Mauja Frosthjärta

He didn't know where it was going—and he didn't like it. Neither the lack of control, nor the uncertainty. Clearly their brutish behavior was provoking her, going from shrill submission to retorting, returning the Doctor's barbs and offending honesty. Mauja's heart clenched. It was not wise to provoke the already mad stallion, and he was too loyal to call the red one out on his irrationality. And besides, what point was there in it..? If his eyes were anything to go by, he was too far gone to listen to reason, and in the worst case.. his insanity would stretch wider, open up like the arms of everything dark and terrible, and swallow Mauja too. The last thing he wanted was to feed that mutinous, quiet whisper. No. Today, his hopes lay in scaring this poor mare off before someone died.

But the more he pushed, the less she yielded. Mauja's deranged creeping faded out into stillness, his icy eyes troubled beneath their hard-cast surface. Just get out of here he wanted to yell at her, give her rump a smack to get her going. She wasn't making things better, for anyone, by sticking around, and the Doctor's perfectly serious threat sent his heart plummeting into despair. d'Artagnan, don't! He could taste the disaster.

Back on the path, Irma gave Aramis a long, hard look; not faulting him, but imploring him. For the sake of her own bonded.

The Doctor snorted. Mauja's ears flickered forward for a moment, his eyes darting down the path and back again. Were they talking, the hellhound and its bonded master? Discussing the best pieces of Nyx to devour? His heart was pounding, not out of fear: not out of concern of Nyx, or even for himself (matched tooth for tooth, if he and d'Artagnan broke out into a fight, they would likely die together; Mauja was likely to cause enough internal damage before falling into the never-waking sleep), but for d'Artagnan. For whatever troubled him, to bring such sadness to life in his usually hard eyes, and then such madness at the tail end of it. He wished Nyx a thousand miles away and more, silently followed the Doctor's gaze in despair. The path, yes. Was it Aramis, then?

He departed in relative silence, giving a disdainful snort of sorts, began to move away and never once looking back. Mauja took a single step forward, just in case Nyx was about to move after him; shook his head, in case she watched. There was absolutely nothing to gain from provoking him as he retreated. "Be mindful of the ledges," he called after his red friend, heart heavy in his chest. It seemed better, wiser, to let him go, instead of follow and try to solve his twisted mind—he did not want the Doctor's wrath, not when all he did was care.

You need some of that plant, my friend.

And now wasn't the time to examine all the things he had said—d'Artagnan, having left the Basin?

Irma moved out of his way, her pale eyes revealing nothing even though she cocked her head mildly at Aramis, as if amused. Once the Doctor and his hound had passed, she scooted back into the middle of the path, an odd white perch blocking the way.

"Sorry 'bout that," Mauja said quietly where they'd been left. He'd gone from annoyed to amused to despairing in too short a time, and wanted simply to go and shove his head beneath the waves and breathe in the salt water. Nothing like a brush with death to remind you why you need to stay alive. "He can be a bit prickly, though.." Mauja frowned, his face set into hard-chiseled sorrow. It didn't make sense. He'd been pleasant enough, then gone sad, of all damnable things, and then mad. He shouldn't be that way. He shouldn't be perfectly serious when he talked about murdering unicorns. It just didn't add up.

Unhappy, Mauja never finished his sentence, simply stared into the distance after the red one.

A million miles from home, I'm frozen to the bones, I am... a soldier on my own, I don't know the way.