[ no worries! ^^; ]

Something was, clearly, the matter. His approach had been quieter than he thought, sliding in near-silence through the still waters; he could've taken her life, then and there, a stab from the shadows and red to slide the length of his twisted, wicked horn. It was a sobering thought. You never quite knew what lurked nearby, and in this case, it was fortunate for her that he'd lost his thirst for blood (or had he ever had one, gentle that he was?). She flinched in the water as he spoke, flailed and fought for footing she was denied. Brown mud mingled with the water and ran in rivulets down her side before it fell back beneath the surface. Trapped, somehow, then; she wasn't distressed enough to have broken anything. And, if her statement was anything to go by, not particularly impressed with his lackluster inquiry. He smothered a snort. "And here I thought you just wanted to make my day," he responded dryly, flicking his wet, heavy tail once. It dragged across the surface.

Her shy eyes came up for a moment, just as Mauja was about to look aside; instead, he froze, the icy blue of his own oddly gentle and tired. Was she afraid? He didn't know. Ought she be? Of him, no, but of the world? He'd trapped himself metaphorically several times, head too far into the lion's mouth, but what was it to lay on the butcher's block like this? Unable to actually get away? It'd take so little to kill her—to just walk away, and leave her to rot in the tranquil pool. Would he be afraid if it was him laying there, unable to get up?

What did you do when you were stuck, and time passed, the sun rising and falling, and your strength setting with it? How long before you grew mad and broke your own body in a last, desperate attempt to get free? Not very long, he assumed; far less restraining situations had him restless, dancing on the spot.

Her spluttering snort snapped him out of his dreary reverie, and he blinked to clear his eyes. Irma seemed vaguely amused by the mare's rather comical misfortune, but Mauja said nothing. He hadn't stepped into the pond with the intention of ridiculing her, nor of murdering her, so doing either would be counter-productive. Instead, he cautiously stepped on the soft, sucking floor of their unfortunate pond. She'd stirred up too much sludge for him to see anything at all through the waters. "My foot is caught between the bank and a root. It won't come loose, I've tried everything." Except breaking your leg, he added in silence. "Ah," he simply said out loud, and stood quiet for a moment. And what could he possibly do about that? He had no earth-bending powers; no tree would listen to his command and curl their toes up to free a poor mortal. Finally, he sighed. He couldn't very well leave her with some flimsy explanation that there was nothing he could do, so, he had to try and do something. "Please be a dear and don't kick my head in," he said quietly, before bending his neck and laying the side of his horn's tip against the side of her leg. Then, slowly, he pushed his head lower, his horn following the contour of her past her hock, a feather-light touch trailing the length of her cannon until he felt the echo of wood reverberate against his forehead. He closed his eyes, bent his neck, strained against the root for a moment. It seemed unlikely he'd have enough strength to budge it, at least not without risking to snap his horn, and frankly, he wasn't sure he wanted to trade his weapon for someone else's comfort (when he could just stomp on her fetlock and drag her out instead, if push came to shove).

So, he truly had no idea what to do. He pulled his head up with another sigh. There was no point in freezing the roots either; wood was one of the few materials which actually were harder to break when frozen, at least in his experience. Thin enough and they cracked regardless, but if her own strength could not pull her free... "I am uncharacteristically void of ideas right now," he confessed after a moment, in the same dry voice, while idly wondering where that particular mood had flown in from.

[ lemme know if you want me to change something about his horn-thing! I also tried to do research on whether frozen branches are easier to break, but found nothing, and my experience with frozen wood tells me it just gets harder to split/break, so. >.< do you think you could find some image/describe more of the way she's stuck, and the thickness of the roots, etc? :3 ]