Meadow

He could feel her upset as he pulled away, but something in him needed to add to the spot, to mark the change for them. It was not that he thought Eve would miss Carine any less - a child was a child, no matter how small - but that he hoped from this moment forward they wouldn't look back with only pain. That when they thought of this moment, of this place, of Eve's little girl, that there would be some peace as well.

Eve seemed to echo this thought, giving voice to the same hopes he had. Solomon smiled quietly and nodded, his gaze lifting from the small grave to where she stood beside him to her face again. She spoke of forgiveness and his brow furrowed, not sure he could do so just yet. He had reached a point of accepting what had happened, of acknowledging that it was done and he could not undo his failures, but forgiving himself was a separate beast. Apart from knowing that he had behaved monstrously with Eve, there was the fact that he had abandoned them more than once. Not by choice, but that hardly mattered when the outcome was the same. He'd put them all in danger after promising to protect them, and the weight of that had sat heavily on his shoulders for some time.

Still, he knew that she had a point. That holding onto that grief and guilt was still eating him inside, albeit more slowly now than it had used to. "I will try," he murmured, voice somber. Her touch was a balm on his heart and he leaned into it with a quiet smile, although it made his chest feel tight. So many bad things could have happened to them all because of his negligence, but there was nothing he could change about that now. The only penance he could pay now was to do his best to prevent such a thing from happening again, and to be there for his family as much as he could now that he was back.

"When did you get so wise?" He asked, a subdued playfulness in his voice. He knew of course, that she had been through plenty in her life to gain that perspective.

At her suggestion of going home, he nodded. Initially he had assumed they would want to spend longer on the Crossing, perhaps spending the day alone together with no risk of interruption. However, now that Carine had been laid to rest again and their mission completed, the only thing he wanted to do was hold Eve against him with the familiar smell of their home surrounding them. To hear the voices of the children and other mares in the background, reminding him of where he belonged, and those that he belonged to. "Of course," he finally murmured, stretching to touch her shoulder again. "Let's go home."

OOC: New thread in the Cove?

Solomon