But then he spoke, and Nyx smothered a gulp. He set his hell-dog onto the hornless? She'd never been more grateful for the obsidian spear that adorned her forehead, despite all the times she had wished it gone. "Well, that's always fun," she blabbered, trying to sound casual and offhand but likely appearing flustered and stuttery. She daren't admit that she had nothing against the other species, nor that she had borne children to equine and pegasus men merely because they had been stronger than their predecessors; no, she decided she would be much better off keeping that information to herself. She knew racist unicorns existed, of course; Isilme had been plagued with them. But she was unprepared for the two-horned male to be quite so blunt about the prospect of performing open-heart surgery on all things not-unicorn, as though he was remarking on the weather. She didn't doubt he was telling the truth, either - one look at Aramis' fangs and horns told her that he would be perfectly capable of ripping out hearts and throats at will. She thought of what Lace had said about the recent unicorn invasion, and wondered if d'Artagnan and his dog had played a part.

She switched her attention back to the black-spotted stallion, wondering if he shared the other man's opinions on the extermination of everything hornless. Judging by his expression, he looked like he would quite enjoy the extermination of Nyx herself around about now, and she couldn't help but wonder what it was about her that seemed to set him so on edge. She'd been relatively tame by her normal standards! Eventually - and with a seemingly large amount of reluctance - he gave his name as Mauja, and the silver mare dipped her head in his direction. "A pleasure, Mauja," she said, her voice imbued with false cheer, as though to compensate for the ice beast's grumpiness. He might be fine with being rude, but Nyx had manners - mostly - and would be just as pleasant to him as she would have been had he greeted her with open arms. "Do you have a heart-ripping dog-demon as well?" she asked, ears pivoting in his direction to pick up his answer, should he choose to give her one. For all she knew, all the unicorns not of the Edge could have pet devil-dogs, which really wasn't a pleasant thought. She was quite capable at fighting other things with hooves, but she would be dreadfully out of her depth should she ever have to face something like Aramis.