He had no need to devise a way to stop her (a concern which had been growing larger with every step she took closer to him, no intention to stop visible in the play of her muscles), because something else decided to be convenient and stop her for him. Large, brown, feathered, the eagle swept down, flared out as if for a landing, and then angled upwards again, carried by momentum. One 'brow arched in amusement, the expression slowly spreading across his face as he watched the unicorn brake. Wet, mouldering leaves were chucked out of her path, though he was far enough away not to get hit by the barrage of it. It seemed that she was serious enough about running. Mauja laughed faintly under his breath as she danced after the bird, snapping and thrusting her horn at it. Really. He probably would've been annoyed, but amused at the same time. It was so much easier to go through life and all its hellish hardships with a smile and a laugh instead of scowling at everything.

Once he became some sort of priority in her mind she seemed to calm down, and he was thankful for it. As she'd constantly danced closer, he'd prepared to move, shifting his weight slightly in case she'd accidentally impale him or something. Talk about eclipsed attention. Briefly his eyes returned to the sky, looking for the bird. Either it had a brilliant sense of humor, a unicorn-induced aggression, or it was just plainly stupid and mistook the mare for meat. And that was worrisome, not because it was a huge flippin' bird, because if it had, something was obviously wrong with its head.

"Indeed," he said with a veiled little smile, his features soft as snow as he watched her. There was something mildly familiar about her build... Whatever it was, it wasn't a strong enough notion to make him think of anything in particular. He could ponder that some lonely night, but not right now. "A King, intending to invite you into his herd. And what gives me the pleasure of having a mare run straight at me?" At the borderline flirtatious comment (after all, was it not flattering to have a lady head straight for you? never mind that it was coincidence that had put him there) he gave her a teasing little smile, wondering who she was, how she would react, even though his marble heart was dead and cold in his chest.

It was just words. Just air. As easy to speak as a lie to a stranger. It was unlikely that he'd be capable of genuinely flirting sometime soon. Maybe the next century, when the wounds in his mind were not so fresh.