The creature paused in her enthralling dance, the Lady smiling softly at having been discovered in her nostalgic observations of the other female. She grows less irritable at such failures the older she gets, the more she is forced to forsake and leave behind, perhaps because she has come to understand that life is not lived without loss or that one cannot change the flow of the river once it has set its course in stone. Perhaps it is because she understands that she is only a mortal, after all, and that all mortals eventually fall.

Still, it does not seem that the stranger is pleased to have been watched as if by some spectral countenance. There is no apology writ on the Lady’s face as the braided mare berates her for observing without permission, her cold heart already knowing she has nothing to say sorry for when the dancer is so near to her home and that, if push comes to shove, she can quickly prove her rights to do whatever she damn well pleases with this opalescent woman. She has fought far more fearsome warriors than this one, with her delicately laced mane and pristine coat, so delicate and feminine in contrast to the mangled ear that sits atop the Gilded Blade’s head, her mane singed and shortened in random places from battles that had left her less than whole.

It was not that Illynx doubted she was beautiful; that was undeniable. In fact, she was far more elegant and divine than this wretch for the simple truth that she wore her pride on her flesh in marks earned through pain and conquest. She wears a crown of ice, and the smirk on her lips in reply to the words of the offended dancer says all that the stranger needs to know of the golden laced bitch.

She does what she pleases, especially so near the outskirts of her home.

Preparing a short verbal repertoire to tell the stranger such things, her words are forced into silence by the arrival of a familiar scent and figure that arrives alongside her, the same man she had recently passed by without a word while he tinkered on the prized statues of her people. Turning her head to lay golden orbs upon his unkempt features, the wilderness that permeated his soul reading in every inch of his body language, and she finds the same fire she feels anytime she looks upon him returning to her breast.

For a mere creator of mechanical baubles, he is so fierce, so savage. His words are domineering and commanding, the same tone she imagines he had used when he’d chased her darling sister from the mountain, and it sends chills along her spine.

Oh, these northern men, with their thick coats and tangled beards, their hair like thick falls of black water over dark and thoughtful eyes. Even the bright colors of the Engineer’s orbs cannot hide that within his bewildered shell there is a monster that lurks, fangs bared for the kill, just as there is within herself, and it intrigues her that such a man can coexist with such creative brilliance as he has displayed in prior meetings they’ve shared.

”Aye,” she agrees, her smile still sweet and sickly on her pretty face as she returns her eyes to the white ballerina, ”and I am it’s Lady Illynx.” Tilting her head almost as if to mock the pretty white mare, her eyes twinkle with a false merriment, belying the undulations of her ego as she titled herself as such. It never grew old, to tell others of her power, of her army held within the stone confines of their vale, and it was all the more fun when she got to explain the reality of her life to those who had treated her as if she was nothing at all to be concerned over.

”I did not mean to startle you, darling,” she states, not an apology so much as a statement of truth; she had meant no offense by her actions even if it was quite obviously the outcome of quietly stalking one’s private moments, ”you are quite safe to walk the snowy fields. I merely came to ensure you were worthy of an…uneventful afternoon.”