He touches her cheek, and she leans into the contact with a whinny of relief. If he leaves...she wouldn't be able to handle it. He means so damn much to her, and always has. Perhaps it's because he was such a good parent to her that he almost out-did Querida's shit parent-ness, that he's become both mother and father in one single bundle. Perhaps it's because they've spent so much of their lives together. Or perhaps it's just because the grey loves him deeply, a purer feeling to anything else that's ever occured in her steel heart.

He's old. He might not have that many years left, but she wants him to spend them with her.

I'm not leaving you, Nyx. This time, her knees sag beneath the weight of her relief; they wobble visibly and she has to catch herself to stop herself from tumbling to the ground. Then he apologises to her, and her eyes begin to sting again. "Oh, you don't need to apologise - you've been the best father a girl could ask for. That's why your opinion means so much to me. That's why I used you for my lie - because there's no man on this planet that I would have left the Edge for, except you. That's what made it believable." And she includes her sons in that; her sons outside Helovia, sons who own their own herds now. They can take care of themselves, but Nato...she like to think that he needs her as much as she needs him.

He agrees to comply with her wishes, and she buries her nose into his mane. "Thank you so much. You don't know what a relief that is for me to hear." She pins herself close to him, far closer than she does to any other stallion; those encounters are all about one thing, but this is completely different. She feels more comfortable around Nato than she does around any other man, and trusts him with her life.

He asks what happens if the king discovers the truth, and the silver soldier's eyes and voice harden with determination. "He won't," she says firmly. "I've schooled myself on how to act around him, what to say. I don't think he suspects anything. But Father...lying to him is horrible. He is a good man and a good friend, and he deserves better than me. But I haven't got a choice." She looks away, giving a resolute sigh.