A rustle that emanated from the path behind her drew her munching to a halt, her ears flying backwards to catch the hoofs that beat their way towards her. Still, her head was lowered, the mare choosing to pretend that she did not notice the approach of the other, hoping against hope that she would not be noticed by whoever drew near. It would seem she was not so fortunate, however, as she heard hesitation in the steady beating on the earth, her muzzle breathing in slowly around the strands of grass that tickled at her soft nose. Whoever it was, it was a male, and she did not know him; he smelled of sand, not snow or stone, and that alone made her muscles tense all the more. She had been sighted by an enemy, her eyes narrowing as she took another mouthful of grass and slowly chewed as the stallion's first call caught her ears, the mare sensing no hostility in the sound but still intently focusing on the region from whence the noise had come.

Still he approached, though she gave no reply to his initial greeting but for a smack of a thick, expansively long tail upon her flanks, the quiet grinding of her teeth against the blades within her mouth. It wasn't until he was brave enough to enter into her small clearing that Illynx chose to raise her head and pay him any mind, her eyes finding his face just as the final note of his nicker died in the darkness. Her golden riddled pelt shifted upon her as she turned swiftly to face the intruder, her own face remarkably stone cold in the face of the equine's smiling features, an accusation writ across her mask as she noted the lack of a horn upon his brow. The corporal moved so as to place herself between the stag and the patch of grass that she had discovered, the lingering edge of her hunger making her protective over her meal though she had accomplished to sate it for the most part, the simple smell of the desert upon his buckskin body drawing to mind an ire that Illynx reserved specifically for those who had committed indiscretions against her or her people.

"The Throat," she sneered, remembering that it had been their leader who had attempted to steal away Psyche, that the desert dwellers had already shown their blades that gleamed in the dark. Her muscles tightened, each limb and bit of sinew poised to strike or flee, her guard raised in defense against the stallion, unsure if he was hostile towards the Basin as was his queen or if he was innocent of any crime against the horned beings of the mountain, and she was much too aware of the distance between herself and the aid of her kin. This was not the time to ask questions later; she could not afford to trust anyone in the midst of this shadow. But, as her heart slowed, her fierce gaze sweeping across the pale gold coat of the stag, she noted that he was bone thin as she was; it was logical, truly. A desert could not provide much food on good days, much less ones without any sun to feed the plants, and the nearly starved condition of the male made her gaze soften slightly.

"Have you come to kill me?" she dubiously queried, finding it laughable now that she had said it aloud that he was an assassin. The poor stag was as weak as she had been before she had foraged some, outside of the perimeters of the Basin, and it was liable that he was only here to find something to eat, much as she was herself. "Obviously you aren't." She answered her own question with sureness, her sinew releasing it's tight clutch, and slowly she turned back around to graze more upon her patch of grass. If he chose to attack her turned back, then he was a damnable fool; there were few beasts more vehement than the little corporal when she had been double crossed or duped, especially by a vagrant equine from the Dragon's Throat. "I would not offer normally, as you are clearly not worthy of it -" she shot a quick glance behind her, golden eyes landing upon the bald space on his forehead, where there should be a horn, "but there is some grass here, under this tree." She did not like him or his kind, that was to be sure, but she could imagine no greater suffering than to slowly wither of starvation, and while her own thin bodice had derived from her refusal to eat from what the Basin provided, this one and his kin were liable to truly starve within their already sparsely vegetated desert home.