What joy may have come into the conversation was snuffed as quickly as a flame caught in a hurricane. Those winds were named Riesling, and Zevulun looked baffled at her as she charged in toward them, anger all-too-clear across her body. It was rare that she interrupted his time when he was with other mares, which he didn’t fully understand (or try to, sometimes with Riesling he thought his ignorance meant his bliss), and they hadn’t seen one another in some time with her staying in the Badlands. Any excitement he might’ve felt at seeing her again couldn’t dare find a home as Riesling stormed up and spat venomous words at him and Daire.

I leave you alone for a few seasons to recover our daughter that you allowed to be stolen… to find you’ve knocked up my mother?

Mother?

Mother?

Zevulun felt as though his body flung itself out of where he was standing, as though he was suddenly nothing more than some formless thing floating above his tangible form. He was looking down at himself staring in absolute dumb shock at Riesling, unable to say anything, and at Riesling glaring at Daire and Daire’s equally surprised expression to see Riesling standing there.

Thankfully Daire was somehow able to find her voice and was quick to explain that neither the colt at her side or the babe in her belly belonged to Zevulun, which saved him from having to yelp out his innocence once he finally felt like he could grab onto his consciousness again. Still, though, he felt guilty - because he had been romantically interested in Daire, but it was very clear there was bad blood here that he had never known. Riesling kept everything a secret from him, surely she did so to protect herself, but it led to things like this.

Not that he was dumb enough to point that out. With the look Riesling was giving him Zevulun had a feeling if he put any blame on her she was finally going to murder him like he was sometimes afraid she might. No, no, best to let those thoughts go away and remember this was his fault. He should have been… smarter? Somehow?

Riesling’s venomous tongue lashed her mother, and Zevulun blinked a few times and felt a defensiveness for Daire rise up inside him that he knew he couldn’t and shouldn’t act on. He looked at Daire, at the tears gathering in her eyes, and then back at Riesling with a growing frown. “What do you mean you’ll both get out of my way?” It was the first thing he could comment on, because opening up a discussion about everything else was a different mess he still wasn’t ready for. “Claret just came home,” he said, and despite knowing it wouldn’t help the situation, his words became firm, almost angry. Riesling hadn’t seen their daughter yet. She didn’t see how skinny the girl was and how she was still recovering from her ordeal. What if Claret didn’t want to go? What if Zevulun didn’t want to let Riesling take his daughter away after he’d just gotten her back? He sighed and added, “You just came home.”

Because this was Riesling’s home. Not the Badlands. Right?

It’d been something Zevulun had feared when she elected to stay behind on Salem with her brother. Zevulun had wondered if Riesling would even want to come back to him, or if she would find she felt better suited to rule in the Badlands beside the brother she was so clearly bonded to. He remembered the look on her face the day he’d brought Rafe to her; it was so different than the look she wore now.

“Daire is a guest here in the Prairie,” he said, surprised at how collected his voice was when he started to speak. “I have offered her safety until she has her child and until the child is old enough to swim, if that’s as long as she wants to be here.” Dread trickled cold in his gut. Despite wanting to claim he wasn’t picking a side, he knew it could look no other way. By not casting out Riesling’s mother, who she clearly did not like, he was going against what Riesling wanted.

“The Prairie is plenty large enough you two would never have to see one another during her stay,” he said. Zevulun swallowed back before he added: Isn’t it large enough that you make sure we hardly see one another?

“You don’t need to take Claret away and run to the Badlands.” He paused briefly, before adding, “I don’t want you to.” Even knowing Riesling would likely not care what in the hell he wanted, Zevulun made sure to say it anyways.