A long day had reached its wearisome fingers into her and stripped her of most of her vibrant energy, the woman ticking each task off her list with the usual pride but losing her glimmer as the hours progressed and the sun slipped low in the horizon. The herd meeting had gone well, the massive arrangement of unicorns pleasing to her soul, and the subsequent gathering for the festival had gone better than she might have initially expected. She was now on the last of her daily tasks aside from gathering Rikyn up and retiring for the evening in her cave, golden laced frame slipping gracefully through the tall summer grasses of the Basin towards the usual haunt for a stallion she had spared condemnation by her peers.

He had done as he had promised, leaving the cold land behind until the heat had dipped down into the valley and melted the snow and raised from the blanket of white a sea of waving emerald and gold, dappled with flowers common in the Frostbreath Steppe. She eyes them with interest as she walks, her stomach growling, but forces the thought away for now.

Only an hour or so more and she will be settled down for the evening in the peaceful clearing just outside her chosen cave of residence, but for now she pauses and lets slip the name of the man she had seen go this way once the meetings had adjourned.

"Thranduil?" she asks the soft music of the crickets, the blanket of night slowly being born above.

@[Thranduil]

She watches him come, the slow and deliberate pace of the stag one that she finds charming and evidence of a sure spirit – she herself has always moved with the regalia of a queen even when she was a nobody and she finds the pride ushering from each even step a comfort. It is such a presence that bolsters her elitist opinions, that the unicorn is the natural keeper of the world, that they and they alone have the wisdom and strength necessary to provide balance and success among mortals.

He pauses just before her and she lets her gaze sweep across him, this man who approaches and offers her a title but does not bow his head as is traditional among civilized beings. But he is not civil, at least not in the traditional sense; the tinges of accent that frame his every word and the odd construction of the words themselves lends her to think that, while he has all the skills necessary to survive in this ruthless place, he does not know enough of their culture to provide the perfect guise he is looking for. In time, she thinks, her golden eyes narrowing ever so slightly as she inclines her head ever so slightly in return of his greeting.

The words that follow his improper hello prompt her back into a more smiling state, her lips curving with feminine grace as the bird sings and flits capriciously through the air above them with its mate. A sharp look is shot to the winged things and they quickly moves away after the initial playful display – perhaps they have seen her strike their brethren from the skies for rousing her too early in the twilight hours with their playful songs and knows that the golden Lady, while splendid and regal, is cold and merciless as the snow in which she lives and will not hesitate to bring his songs to an eternal cessation.

An ear pulls back atop her head to reveal her weariness and her lack of desire for conversation, but aside from that singular sign of her irritable nature at this moment in time and the chasing away of the birds, she is the usual effervescent creature that can normally be discovered here. Her smile is sweet and her words dancing and elegant, her golden eyes glimmering with their inner light as always. "Home?" she playfully retorts, "the wilds must have been terrible indeed to have created such a passion for the stone within you so quickly." Her laughter is light and breezy, a drift of snow caught in the warming winds of spring.

"Did you learn anything of Helovia in your ventures?" she asks after her giggles subside into her generic, sultry purr, "I am an admirer of stories and tales of venture, especially when they pertain to my darling kin."

Despite the air of roughness that could cling to the golden man in the earlier moments of his conversations, she finds that he is quick to slip into the sugary flow of words that keeps her desperate need for civility among her peers appeased and her intelligent mind grinding and whirling about each statement and subtle play of tones and language. He is not the only one of her number with a tongue of silk and sugar, actually one of many who satisfy her with their intellect and wit – but it is always good to meet another of her blood who is worthy of the aspirations she drapes them in, and it is even better to know that so many of them live here, with her.

It is the basis of their revolution, one that she covers in black silk and tinkers on late into the night, a dark machine oiled and rigged to leave oceans of blood in a new, cleansed world; surely, they will not all die, for she is a kind woman in that she will let them serve beneath her as the slaves they are if they are smart enough to ask her benevolence. She is sure Deimos will think the same once he sees their dominance taking hold – even he cannot wish to kill all in the world when some might be spared to do the work unfitting for their beautiful, crowned kin.

She laughs lightly at his playful retort on the wild lands, she herself knowing that feeling from her younger years of wandering and learning. Each path was known to her, so long as it had not been newly born, and so she knows how much lie between this cold land and the southern realms; it is a wonder he managed to remove himself from it all long enough to realize that summer had come.

But the conversation turns to stories and she will not delay them with any more words; she knows well enough that he has heard plenty of her land while out and about, her vanity for once not the cause of her concern. Too often tongues waggled about old mishaps on behalf of their former rulers and it seemed not a soul could remember that the faces that had once ruled there were no more; sure, the General had risen to rank, but the others beneath the Frostheart and her beloved Empress had all but vanished. The only remaining faces of the old covenant were mostly unknown to the outside world, for which she was thankful – perhaps only d’Artagnan was still feared among the commoners of Helovia, for her dearest Engineer had been all but silent in his pact to the nefarious guild and the others were much the same as he. It went well with her plans, of course; if she could maintain a guise of friendliness towards the idiot queen of the Edge, she is relatively sure that time will ease the rest of their fears from them.

She listens with great attention, though she feigns to be moderately distracted by weariness and the sound of the lake shore that whispers in the distance. It wouldn’t do for the man to automatically know she takes much more care to catch each detail than most, and while she is the reason he is here, she trusts very few who she has known for many years – and Thranduil is new to her life, however interesting he might be.

Her lips flicker in a humored smile at the thought of Kahlua and this one meeting, as well as the immediate mention of Abishia. He says he knows of their dark stories and of their goals, but seems to feel little disturbance over the matter (which is in itself highly reassuring) – but most intriguing to her is that he has won over the River Walker in such a way that her crumbling walls are now open to a certain dual horned infiltrator.

Her grin grows wolfish, golden eyes narrowing in dark delight, but his earlier words are the ones that draw her immediate response.

"A lost king?" she inquires, "Surely the great Midas hasn’t already gone mad from being around the Czarina Seele and her hatters." Her laughter tells that what she says is about what she believes – the notion, however grand it would be to her at the end of the day, is not one she can easily take faith in. Midas, however small, punitive, and winged he may be, was not of a soft soul; the golden armor that wreathed his neck was indicative of more than just the ability to defend his body, and his tales stretched long into her own history in Helovia, his conquests gilded and honorable. If she had to put a wager on the fall of the Falls (the pun almost draws a second row of laughter from her as it fleetingly crosses her mind), she would say that Seele would fall long before the sky pony ever thought of defeat, if she even remained to defend the land she had been given.

It was not a fault of her character, really; Illynx found no shame in leaping from a burning ship what so ever and would be the first out of the Basin if it seemed things weren’t going their way, after all.

"In so far as our history, I am afraid it was more than likely painted true for the most part," she says it with a sigh, as if true regrets fill her at the thought that they are feared and of popular discussion (wasn’t that her entire life goal?), "though I seek to remedy the mistakes of the past with gentler actions in the future. Should you have more… inquiries, I will happily seek to answer them."

It’s a game, a fun one at that; she gets to show off what she knows about the world she lives in even if her assumptions are wrong, the words she receives in reply from the white marked, golden stag a small dose of glee that trills through her vain heart. It keeps the conversation flowing and her own pieces at a vantage, for she knows things that he does not of this world and, because of this, is most obviously a good friend to have; that she can dangle her knowledge in front of him and receive interest is only part of the fanciful fun that is conversation with an intellectual equal, perhaps even a kindred spirit for all the dark plotting and ruses flickering in the minds of both unicorns.

She smiles, undaunted by her failed guess at who the king was that had lost his mind, her thoughts trailing, even as she replies to the stallion’s query, to the remaining two lands that had not been stricken from the record by her first glances into the matter. The Edge was least likely, for she had seen it recently herself and smelled the great number of bodies that resided within it, taking little faith in the notion that such a large herd would keep a man on the verge of losing it as their leader for long. Kahlua, however dumb she was, was very much alive and aware of the world around her, even if her view was narrow, and she had met the King himself, keener to the facets of the world in which he belonged than his pretty, hornless companion. Still, she knew nothing of the Throat; it had been many a season since they had waged war on the desert land and she had heard no news of the devilish place since.

Her giggle rings over all her thoughts before it follows her words, the tale of Alice one she knows as well, remembered from her days as a very young girl among the storytellers of the Edge. It was a good one, full of magic and adventure, but she had always thought that Alice was an absolute trollop – it seemed that at nearly every turn the girl had fumbled or failed in some way, making her a rather poor choice for a central character, in Illynx’s opinion.

"Surely you did not miss the path to the north of the Threshold?" she asks, "it’s a curious herd to be sure." Her smile gains an elusive edge to it, a pause finding her words before she continues. "The Asylum, Circuta called her friends when they were still vagabonds, and with good purpose. From what I have seen they are a collection of dark hearted misfits and broken things, all thrown in with what was left of the Merciful’s herd after the darkness lifted," her smile is humored as she thinks of the meeting she had had on the outskirts not so long ago, the earlier ones in which a witch named Circuta had come and proclaimed friendship – friendship that, when it had been brought to the newly formed alliance of Midas, the Foothills, and the Asylum, had been revoked, "no friends of ours, as you heard at the meeting. Perhaps in time, perhaps not…"

The conversation diverges towards the true identity of the lost king, her eyes soaking in his delightful, fox-like smile and hearing his words with ears raised and pleasure rippling through the golden pools of her eyes. The Throat, then, she thinks, her own lips curving wickedly in her glee. "He was a General beneath Kri," she spits the name of the old desert queen with all the reverence that one gives a pile of burning shit on their doorstep, "any who wear tips on their horns know of her barbaric council, even if they have not seen their faces." Her disgust with the mentioning of such names fades into a ponderous expression, one that sends her voice breaching back into the interesting notion that one of her herds most loathed of enemies was weakened. "How deep is the affliction?" she asks, her voice piqued with interest for she herself has experienced a period of amnesia in her lifetime, a dark, black period in which she had belonged to the plague that had stolen the souls of much of the kingdom for a time, the plague that Midas had spared her from. It did not spare him any of her verbal or emotional reproach of him, only made hesitant her desire to lash out at him for refusing a proposed friendship because she owed him as much, even if she would not openly admit it was so.

The snort of laughter that rises from the next turn in conversation draws her ears back atop her sculpted head, her smile faltering in momentary confusion as to why the golden stallion now seems to mock her; thankfully, he answers her silent inquiry quickly with his own words, which flow forth like a river that she takes in quietly, her smile growing with each passing word until she is almost giggling in the hilarity of his assumption that she had been attempting to truly disguise her ruse as something other than what it was.

Surely, she didn’t ever openly discuss her detailed plans, but she surely alluded to them when she was testing her company or felt at peace with their ability to be discreet; while she didn’t know Thranduil well enough to trust him, he was to become a part of their herd, a truth that led to many other truths that would require lessons shared slowly through deliberate trickles in conversation. He had heard the stories from lips outside their walls, lips that condemned them from hearts that were filled with fear, so much admitted by the stallion himself; it was as she wanted it, truly, for the mythos of their terrible strength to become ingrained in the historical rhetoric of the land, but for their new face to be smiling and tender and sweet, one that drew hesitance from their foes and reverence from their friends. Her plan, in ways, was to warp the Aurora Basin into a grand scale version of herself, a black hearted pit lacquered in sheathes of gleaming, burnished gold, a dancing dagger that left others in trepidation that it would fall and slice open their flesh if they dared come to close or play too long in the glint of their blades.

Let him take her for a fool, if that is what the man wanted to see her as. It defeated her spirit and diminished her strength none the less, leaving him in a state of weakened assumption that he held the upper hand in this world he was so new to, so eager to become involved in. Even as he insults her he sweeps his arrogance beneath a silken shawl of false humility, wears it as if he is the king of liars and not a soul can see through its embroidered covering, and she plays along with him even as her smile loiters on her lips, playful and sly.

"Scars never go away, Thranduil, or they’d only be called bruises. Nothing is secret that all the world can see," is all she says in reply, searching his face with her brightly shining golden eyes, several peals of silvery laughter falling from her lips, having decided to continue on with her guise as if he hadn’t just spent so many words debunking her (how was that for being an idiot, hmm?). She shakes her head as if to rid the sound from her mind and returns to look at him, answering his inquiry as to how he might be of use to her. "There is a lack of information finding its way to my ears, for a lack of willing and capable minds to do so," she says, a slight slowness to her voice as if she is partially stuck within her thoughts, "as you evidently have a natural talent for the art, I am sure you will rise quickly among Roland’s Phantoms."

She enjoys the depth of his interest, how his eyes trail the impassive lines of her well trained mask of a face and his ears flit atop his crown to catch each word and intonation that falls from her lips. It makes the conversation much like a game, one that presses her to hold her guises in the face of a challenge and to bend her words with the grace and adeptness that she has honed her entire life. To feed him scraps of her wealth of knowledge was an aspect of the game she particularly relished in; she wanted him to learn of the world he was in, but she also knew that to be perceived as entirely forthcoming is not in her favor – she herself felt disdain towards leaders she had met in the past who told of all their threads to any who called themselves friend, knowing from her own heart that not all words are true and that not a soul can truly be trusted.

He inquires more of the darkness, coating her mind in the bleary, dreamlike things she can remember of her time among the wraiths and the frantic days before it all had taken its turn for the worse. Her ears twitch unbidden against the heavy weight of the thoughts that sweep her, though her golden eyes do not falter and her smile remains, for the most, intact.

It is the past. She was stronger for all that had come to pass and had, once again, proved her resilience in the face of shadow and massacre.

"Most," she says, delving into what she knows of the days that had passed unseen and those that had come after she had been healed in the depths of the Heart, "none expected it and few knew what to do when it came to pass. A cure and a place of safety was found in Helovia’s Heart some time after the first fell to the disease, deep beneath the earth; I believe the hole is still there, if you wish to see where we all hid like frightened rabbits."

She does not tell him that she was once one of the beasts, or that she had been saved by one of her enemies and that the truth of it all had kept her from lashing out as viciously as she had desired when her requests of friendship had been returned with a resolute no rather than the Edge’s quivering, “we shall see.” That Midas had been bold enough to completely refuse her spoke volumes of his character, and that of his kin; they were distrusting by nature, and that would keep them alive, so long as they never wrongfully placed their faith in a weak backed ally. She figures they already are – having been from the sands of the south, Midas would surely seek them out in allegiance if the herd was worthy of mention in any way, something that might prove to be a weak link if the king of the dunes was lost as Thranduil said and Kri was never to return as the bitch deeply hoped.

He elaborates more on this most thrilling of details, her interest in the matter evident in the way her eyes shine with the keen glow of a cougar laying low and watching its prey in the grass, the subtle twitching in her dock as the thrill of a potential asset to her nefarious schemes is slipped into dark rimmed ears. He says that the man remembers nothing – which makes her lips curve almost viciously, white teeth clenching together in the restrained lust to yelp her pleasure into the skies, but he also says that the others seek to save the brute from his wretched, emptied mind.
"Mmm," she croons, her eyes growing distant as she wonders what to make of all this information, whether she should send out her wolves to tail the weakened buck or if she should see what is born of his lost mind, what all lies behind a broken man and the herd he had abandoned; she decides to send some of her more astute gatherers of knowledge out to the south, to see what all can be learned of that nest of vultures and sparrows.

Golden eyes trace the expression that crosses the man at the realization that she would not argue with him about the foundations of her guise, that she openly wore a mask in order to appease the minds of the other rulers in the land. She could do nothing to change what she had already done, faces immediately brought to mind that wandered the earth and knew of her rancorous heart – one of whom was the Queen of the Edge, who still sought to trust the golden wench despite the disastrous way in which they had first met that day on the frozen riverbed – and while she could not change the past, she could slip her pawns and rooks about all the same, hiding the darkness of their hearts behind the pure, innocent silks of her gentler kin. Lena, Roland, perhaps even Thranduil – they are all lace in comparison to the oily pelt of the Plague, and they will serve her well in their kindness and foolish notions that all are created equal.

She does not explain this to him. Let the man figure it out on his own – an additional facet to the game they play. She listens to his retort with raised ears and the slightest of crinkling around her eyes as she smiles. "Darling," she says with a sweet giggle rising from her lips, "you would not believe how deeply the notions of peace have seeped into some hearts." She speaks, of course, of the Edge, who surely was eager to see a friendship rise between the wicked northern land if only for the hope that it would bring an end to the blood shed, reign in an era of that golden, putrid lie that they spent so much time chasing; she had seen Kahlua’s face as she spoke of her philosophies, the way of life that she sought with this new mask of neutrality worn over age old hates that, if she had done all as she had planned, would now be viewed as a skeleton buried deep in her closet rather than a set of gleaming blades as they truly were.

A time of peace they will have – her motives can drag outwards past her own life, so long as she tells her successors the ultimate goal of this path, and it will always end in the favor of her dreams.

He agrees to the job she asks him to assume, and with a smile and a flip of her dark locks, she offers him his first task. "Seeing as you are talented enough to earn entry into the Edge, perhaps you could try your luck to the south," she muses aloud, "I am afraid I know very little of the Throat and what has come to pass since the lifting of the shadow. Others will come with you, if you wish – just ask it of them. But I do not resent a man who does things on his own."

Luckily for Illynx, she had never really been the new girl, even when she in truth had been. She owed her confidence and her stalwart beginnings to a woman who became more and more a myth within the memories of the golden bitch with each passing day that their absence from one another grew. Where once the Lady had floundered and felt the air stretch for miles beneath her without the Empress alongside her, she now felt strength and resilience, a shining, metallic emptiness lingering in the holes that Psyche had once filled; her son helped, as did Ulrik, and the various tasks of the herd, but occasionally, the sorrowful thought that she was alone again slipped in, or the fact that she owed it all to a woman who had vanished and couldn’t ever be properly thanked.

Not that she ever could, as Illynx was concerned; she had saved her, that dark mare with her war adorned mane, a heart fierce as burning coals and sharp as a fine blade’s edge, and now she was gone.

Thankfully, the game at hoof keeps her minds from straying too long in the dark corners of why she is far smarter and learned of this land than she deserves, and she slips into the same, weather worn guise she’s put on a thousand times. Without a single rebuttal the stag agrees, saying he’ll go alone as she thought he would; most of the spies kept to themselves, she had come to note, even sweet hearted Arah.

His next question draws a rippling bout of laughter from her lips, her smile large and her head shaking gently from side to side in humor. How foolish the new arrivals to the realm were! Even if the man was mad and had no idea who he was, he was just as dangerous as he had always been unless he’d lost a leg or two as well as his memories. While it was a good joke that one of her greatest enemies was lost in the currents of time by some cause unknown to her, there was little to be gained from it other than the knowledge that the Throat was weak in his absence.

"He’s still as dangerous as he ever was, knowing himself or not," she manages finally, her eyes blurred with the tears of laughter and her lids humorously crinkled, "the most that can be gleaned is that the Throat is weakened. You’ll go and see if my assumptions are right, perhaps tail after the lost man to see where fate leads him and if our window remains open if you are interested." Seriousness sweeps her suddenly, her somber face turning rather hard eyes towards the golden stallion in hopes that he heeds her warnings. "Do not engage him in combat unless you have some powerful spells up your tricky little sleeves, Thranduil, and do not let him know he is being tailed. We will be quite sad to go collect what is left of you."

If she’s aggravating or prodding in sensitive places, she doesn’t care – the worst Thranduil can do is bring a fight to her, and she’ll happily explain to him why she held her rank with the physical language that had defined her for most of her life. Its with this air of domination that she flits her tongue, crass and uncaring for how it wounds the hearts or pride of those she prattles on to – its not her problem if others are touchy about their own strengths and weaknesses. Can the golden man hold his own in a fight?

She doesn’t care, to be honest, not any further than those skills will service her kin should a need arise.

She does doubt, however, that he is capable of winning a fight against a former General that she herself would be hesitant to square of against, if the rumors of his strength were to be taken as more than fanciful pegasus hearsay – and she wasn’t going to bet that the world was lying.

Her laughter ripples in silver delight at his joke of not wishing to die soon (who did? She thought through her smirk), tossing her dark hair from her eyes where the wind had tugged it astray. Overhead, the last of the sunlight has faded to swathe the world in a blanket of violets and indigo, the pungent highlight of pink coloring the mountains to look like candied sweets high on the horizon; the stars twinkled above, and the lure of the quiet of her cave and thoughts grows heavy on her mind.

It seems Thranduil has the same sort of plans, the finality in his words obvious; she smiles all the more keenly, thankful that they have both decided the meeting is concluded. "Do not hesitate, my dear, to investigate further anything you find curious while you are out, or to seek me if you have questions," she nods, a curt gesture that displays her tired mind and weary sinew, "and I wish you luck. Do try to be home in time for the party come Orangemoon." And with that and a last, fleeting smile of farewell, the golden Lady departs for the sanctity of rest.