She drew his gaze the moment she stepped from the jungle itself, and his gaze swept hungrily across her body, searching for signs of abuse. Finding none, his ears tip briefly forward to catch her flippant reply and he offers a strangled chuckle in reply.
"Sorry my dear, Nyimara had a tantrum she needed to throw first. I came as quick as I could."
As much as Rehoboam tries to deny the effect that Celestine
still has on him, even after being apart for nearly a year, he cannot hide it. The mere sight of her makes his throat go tight and his skin quiver in a vain attempt to release the anxious energy swirling inside of him. Seeing her near the gray stallion only sets the wolves in his chest to baying for blood, and it takes everything inside of him to quell the instinctual urge to either rush to her side or rush to separate the two of them.
Celestine was
his.
Even as all of this happens, his gaze cuts away from her to search the greenery, both afraid and eager to see the face of their child... but no figure emerges. Worry and confusion mingle on his face, writ obvious for either of them to see. It would behoove Rehoboam to be more careful with his expressions, but he has grown tired of the Lagoon's intrigue. He seeks only to reclaim Celestine and their child, and then to find a home for them all while he works to collect the other wayward fruits he had so indiscriminately sown last season.
I didn't fight you for her, Temblor points out, as if Rehoboam had somehow forgotten this fact.
"If you had, there might have been a different outcome," the tobiano rebuts, his tone equally malice-free. There was no way to know if Rehoboam would have prevailed over the gray stallion if he had been in a position to defend Celestine, but he does know that she would not have been left here for nearly as long as she had if he had been capable of coming after her.
"And this would be a different conversation if she wasn't," Reh answered mildly to Temblor's claim of her health, his green gaze cutting away from Celestine - who was achingly beautiful and in perfect form as always - back to Temblor. For a moment he skips over the offer he had come here to make, and instead focuses on the last part. It takes him a moment to answer, as his jaw - which had clenched at the possibility of Celestine wanting to stay - needed time to relax.
"I disagree," he says as mildly as he can manage.
"Even if she wishes to stay with you, I am not leaving without our child. I've already been forced away from them for too long." The admission - for it is an admission of guilt even if Reh doesn't explicitly admit to such - slips out before he can stop it. Eager to slide past that particular echo of pain, Rehoboam moves on to the penultimate matter: Celestine's choice.
"Is that what you want? To stay here, with him?" He asks her bluntly, his body stiff. It is not fair to ask this of her in front of Temblor, and he knows it. If Rehoboam should prove unsuccessful in freeing her today, declaring a desire to leave could further incite the damnable gray's wrath. But he can't help it. His pride practically begs for her to give him the answer he seeks: that she cares as much for him as he does for her.
"We wouldn't stay in the Lagoon. I'll find us somewhere else, Cel."
Damnit. He's all but begging before he can even stop himself. Even so, Reh does not dare take all of his attention away from Temblor. Everything in him wants to curl possessively around her and scrub away any trace of Paradise from her skin, but he cannot read the expression on her face. In his head, every time he thought of this moment, she had always been eager for rescue. Not desperate, nor a damsel in distress, but still eager. Happy to see him, at least.
She didn't seem anything but watchful today.
Either way, Rehoboam had no intention of leaving here empty-handed. He would honor Celestine's choice to stay here if she made it... probably, but he would not leave without their child. He may not know where Shenzi or Titania had gone, and may not be able to get his clutches on Rhaenys, but this nameless, faceless child was almost close enough for him to grasp and he was desperate for it. He might have already failed every single one of his other children, but he might be able to make it up to at least this child, for now.
Unbeknownst to him, the child he so sought had ultimately decided to rebel against her mother's demand to stay hidden and out of sight. So little got Celestine excited that as soon as the painted mare went crashing through the bush, Osiris rose from her hiding spot and followed on doe-like footsteps that were nearly silent. As she neared the edge of the beach, she tucked herself into a convenient piece of greenery to observe - believing herself to be entirely hidden, despite the soft red-orange of her fuzzy ears peeking out.