Çiçek does know the power she holds over him. She is no stranger to the effect her shining golden coat and white-spotted back has on the men who come into her life, but rarely has one captured her attention in turn like Solomon. Flings, yes, but this… this consumes her, body and soul, even as they walk along the coast and the foam of the encroaching waves runs cool over her striped hooves. He walks close enough to her that their shoulders brush, and Çiçek finds herself angling her slim frame so that she feels more of his muscled body against her, despite the shock every point of contact leaves upon her skin. Stop hemming and hawing, the warmth still whispers within her. Act now, and deal with what happens later.

He toys with her mane, and the flesh at her crest twitches, sending pleasant tingles down the length of her spine from where he gently pulls on her salt-waved tresses. Çiçek wants to reciprocate, to find her way into the place at his crest where she has lost herself once before and forget her hesitation, but she knows she’ll regret it if she does without getting the answers she wants first. The mare sighs, the sound equal parts full-throated desire and steely resignation, and glances out at the water for a second, the words coming slowly out of her like sweet molasses.

“I think we both know,” she says faintly, looking back to him with eyes heavily clouded by lust, “where these… games… are going.” Çiçek allows herself a brush of her muzzle on his warm neck, suppressing the shiver it brings her. “But these games have consequences.” Çiçek looks at the sand, her ears flicking back. “I’m ready for some of them.” She’s courted the possibility of motherhood for a while, and the spotted mare is not some trembling virgin with no idea of how the world truly works, but the men she’s had dalliances with have been ones she’s only known in passing. They met, had their fun for a night or two, and were gone from each other. She didn’t have to worry about the possibility of them coming to call, to bring her somewhere and hold her there, because she never stayed in the same spot for long. It was just… who she was, a mare called on the changing of the winds to pick up her life and chase the next adventure into the horizon. If it was just something inherent to her being, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

But maybe, too, the stories Azaleya shared of her granddam had played a part. Briar, mare of the Inlet, had given her stallion many children before Azaleya, to a man different from her grandsire, and had spent the best years of her life eternally chasing the love and affection and commitment she so desperately wanted, only to never truly get it. It had torn her to pieces, twisted her into a shell of herself, one who hid from the world in dark caverns and saw visions of her long-dead paramour that made her scream with grief. Azaleya understood her mother’s pain as only a daughter who played witness can, and had taken great care not to repeat her mistakes. ”My Çiçek,” she had whispered, so many times, ”you must never settle for one-sided love. Find the one who gives you just as much space in your heart as you save for them.”

Her parents shared that rare kind of bond. Sahin and Azaleya had lost each other so many times, under so many varied circumstances, and yet they always ended up back together. Their love was as deep and wide and endless as the sea separating the mainland from the Isles, and Çiçek wanted that badly for herself. She felt it, that pull, here - with Faolain, and with Rivaini. But she also couldn’t deny how she gravitated to Solomon. As time went on, her draw towards him only grew stronger. It was too much for her to ignore - and truth be told, she didn’t want to ignore it. Her companionship with Faolain and Rivaini was relatively easy, uncomplicated… but he brought so many questions, questions she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to but felt compelled to find out anyway.

Çiçek stops her slow steps, looking into his kind emerald eyes with her own. “But Solomon… if this…” She pauses, attempting to gather up the words in her mind before saying them. “If - if a child takes in me, I -”

Kahretsin. Çiçek’s tail swishes at the frustration building within her. She is used to being open, but being open and being vulnerable are two different things. Çiçek feels like she’s laying her heart on a silver platter, presenting it to him to treasure or devour as he sees fit. Can she trust him? It’s like looking over the edge of a precipice and wondering if he’ll be there, at the bottom, ready to catch her.

The mare steels her resolve, then, and swan dives over the metaphorical edge, hurtling towards whatever fate awaits her below.

“Solomon, my business in the Ridge isn’t finished,” she finally spits out, her words falling from her lips in a quick tumble, as if she doesn’t say them fast enough they’ll turn to ash in her mouth. “My parents and I have always been nomads. We go where the wind calls us. I know you want me to join you permanently, in the Cove, but…” Her eyes shift up to his again, pleading. “I am not the sort to flourish in one spot forever. I need to be able to roam. Faolain and Rivaini understand that.” Did he? Her muzzle presses again to his cheek, nostrils flaring in uncertainty.

“Let me stay here,” she murmurs against his skin, knowing the enormity of what she asks of the golden King. “No matter what happens between us today, let me stay. Give me until Spring, at least, to drink my fill of this place. If the thought of me so far away from you is still unbearable by then, we can revisit our agreement, and I promise to consider whatever it is you might desire from me.” Perhaps by then, she’ll be craving the stability and protection of a large herd, and won’t want to move around so much. Perhaps not. The proposition gives her time, precious and irreplaceable, to experience as much of the Ridge and her guardians as she possibly can, to weigh her options and see if the experience of cushy herd life in the land of her ancestors is enough of a new adventure to draw her fully into his open arms.

Çiçek traces the firm line of his jaw with her nose. Her bright eyes look over him, uncertain, and her heart pounds in her chest harder than it ever has before. She braces herself for his response, knowing her offer is probably not ideal for him. But if they are to work together, as similar - and different - as they are, they are going to have to learn how to compromise. Better to see if they can before a child is thrown into the mix, and her heart is broken into a million tiny pieces.