles over how it came into being, but the thought soon leaves her mind. If there was such a thing as a tiger-horse, then undoubtedly there could be glowing plants. Just as well as little black creatures could coo.

"What is that?" Again, the words are sharp and to the point, but this time they are spoken more softly, almost as if they did not wish to disturb the peace that had fallen around them like a veil. Retracting her colorful wing to ensure that the creature did not decide to latch onto it, the vixen instead stretched her nose out towards the charcoal hybrid, her naves wide and breathing hard as they tried to sniff the creature out. Her dark nose filled with the musty scent of the wolf, and after pausing to breathe it in more deeply, Bellona pulled herself from the warm billows of his fur. It obviously wasn't somewhere she could reach it.

"Talk talk talk."

{OOC: Skipping past Tingal since Dark is busy and 48 hours have passed.}