Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 234

Chapter 234: Camping
Mia had no idea, really, what she was doing. Ford seemed unduly nervous when her family was mentioned, so she thought he harbored a fair amount of fear when it came to her male relatives.

When she thought about it from his angle, she could see his point. If she’d run away alone, her family would be concerned, but know that she could survive on her own and that it was unlikely she’d encounter anything or anyone too dangerous.

Ford introduced a dynamic into the equation. She’d thought of him as a traveling companion and deterrent to any bad actors who might think of a lone woman as vulnerable, but… if her family didn’t trust him, that decision on her part could have backfired.

Still, she didn’t regret it in the least. She would just have to make up for it by going faster.

Mia had a good grasp of the horses’ stamina. She was confident she would be able to let them rest when they needed it. Going to her own pack, she pulled out some biscuits and divided them between herself and Ford.

He looked around for a place to sit but, finding none, he remained standing while he munched on the food.

“So you think it’ll be at least a day and a night before we arrive?” He asked casually.

“I don’t remember how far it is, exactly,” Mia admitted. “But, I’m looking for the most direct way into the cave, whatever that may be.”

“Is that how it works? You decide exactly what you’re looking for to find it better?” His curiosity made her feel special in a way that her magic powers didn’t. She warmed to his questions.

“With something like a cave, if I were just looking for its location, I imagine I might wind up standing on top of it, on the surface, rather than inside where I wanted to be. Since I remember it being rather large, I thought I might look for the best entrance to it rather than just the cave itself.”

“Trace said the entrances to the cave were collapsed long ago,” Ford responded thoughtfully.

“Well, I’m being pulled towards something, so if there isn’t a proper entrance, I suppose I’m being taken to the best way to get in? It’s also possible a new entrance formed since then, by erosion or some other way.” She shrugged, unbothered. They would deal with things as they came.

Ford seemed less convinced that her gift wouldn’t steer her wrong, or perhaps he was contemplating whether her Uncle Trace was a liar or not. That thought irked her. No one in her family lied… they just kept secrets from her.

The baby of the family, the precious only girl. She wondered if that entered into their thinking when deciding to keep her memories away from her. Probably, at least in some small way.

Mia didn’t resent being cared for, but she wasn’t a delicate flower to be protected from her own mind. After all, they’d failed to protect her from kidnapping, what good did it do to try and protect her from the memory of it?

“How is your leg doing?” She asked pointedly, trying to draw herself out of her morose thoughts. “Riding takes different muscles than walking, I hope you haven’t hurt it by being jostled about.”

Ford set his foot down with intentionality, and seemed to lean slightly on it.

“It’s not bad,” He said. “I think it’s more the muscles now, than the bone. Some use will probably do it good. Hopefully before long I won’t need the crutch at all. Won’t that be nice?”

Mia wondered how tall he stood without leaning on the roughly carved object. He wasn’t as tall as any of the men in her family, but he was still over her head by a noticeable amount even when bent over on the crutch.

“Good. That’s very good,” She smiled. His limited mobility was going to be a challenge, and if he could overcome it, that would help them quite a bit. “Using a crutch in a cave sounds rather miserable.”

“Not as miserable as trying to crawl through a collapsing mine without one,” He responded grimly as he looked towards the far horizon. Grimacing, he glanced at her as if to check whether the comment offended.

“You don’t have to feel strange about making comments like that with me,” Mia told him sincerely. “They did make me feel sad and strange at first, but I’ve decided they help me get to know you better than when you’re trying to behave well and say the right things.”

“You think it’s cute to call out that behaving well isn’t my default state?” His voice had an edge that disheartened her.

“I’m not trying to be cute. I’m trying to let you be who you are. I imagine it’s exhausting to pretend.”

When Mia had visited the city with her aunt and uncle, they’d bought her new clothes to attend social functions and mingle with the nobility. The entire time she was amongst them she felt a simultaneous thrill and dread.

Her best manners seemed passable amongst the upper class, but inside Mia had felt like a fraud; a farmer’s daughter putting on airs as the niece of a former Countess.

She never lied, but even just the pressure of expectations on her was positively draining. Though she’d enjoyed the trip more than she could say, there was a certain kind of relief in coming home and not ever putting on a corset again. She had almost wished to be allowed to sequester herself in the royal library with her cousin Daniel, who vastly preferred books to strangers.

Ford glared at her for a moment before finishing the biscuit she’d given him. With a sigh, she patted the horses, who looked much refreshed from the water and from munching the fresh grass that grew beside the stream.

“I can see you’re mad at me again, but I can’t quite tell why. There’s no one but us, now, Ford. I like to think I’ve gotten a bit better at reading you over the past week, but you’re still quite a stranger to me in some ways.

“I don’t know what lies ahead, but I do know that you trying to hide things will go poorly sooner or later. Why not just… stop?”