Before she’s even done speaking, Çiçek can tell her words have hurt more than she expected them to. She watches, her heart dropping out of her chest, as Solomon shudders at her suggestions, his head lowering out of her reach to graze the damp sand below. Long moments pass as she waits for him to think, fighting to restrain herself from filling the silence with sweet reassurances. It won’t do either of them any good for her to soften the blow she has dealt him; her wants are her wants, and she won’t budge on them. Solomon is stronger than her, yes, and could easily overpower her in this moment, take what he wants and force her to the Cove with him. But she has the ultimate advantage here, held in the form of the two powerful, fiercely protective mares just around the bend who will notice her absence and come, hooves and teeth at the ready, to rescue her.

After what feels like an eternity, he lifts his head to look at her again. She meets his stare head-on, one ear flicking to the side, unsure. And when he speaks, her eyes harden, just a bit. Hadn’t he trusted Faolain to keep her safe, back in the Meadow, when he’d abruptly left them to their own devices without a second thought? Why did he leave her with the black mare if he didn’t feel confident in her abilities? She wasn’t so important to him then that she needed his supervision, so what was different now? And why hadn’t he fought for her more back then if he cared about her so much? Didn’t he trust Çiçek’s own instincts? Solomon isn’t the only one now wondering about the effect of the season on their attachments to each other.

But, she recalls, as he brushes her forelock out of her face and she dips her poll to lean into his gentle caress, foals hadn’t been a possibility back then. It’s one thing to let go of a mare when they’re nothing more than a passing acquaintance, however attracted to them you might be. It’s another thing entirely, she supposes, with children thrown in the middle of it. The palomino remembers her dam’s tales of Larkspur, her golden, brindle-striped older brother, left in Briar’s care while Azaleya went to look for his sire and bring the three of them together. Her parents never said as much, but Çiçek couldn’t help but wonder at times if she was their chance at a do-over, a child they could raise together, without the pain and trauma of years of forced separation.

Çiçek knows Solomon is an established herd stallion, with many children already. She can’t be sure he’ll have the same amount of time to devote to their child as her father had for her. No matter how much she craves the feel of him, no matter how much, even, she likes this pale King with his many charms and promises, her family’s mistakes always linger in the back of her mind, and she has to do what she can to prevent history from repeating. Above all things, she wants to do right by her loved ones, Faolain and Rivaini and now, maybe, Solomon, and the being that threatens to grow within her if they dare to take that risk.

And yet...

Çiçek’s gaze falls from his face to the sand once more. Sadness starts to fall over her as the silence drags between them, brimming with heavily-charged emotion, and she is preparing herself for total rejection when his deep voice fills her ears. The petal-studded mare listens, angling her face hungrily into his nose as it brushes along her cheek, and dips her neck so that she can tuck herself back in the spot where his neck meets his jaw. The solution he proposes isn’t perfect for her, but neither, she admits, was her initial offer to him. If she did become pregnant, and gave birth in Spring, would the child be strong enough to make the swim? She knows her friends here are capable, but she cannot, will not, leave it here and go galavanting off to Tinuvel alone, and truth be told, if Solomon was this protective over the possibility of a foal, she didn’t think he would let her. But would he let her leave, come Fall, if that was what she truly wanted? Would he be strong enough to let her go and trust in the bonds they held that would one day bring her running gladly back?

Only one way to find out.

She removes herself from her spot against his chest, pensive. His touch upon her shoulder breaks her out of her reverie, the press of his muzzle still so hot upon her skin she was amazed it didn’t burn right through her, and she smiles. Warmth returns to her amber eyes; the tension in her voice is gone, replaced with her usual feminine mirth. “Don’t you remember what I said earlier, kralım?” she asks, following the line of his jaw with her nose up and into his mane. “Just as your heart has space to hold all of your mares, so does mine for the three of you, and more.”

Çiçek walks her muzzle down the length of his neck, lingering at the point of his withers. “I will come. When the weather turns and the water is safe to cross, I will come, and you can show me all of the pretty little arctic flowers I have missed during the winter months. And then, in autumn…” She crushes her barrel to his, relinquishing her last bits of control over herself. “We will revisit our arrangement.”

The mare withdraws her touch from along his back. She pulls away, just enough to meet his emerald eyes with her own, the embers from before flickering back into flames, then a towering inferno. Çiçek brings her pink lips to his, nostrils flaring, her voice husky with renewed desire and the promise of so many things to come.

“Deal?”