While Zevulun had sired many children who’d never so much as met him, he had been the only parent Ramiel and Raziel had. That was probably what’d softened him as he spoke with Frey. Iit had been years since he’d raised a child and it was an experience he loved almost as much as he did the women who accepted his flirtatious advances. Walking with the young colt made him feel his age, though not in a negative way.
“Appreciate that,” he nodded his head and murmured as the colt assured them they didn’t have to stay in the Lagoon, he only wanted to see them into safe shelter.
He had expected the next question to come, and though he’d rehearsed over and over again what he might say as they made the trek from the Mainland to the islands, he still found himself momentarily stalling. For a second the only noise was their hooves crunching on the frigid ground, the winds kicking up in the leaf-stripped trees, and their white clouds of warm breath huffing from their noses.
“I was born here, as were my sons.” He admitted, glanced back at them, then looked toward Frey again. “Well, not here, but on Tinuvel in the Bay.”
He tried to ignore that ache inside his heart that stung with bitter cold much like the winter winds of his birth home. He was still fighting with himself, whether or not they would go back to the Bay. Could he stomach the sight of it without his sister as he knew her to be? Could he stand there and accept their absence had given another family, a new bloodline, the rights to establish a legacy there?
Zevulun didn’t want to do anything rash. He wasn’t certain he had any interest in leading a herd of his own and feared his emotions getting the better of him if he walked his homeland again. Still, he’d promised the boys they’d go back, even for a visit…
Frey asked him of the world beyond and Zevulun bobbed his head in an agreeable nod. “It’s…” He tried to think of the way the Mainland had felt when he, a colt born to the isles, had walked its land. “Overwhelming.” He chuckled softly. “Also, very exciting. It’s different than here. We’re so… concentrated. Something someone does on Salem could affect someone on Tinuvel. The ripples can tap the islands and the inhabitants scattered throughout them. Over there?” Zevulun paused and his pale blue eyes glanced at trees they passed as though he could see through them and to the water that separated the islands from the mainlands.
His eyes slid back to his present company.
“Something could happen to you that could change your whole life, and you’d walk for a day and no one would have a clue.” Zevulun shrugged. “There are pockets of places to make a life, but there will always be a part of you that thinks about this place. Wonders how everyone you knew is doing, or if someone who went missing had returned and is waiting for you to come back.” He trailed off slightly.
“Well, yeah,” Ramiel spoke up with a frown, “but it’s also full of adventure. It just goes on and on, you can find all kinds of new places and horses with neat, different stories…”
Zevulun smiled as he looked over at his son and nodded, sighing as he glanced back at Frey. “Apparently I’ve become a buzzkill in my old age,” he cracked a grin. He was barely halfway through his life and still had plenty left to live. “Ramiel’s right. It’s full of opportunities and new chances that can be very fun to explore, should you ever think you might want to leave the islands and learn beyond them.”
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