Walking alongside the lady Mirage filled him with a deep sense of purpose that he could not understand in his youth; it was not that he fancied her as he might any other pretty woman he encountered. It was more a sense of belonging to something greater than himself, his large and muscular frame plodding along quietly, observing her through the corner of his pale blue eyes as they wound through the trees and conversed, at first, about light hearted things. His residency in the forest of winding mists had been a lonely one, truly, but the few bonds he had begun to tie with those of the Edge were promising; discussing them with what he considered to be the strongest braid in his rope of acquaintances filled the tobiano with a deep and resonant happiness, his smile blooming as her own expression lightened at the mention of Semira. He nodded his approval of the suggestion of telling the girl his impressions of her, inwardly regretting the agreement and silently rebuking it; to tell anyone something so intimate about themselves seemed as if it would be the most embarrasing moment of his life up until now, and willingly putting himself in that situation was not on his agenda.

But Mirage couldn't read minds. At least, he hoped.

As quickly as the pleasure had arrived to the depths of the Dragonheart's eyes, it departed, replaced with a desperate seriousness. Focusing more fully on her words and face, Dragomir more carefully felt his way with his hooves, glancing occasionally to ensure he didn't collide with the myriad trees and low hanging boughs that plagued even the well kept paths of the forest. A branch cracked against his shoulder as he passed, the dry sound ironically falling at the mention of her murdered friends. His brows knitted together in concern, brain absorbing itself more fully at the recollection of the honorless deeds of the racist unicorns. Unlike his lady, Dragomir could easily understand the sentiments of the elitist horned - he himself suffered from a similar plight of the soul, but he was aware also that he was young and more softly embedded in a superior mindset. The warriors that had entered the herd unwelcomed had not been soft and maleable youths, but hardened adults, firmly set on their chosen paths; and yet, even if each one of them had been filled with a rancorous desire for the blood of equine and pegasi, their mission had not been to murder when they arrived.

They had come to save their children from a place that, to those who believed as they did, was more vile and wicked than any amount of cold and heartless murder could ever be. Had she truly thought that they would chose to parlay with a force considered an enemy before the same group kidnapped their foals?

Silent as she spoke and considering each detail in turn, Dragomir processed the information in his usual steadfast and considerate way. He understood where the ebony queen was coming from in her motives and decisions; of all he had learned of her in their conversations, most thoroughly he understood two things. Firstly, that the Lady Mirage was deeply devoted to her people, and, secondly, that she believed in the goodness of all their hearts. They were perhaps not the most fitting attributes of a leader, he decided then and there, his mouth a line with a slight inclination to be a frown, observing the outcome of her optimistic views on the morality of others; while it made her an excellent leader to those who believed as she did, it left her vulnerable to the options that less honorable and diplomatic individuals would turn to when pressed as she had pressed them. And, either way he viewed the entire situation, he couldn't truly understand why the children had seemed so viable a choice to begin with.

The act of kidnapping had been born of a murder. He found no connection between the deaths of her friends and the lives of innocent youth - youth that had likely never been far outside the borders of their home and had little to no interaction with the type of inhabitants that could be found within the Edge. Having been in it's borders for a good while now and still not entirely comfortable with the strangeness of some of the faces within, he felt a deep sadness for the children that, if they were truly the children of racist unicorns, were liably scared mindless no matter the treatment they received. And how did terrorizing foals honor the memory of those who were killed by their parents?

Dragomir found that it did not.

"I am glad I took no part of the war," he said softly, halting his forward movement to look more deeply on the dark features of the Dragonheart, trying to state with the seriousness of his features that he meant no offense by his words, "for it was a waste of blood on both sides." Looking away and out into the treeline, he observed the movement of the leaves for a moment, breathing to regain his mental composure under the pressing fear of angering Mirage. "The foals did not kill your friends," he stated, still locked out on the treeline, a slight trembling taking his limbs at pressing his good fortunes with the Weyr Leader so far, "what memory have you honored? You punished the innocent; expected criminals to arrive with letters rather than swords after you took what was theirs." A deep sigh escaped him, his blue eyes slipping down from the trees and back to the ebony woman who, for no reason he could pinpoint, had begun to capture his heart, filling him with a desire to please and protect her in any way that he might find; that he was now bashing her tactical decisions wrought him with so many unpleasant emotions that it was hard to continue speaking, even knowing that if he left his words where they now sat, she would surely take his position to be disdain. "I know their hearts - do not mistake them to be anything at all like yours."

His final statement left him with his thoughts turned inward, to her open acceptance of him in the Threshold, even after her had exposed his heritage and teachings; perhaps it was reckless to let someone who could so easily be molded into a monster into her home, but it was that same recklessness that seemed to hold them all together in this wood. An easy trust assembled between them all, forgiveness of sins as those who commited them sought retribution. It was that same way of thought that had caused a war to be fought in the peaceful and misty forest, and despite his struggle to see the world as Mirage had asked him, this only set him further away from the goal. There were elements of success to be seen, but more often than not, he found that seeking the good in every being one encountered usually ended with your own ass on fire.

That desperation glimmered in his eyes as he searched Mirage for the answers to the questions that rattled like bones and fractured metal bits in his head, fore hooves shuffling nervously in the earth beneath him. He wanted her to show him the correct path to take - it had all seemed so promising, to become honorable and worth mention seemingly overnight by becoming accepting of those around him. But the gleaming castle in his mind's eye was withering, the open slits in the bricks obvious without the tapestries to keep the wind at bay, each rattle and creak ominous where as before it had seemed to fill it with a humble life. And all the while, echoing in the corridors, his father's voice and the image of long dead God's lost with their people called to him, whispered that the only path was the one of the hoof and the earth, these three faced divines be damned.