Rivaini

I need your help. The painted stallion was quick to confirm the silver bay’s suspicions, though there was a small, weary part of her that wished he had not. For whatever reason, the peaceful little kingdom that she and Faolain had carved out here had attracted those who had known suffering in some form or another, including children who had lost or been rejected by their mothers. The zealously-maternal Siobhan, of course, was delighted by this development— but Rivaini was feeling stretched thin, particularly now that she was nursing Hades and whatever other hungry mouths might seek her out. Adding another foal to their numbers was stupid and reckless and— and—

And she couldn’t say no. Not to one who had already suffered as much as Solomon over the past year.

The Guardian’s red ears had cupped forward to catch the fragments of story that the champagne King shared— and while she wasn’t shrewd enough to unearth every truth Solomon had buried, she at least gathered that there was a reason he could not share more. And understood enough to suspect why. She is my daughter….in all the ways that matter. Nodding her head and offering the tobiano a significant glance, Rivaini turned her attention to the girl. A warm smile curled her lips upward in response to the stammered greeting the filly offered. “Finch,” she greeted in a musing voice. “I like it. An apt name for a pretty little sparrow like you.” And apt that the little bird had found herself here, in the place where all migratory members of that species came to rest for the winter.

Her sky-blue eyes swept over the thicker proportions of the girl’s body, and the small feathered tufts that framed each hoof. She was almost certain that this girl bore no blood relation to Solomon, though she kept the questions that she might have asked caged in her thoughts— pondering their answers only in silence. But even that was short-lived when a familiar voice broke the comfortable silence that hung between the trio of mare, stallion, and foal. A voice that sent Rivaini’s thoughts spiralling into panic, because she hadn’t known how to tell the Cover’s ruler. And now—- now it was too late to tell him gently. To explain in privacy what had happened. To prepare him to face the delicate, spun-glass mare he loved...and the child who was never far from her side.

“Solomon,” she murmured hurriedly in the shocked pause that followed. “Çiçek, she returned to us. But Solomon—” —she didn’t return alone, the Guardian might have continued. If the evidence of this hard truth hadn’t rendered her words unnecessary when the golden colt emerged from the darkness behind his mother, a creature too innocent and blameless to recognize the error of his own existence. An error that Rivaini herself was not blameless in— because if it was not for the affection her sun had harbored for her even after their separation, Çiçek might never have allowed Rougaru to touch her at all.

It was hard enough to live with this knowledge, and to confess it would be even harder still.

“I—I’m sorry, Solomon.” The silver bay began, her voice thick with shame. But she couldn’t say it, she couldn’t. So she filled the silence that followed with something else entirely— though her sincerity was no less for this fact. “I would have told you immediately, but I could tell that your purpose in coming here was urgent.” Her pale eyes were beseeching when they met his for the briefest of moments. Before they flitted towards the jungle again, and the boy. “I— I should leave you two,” she mumbled hastily, turning her attention back to Finch and hosting her lips back into a smile with a wrenching effort.

“Would you like to come with me, Finch, and see the Ridge? I promise I’ll bring you back to your— your father after.”

mare / seven / silver bay tobiano / andalusian mix / 15.3hh