The sun hadn’t yet risen over Luthien’s borders when the pale, spotted stallion stirred from where he’d been dozing. Though he should turn inland and make one of his few daily checks of the Prairie border, he instead made his way toward the beach. He did not stop until the soft waves curling and hitting the shore filled his ears and every intake of breath tasted of saltwater. Only then did he pause, looking out into the vast waters and thinking of what lie ahead.
The place he’d been avoiding, but couldn’t avoid forever.
Tinuvel.
The Bay.
Home.
Zevulun drew a breath to settle the nerves that suddenly crept into his belly and exhaled slow. He had promised his sons he would take them, as well as his grandson, but he knew the first time he saw the Bay it needed to be when he was alone. His twins had barely been a year old when they left the Bay years ago, and though he knew they remembered it fondly - Ramiel more than Raziel, it would seem - it was important to Zevulun to see it alone, first. If he would be permitted by whoever led it now, he wanted to climb the narrow path up into the mountains to find the small, private cave he and Avalon had spent their winters in. He wanted to ask, even though he knew he shouldn’t, if they knew whether or not she’d ever come back. What if she was there, now? Assuming he was long gone?
Would you stop obsessing over her, Zevulun? She left you! She left Ramiel, she left Raziel. Just like your mother. Just like my mother. Just like Maziel’s mother. Our blood is cursed, we don’t get to have mother’s. One way or another, they abandoned us. It’s father’s fault. It’s because of how he was created.
Though the echoed words in his memory were years and years old, they still stung enough to make his blue eyes water. He closed his eyelids right and willed the tears away, taking a breath to steady himself. He’d sworn he wouldn’t miss what was right in front of him anymore while looking for Avalon, but he couldn’t help it. What harm was one day? One day for him to just see if fate could deliver her to him again? If it couldn’t, he could say a final goodbye to her memory in that cave and try honestly to move on from there. The boys wouldn’t understand. Their relationship with their dam was… complicated.
Zevulun glanced over his shoulder toward the Prairie, still steeped in a peaceful slumber. No, he wouldn’t take them or let them know he was going there. Not yet. He needed to see the Bay on his own.
———
The swim from Tinuvel to the Bay was a long one, the sun already haven risen at least an hour or two prior to when he finally stepped up onto the familiar beach. His heart squeezed and he stood still, the cold waves still lapping at his fetlocks as he looked up the beach into the territory he’d been born and raised in. Zevulun was struck speechless by how much it hadn’t changed. He could have sworn if he lifted his muzzle and called out, Mariael was going to answer him from somewhere inland.
But she wasn’t… she wasn’t here.
She was never going to be here again.
He stood still in the shallow tide on the beach, wet tail wrapped around his back legs and mane stuck to his neck. Water dropped off his cream white body and gently tapped the white-frothed seawater swirling around his legs. His ice-blue eyes stared inland, entranced. He was almost afraid to breathe, afraid to move. He’d made it this far… dare he step any further?
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