d’Artagnan steadily met the girls gaze, watching her for the telltale signs of fear, but when he found none in her features a small smile curled onto his sooty lips in acknowledgement. It was good to see the younger of his kin still had courage in spades. He returned her first words with a husky sounding laugh, but said nothing in reply and instead listened to the tale she went on to tell, his gaze shifting to the tiger horse ever so often as he remained undeterred when the filly stepped closer to him. She spoke well, a girl who knew what she wanted, he took in each part of her story, not once interrupting her until finally her tongue seemed to snap like a whip as her tale reached its climax with an angered twang. d’Artagnan blinked, his gaze glittering as he mulled over the potential the filly showed, enough blood thirst to easily be a warrior. A Queen? He had to hand it to dainty belle, her resolve seemed as firm as the mountains that surrounded her, maybe one day she would achieve that goal. That was, if she stayed alive long enough. There were parts of her past that the Nightshade himself could relate to, her childhood was turning out much like his own and for a moment he lamented that she would have to endure the same feelings he had. It had made d’Artagnan a mad, blood lusting murderer, but not one horse since had ever walked all over him like his own father had back then. He wondered if this girl before him would turn out the same or would she chose a different path to walk down.

The Mender took a minute to gather his thoughts, noting the presence of Aramis drawing closer, but not quite here yet which gave him chance to alter his orders. Don’t show yourself, track us from a distance he commanded down the invisible strings of their bond, there was no need to reveal Aramis yet. Sir! Came the hell born’s confirmation and d’Artagnan was now free to talk once again.

"As long as you’re sure, you may think it hard to find the Basin now, but you’ll find leaving it much more troublesome. Would you tie yourself to these mountains, cast away those family bonds and devote yourself to the Aurora Basin to be called upon when needed?" Another lifeline, another chance. The unicorns once of Mauja’s era and of the new one tended to end up in nasty battles, if her conviction wasn’t solid, she would die or be taken. At least, that was how d’Artagnan looked at it from his own past experiences. A cold smirk embraced his lips then and he began to lower his horns, twisting his head to one side before his eyes danced across to try lock onto his target of summer strawberries. "Can you fight?" His face contorted into darkness and a brief look of complete insanity flashed across his face. "Can you kill another without hesitating?"

He lifted his head back to the normal upright position then, the look of madness gone from his features and all that was left was a calculating frown. "These are things that may be expected of you. A good Queen must first be able to follow orders after all." It wouldn’t be like that all the time of course, in fact very rarely and most of the time d’Artagnan took it upon himself to go hunting down enemies, but if she knew the worst then the rest would come easy. He turned to the striped horse then, intricate horns curled round his ears, but something about the shape of his body and the curl of his tiger tail unnerved and his lobes flattened. "I don’t like your friend." He said rather bluntly in his cold tones, eying the brute through haunting pools of blue and brown, "if he must come then I will only accept him as a slave. He looks… Impure." His dark nose wrinkled and his blood pumped with blood thirst, but if the girl wanted to keep him as her pet, then it was not his place to kill him.

As if the thought had just suddenly occured to him, he turned back to the filly with a simple curious gaze. "What’s your name?"