Sometimes I dream.
Soft words pulled Zevulun’s worried eyes away from the rolling hills of the Prairie where his sons had disappeared to and back to Darshan.
About you.
Zevulun swallowed thickly. Immediately his mind pulled him back to when he had first crossed paths alone with her on the edges of the Forest, in those early days when Balor had welcomed him into his home. In return, Zevulun’s heart had immediately found itself aching in varying ways for each of the three mares who lived here with him. Darshan, her pale eyes brimmed with tears, had made him ache to the bottom of his heart.
About what could have been.
He’d dreamed about that too, even though he shouldn’t have. Barely knowing anything about her, he’d watched her from afar in those early days when Balor was gone and Zevulun was left wanting, watching her and watching Larka. Sometimes he’d thought of approaching her, of trying to pry beneath whatever it was that led her to flee from him in her sorrows and pull her into him. To show her that he had sorrows, too, and he knew how destructive it could be to sit quietly in them.
But it would’ve broken my heart to do that to Balor…
There came the guilt. It was almost second-nature now, always quick to trail after any memory he delved into when he thought of those first few seasons in the Prairie. Zevulun shared the sentiment, his eyes dropping somewhat shamefully down to the grasses below. It was the same reason he still walked the thin line around what he felt for Larka, too. Zevulun could have forcefully kept the Prairie from Balor and taken the three mares he’d started to feel something for, but it wasn’t in his nature to do, and he also couldn’t do something like that to the painted stallion. Even before what had become of him…
Broke my heart anyway, didn’t I? He died because of me.
“No,” he said suddenly, his heart seizing painfully in his chest as his blue eyes snapped to her face. “No, that’s not it.” He knew he should stay his tongue, that Darshan’s mind had been settled and anything he could say wouldn’t sway the thought. Too, the unsettling truth that something was very wrong, that in her final moments on this earth he shouldn’t be prying at something this sensitive… but Zevulun couldn’t help himself.
“Balor made a choice, Darshan.” It was hard to say. Hard to put blame on the dead, particularly when the memory of the skin-and-bones painted stallion, lying still in the shore rose up from where he’d buried it in his mind and made him feel ill. Zevulun swallowed back against the sickness and continued. “I made a choice like that once too - I went looking for a mare I lost, and I abandoned other mares and other children. If I had refused to look after myself, if my health had declined while I searched for her… it would’ve been my fault, not hers.” The tears that rimmed his eyes bubbled over, a streak darkening the pale white of his cheek as it rushed down the smooth plain and dropped to the ground below. “It’s not your fault.” He reiterated, this time with a forceful whisper, lowering his head and stretching his neck to place his lips gently, carefully, on her shoulder. His breath was warm as he sighed it against her skin.
Zevulun wasn’t sure she would accept what he said and he had a distinct, sinking feeling that it was too late. He turned his face away as more tears, half out of sorrow, half out of frustration, rose up. It was then that he saw the approach of Romulus, a stallion he only knew briefly as one who lingered in the Prairie but caused no problems, and Zevulun pulled himself from Darshan to allow the pair a bit of closeness. He might’ve given them the privacy he could afford, but Darshan’s small, weak voice came fervently and named him, and Zevulun immediately snapped his attention back to her.
“Of course, Darshan,” he promised in a quick breath, never once second-guessing the promise. Larka…His heart sank. Since he had known her she had lost Balor, and now…
Now it was becoming more apparent than before that this was not just the general pains of a difficult childbirth. Darshan had come to accept the way the events were going to turn in a way he wasn’t fully ready to accept himself. He cast one worried look at Romulus, then turned to search the horizon almost desperately for the appearance of Larka.
The silvery mare with deep, dark contrasting points appeared, and Zevulun held still where he was, allowing her to approach Darshan without being interrupted. He had wanted to charge up to her immediately, to tell her how sorry he was, to tell her he was going to be here for her through everything, through all of it. He’d set aside the faint prickle of jealousy he had been feeling as her sides swelled with a foal that wasn’t his. None of it mattered. What mattered was her, and that despite how confusing their relationship may be, Zevulun loved her. He could love her as a friend, even if his heart ached to have her for more.
He bent his neck, watching as she approached Darshan, then looked forward at Ramiel and Jasper, hovering worriedly on the fray of the small gathering. Zevulun turned his ears back and stomped a few steps forward, pointedly telling them to leave. Darshan didn’t need an audience at this moment and they had done what he’d asked of them. Ramiel and Jasper hovered only a moment longer, then turned and trotted off, doing as their father had wordlessly bade.
Despite Romulus being here and Larka too, Zevulun chose to stay. He moved a small distance away to give the pair of mares some semblance of privacy, but remained close in case they needed him for anything. His worried eyes drew back on occasion to the pair of them and eventually as time passed the birth began, and he lingered at the edges, half observing them with careful eyes and half making certain there were no predators lurking in the grasses, curious at the smells and thinking they might come close for an easy meal.
The slick, sliding sound of new life coming into this world was a quick sound, despite the build-up that led to the moment. Zevulun caught the rushed, low, tired words of Darshan - not that he could hear exactly what she said, just that she had spoken - then glanced over and noticed how still she’d gone. A lump rose in his throat, tightening it, and Zevulun had to look away as new tears stung in his eyes and blurred the sight before him. This isn’t fair. Life. The tragic ending. The new beginning.
Zevulun swallowed back and, after a few moments allowing Larka to process, he quietly stepped closer, dropping his pale nose to gently brush her silvery gray skin. “I’m so sorry, Larka.” He breathed the warm words quietly against her, for her, and he wished there was more he could say and more he could do. His pale blue eyes lifted to the squirming, still-wet foal, and in the same breath that he felt sorrow for the loss this babe knew before it could even process such, Zevulun felt a fierce protectiveness too. Between himself, Larka, and the foal’s father, she would be safe and well looked after. It was the one thing he could promise to Darshan, even as she lay still and going cold among the Prairie grasses.
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