She came back stiff and sore, her left side bruised badly, with many scrapes along her neck and shoulder line. Her right shoulder was scraped, and her morales low from the damn ghost-bear. Snö was still quite curious as to how, exactly, the hybrid as she wrongly termed Gaucho, had managed to conjure up the translucent ghost. Even now, nearing evening, she could feel its clammy touch on her skin, the paws set on either side of her cheeks. Just the imagination of its cold touch terrified her, which naturally led to the ice princess' cold anger. She could not believe she was afraid of a little ghost bear. It wasn't like it was real- it couldn't actually attack her, maul her, tear her to pieces...

Snö shuddered, shaking away the silver fingers clasped around her mind, firmly dislodging them. She could not deal with the after-effects- surely next time Tarak would leap to action, and pay proper attention. Why had he not defended her? Had he malfunctioned? Perhaps Ulrik had forbidden him from interfering with fights, so as to fight on equal terms. No- the metal dog had always served her with robotic loyalty. Just as Thais had... Thais. How dearly did she miss him. Never had he let her down- until he turned into a damn dog. Just like him, she thought with growing dismay. How could have an equine mare, of all things, killed him? One. Simple. Blow. It had struck down her love, her guardian, truth be told. More than ever she hated horses- they were filth. They were killers, murderers, slaughterers. What had the equine said? Something about never letting your guard. Well, Snö would never make that mistake. Unlike the few lacking a head, she learned from others' mistakes.

"d'Artaganan!" The ice princess cried, halting near one of the steaming hot springs. She needed a healer. Where was the Time Mender? Snö would really appreciate someone tending to her wounds, with the congealing blood the color of the setting sun.

[Sorry it's short ;-; If you are too busy to reply to this, that's okay!]

A grunt echoed around a damp looking cave full of strange looking plants and a mucky puppy curled into a tight ball to one side. Twitching now and then as he chased after something in a dream, a yip slipping out between velvet lips before ears twitched and gilded eyes opened. The cave was then lit up in a strange red hue as the pup jumped to all fours, the sound of a voice getting him excited. Cracked hooves clattered against the hard surface and d'Artagnan frowned as he left his cave, Aramis alongside him, slightly irritated he was being pulled away from his doze. Sharply the cold hit him and he sighed, recognizing the voice as belonging to Mauja's daughter, Sno. What did she want? It was unlike her to call out across the Basin like so. He shifted into a brisk trot, mumbling curses under his breath with the setting sun bleaching his coat even redder

The ground turned warm as he reached the hot springs and dual coloured gaze took in the battered form of Sno. For a few moments he enjoyed the irony, the filly who always seemed to carry herself as if better than others, crumpled and covered in her own blood. d'Artagnan wondered who she had run into to earn such injuries, she was still young but had seemed the type to be a warrior, like Aviya. Though d'Artagnan thought his daughter would make a much better fighter, in his own bias thoughts, her image in his head always brought him strength. The race of unicorns would be safe in her iron clad grip. He drew himself back to the present and sighed as he walked over to the little Sno.

"This isn't like you, who gave you these injuries?" As he said that he examined them with a lazy expression, it was the main role of the Time Mender yet the Nightshade found it profusely boring to simply stitch wounds back together. It was much more fun to create wounds. However, he was interested in Sno's reply, was her opponent worth noting? Or even so, was he/she worth killing? The latter question the only real thing that mattered to d'Artagnan, his hit list seemed to grow longer with each passing day. The latest added to his list was the armoured bastard who bore black and white splotches and a distinct scent of the Throat. Always the Throat. The bad blood he had with that land made his teeth set on edge.

The first thing to proclaim the irritable Nightshade's arrival was the constant grumbling under the blood bay's breath. Snö shifted her weight, wincing, wishing she could close off her nostrils to the brisk air that stank of desert heat and dirt, from the numerous times her and the dark bay had made contact, with tensing muscles and pinned ears. The foul stench was almost worse than the tingling pain of her open wounds, pain dulled by the frosted air that pierced the lungs with sharp knives and little love, clutching at her with raw, numb fingers. She shook her head, throwing off the dregs of the ghost's effect on her, of wild, sinister fear that ran foul in her shriveled frozen heart, a heart frozen to all but cruelty and jealousy, vindictiveness and dislike. Snö was not a kind mare.

For a moment she allowed the blood bay to study her, a touch annoyed at his lazy, frustrating attitude. Snö was patient, sometimes- other times not so- but she had no use for those who sat on their asses and let others do the real work. So she fidgeted, shifting her weight on silver cloven hooves. For a moment after he queried after who had harmed her, she let a brazen, wicked smile curl one side of her face, a lopsided smirk at the many dark things d'Artagnan could commit to the one who had harmed her so- but she was old enough to handle him herself. Nevertheless, no harm (at least to her) in giving a description. "Some Throat idiot- antlered, winged, had some odd sort of thing between his antlers. Red tribal markings. Tall, moved well off his feet. Can summon ghosts." Snö said carelessly, shaking her head to let her mane fall more elegantly. Never would she admit she had come off looking the worse than him- how would d'Artagnan know the truth anyways? He wouldn't.

The stinging of her flesh wounds faded a moment as she thought of the grump siring Mesec with the moon goddess. She had no idea. How strange of him... did he love his son for bearing wings still? Aviya had loved him, as she recalled their previous meeting with a bitter twist of her lips, only a few hours ago on this day. Snö disliked the filly, even younger than she was; but she couldn't deny should they have met over something else, perhaps she would like the filly quite a bit more. Allies were always good to have- it would do no harm to make amends. Aviya was in the Plague anyways, wasn't she? She knew of Snö's dislike for winged and bareheads. No, dislike was too petty a word. Hatred suited her much better.

"Can you heal me, d'Art?" Snö asked, after returning from her wicked thoughts.

d'Artagnan watched the moody Sno as she came round to answer his question. Her answer intrigued him and he put the description into his memory bank for later, the shade didn't like those who came from the abysmal heated Throat. So any that dared to attack a Basin member, even if it was Sno, was automatically marked onto his hit list. Maybe one day he would get the chance he was waiting for, to exact his revenge upon those who took their land from them as well as put that sand wielding bastard in his place. His mind disappeared into thoughts of delightful death and for a moment he completely forgot about the little Sno until she enquired after his healing expertise. d'Artagnan sighed and brought himself back to the present, critically looking at the alabaster filly "don't ask such stupid questions" he said. Rather briskly.

Gaze became focussed then and his placed his nose near her wounds, calling deep within himself for the magic of time. Grasping it with his will, d'Artagnan put his gifted magic to work by first purging away any infection that may have begun to plague her, his ability working like a lopsided hour glass as it erased and reset her physical timeline, taking away the pain and knitting the wounds together neatly so that all there was left were a few red stains from the blood. Next the magic centred around her bruising, lifting and repairing before all her injuries were healed and the Nightshade breathed another sigh in weariness this time. Every muscle is his body ached as if someone had just sapped all the energy from them, lids drooped over mismatched eyes and the only thing keeping him concentrating on the present was Aramis batting his tail from side to side. The pup had been silent in the exchange, not really liking Sno mainly through feeling his bonded's dislike towards her. His glowing markings had stopped and returned to their normal state as he played with the shade's knotted tail.

"I suggest you spar more with other warriors of the Basin, that way you won't get hurt so badly." d'Artagnan's tone had grown noticeably tired and he looked towards the direction of his cave. "Now if you don't mind, I'm tired and I presume you don't need me for anything else?" He enquired with a tone that spoke volumes of his irritable self. Briefly he wondered why Kou was never bothered with these tasks, they always seemed to seek out him for some reason, like they enjoyed annoying him with their petty little injuries.