Evrain comes to Rafe, tells him that Claret is free. Riesling isn’t exactly thrilled that her young nephew didn’t bring her daughter back to the Prairie via the Badlands, but she can also understand. It isn’t as if he knew she was still here waiting for her daughter, and ultimately Zevulun is the only one with the power to make the death Evrain’s mother worthwhile. He may be kind, but he is still Rafe’s son - only an idiot would return Claret without pressing Zevulun into an alliance in return.

She and Rafe depart the Badlands on a mild day, and split not long into their entrance into the Prairie. Rafe caught a scent on the wind, some mare and yearling he was insistent on investigating. Riesling was far more concerned with finding Claret. But after two hours of fruitless searching (and suddenly she understands how her sweet, innocent little daughter was able to survive in the Hills for so long) she gives up. Zevulun is a much easier target, and undoubtedly he will know where their daughter is secreting herself these days.

Riesling doubles back, trails along all of Zevulun’s usual haunts and finally comes across him speaking with a heavily-pregnant mare with a leggy cream colt at her side. Riesling hesitates - usually, she wouldn’t subject herself to the attention of the rest of Zevulun’s herd, unwilling to watch his love-sick expression and the fawning he undoubtedly showers over mares more receptive (lord knows her tries to bite it back with Riesling, but the look in his eyes is ever-too-obvious). But she wants her daughter more than she wants to be undisturbed, so she pins her ears and resigns herself to a miserable interaction to get what she wants.

Only as she draws close and the mare moves does Riesling catch sight of the white in her black coat, and freeze. Surely she is mistaken - there is no way Daire is here, is there? A world away, an ocean apart from their home and she finds not one but two of her own blood? Riesling moves forward briskly, tension and anger in every line of her body.
Her worst fears come true - this is Daire. Riesling glances between the creamy colt at her mother’s side, and the eerily similar form of Zevulun next to her, her golden gaze then raking over Daire’s swollen sides. Her mind is a blank scream, horror and disgust twinning within her. Only muscle memory keeps her from freezing entirely, only rage keeps her moving until she stands at Zevulun’s side, facing the pair ahead of them.

As always, anger wins out over whatever else Riesling may be feeling.

“I leave you alone for a few seasons to recover our daughter that you allowed to be stolen,” Riesling hisses, turning to Zevulun with hate in her sharp golden eyes, “To find you’ve knocked up my mother?”. She whirls then, head arched high as she glares at the brindled form of her mother, warring feelings inside of her. Daire had birthed her, had imprinted all of this rage and pain and vitriol on her but Akita is who she will always consider her mom. The one she would die for, has bled and suffered for. The one who let her come up at Rafe’s side, never made her feel less even given the bad blood between the two older mares.

Still - seeing Daire causes something to ache inside of her. There is a resemblance to Claret, in the lean, leggy form and the black and white marred coat that makes a part of Riesling rage that she did not get to have such a relationship with her mother, that she never had the chance to tell her eldest daughter stories of just how she echoes her grandmother.

Desperately, Riesling glances back over her shoulder to where she parted from Rafe. There’s no reason she has to stay here - Claret will be safe in the Prairie, with the bay stallion in the Hills no longer a threat. Perhaps…perhaps it is time she acted on her near-constant urge to leave Zevulun behind. She cannot bear the pain, cannot watch history repeat itself (and how like Akita she now stands, to let her own family be ripped apart by the wandering eye and amorous attentions of Daire - history repeats itself, chosen mother to daughter). But she cannot leave without at least showing Claret she came for her, without checking to make sure her precious child is whole and recovering.

Riesling hesitates for a moment, torn between the warring desires. Ultimately, maternal instinct wins over hate (though only for a moment).

“What are you doing here, Daire? Did they finally cast you aside, tired of sharing the same fickle plaything? Only you could be left behind an ocean away and turn up again where you aren’t wanted.”

She turns to Zevulun then and demands, “Where is she? I’ll check on her and,” there is no hesitation here in her voice, but she flicks a suspicious glance to Daire and edits her words, unwilling to name Rafe as her safe-haven in these strange lands. “We will get out of your way.”