we built this city on broken glass

The woman is quick to seize onto his jest. That very glimmer of intelligence touching her gaze before she assures him that she will take to posting that sign in every language to plaster like a decorative portrait across the bakery. Perhaps she should. It would surely lessen potential thieves and yet even despite her bold insistence he remains near assured she would miss his language all the same. People were so eternally courteous to provide French and Spanish and Mandarin and Arabic right along with those English translations. So few ever providing an Icelandic one. How decidedly unfortunate it was. Though perhaps not to unfortunate as to loose that very pie he had been enjoying only moments ago. The young woman snatching it away to march back to the counter and demand some sort of payment for it. Frost's own features remained decidedly neutral, his gaze hardly wavering from her own and yet so little emotion at all managed to penetrate that veritable mask as the equine simply appeared to be considering those words. Those smooth, cool lyrics at last parting his lips to counter her offer. Frost assured he had not eat eaten enough of that pie to pay for it. This woman evidently a business woman in every sense, that pie slid back towards him mere moments later. Frost effortlessly lifting that fork once more to return to his meal as if it had never left and indeed- as if he had anticipated it's return to him all along. Perhaps he had.

That very store had all but been abandoned to the pair of them alone. The young woman appearing almost perturbed by that new lack of customers and yet the war horse had long since become accustomed to just that very thing. His presence so generally well known enough to prompt a swift exit from the majority of people and yet he so hardly felt inclined to explain such a thing here and now. Besides, he rather enjoyed that peace and quiet- and that chance to speak frankly to the woman. After all, most supernatural beings tended to be far more forthcoming without either humans or Hunters about. Frost almost intrigued by the woman's clear talent for observation. To notice those small details was a decided skill, the equine content to comment on just that talent she seemed to hold, those words very near akin to praise in a fashion and yet praise was so rarely forthcoming from the snowy-haired man in any sense. How truly few impressive people there were left in the world to deserve it. Yet, perhaps, she might well be one of them. In the least she had already proven she was hardly foolish and that alone made her worthy of his time and attention, at least for now. Her ability to cook pie perhaps equally as encouraging. Her assurance that very talent for observation came from keeping an eye out for hunters prompted his own lip to quirk slightly once more in some betrayal of amusement in the faintest sense. His shoulders lifted in the loosest of shrugs.

"I think it is more than that. Hunter's are not terribly hard to spot at the best of times. I grew up with them, they do not put much effort into staying concealed as one would think."

It was a curious sentence to be sure, one nothing short of true. After all, he had spent well over half his life with the Hunter breed. The vast majority of them an arrogant, selfish lot inclined to believe their presence alone should be enough to strike fear into the heart of the prey they were often too unskilled to capture to begin with. Yet, somehow, so many of them survived on reputation alone and the fear of what they might yet be capable off and so rarely were. They were a lie, for the most part and yet he hardly saw a need to allow his own thoughts on the very function of society to sully that conversation. The womans skill for observation was far more advanced than merely trying to spot poorly hidden Hunters. Perhaps she was an unusual species of animal. Her scent was unfamiliar if nothing else. Something....amphibian perhaps? Reptilian? It reminded him almost of Askree and yet not quite. Either way, perhaps whatever animal it was held a true talent for noticing the unique.

That conversation shifted then to his own illusions. Frost hardly opposed to offering her some notion of how they worked and indeed the challenge it could be to craft an entire store from little more then the confines of his mind. Such a large illusion requiring a further spread off his power and yet he had been unwilling to exude too much of it, those lower grade illusions having fooled all but her. Yet too, she would know that store better than any. That query on whether she might like to see a truer example of his power was interrupted by the appearance of that chef she was quick to wave away and yet that brief lapse in her attention was all it took to wrap that agic about himself. Presenting the woman with a near flawless illusion of....herself in turn. That very voice that parts his lips no longer his own, but hers. The woman allowing her eyes to raise and yet- she has a good poker face. Impressive. Frost remained content to silently finish that pie as the woman saw fit to examine that very illusion, that stallion affording her that simple praise for the taste before she comments on how very handy that talent was- if not how unsettling to see herself. Frosts head nodding a moment later.

"It has several uses, yes. As for being impressed, perhaps you should be- I am impressive."

That more genuine simper found his lips then, those words almost good-natured and so designed to be little more than a tease. Frost chuckling softly between those last few bites of pie. His very demeanor seeming to shift into something almost more personable. As if he had decided to like the girl- or indeed seen something of value in her to prompt that shift. Frost hardly made any effort to move as the woman stepped from behind that counter to circle around him and better examine that illusion, the stallion hardly needing to reach for her thoughts to know what surely turned through them. Yet- she had handled that illusion better than tetradore had in the least. Frost lifting his hand to brush it aside in a near flawless mimic off her earlier gesture before asking after her name. Tahlia.

"Frost."

He offered in return. The stallion at last allowing that illusion to drop, returning him to his true self as he regarded Tahlia evenly then. His strange violet gaze meeting the deep green off her own as his hand held itself out to offer her that habitual handshake that seemed so ingrained within society.

"-and yes, I am aware my name matches my hair."

Tahlia, he suspected, had hardly been about to offer that comment and yet the man had become decidedly good at fending off that very joke everyone so seemed to believe they were the first to discover. The womans comment on those pies seemed to prompt the stallions consideration a moment longer.

"How many do you make a day? I may have some friends who might enjoy these."

He saw little need to inform her of just how many 'friends'' he was capable of sending to her store and yet, if she desired to have a booming business perhaps she might appreciate that dramatic increase in numbers. An army, after all, marched on its stomach. The very thought prompting that vague simper to his lips once more. Frost leaning away from that finished pie dish to lean back against the counter now. His violet gaze lingering on the woman still.

"What sort of animal are you, your scent is unusual."

Frost was hardly a man to mince words in any sense. Indeed that stallion was prone to a decided directness when a being intrigued him enough to hold his attention as the one before him surely did.

"You lack the scent of any pack or Alpha, you are alone? Though I wonder, are you alone by choice, or by necessity? I would almost believe you were hiding from something, or someone and yet opening a store is hardly hiding. So why come to this city then, hmm?"

FrosT