The minute Sidra had learned Zevulun had returned, she rushed for the Savanna to see him. His condition was frankly horrific; Sidra couldn’t comprehend how he was still alive, or walking, or how he had even managed a concerned but happy smile when he saw her. Zevulun had tried to assure her that he was doing better than he’d been when he’d come back at the beginning of fall, but Sidra couldn’t be convinced. She had never seen an injury so gruesome, so deep.
He was surprised to learn she was living in the Forest with Bacardi. Sidra had not been brave enough before his disappearance to tell him of her time spent with Bacardi in the Forest, or of her developing feelings for the older stallion, and she wished she would have. There was no time like the present, however, so Sidra confessed everything to her father. She told him that she had fallen in love with Bacardi and that she felt they could work through and work past whatever it had been that put bad blood between them all those years ago. Sidra had intended to invite her father to the Forest when he was well, but when she finished telling him about her life in the Forest, Zevulun had glanced around him and said, “Let me walk you back to the Forest, I want to speak with Bacardi.”
Sidra looked dumbfounded at him. The terrain in the Savanna was flat, but the further inland one drew to the Forest, the more there were hills and mountains to climb. “Why don’t you come when you’re a little more healed?” She’d asked, worry evident across her face. Her father had shaken his head and said, “I need to speak with him anyways about what’s happening… and, I need to thank him personally for looking after you.”
So, the pair departed for the Forest. Their travel was slow, her father’s limp growing more evident the further they walked. It was difficult for Sidra to watch him, to see the way his lips thinned and pressed together in pain when he had to put any weight on his injured back leg, but Zevulun persevered and refused any suggestion that they stop and rest to the point that Sidra eventually didn’t ask any more. She only matched his pace, slow but steady, and tried to keep her worried glances his way to a minimum.
Despite walking alongside her father, when the border of the Forest loomed ahead and Bacardi’s familiar musk brushed her nose, she felt like she was returned home. A peace came over her as the towering trees cast cool shadows over their pale backs, and the worry that’d been pressing at her seemed to minimize itself. It was Bacardi’s support that could calm her, and even without him immediately present, she felt it in tenfold.
Once they’d walked past the borderline and a little further into the trees, in a clearing large enough for a few horses to mingle, Sidra reached out to gently brush her muzzle against her father’s shoulder. “We’ll wait here for him,” she suggested, smiled, and then looked forward where the rest of the territory stretched out before them. Sidra let loose a beckoning call for the painted king, her king, and knew it wouldn’t be long before he might join them. In the interim she was finally able to encourage Zevulun to rest, though he refused to lay down. Instead, he chose a tree that he could prop his weight on, taking the rest off his injured leg. Sidra’s eyes were concerned as she watched him lower his head and sigh, lines of exhaustion from their walk clear across his face. He’d told her he intended to fight for the Prairie in spring, but how well was he going to manage to heal through winter? He kept telling her this was far better than he’d been just weeks ago, but Sidra wasn’t as convinced.
She sighed and looked away from him, deciding instead to focus on listening for Bacardi’s approach, knowing she wouldn’t be able to help herself from brightening once he was near.
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