Seeing the two of them together - Rivaini's loudly painted beauty against Faolain's understated elegance - reminds him painfully of the first time he'd met Çiçek here. He'd been positively brimming with jealousy at the casual way the three of them had lavished affection upon each other; now he would give anything to see her here again, wrapped in their warm embrace.

He is so distracted by this memory that he almost misses the shocking state of Rivaini's midsection. Given her reticence in the face of his own charms on the Crossing and then again on the beach, he had come to accept that she simply preferred the embrace of Faolain to a man. So to see her carrying a child that Faolain could clearly not have placed there was unsettling, as though he'd stepped on a loose rock and needed to jerk his foot back before it gave way beneath him. If his assumption of Rivaini was so wrong, who was to say that his surety in Çiçek's love for him was not equally false.

Solomon swallows hard, his gaze tearing reluctantly away from the mysterious swell of Riv's stomach as Faolain delivers the news that he expected. Something in him visibly deflates at the finality of her statement and he sucks in a slow, steadying breath. Rivaini's question, though innocuous, only serves to drive the stake more firmly into his heart. Solomon's head raises slowly and he replies woodenly, the words sawdust in his mouth. "She left without a word. I-"

He pauses as if to continue. To say how worried he is or how angry. To say he's sorry for ever taking her away as if her presence in this jungle might have somehow magically meant she would never leave any of them. Nothing he can think of fills the sudden hollow in his chest so he simply shakes his head to dismiss the thought.

"I am headed there next… Rougaru and I have been allied for some time." Rougaru had been his longest-standing ally since he had made landfall on the Isles, and while neither of them were particularly close to the other, they seemed to have developed mutual working respect. He could not think of a reason why Çiçek would be found in Paradise, but at the very least, he hoped to have another set of eyes looking out for his flower girl.

He almost congratulates Rivaini on her pregnancy when it occurs to him, very nearly too late, that it may not be a pregnancy she had wanted in the first place. Given that his own crimes were still fresh in his mind and the aftermath still not entirely healed, he falls quiet before the words leave his mouth. After all, had he met Rivaini alone that first Fall, this might not be the first child she bore.

"Both of you, and the child," he says carefully, his gaze ducking from Faolain to Rivaini, "are welcome in the Cove. Çiçek and I had expected you, before." Again he swallows and pretends as though saying her name is not a wound in and of itself. His mind casts for something else to speak of, and his mind connects this sentiment to the alliance he had hoped to ask for. It was not necessarily that he wished to ally himself with mare leaders specifically, considering he still considered it dangerous in many ways for mares to lead without a stallion, but they were important to Çiçek, and therefore to him by proxy.

"I'm sure Şevket - our son," he adds, suddenly painfully aware that they do not even know her son. "I'm sure he would love to meet the aunties she talked about all the time, and to have a cousin of his own to play with." His tail flicks and he thinks back to his conversation with Aranck. It had been only a short time ago and yet it felt like months had passed. "Try to steer clear of the Arch if you do - I don't think Aranck appreciates that I have become King, and I wouldn't put it past him to try and take it out on passersby."

A smile that does not touch his eyes flickers across his lips. He tried to limit his herd to common areas and allied herds to keep them safe. He had known for a long time that Çiçek would go back to them eventually, necessitating that he bend in this arena or ally with them. "I had thought to ask for an alliance between our herds the next time I saw you, and I know it is too little, too late," he starts again, his voice solemn. "But if you were interested, I would still be agreeable."

Solomon