The grief in her body sinks into the pit of Daire's stomach as she listens to Riesling and Zevulun have their heated exchange. Her dark ears twitch at a name: Claret, who must be the aforementioned daughter who was stolen. Stolen. Only rarely had she ever heard of stallions caring enough about mares to steal them, fight for them, in the lands they were from. A needling thought tells her no stallion would bother to take her in the first place, much less try and get her back. Brown eyes glance to Riesling then, wondering what sort of journey and obstacles had she gone through to try and recover her daughter. A pang of guilt quickly turns her gaze. Already, the black mare knew Riesling was a better mother than she'd ever been. She'd deserved so much better than just getting thrown in Akita's face like an ill-gotten trophy.

Daire's eyes shut mournfully. Her guilt only deepens when Zevulun reaffirms that she is a guest here. Guest. If he truly knew how poorly she had treated her daughter, Daire was sure he wouldn't have remained so true to his word to her. The cream-colored stallion really had no idea of their past, or he might understand how true Riesling's caustic words rang. “And I didn’t want to be cast aside like trash by the mare who birthed me, only to later be used as a weapon to hurt the one who raised me - my true mother. But we can’t always get what we want, can we?” She can't help it; Daire inhales sharply in a stifled gasp. Her daughter's words are a punch to the gut, quite literally. Daire's swollen barrel had tightened with the full force of hard contraction, unexpectedly knocking the air from her lungs.

The brindled female looks at her son sadly, who is already looking at her with confusion and unformed questions. Daire wonders if she did the right thing by leaving their homelands behind after all. In trying to do right by her son and the stirring child within her, the only thing the female had really accomplished was up-ending Riesling's life again. An foreseen and unintended consequence of her actions. Carefully, Daire picks her words and speaks, so as not betray her own hurt. She was the one in the wrong here and had no rights to tears. The mare takes a deep breath and finally looks her daughter in the eye, hoping her tears wait to fall until she is alone. "If I had known that coming here and accepting Zevulun's offer of safety was going to in any way disrupt your life, I would have just let the ocean take me."

The brindle swallows nothing but air as she continues. "You didn't deserve any of it. I was horrid mother, and I can't take it back." Another contraction rocks her, and Daire stiffens with it. The words that come next are not said without effort, and Daire wonders how much of it her daughter will think is just an act. She wouldn't blame her if she did. "And I'm not going to disrespect you further by asking for your forgiveness; I don't deserve it." Her chest is tight by the end of the sentence, bound up either by pain or the weight of her shame, and Daire's brown eyes tear away from her daughter, still avoiding looking at Zevulun. "I just wanted to get them somewhere safe, to do something right, and I couldn't even do that without screwing something up for you." The weight of the years and the toll of the miles she had run was catching up to her. If Daire truly needed to do anything, it was to stop running. From her children, from responsibility, from fear. It all had to stop.

"I'm so sorry, Riesling. I want to tell you that at least once, even if you don't believe me. If I never get to see you again.. I wish I had done better by you." Daire's ears splay then, rustling the dark tendrils of her mane. Dark brown eyes did not leave the ground as Daire willed herself to fade into the background. "I will do what I can to respect your wishes and stay out of the lives of you and yours, as you would wish it." If her foal wasn't arriving so immediately, Daire would have dove back into the cold of the channel and wandered back out into oblivion. But it was, and she couldn't. She had to stay now, and, gods, did she regret how that would affect the relationship between Riesling and Zevulun.