Seconds stretched into long minutes with no immediate answer. The lean tobiano stood fitfully on the shores of Paradise with the sun burning away the saltwater from his back, his gaze still trained on the dark recesses of the jungle beyond. He could not help the hope that soared in his chest that his flower girl would be the first to emerge from their dark embrace and so could not prevent his face from falling when the tobiano mare emerged first.

She carried herself with far too much poise and confidence to be anything but a lead (or an upward aiming herd mare), and so Solomon takes her to be one of Rougaru's mysterious queens. Sucking in a slow breath to stem his frustration, Solomon inclined his head solemnly in greeting as she escorted her child close to him. The foal was impatient, and to the outside eye appeared to have little respect for his dam. Despite his diminutive size, he was already bold and demanding, going so far as to nip his own mother. But Solomon's gaze does not rest on the reddish colt long. The mare that approaches is strong in form, her own hide littered with the scars of no small amount of battles. She smells of the jungle, and of Rougaru. Even if the colt's bright green eyes had not told him of her allegiance, it would have been obvious. She is petite in height, but her build is rugged and he knows instinctively that she is a fighter.

Out of respect for her and her child, he cocks a hip to imply he means them no harm. Solomon is yet oblivious to the treachery that Rougaru has committed, and seeks to do no harm to the silver stallion or his family. Almost immediately on her heels, the stallion himself appears and Solomon's chiseled head inclines to him in greeting.

He did not know Rougaru well. Their alliance had come as a result of Warsaw's encouragement and Solomon's need, at the time, to find like-minded allies. He had been… naive in the beginning. Fresh from lands far from these islands, Sol had known that he would be easy pickings for opportunists in the beginning and had blindly allied himself with those most like his family. Stallions that decried the leadership of mares, and who championed might over compassion.

In the end, he might as well have gone it alone. Warsaw had faded by the time Solomon took his side, and in the end, the tobiano had provided more support for the gray than he had ever received. His alliance with Ironclad was promising, but again, he'd done more for the fledgling colt than had been returned. And Rougaru? Well, he couldn't say that they'd ever truly interacted much more than to discuss their original agreement. It was an arrangement that had worked, so to speak, in that it prevented both of them from turning their voracious desires onto one another's herds.

But it was not an arrangement born of trust.

As such, Solomon is quick to notice the guarded way that Rougaru approaches and the not so casual phrasing of his question. A smile touches his lips but does not warm his eyes, and he allows the other stallion to finish his greeting. "King," he says calmly, the smile secure on his lips. "Of Tinuvel, now."

He allows a moment for his news to settle before returning his focus and drive to his purpose. "And no, unless you mean to change our agreement. I have come to ask if you have seen a mare of mine." The caution with which he studies both of their reactions is born of desperation rather than suspicion. It would never have occurred to Solomon that Rougaru would have stolen and raped a mare that was not his own, considering the terms upon which they stood. "Her name is Çiçek. She disappeared in the Fall, leaving our son behind."

In truth, he had come once before, in an attempt to garner Rougaru's support in this matter, but he'd rushed home to chase a rumor that she'd surfaced on the Crossing after all. He had hoped that the Ridge women would pass along his concern, but in retrospect, he had realized that he had not explicitly asked them to do so. And in truth, if he was honest, he did not truly believe Çiçek to be here. There was nothing in Paradise that would have drawn her here unless she had other secrets he did not yet know of.

Shrewdly he watches for a reaction from either of them, hoping that one of them might have had news. Almost automatically he goes on to describe her more without truly thinking of the words. He'd said the same thing to nearly every stranger he'd come across in the months since, but even that did not stop the sting of memory as he pictured her. "She's taller than you, Monster, by a little. Golden in coloration with spotting across her back. Sometimes speaks in a beautiful foreign language."

Flicking the length of his amber tail across his hocks, Solomon turns his attention back to Rougaru. "Have you seen or heard from a mare like this?"

Solomon