Her dark head whisked through the air, and if it wasn't because he already knew she bore no horn he probably would've flinched; as it was, he stood steady, eying her with a kind of polite curiosity but feeling his stomach plummet and freeze when her soft nose touched his. Black velvet brushed against black velvet, an involuntary shiver going down his spine. He hadn't expect that.. not that it mattered; she seemed almost embarrassed about it, and he gave her a gentle smile, as if to say it's alright. But her vibrant green eyes were already drifting away, before returning to his with a very unexpected question – certainly nothing he'd ever been asked before, by a hornless. The notion that she did not wish to live with her own kind.. that someone wouldn't want to... It was foreign, and confusing, and intriguing all the same. "Perhaps," he hedged quietly, knowing that this conversation was quickly going out on thin, rotten ice. Valentine's set of ears, listening, was not what he wanted. Not when this .. possibility .. presented itself.

"You are very interesting Mauja." Only some good fortune delivered her comment in the spaces between his breath, otherwise he surely would've choked on the air in surprise. How.. what? Surprise had widened his blue eyes slightly, and as he glanced at her, he found her peering at him in a most ladylike fashion, as if shy, the green distorted by the strong, straight lines of her black lashes. "I.. am?" he responded faintly, arching one 'brow as if to question the statement, but he said no more at the time as Aiko Darleane, Valentine's darling little foal, tried to recruit the older mare. Well, you couldn't fault her for lacking enthusiasm at least, and Mauja felt his lips twitch into a patient kind of smile.

But Valentine, he was too sour for his own name, saying that he unfortunately knew Mauja; and Mauja felt his black heart make a grimace, his soul mumbling that it was a blessing to know your enemies. He should regard it as such, but if he wanted to be sour.. well, let him, and he was already walking away as Argos was explaining to little Aiko she didn't want to go live with her own kind in the Dragon's Throat.

"Have a nice day," Mauja called sweetly at Valentine's turned back, wondering if he, too, came off as an ass whenever he tried to goad someone into motion by walking off. Maybe. Maybe he should pay more attention to what he did. He frowned for a very short moment before turning to Argos with a charming smile, letting his eyes shimmer in that way they sometimes did, as if struck by sunlight. "So.." he said, slowly, weighing the options, the consequences, and deciding that he did owe is herd something. "Do you want to come home with me?"