Again and again she lashed out at him, wounding him with the truth of her words. She might as well have been his father, given her clear hatred of the Lagoon. Rehoboam had no doubt that if Solomon ever learned of his residence here that he would chastise and berate his son in the same manner, if not disown him entirely. It was all too easy to imagine his face contorted in rage, snarling the same words that Shenzi did.

He swallowed and froze beneath her onslaught, his muscles growing tight in an attempt to conceal the quiver that ran through his core. Who the hell do you think you are echoed in his mind, fed by his own insecurities and fears. In truth, this whole scenario was only making it more clear that he didn't know who he was. The old him would have done whatever he could to ensure her freedom, no matter the risk, and yet he'd stopped her from leaving twice now. Even if he told himself that it wasn't true. Even if he explained away his interference in both scenarios with good intentions and loopholes for escape, the basic fact was that he had been the one to stop her from leaving.

Not once, but twice.

The raw sound of her voice yanked him back to the present, and his glassy gaze focused back on her with lips that were pulled into a tight frown. I could have abandoned him, but I didn’t. Her words strike at the very crux of the issue without her even knowing that it was the heart of the issue. He flinched back as if the sleek brown-black mare had transformed into the black mother of his dreams and a soft sob of helpless grief worded its way up his throat before he could stop it entirely.

But still I chose him.

Even this mare. This mare of violence and snarls and unreasonable demands had still chosen her son. Had opted to stay and love him and raise him, even in the face of a life in the Lagoon.

Even this mare had chosen her son… but Keres hadn't chosen him.

In front of him, the brown mare seemed to suddenly realize he had all but wilted in the face of this painful realization and he watched with mounting horror as she lunged at him. Unable to run, unable to fight, unable to reconcile this moment with the versions of past and present that tangled together in his mind, making the hypothetical what-ifs bleed into this moment.

Would Keres have hated him too?

Before he could react, belatedly, frozen like a child who knew what was coming but not how to stop it, Azizi was charging in between them, shouldering his mother's attack like a Knight in gleaming armor. Wide-eyed, Rehoboam watched as Shenzi's jaws gaped only to close down on the boy's ear. The perfect silence that followed was broken first by Rehoboam's jagged gasp of surprise, and then by the exchange between mother and son.

The words were not as hostile as her actions, but they were not kind either and he felt guilty, so guilty for not moving soon enough to stop her that he jumped woodenly into action far too late. Ears pinned, eyes white-rimmed he charges forward with teeth bared, going through the motions of shoving forward to try and protect the boy. Already she was backing away, mumbling words to herself that did not make it through the foggy veil of shock in his mind.

And then, she turned.

She'd claimed to love him. Claimed to stay for him. Claimed to want to protect him. And yet he'd watched with her own eyes as she'd reached out blindly to attack her own son. And now she was leaving… just like his mother had.

Indecision froze him in place. He knew that he should go after her, that she needed to be punished for the blood streaming down the boy's face and for the emotional pain reflecting his soft brown eyes, but he also couldn't bear to leave the kid there. Hadn't he sworn to protect him too? To make sure that - in demanding he stay in the Lagoon - that he'd be safe?

Did he choose to go after the mare, the mother that was not his own but might as well have been? Or did he choose the version of himself that he saw in Azizi? The broken and bleeding boy whose heart was chasing after the mother that had left him behind?

In the end, the choice made itself.

Keres wasn't coming back. But Azizi was here. Azizi needed him.

And so he turned, throat tight, sides quivering, and extended his muzzle toward the boy with grief gleaming in the tears in his eyes. "Are you okay?" And then, almost more to himself than the brown colt before him, "it's going to be okay."

"We're going to be okay."