He looks horrible. That’s all that keeps echoing through her head, even as she fights the urge to panic and relies on her well-trained ability to problem solve. Now, of all times, when he actually might die if he does not listen to her advice is not when Riesling can afford to go to pieces. Compassion will do nothing here except get Zevulun killed. Perhaps she should stop interfering with the universe’s work, but Riesling finds she is loathe to give him up.

That is an issue to be dealt with later - better to ignore it for now.

He stares at her when her tirade is finished, his calm blue eyes meeting her own golden ones. It takes everything in her not to look away - usually when he gets like this, all sappy and showing he cares she denies it. Looks away, puts even more distance between them, avoids Zevulun for a few weeks. Whatever it takes to remind him (and her) that she is not one of his lovesick damsels in distress.

Perhaps the most shocking part of this is that Zevulun…Zevulun actually listens to her. He summons over one of the myriad of grown sons he has, and sends him off to gather information. Riesling glances between the pair and then nods in satisfaction. Good. One less thing for her to worry about. How is she possibly supposed to find a safe place to give birth if she’s dwelling on the fact that Zevulun limped off to face an enemy?

The resolve in his voice, when he vows that he won’t be sharing the Prairie is such a marked difference from what she ever expected from him that Riesling leans back a bit, neck arching and eyes widening in surprise. Of course, it’s what she would have done, what she wanted him to say. But it seems to out of character for him. “Perhaps that fall knocked sense into you,” she tells him, gaze studious.

What else has changed in Zevulun, in the months he was gone? He is almost a new stallion standing before her, and Riesling finds that even though it is what she wanted, she is discomfited by the sharp change from his peacemaking ways.
“Oh,” she says when he asks when she will go. “When you leave,” Riesling finally tells him. “Claret may prefer to stay, now that you’re here - Salem lends itself to poor memories for her.”

That’s why they hadn’t actually gone yet - Claret didn’t want to leave just because Zevulun was missing. She had pushed back, resistant to going anywhere else because she was so sure her father would reappear. Riesling had only pushed the issue when the stranger showed up, claimed the Prairie for his own. Only then had she resigned herself to fleeing to the Badlands.

She shrugs, glancing back at the small group gathered around fretfully planning their next steps. “If she stays with you,” Riesling says, glancing back at him, eyes narrowed. “Keep the others near - I don’t know what I would do if she was taken again.”