Rehoboam is restless most nights these days. Stress keeps him on the move but provides no outlet for his anxiety. Bellona remains. Frey remains. And with each passing day, his ability to protect his baby sister grows less and less while his distaste for the men he was supposed to call his brothers grew and grew. Frey refused to see reason. Refused to countenance any advice that didn't spring, half-baked, from his own foolhardy head. It was like speaking to a child, albeit a child that had grown into just as much of a tank as his father.

Without Rade on his side, and with Tyr in the middle, Reh was out of options.

He couldn't make her go somewhere safe, and he couldn't leave her alone either. It didn't matter that she didn't want his protection; Bellona was family, which meant that she, and the baby she carried, were his duty to safegard. It would mean that he would have to step down, not that his title had ever meant anything to anyone anyway. And it would mean that he would have to figure out a way to not wish death upon Frey and every time that he saw him... which was probably the far more difficult task of the three.

He sighed, shifting his weight listlessly to dislodge the snow that gathered like a cloak across his seal-grey shoulders. Reh had been surprised to see snow in the Lagoon his first year; somehow he had always equated this swampy, humid landscape to be akin to the more southern isles like Atlantis and Salem, who were rumored to only experience frost on rare occurrences. Instead, it was some bastardization of such places and the Crossing, which resulted in a territory that grew muddy in the summer and downright dangerous to traverse in the winter when fallen snow concealed small pockets of sheet ice.

Movement in his peripheral vision drew Rehoboam's gaze to the left, and he watched silently as a dark figure moved steadily across the Lagoon flats without deviation. Secretly grateful for the distraction, Reh's umber gaze followed his progress quietly, somehow expecting the man to be looking for someone or something. Few these days wandered into the Lagoon unaware.

The other stallion did not pause or falter, nor did he seem to give any outward indication he'd noticed Rehoboam looking. Normally Rehoboam would have let him pass uninterrupted, but if there was anything that the young tobiano stallion had learned in the past few months, it was that being uninvolved in the goings-on of those around you did not lead to fewer problems. In fact, if Frey was any indication, it led to bigger, unsolvable issues down the road.

Reh moved steadily to intercept the other man but did not hurry to join him. Whatever business had sent this stranger walking through the Lagoon was clearly not so urgent that he needed to rush. Even so, his gaze carefully studied the manner of the dark-colored stallion. It was rare that the Lagoon men faced threats, but Parvati had attempted a raid not so long ago and his guard was still up. "It's a quiet night," Rehoboam murmured conversationally, his voice pitched low in the snow-laden hush of winter in the nighttime. For a moment there was no sound save for the crunching of their hooves through snow and ice, and then Reh spoke again. "Where are you headed?"