He loved them both. Seeing Feray here, nursing and caring for and loving a child of their shared blood was fulfilling in a way that he could not put into words. He knew, objectively, that this was by no means was a happy ending. She was torn between worlds, her heart still somehow clinging to the diminutive Badlands stallion and the familiarity he offered. Solomon did not need to look farther than the way that she had made her place here in the Forest, rather than in the Cove or the Badlands. Even as she seemed to recognize that a new path had opened before her, she seemed afraid to take those next steps.

And yet, even so, he couldn't help but feel as though their future was a thousand times brighter than it had ever been before.

He need only to feel the brush of her lips along the aristocratic lines of his own face to be reassured that he was not imagining this. No matter how much she had tried to deny it in the past, there was something between them that transcended simple explanation. His green eyes crinkle warmly as he smiles, and he tears his gaze away from their bright daughter and back to her beautiful mother. Solomon is not the slightest bit surprised to hear that Feray had taken on the task raising of another filly, although a part of him wonders if it was just an attempt to soothe the broken edges of her heart. What better way to avoid the things that hurt most? Had he not done the same, burying his grief of Uriah beneath the joys of the other children that spring? Slipping his pain over losing Sabriel to the spotted stallion beneath the joy that he felt watching the twins grow?

As soon as their daughter leaves, the mood once more grows tense, and he can feel the words gathering in her mind. Solomon does not seek to interrupt her, but he does shift closer, aligning his body once more to her side. The quiet before she begins feels like a gathering storm, the distant clouds racing closer with no way to stop them or mitigate the damage. He does not yet know if it will be a deluge or a shower, but he can sense that whatever thoughts gather behind her beautiful eyes are important, and so he does not break the quiet.

She begins by acknowledging the self-same pull that orients him back to her. The one that makes him want to reach across the distance that separates them even now and pull her against him in the hopes of soothing away her fears and doubts with his steady presence. It is the same pull that drove him to the Badlands so many months ago, in the hopes of getting her away from the dusty land and from the stallion that ruled it. He had handled it clumsily, as awkward with his emotions then as he had been with most things at the time, a mere stumbling colt trying to navigate the twists and turns of a life without the rules he had grown up with. Everything he had ever learned about the relationships between mares and stallions and the power structures he had grown to rely on had been dismantled upon arrival, leaving him to rebuild everything he knew. Even their meeting on the Crossing had been fraught with mistakes on his part, although they had resulted in something breathtakingly beautiful.

Still, the words build behind her eyes, even as she gathers her breath and he remains quiet save for a gentle brush of encouragement on her shoulder. When they come again, they are less of an admission of their relationship and more of a litany of fears and doubts that linger in her mind, and his heart breaks a little for her.

Is it wise for me to take them to him? No, he thinks, but the thought is selfish in nature. If he could have his way, Roheryn would never see what was not his. It was not that he believed that Roheryn would do the foals any harm - Solomon didn't think he was dark enough for infanticide, even if he did believe the pale stallion had more than a few screws loose - rather a general distaste for the thought of Roheryn touching his daughter. Ultimately, he simply did not want to share Esme with the man he considered an enemy. She goes further, and with each word that she speaks, Solomon comes to understand her a little more. He had known from her hiding away that she had felt guilty, but he had not truly understood the scope of her pain until the words spilled out.

It is humbling to listen to the Queen he has always known as a fierce and unwavering defender be brought so low by her own self-doubt, and his ears tip back as she continues to heap hatred on her own shoulders. The mere thought of Roheryn going so far as to spit in her face has the hackles along his back rising and his jaw clenches, molars grinding together as he fights to subdue a more vehement answer. "You don't," he says firmly, his gaze glittering with the depth of his conviction. She deserved such treatment no more than Sabriel would have deserved it. Hearts were malleable, made to bend and break and grow and shrink; the love that swelled within was not a constant. If it were, Solomon would have never been able to sway Wren back into his fold, or to convince Sabriel to forgive him after what he had done.

If anyone deserved censure here, it was him, and he knew it.

Her tone lowers again, and he listens quietly, but the fury from moments earlier has not fully abated. He lifts his muzzle to rest it against her withers, breathing in the soft sweet scent of her as a way to ground himself in the present. Again, she offers an admission of her feelings and he draws in a breath of surprise, muffled by the mahogany strands of her mane. This - more than the fact that he was islands away from the stallion he would very much like to crush - helps to tether him to the moment and he withdraws from her side to press another affectionate caress to her cheek.

"No," he says again firmly. "You are not alone."

But he doesn't elaborate or push, sensing that there were more words waiting to come out. What she says next has his lips curling into a smile, although he would freely admit that her reliance on the two mares was in a way, its own small blow. Solomon knew that she didn't have much of a reason to trust him. After all, he was a stallion, and he had clashed with Roheryn more often than he had ever attempted to make peace. She would have no reason to assume that he could forgive such a large part of her heart for feelings she could not change, or that he might bend enough to allow her to travel between the herds.

Solomon knew that if he made her choose, if he drew that hard line now, the odds were not in his favor. Even with her admission, and with the fact that she had stayed away from Roheryn for so long, he knew that if he forced her hand now, he would lose her to the Badlands. To home and family and familiarity. Solomon had always known that if she did not come to him on her own, she wouldn't stay, and so it is with a heavy heart that he makes his decision. He could not force her to stay, and he would not dishonor her by pretending that he could.

Putting it aside for the moment, he decides to deal with her last statement first, hoping that it will tip the scales back in his direction. With a wry smile, he chuckles and pulls away enough to speak. The thought of losing Feray to Xiomara wasn't preferable either, but at least she would be on the same island, and he would have a chance of pleading his case and showing her that he was different, and that life in the Cove was even more so. "I don't know about Nzingha," he says warmly, wondering offhandedly where the unique spirit-obsessed mare had ended up. She had warned that something was coming, but so many somethings had happened since then he wasn't sure which one had been the calamity she had predicted. "But I know where you can find Xiomara."

Xiomara's presence on Tinuvel was likely going to shake things up, considering her past relationship with Ironclad and the fact that she had disappeared from the Shore without a trace months ago. Solomon was still waiting for that particular bomb to drop and for the aftermath to ripple across the islands, but he was happy to have an ally in the Arch again. It meant that Tinuvel was once more as safe as it was going to be. "She's my neighbor and ally now, in the Arch."

His gaze rises to try and meet hers again, once more solemn. Solomon sighs softly before speaking, his tones measured and careful. "As for the rest, you aren't alone, Feray. Even if my only option is to stay in the Cove and dream about you and our daughters, I'll do it to make you happy." Despite the seriousness of the situation, he does what he can to lighten it, allowing a slow smile to curl on his lips. He didn't want to detract from their conversation, but the depths of the self-loathing in her tone only moments ago made him worried. He knew what it was to be lost in that quagmire and would do what he could to lift her from it. "I won't like it, but I'll do it."

He sobers again after a moment, his lips pressing together as he tries to find a way to phrase what must come next. Solomon speaks slowly and deliberately again, carefully selecting his words. "If you truly fear that he means you or Esmeray or Aysu any harm," he says intentionally, his eyes glittering with purpose and suppressed anger. "Then don't go back. Or at the very least, let me go with you to remind him that he's not the only one that gives a damn about you. If he can't forgive you or-" Solomon pauses, thinking of his own struggle with Sabriel and the pain that lingered from the choices she'd made. He had struggled for so long to understand how she could still be so torn between them, and how he had finally begun to understand that to have Sabriel at all, meant to accept all parts of her, just as he must do for Feray now. Resolve fills him again and he continues, more sure of the words that slip from his lips now. "Or if he cannot learn to live with it, then he doesn't deserve you."

Only then does he sidle closer, sliding the soft skin of his muzzle along her mottled coat so that he can whisper in her ear, his tone once more husky and intimate. "And more importantly," he says again, smiling in spite of himself, "I love you too."

Solomon