"Ow!"
Becca frantically started to apologize. "I'm so sorry, Nick! I didn't mean to hit you! Are you okay?"
I couldn't play it off with a straight face for more than a few seconds before I cracked up laughing.
"Come on Becca, it's just a little piece of paper! There is no way it would actually hurt. Maybe if the tip ended up hitting my eye, but on the forehead it's nothing. Back when I was a mischievous kid, I would sometimes purposely try to hit the other person in the face just to shock them. You did it without even trying haha."
Becca reached over and flicked one of my fingers. "Don't scare me like that!"
"Haha, sorry. I guess I'm still a little bit mischievous."
Becca's face suddenly turned a little sad. "I wish I could have known you as a kid. I'm sure we would have had a lot of fun…"
Becca was feeling something most couples that meet each other later in life feel. It wasn't a feeling that was exclusive to people who transmigrated, so I have actually had experience dealing with this in past relationships. The words of comfort usually ran hollow because simple relationships end all the time, but since Becca and I were already married, my words this time held much more weight.
"Don't worry, Wifey. We are going to keep talking and sharing stories about our childhoods the longer we are together. Eventually, we will know more about each others' pasts than any other friends we have. You won't be missing out on anything. Just be patient as we slowly get to know each other more and more."
Becca smiled back at me as she thought about all the future conversations we would have. "Yeah, someday I want to know you like the back of my hand! Haha. If we ever have a day where we are both busy doing different things, so we can't see each other all day, let's promise to spend at least an hour at night telling each other about our day before going to bed."
I reached over and rubbed her head playfully. "I don't plan to have too many days where we are not already together, but that sounds like a great plan so we always make some time for each other."
"That's true. We are going to be on the same Royal mage team anyways, but just in case!"
"Haha, of course. Now let's get back to playing! You have 6 points and I have 7!"
We ended up losing track of time and playing paper football for 8 hours straight. By the end of it, I was still a little bit better than Becca because of my experience playing, but she was closing in on my heels. It would probably only take one more session of playing before Becca would start regularly beating me. Her skill for all things accuracy was impressive.
After playing for so long, Becca was in a great mood. "That game was really fun! Didn't you say you had prepared a few different games for us?"
"I do have a couple more games ready, but since we lost track of time, let's save them for later. Once we finish our food, we can read for a few hours and then go to sleep. We should be arriving there at 6am, so you need to sleep early to great your parents."
"Yeah, I guess I can't let you carry me like I did coming here with my parents around. I'll probably have to start going to sleep right after we finish eating then."
The reason we stopped playing paper football was because we were both starting to get hungry. For dinner, we stored some frozen pork chops in a container with some of Becca's ice. The driver of the carriage pulled over and started a campfire to cook the pork chops for all of us to eat before heading off for the second half of our trip. Having to stop the carriage did slow us down by an hour, but the 24 hour travel time already included us stopping once for food and to relieve ourselves.
After waiting for the food to cook, the driver brought us our portion to eat. The taste was pretty plain, but we just needed something to fill us up for the rest of the day. We could have chosen the option of stopping to eat at a restaurant from a city on the path, but the quickest path to Becca's hometown avoided most cities. It would have added more time to the trip to go out of our way, so we opted for the current option.
Once we finished and started moving again, Becca curled up on the seat and immediately started sleeping. It was already 9 pm, so she would have a whole 9 hours of sleep if she woke up at 6 am once we arrived.
I decided it was a good idea for me to sleep too, since I wanted to make a good first impression on my in-laws. Sadly, I soon realized that the bumpiness of the carriage ride would prevent me from getting a good nights rest. The long distance carriage ride was good enough to not give me pain, but the rocking of the cabin was still too big for me to completely ignore. I tossed and turned for the rest of the carriage ride as I tried every way I could think of to try to fall asleep.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a wink of sleep by the time we arrived at Becca's home. As I lethargically looked out the window, I saw her home coming into view. It was not as big as our mansion, but it was still impressive compared to what I was used to in my world. It had 2 stories and a large amount of square footage. There was probably enough space for 100 rooms in their mansion.
Since we were getting close, I gave Becca a nudge to wake her up. Usually, she would ignore me and go back to sleep, but she was excited to be back home. She instantly looked out the window with a smile on her face.