With each passing second, with Snö uncertainly looking to him and back, with Lena remaining open, inviting, he felt the confusion within him only grow. Why did everything have to be complicated? Why did Psyche have to run away? Why did Snö have to want to monopolize him? Of course, they'd just reunited - and the next couple of days would surely be spent with her day and night, but he was a stallion. He ran a herd. He had duties, and after a fashion, friends. So he found himself hoping her obsession would wear off, the flames fall to embers of affection, a level that kept their bond intact without incinerating him and his life. His muzzle hovered in the vicinity of her hindquarters, breathing onto her and drawing in her scent with each breath, storing it in his memory. And Lena... Surely she knew what was going on. Her gaze was so focused, so intent on his child, and had Snö been him - would she have felt a stab of jealousy, a fear of having her child taken? Should he? Was he wrong, for not feeling it?

All he wished was for them to be friends, so Snö would not mind being left without Mauja from time to time. He did not think Lena had it in hear to "steal" his child, much less to corrupt her against him. And so he merely smiled, murmuring "of course I am," and briefly being amused by the notion of Lena being his daughter, too. That would've been hard - complicated.

But no. Snö was his first, the apple of his eye, and the one in whom his faith lay, whether or not he remembered to tell her every day. He hoped for time to temper her tongue and instill something analytical in her mind, but who can blame a child? In his own way, he'd let her know that treating Lena like this was unacceptable, but nothing good could come from an attempt at punishment. Perhaps actually engaging in play, as she reluctantly allowed, would be "punishment" enough. "Good girl," he murmured into her downy foal pelt, brushing one front leg against her side and giving her an encouraging nudge. "I'm old and stiff, so show her what youth is like, hm?" he encouraged his daughter in a playful whisper, darting his head in under Lena's to brush his soft muzzle against Snö's poll. Perhaps she would make a point of including him now? He wouldn't mind, at least he didn't think he would. But he was, after all, a stiff old war King. He had to try to put up some resistance before giving in.