Any lingering hope he'd had that this was an extremely vivid dream fled the moment he registered the horror in her eyes, and he felt immediately chagrined that he had disturbed her peace. Clearly there had been a reason for her distance, and in pressing the issue here and now, he was only exacerbating whatever problem there had been between them. Still, he cannot help but allow his gaze to shutter closed at the familiar warmth of her breath mingling with his own, nor can he stifle the pang of longing that grips him.
His place was at her side, not standing before her like a boy asking his crush to a dance. They had been through this awkward stage once before, and to return to it now disheartened him more than he cared to admit. It was almost as if everything that they had shared, both good moments and bad, had been rendered obsolete. The whole feeling was so strange that he felt off-kilter, like a child just learning how to stand.
How did he even begin to fix this?
That's a complicated question, she replied evasively, neatly dodging his question about how she had been. It raised suspicious questions in his mind about where she'd been or with whom, but he shelves them. It was no longer - if it had ever been - his place to control her life or demand her loyalty. If she had left him for another herd, and found herself a stallion that made her happy, how could he complain about that if the alternative was that she was stuck in the Cove and miserable?
He smiles faintly at her praise, but sobers again at her question. The Cove was… well, the Cove was in mourning for the bright-eyed girl that had been lost, but to say that now was hardly inviting. And while he desperately wanted her to be happy with whatever new venture she was wrapped up in, he would be unable to live with himself if he didn't make sure that Tavas knew she would always be welcome at home in the Cove.
"It's alright," he murmured, the half-truth bitter on his tongue. The Cove would be fine, in time, but it needed time to grieve, even if the only ones truly grieving were he and Ysabel.
"A lot of things have changed since you were there last." The last time he'd seen Tavas, Warsaw had only just managed to regain the Inlet from the hands of Bjorn the first time, and then fairly quickly succumbed to old age. Since then, Ironclad had lost the Inlet to Bjorn again, and the Arch had passed through the hands of Aranck to Xiomara and then finally to Suleiman and Gavriel.
"I'm sure Lyrae would be glad to see you, if you felt like coming home for a visit."
He caught himself with a sad little chuckle.
"I know you may have… something else now, Tavas. But the Cove will always be open to you." Clearing his throat, and doing his best not to linger too heavily on the implication of what
other things she might have, Solomon attempts to open up a new avenue for their conversation.
"Have you been back for long?"
Stallion | Dutch Harness Horse Mutt | Champagne Grullo Tobiano | 17 Hands | The Cove