Solomon is desperate for her to accept Finch, even if it means that he will be in their debt. He cannot bring the girl home, and there aren't many options available to him. Wren wanted her daughter well-away from Tinuvel, in a place where she would not have to see her or hear her or smell her; which meant that he had to look outward. However, he had no desire to subject the girl to Rougaru after learning what he had done. Which meant that the Ridge was really the only viable option, unless he was willing to turn his gaze to unknown herds.

Beneath him, the waif-like filly gathers her courage enough to say hello and he offers a smile that trembles across his lips, even as his gaze rests laser-like on the painted mare. He is so focused on Rivaini - reading the micro-expressions that cross her face - that he doesn't immediately notice the movement to the side. A part of him childishly believes that if he just focuses hard enough, she will understand how important this is to him and therefore give in to the needy infant.

But he can't ignore Cicek forever. Not when she glows beneath the tropical sun like a beacon that demands his attention. Her presence pulls him away from the conversation he is in as if forcibly orienting him to true North and he turns, muddled and confused as to why at first. He has gone without her for so long that his mind rejects her presence as yet another wishful dream, a figment his nightmares and imagination have banded together to create as a new way to torment him.

He stares at her silently, time having stopped the moment she spoke his name. He had hoped for this very moment for so many long months that having it here - within his reach - was both surreal and a little terrifying. He was afraid that one wrong movement would send her away from him again, back into the depths of the jungle, never to be seen again.

"Cicek," he finally manages to say her name, his voice breathless and light. The lean tobiano turns to her then, stepping around the tiny figure of Finch to orient toward his lost love. He has not forgotten the filly that he has brought with him, nor has he forgotten his desperate hope that Rivaini will take care of her, but his original problem seems far away and distant in the face of this reunion.

When the small figure emerges from the verdant jungle, Solomon's green gaze lingers on him for only a brief moment. In the context of the scene - having already noticed that Rivaini's child was absent, and that the infant bore the same flaxen wisp of mane as the Ridge matriarch - he does not know that he is looking at Cicek's infant. In truth, he makes the easier (and less heartbreaking) assumption that the child is Rivaini's, and that Cicek was only watching them while the Queen dealt with an intruder.

The silver mare's voice was distant, and the words were slow to register in his mind as he stared at the golden mare across from him. It took them longer to make sense in his brain than usual, and even then, only left more questions in their wake. But Solomon, she'd said, but what? I'm sorry, she'd claimed, but not explained what she was sorry for. By the time he realizes that this was not a beautiful three-way reunion as he'd thought, that she and Cicek had been together now for some time - Riv (and presumably Finch) was gone, leaving Solomon alone with Cicek and the chocolate-colored infant.

Irritation spirals in his mind, spurred on by the thought of Rivaini keeping her presence a secret from him, but he tries to quell it. To ignore how mad he was that when she - his Cicek, his gem, his beautiful, lost, sweet mare - finally resurfaced, it was here and not the Cove. That she sought the company of the beautiful Ridge women, next door to the man who had abducted her, rather than returning home to their son, or to him. His throat constricts in a tight swallow and he finds that he doesn't even know what to say.

Half of him wants to rant and rave at her for leaving, for allowing herself to be swindled by the Paradisian King, even if she had been feverish and unwell at the time. This same part of him wants to blame her for staying away for so long, and to demand that she return to the Cove. That she be the one to face down Sevket and explain to him why she had abandoned them both. For Solomon, it was bad enough that she had been coaxed away, but his real problem, the real betrayal, was that she had stayed away. She had chosen, willingly chosen, to allow him to suffer for months upon months and he wasn't sure if he could forgive her.

Still, the other half of him is just so profoundly grateful to see her again, and to know that she was alive and well (to the naked eye), that he can't bring himself to say or do anything but stare.

OOC: There was going to be more to this, but since this is A) extremely overdue and B) not likely to continue, I just ended my reply here.

Solomon