You're wrong. She says, and his dark-rimmed ears pin against the damp tangle of his mane as he turns to look at her again. He wants to be angry - and he is - but the longer she talks the more painfully obvious it becomes that this conversation isn't just about their son. It isn't even just about his own crimes, but the crimes the world had leveled against her and how each new blow has shaped her actions little by little.
For a moment, any response Rehoboam might have made is waylaid by the delivery of a name: Puck.
The word meant nothing to him a moment ago, but now it meant the world and he turned the name over in his mind, studying it closely until the comet-marked mare's tirade pulled him back. He opened his mouth to tell her the news of Rougaru's passing - knowledge that had reached him against his will due to its connection to his sire - but closed it when it became obvious that this wasn't a conversation. This was something else, not just a session of venting, but the lancing of a long series of festering wounds.
Rehoboam's own ire cools, his mask snapping in place as he listens. It is not a full story - there are so many questions he cannot even begin to juggle them all - but the theme is the same. A lot has happened to her, and his crimes don't even make the list. As she gets closer, he braces himself, allowing his head to rise but his hooves to stay stubbornly in place. In a way, he wishes that she would just attack him. Maybe then they could release some of this tension, could let the pain they both held be carried away by the rain trickling down through the tree limbs.
Hardly any space separates them now, but he closes what little remains and looms over her (as much as a 3-inch height difference can
loom) with his expression grave and jaw determinedly set.
"No." His tail lashed against his haunches, snagging in the branches alongside their bodies. He rushes his next words, in part because he is half certain she will bloody him without waiting for him to explain.
"I will help you find him. And then we will decide what to do next."
A flicker of true genuine pain flashes in his eyes as the memory of everything he has missed comes back - for Puck, for Shenzi's son, for Rhaenys and Osiris.
"He is yours," Rehoaboam concedes, his voice strained.
"But he is mine too." Or should be. Could be.
"I just want to know him."
Defensively, as soon as it had dropped, the mask returned and he shifted his weight back a mote again.
"And for what it's worth, wildcat? Rougaru is dead. My f- Solomon killed him." The words tumble out because he wants to reassure her that that risk, at least, is dead. However, he cannot admit to his relationship to Solomon. That wound is still too raw, the connection so faint as to be absent. He has told no one apart from Osiris who he is related to, although he knows that there are some out there who know. Marko. Kristjan. Likely others, too.
It still feels like baring a deep, shameful part of his heart and he is not certain he can do that yet.