( he's solid. )

Uncontested, proved supreme at least for tonight, the snowy beat's talons sank deep into the red, fresh meat of the rabbit. Sparing not a glance for the slighted chick she beat her strong wings, sending up a small gale of dust before managing to lift for long enough to glide a small distance away. She had no interest in the affairs of horses, and in the shadows of the Threshold forest she planted one clawed foot firmly upon the corpse and began to tear the flesh from its bones.

Mauja largely ignored his owl, beyond the point of knowing she was unharmed, unpunished for her little theft; they had an odd relationship, and tonight it was one of frosty disinterest. Instead his eyes kept roving back, time and again, to the mangled mare in front of him, sick fascination begging him to keep tracing the too-sunken curve of her ribs, the shadows of her bony hips and the patches of bare skin where her thin, wispy mane had fallen out. The breath nearly stuck in his throat each time he tried to breathe, yet he kept his face smooth, his eyes free from most things but the morbid interest. The yearling's voice broke some of his trance, much like a pebble being dropped upon a still pond and his head snapped around. For a moment his ears fell back in a display of displeasure, before he merely glared at her. "Such opinions should never be voiced aloud, girl," he hissed at her, angered as much by the connotations it might attach to him as by the blatant disrespect she showed. It was always wise to be courteous to your enemies before you killed them. "They are dangerous to have."

Despite the obvious ugliness of her frame, as much caused by her age as the scrawny wings upon her shoulders, he turned to face her again, turned to apologize for the rash tongue of his young kin, but she was already hastening away. Her gait was not smooth, nor particularly fast, and the longer away from them she came the more his face twisted into a grimace of distaste. "And there goes one problem," he mumbled, flicking his tail and shaking his head as if to make the image of her rattle and fall out of his skull. He'd rather not dream about her, rather not be chased by her in the labyrinths of his nightmare. Age and decay would come to them all; he did not need it brought to him in dreams. His moon-silver eyes narrowed in the darkness, and drawing a deep breath to ensure himself that they were alone, he suddenly rounded upon the young unicorn. Brash racists with bold tongues brought ill deeds down upon them all, and the sooner they learned to keep their mouths shut, the better. With cold ire in his eyes and features she was one of the first to experience, in a long time, why he was known as something frigid and heartless.

"Fool!" he hissed at her, the bite of winter's coldest winds in his low voice. "Do not speak of such things aloud, where you do not know of the situation. This entire realm is distrusting of us already, and we do not need young, brainless girls making it worse. Keep your mouth shut about it or I'll freeze your tongue to the roof of your mouth!" With a sinister look of darkness he felt it spread through his veins, like a cold liquid made of nothing but dark intentions and absolute chill: an exhalation filled the air with white smoke as small crystals of ice formed within the blood of her tongue and palate, but a merest hint of what he could, and would, do. "If you wish for greatness you must learn subtlety. If you want dominance, you must wait in the shadows for the right time to strike. Learn patience, or be useless." Mauja raised his head in the dark, moonlight touching his face and for a moment making him seem ethereal, an ice revenant from another world. Leveling his hard gaze at her, he let his cold voice penetrate the night's silence again. "Can, and will you obey?"

If she could, she would be welcome in his home.
If she couldn't.. something malign tinged his expression, curved his lips into an ominous mockery of his usual smile.

night-fate-stock -- dreamofsandman -- deirdre-T -- deviantart.com // i-mi.deviantart.com