He hated leaving them. It felt as if he had carved out a part of his heart and left it lying on the Badland's floor to die beneath the overbearing sun. To escort Feray and the girls back had been hard enough, but watching them interact with Roheryn had been a pain of a different sort.

To see him interact with Feray and the girls had distilled the dislike he harbored for the diminutive Badland's King into something much more viscous and vile. To hear Feray cave to his demands for time with them - to accept that Roheryn would be the one to raise his daughters - had been excruciating. It had taken every ounce of his self-control to walk away from that wasteland of a territory knowing that he could not keep them safe any longer. That he could not force Feray to be his in the way that he wanted her to be. He needed her to come to the realization herself, and while he hoped desperately that she would see that she was worth someone stronger than Roheryn, he could not change her mind for her.

For Feray's sake, he had to walk away. He had already caused enough heartache and strife in her life. But that did not mean he had to do so happily.

Solomon threw himself into the swim back towards the Cove, desperate for the mindless release of intense exercise. If he could just lose himself into the rhythmic motion of swimming, he had hoped that it would lessen the sharp edges of his grief and anger. Instead, it seemed to provide further fuel to his anxiety. Memories of her worry over what Roheryn's reaction would be made him nervous as to what the pale stallion would do when there were no longer an outside pair of eyes to supervise.

What if he did decide to take it out on Feray? Would she come to him near-death by starvation as Nadja once had? Granted, Feray knew the Badlands far better than his sweet roan girl had, but she was also nursing twins and firmly beneath the hoof of a stallion that seemed unable to accept that her heart could be split in two. Perhaps he would demand retribution of her in other ways. Considering they were in the midst of Fall, Solomon could not remove the thought that Roheryn might force himself on his glass-faced girl - whether by guilt or otherwise - to replace the children he felt he'd lost. Worse still, what if he was darker than Solomon expected and took his frustrations out physically on those three precious girls?

His doubts grew so large that he diverted his course from the Crossing to angle towards Luthien instead. Solomon knew that he could not be there to protect her, but he had also learned that he was not the only one that cared for her wellbeing either. Feray had spoken of her family here during their trip together, and of why she had chosen the Forest out of all possible place. He knew that Evren and Persephone owed him no allegiance, but he hoped that he could convince them to at least look in on her while he could not. To protect her in the ways that he was not able to.

Solomon washed ashore near where they had departed, their hoof tracks beneath the trees not yet fully erased by the passage of time. Briefly, he lowered his muzzle to one of them, and promised himself that he would rescue them just as soon as he was able… if Feray even wanted him by then. His gaze rose from the tracks to the interior of the land where he had not yet traveled. His time in the Forest had been brief, just long enough to greet Feray and meet the girls, so the interior of the land remained a mystery to him. Somewhere in there, he knew, was a whole herd he had not met with a pair of mare leaders, not unlike Faolain and Rivaini. Solomon had always meant to come and meet his Luthien neighbors, but there had always been one crisis or another that had prevented him from taking such a trip. And now, a separate crisis had brought him here.

Nervous and restless energy carried him a few steps into the land, seemingly unaltered by the relentless traveling he'd undergone lately. His fear for the girls kept him on edge and the exhaustion at bay, but he tried to put both aside to focus on the moment. He had never met the Forest Queens, and was not entirely sure what to expect. Solomon was careful to keep the shoreline visible in case Evren was adverse to visitors, regardless of their cause. Lifting his head, he called out for the tobiano mare and then lapsed into silence, his gaze watchful.

Solomon