The steady, sturdy sound of wings made Mauja's ears shift, flattening for a moment in remembrance of its noise in war, shadows across bloodied bodies, but then they left the safety of his mane. Coal tips stood towards the sky, but he found no desire to look at the vermin defiling the sky with its shape. He did not want to stop looking at the black enigma, for fear of it disappearing just as quickly as it had come. Between his ears, the owl was gripping his scalp tightly, talons sunk into the thin skin and piercing the flesh beneath. Despite the thin, slow trickle of red, he didn't seem to notice it.

"I am not going to bite you," the dark stranger said, a whipcrack, the roar of thunder. It shuddered through earth and flesh, a ghastly finger down Mauja's spine, yet it did not seem angry, or even a shout - just, loud. Embarrassed, Mauja ducked his head, rubbing his cheek against his knee for a moment, unaware of that he nearly pitched his companion into the slush if not for the sudden sharp stab of her digging deeper into his flesh. Apologizing in his head, the pale stallion swept his head up again. A flash of silver, something moving, streaked up beside them, careening straight for the black unicorn. For a moment, fear enveloped the glacial stallion, fear that this unknown mare would hurt the dark one - that she somehow sought his demise, or merely to pound his flesh into the ground. The breath caught in his throat and he started forward, a jerk of a step, before realizing how utterly foolish such a notion was.

"Forgive me my rudeness," he called across the snowy distance, shivering at the force he needed to expel it from his lungs in order to carry - how it was truly a shout, where this stranger had not shouted at all. Still feeling oddly shy, Mauja began to pad closer, even as the mare turned out to be exactly what logic proclaimed her: harmless. But she did seem to have a few marbles loose, staring at the stallion as if he was some kind of God. Snorting, blinking, he stopped again. What..? It was just like when he had suddenly just been there, now he was a few paces in front of where he'd stood last, yet acting as if nothing at all was wrong. Something in his stripes reminded him of Delinne, but the last time he saw her, she hadn't been..moving like that. Was it just natural grace, quick feet, or something else?

The air seemed to shimmer and spark with it, whatever it was, even if it was only crystals suspended in the air and lanced with the dying sunlight - figments of his imagination, a weary mind seeking salvation in the winter snows. Mauja began to move forward again, drawn towards this enigmatic stallion for better or for worse. "You merely took me by surprise," he said when close enough to speak at a conversational tone. There was something soft, mildly awed, on his face, like the midwinter snow seeing sunlight for the first time, feeling its prodding rays melt your flesh and re-shaping you with tender hands. Vaguely uncertain, his tail slapped against his hocks, a hollow, swishing sound on the tundra - not at all a part of the music of the world. He glanced at the hornless mare, before turning back to the Unicorn. "I am Mauja. Who may you be, sir?" It felt .. right .. to offer proper respect to this stranger, though why he was not sure. Maybe because he spoke like an earthquake and moved like a whirlwind - or was it merely a trick of the eye, something in his white patterns which made him sometimes ..invisible.. to the eye? Between his ears, the owl and its oddly blue eyes stared straight at the stallion.