mazikeen

azikeen's moment of solitude is brief, a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye shifting her attention towards Vána's approaching form. 'Do you know what is going on between them?' the pale mare inquires. 'Lucifer ... had taken me once. Now he has my son.' Vána's doleful words may have struck a chord with any other creature, but Mazikeen had never been prone to fits of sympathy. Insect or equine, they all were met with the same apathy. Yet she senses something in Vána that is reflected within herself: the woe of a mother separated from her child, a shared uncertainty as to their fates that seemed to plague them both. It is this that gives her pause before she speaks, considering her words and the tone in which they are delivered more carefully than she might have with Helios or any of his other mares.

"I wish I could say," she replies, trying to soften the harsh edge in her words and falling grievously short. "But the truth is I haven't a clue. Helios has always kept a tight lip when it comes to his... problems." A bitter chuckle bubbles from her throat, the disapproving shake of her crown shifting the dark dusty curtain of her mane against her neck. Mazikeen's citrine gaze inspects the creamy lines of Vána's face, a thoughtful hum passing through her pursed lips. "Perhaps it would benefit us - and our sons - to find him and demand the answers we deserve. We have a right to know why he, and by extension our children, are being targeted. Don't you agree?"

It is the most verbose she has been with another of Helios' mares since she first joined his herd. Much of her time here had been spent on the outside looking in, lingering on the edges of the small community Helios had built and wondering what it was they so seemed to enjoy about one another's companionship. Many of them she found uninteresting, their company doing little to stimulate the spotted mare and her fickle mind. Yet never had she shared a common goal with any of them, a purpose to unite them.

Frankly, the notion of strength in numbers was always one Mazikeen had scoffed at - she preferred to forge her own path, alone and without assistance from others she often deemed weak or irrelevant. But there was no denying that applying twice the pressure would likely yield more fruitful results for the both of them. There was no possible way Helios could deny them both - not without making himself look worse.

'From what I know of your stallion...' an unfamiliar voice rang out from nearby. Mazikeen's attention turned towards the approaching stallion, ashen lids narrowed over her amber orbs. 'Decisive action is not a skill he possesses.' At this Mazikeen scoffed, the whipcord of her tail switching irritably against her hindquarters. Who was this man to approach so brazenly, to interject without invitation into her affairs? She finds herself annoyed at his approach, yet in the same vein intrigued by his pluckiness. It didn't hurt that he wasn't half bad to look at, his physique a far cry from Helios' svelte figure.

"He seemed decisive enough when he sent my son away," Mazikeen replies, her eyes sweeping over the patchwork tapestry of his coat before settling on his face. "And I am certain he will take plenty action when he sees you've encroached upon his territory." There is no threat behind her wry words - if anything, they are a challenge, a provocation: stay and face the consequences his cockiness would surely bring.

Mazikeen turns to face the stranger fully, the dark cups of her ears tipped forward and a hint of a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. "And what, pray tell, would I - or you - do about it from so far away, hm?" Like a curious wolf pup she tips her head, her shrewd gaze glued upon the stranger's profile.