Zevulun tried not to show his disappointment when Persephone told him Freya had been long gone from the Forest. He wondered if he should ask if she’d gotten pregnant, all those years ago. After promising to be a stand-in father for her son he couldn’t help but feel ashamed at leaving her after their romantic tryst and never coming by later on to see if anything had come of their coupling.
Instead of asking her, Zevulun let it be a mystery that may never be answered. It was obvious the memory of a friend long gone was a hard one for them both and there were plenty of other things to discuss.
“I figured it was a long shot, asking after her. But it would have been nice to see her again.” He smiled gently and felt through both the warmth and pain he felt at remembering his long-gone friend. “And I don’t mind you asking,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m sure I do bring up a lot of memories.” Zevulun nodded. “I have to admit, I was happy once I realized you were still leading here. It’s nice to come back and see something somewhat familiar, even if we’ve both gotten a bit older.” He gave her a playful wink.
It was hard not to tell Persephone everything. She was a small familiar tie to the sister he’d lost when they’d left these islands and the first he’d had in ages. He wanted to tell her how Mariael had changed, the husk of a thing she’d become. He wanted to share with someone how badly his heart ached, broken and missing his proud sister who claimed herself Tinuvel’s monarch and marched boldly through the Bay. He wanted to cry about the fact that he’d never see that again and the closest he could have was coming back to these islands himself.
But, it wasn’t her duty to shoulder the family drama that had driven them from Tinuvel and the islands themselves. She’d had plenty of her own, Zevulun remembered the last time they’d briefly visited when they’d been told of the war that’d just occured.
“I missed it. These islands. The way life is here.” He admitted. “I let myself get too distracted for too long about someone I lost and stopped focusing on what could be. I needed to come back to the present and stop lingering in the past.” He shifted his weight, doing his best to give somewhat of a shrug. “I feel like I wasted a lot of years away from these islands beating myself up for what could have been. It’s time I took matters into my own control and made it happen.”
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