If Mirage could read his mind, she would perhaps be disquieted. It was not a lack of understanding that made him hesitate to be open with his soul, but rather an abundance of information that held him his life in suspense, too many threads knitted into his young mind and not enough razors of experience to unbind them. He could understand very easily what Mirage attempted to see in her herd members, the glimmer of their gemstone spirits beneath whatever exterior they had been graced with, but the sight of wings stirred so many fears of retaliation his father had so heavily warned of within Dragomir that he might tremble if faced with a group of pegasi warriors from the Throat, and the unicorns in the forest had been no easier to accept or stomach. As he had been taught, they were volatile enemies, mask wearing fiends that, while they may seem amiable enough, would wait until the proper moment to rip your heart out. The proper way to deal with such beasts, Adalwulf had assured him, was to rip theirs out first.

But Semira had not been either of these things he was so warned of. Surely, hybrids were not high on the grey stallion's list, either, and so Dragomir still held tentative reservations about his meeting with the dragon child. Had she truly desired his company, his friendship, or had it been a ruse to gather information and get all that much closer to the chinks in his armor? The idea that the sweet girl had brought ill intent with her seemed foreign to Dragomir, but no less strange than she herself was. Ruminating upon what had come to pass on his first day in the misty wood left him feeling all the more lost and confused, leading to his awkward exploration of the battle field and the pleasant encounter now at hand.

He was no less lost, however, watching her emotions flicker across her face, the thoughts within her mind guarded from him by more than just his inability to read minds. Youth left him smiling stupidly at the black mistress as she in turn greeted him as was customary of the old blood equines. Uneasily his hooves shuffled as the woman spoke, her tones familiar (more so than anyone else's, at least) and the words bringing to light an observation he had already made; the battle had indeed been of their own fault, at least in a way. He didn't want to offend his queen, but he also could not shake the sight of the terrified foals being ushered in by the members of the Edge, either.

Now that he thought of it, he hadn't seen a one of them since they were brought in. Not that he had looked for them, but still, he looked upon his lead with a slightly hardened sort of gaze, wondering what sort of barbarism the unicorns had committed upon World's Edge that children were required as penance.

He nodded his agreement to the notion of moving forward even as his head was filled with the sight of the children and subsequent thoughts, the ebonite mynx slipping alongside his own brawny and painted frame much as she had on their first meeting. He walked with her slowly after lowering his crown to grab the bundle of herbs he had discarded, his eyes diverted to his hooves for most of the journey, though their bright blue gaze did occasionally rise to scan the forest for any one needing their help. Her question had left him quite befuddled, really, as all he could think of to tell her was that he had learned of herbs from a mare named Smoke; that, he hoped, would be obvious to the woman running the show, but having no better answer immediately at hand, that is where he began.

"I encountered a mare giving lessons on herbalism, called Smoke," he said gruffly, remembering the battle marked grulla well along with the faces of those who had attended the meeting, "there were also a pair of horses that I have seen working on the wall. The last runs patrols. I do not know their names." Feeling suddenly foolish for not having learned their callings, he quickly riffled through his thoughts for more to share with Mirage, finding little he could share other than his encounter with her daughter. "The first day, your daughter greeted my presence; Semira. She is like sunshine," he concluded, finding that she truly was, both in color and in attitude, like the light that came from the sun; that same sun which appeared to be hopelessly absent. However, also like sunlight, the filly was nearly too bright - he found during their meeting that he could not long look at her without growing ill, that she made his skin tremble for nearly the entirety of the conversation until the very ends, when they had fallen into playful jesting about the family that Semira held close to her heart. She was not normal, and Dragomir knew within himself that if his sire had seen his son sharing in such niceties with a girl such as she, that he would have had his hind end kicked from here into tomorrow.

But, what grew more and more evident within the heart of the tyrant's son was that Adalwulf was not here in Helovia, a bittersweet thing that, at the moment, Dragomir found mostly bitter.

"I have not learned much," he said shyly, almost to his own mud hued hooves. Again, the image of the invasion flickered in his mind, the events leading up to the moment of upheaval, and he found himself turning his eyes to the black mare with a soft and honest curiosity. "The Basin, you called the unicorns," he alluded with a more robust nature, truly desiring the answer to the question, even if it meant that he would discover Mirage and her kin were cold blooded kidnappers, "why did they come?" He refrained from informing the woman of the foals he had seen, hoping that she would be honest with him in her answer, his heart nearly pleading that she supply and answer that upheld the honor that he believed Mirage nearly oozed out of her pores, though he tried to keep it's desperation from leaking onto his features.