The two men finally broke their gazes away from their captors and looked at each other as if deciding who should be the one to speak. By some silent agreement, Dax spoke. "I'd have thought that was obvious..." he said softly, but immediately regretted his cheek when the cloaked shadow took one purposeful, elegant step towards him. She had entered a beam of light and he could dimly see her face now, inked and lit by her two glittering eyes that seemed to him to be too light for her skin tone, giving her an otherworldly look. She was corporeal, of that he no longer had doubts. But learning that she was indeed Azurei did not comfort him. They were a hard, mysterious folk from a distant land just as hard and mysterious as the people who tended it, or so he'd heard. And she obviously knew how to handle herself. And a blade. 

"Careful," came Ridahne's low voice. It was no longer hard and furious but cold and almost sweet. He visibly shivered; somehow that was worse. "I'm not the patient sort. And fingers make crunchy snacks for hunting cats." 
Dax blanched, balling his hands into fists and tucking them protectively at his sides. He had the good sense not to dither and espouse apologies and instead made his amends by giving the pair what they wanted. "Men gotta make a living somehow. James and I came on hard times about a year ago...and well..." 
"You decided to casually take up horse thieving? There's more you haven't said." Ridahne wasn't sure of that exactly, but she was going to put pressure on them and see what came of it anyway. 

The men fell silent. So her hunch had been right. She let that silence build as she studied them, looking for a hesitation or weakness to exploit. She found it in James, who was the one fidgeting and avoiding eye contact. Ridahne wheeled on him like a shark on a struggling fish. Her cold blade reached out quickly to the soft underside of his chin and, with the utmost control, she held the point to his skin with enough pressure to make it uncomfortable, but not yet enough to draw blood. 

"Gambling debts!" He squealed. "We were both in deep and we needed something fast, so we stole a horse to pay the debts!"
"Ah, there it is. And you've continued both gambling and thieving ever since." The men nodded, ashamed. Ridahne lowered her large knife and stepped back, though as she did this, Mitaja slipped through the darkness to pad behind the men and make their spines tingle with the unnerving sensation of being loomed over. The bond between the cat and her handler was evident in that moment, as neither made any kind of sign to the other and yet they operated in tandem somehow. If the men had not been so thoroughly distracted by fear, they might have seen how truly beautiful their partnership was, and the unflagging trust that lay between both elf and cat. Ridahne might have been many things, but she was without a doubt a person who loved and respected animals and there in that moment it showed to any who had eyes for it.

"Well now, my young apprentice," Ridahne said easily, "What do you think? What should we do with them?"