That she’d ticked off the feathered nuisance didn’t flutter past Illynx’s notice, her smile gaining all the more gleam in the face of the mutant’s jealousy of her clever tongue. It has been a way of her life to be disliked by the others she came into contact with, especially those who didn’t suit the picturesque portrait of a world overflowing with the crowned and rightful owners of its expanse. While the wielder of ice had assisted in doing the Earth God’s dirty work with her power, Illynx was sure her blocks of frozen water were nothing in comparison to the volatile temper and dangerous power that lurked beneath her own skin. The pegasus should consider herself lucky that the most savage thing to come towards her from the golden Lady had been a hateful glance, another facet in the jewel lined shimmer of her welcoming grin towards the man she was attempting to lure home.

Her mutilated ear tilts to the side in annoyance as she catches the man’s words in reply to her own, laughter causing her gold laced sides to shimmer and flex in their bright and girly sound. To observers, the giggling is that of amusement, humor; within her, a darkness writhes and burns, desires to implant just how very wrong this foolish man is. Still, she consoles its eager growling, he is only a man. She knows them all well enough to assume that the only thing larger than the ego on the average male was that which clung around the shoulders of the Moon Goddess.

She had rights to her pride, the glorious Queen of Night, not this foolish new arrival to a land where he’d be better off groveling before her than tossing flippant insults about. She barely withstood such ignorance from a Goddess, bless the unfortunate mortal who thought the Gilded Blade was something to be filed away as anything less than a flawless representation of her kin.

As she parts her lips to reply to him, a single tear of aggravated laughter leaking from the corner of a golden eye. "I am not called a Lady for my demure nature," she says with a predatory wink. Let him fill in the rest with his vapid male brain, something along the lines of, “still your ignorant tongue before I ever so viciously remove it from your mouth.”

He’ll likely still only walk away with a befuddling statement, slipped from a mind much quicker to grasp herd jargon than his own.

He is only a male, after all. He cannot help himself with two women so nearby, and one as lovely as herself.

She finds that she is cut short from elaborating on the Basin by the words of the stupid pegasus; another herd of mixed breeding, a stain upon the world. The only things she says of any interest are the names involved in leadership – Midas and Seele – and an even more intriguing tidbit that there seemed to be some lack of unity between the followers of the herd. To describe half of your people as outcasts seemed a bit harsh to even awful Lady Illynx, who was quite fond of most of her minions on the mountain, even those she wished to see implode.

After all, hate is but a breath away from love. Even our darling Illynx knows this, no matter how she avoids it while crushing the wings of pegasi beneath her hooves.

"We’re all unicorns, for one, around thirty strong including the little ones," she begins, still refusing to give the pegasus mare a single glance, "led by myself and the Lord Deimos, and guided by the God of Time." A pause lulls into her words, her eyes slipping over the tree line towards the mountains, which she gestures to with her golden horn. "It is boundlessly beautiful, on clear nights illuminating by bending, prismatic lights called the Aurora Borealis that flicker across the heavens. It is what the vale was named for, and is only seen from so far north," her smile is soft and true as she describes the mountain valley she has guarded for so many years, golden eyes twinkling fondly in the pristine memories she holds close to her heart, "We have many things to offer you, truly. What is it you want of a home, sir…?"

Oh Gods, I didn’t even catch his name.

There was a river once,
with many round stones
enchanted by shallow hopes
of embracing the ocean;
water is peculiar this way,
how its life is a line
that cannot bend or change
without the approval of its bed.