Gabriel mounted his horse, while Walter and Kyler took their places on the two wagons. Evey perched next to Walter, yipping softly in excitement at being aboard. Though Walter generally preferred horseback, the man had taken a liking to the halflings' preserved foods.
Oddly, the small people didn't take offense that he snacked occasionally on what could be reached from the bench. The female halfling even seemed slightly flattered that he enjoyed it so much, though she never smiled. Evey sat beside him on the wagon seat, wagging her tail and dutifully guarding the food… or waiting for a morsel of it to be dropped.
Gabriel glanced over at Victoria, who was patting Bessie's neck now that she was atop the animal's back. She was extremely attached to the horse. Well, all animals, really. She'd doted on the dog he'd adopted, sneaking Evey bites of her own meals and nuzzling the dog's head when she thought no one else was looking.
If only her behavior towards him wasn't so very odd. She'd become more enigmatic as she'd grown into a woman. Perhaps all women were this hard to figure out, and Victoria was just growing into a feminine birthright.
In one sense, he didn't like it at all. It had damaged the easy camaraderie they'd had between them for many years.
On the other hand, he found the task of figuring her out to be an interesting and stimulating one.
Whatever it was that she truly wanted from him, he was determined to be that for her. She bristled when she pointed out they weren't blood related, but also rejected his offer of friendship. Wouldn't even take his hand.
He noticed they touched one another far less than they used to. Whenever she walked up, he used to get a brief hug, or a kiss on the cheek if she wanted to aggravate him. When he teased her, sometimes he got a playful shove or smack on the shoulder.
It had been easy and casual. When had that stopped?
When he had told her to, he realized. Such simple displays of affection would surely have scared off a suitor, and he wanted to look out for her future and well being. He just hadn't fully grasped at the time how much joy would be robbed from his life by the suggestion.
He'd realized when she left that he had a much harder time living without her, but now, to be around her all day, every day, and yet still feel that their relationship was incomplete was something he had not anticipated.
"Victoria," The name escaped his lips before he could stop it, and it drew her gaze to him. Her dark curls were framing her face, and her brown eyes blinked at him questioningly.
"Yes?" She prompted after a few seconds of silence, and he realized he couldn't just say her name with no follow up question or statement of advice. He looked down.
"One of your stirrups isn't adjusted correctly. You need to be stable in the saddle if the horses are going to be as fast as the halflings think." He said with more confidence than he felt. He jumped down and shortened the stirrup by half a finger's breadth, as if that would make some significant difference to her safety.
"Thank you," She smiled briefly at him, and he swallowed.
"You're welcome," The words were thick in his throat, and he wondered at it.
"Are you done?" Tom asked, and Gabriel nodded. The halfling was shaking a bag filled with herbs that he'd mashed together. "I'm going to give a small amount to each animal to eat. It is important that tight rein be kept on all of them until we all leave together, or we are likely to get separated. The wagons should go first to make sure the other horses do not pick a path it cannot follow."
The group all nodded, and Gabriel remounted his horse, shooting a comforting glance at Victoria. She was facing Tom, not him.
"We're ready," She said seriously, holding the reins in both hands firmly. Tom stuck his hand into the bag, and then fed a small portion to each horse in turn, waiting for Gabriel to mount. Once all the horses were fed and every rider in place, everyone looked ahead nervously.
"Here we go," Walter declared when Bran nodded towards him. "Hyah!"
The wagons took off at a speed that seemed to belie the existence of time. They blurred, and the other horses shot forward to follow, their riders clinging to their backs.
The world around them seemed to distort, with the sound of the bubbling stream lowering in pitch before disappearing entirely.
The ride lasted only a few seconds. The horses stopped suddenly, panting for breath and heavily lathered, and Gabriel almost flew from his saddle.
"What just happened?" He asked, bewildered. He'd hardly blinked and it was all over, which was both a relief and a bit anticlimactic.
"The herbs are rare, and we had very little," Tom said. "But our travel time should be a week or two shorter. The horses must rest now."
"A week or two??" Gabriel dismounted and patted his horse's neck. "We just traveled a week or two's worth of distance in those few seconds?"
"That is the speed these animals can tolerate." Bran climbed down from his perch. "The very fast creature that your friends rode– I would be very interested to see its top speed with magical supplementation."
"It already is a magical creature. Its speed was more than natural," Tom replied.
"How do you know whether a creature is magical?" Victoria interrupted the halflings' conversation. "Other than the obvious, like Leviathan when they can create portals."
The halflings stared at her in silence for a moment. "We've heard of them, but never seen them, but yes, it is a safe assumption that all creatures from this world are bound by its rules. Creatures and plants from other worlds are bound by the rules there, so far as we have been able to tell."
"All creatures from other worlds are magical in some way, then?" Gabriel furrowed his brow in thought, trying to recall everything he'd seen in his travels. There had been no wildlife to speak of in the Darkness, but creatures in the world the Fae inhabited did seem rather special, even if not intelligent or sentient.
"All we've encountered coming through the portals or heard stories of in our trading," Bran said evenly. "We do not pretend to have exhaustive knowledge of all animals in all the worlds."
Gabriel absorbed the information with a measure of trepidation, making a mental note to convey it to Roland at the earliest opportunity… which would be much earlier than he previously anticipated.
"Walter, you're one of the mapmakers. How close to Klain do you imagine we are now?" He called over to the wagon curiously.
"That's a bit of a tough question until I stop being so dizzy." The older man held a hand to his head. "That was something, wasn't it?"
"Can I get you a drink of water?" Victoria hurried to offer her waterskin to the man, who drank gratefully before looking around more thoroughly.
They were no longer in a flat, forested area. There were hills all around, and Gabriel realized the sun was much lower in the sky than he thought it had been.
"Did we spend more time riding than I thought?" He asked aloud as he tried to gauge exactly what time it was. But had the sun moved the wrong direction? He thought they were moving Southeast, but the sun was…
"It has likely been between a half day and two days," Tom squinted. "It is early morning right now."
"Morning?" The humans exclaimed nearly in unison.
"Why did it seem like mere seconds, then?" Victoria asked, "and do you mean our poor horses have been running for days straight? The poor things!!"
The lather and panting of the horses suddenly made more sense. A few seconds, no matter how strenuous, would not have been enough for them to be in this state.
"We need to find water for them. And food," Gabriel resisted the urge to glare at the halflings for not more fully explaining the mechanics of this speedy method of travel.
"They will recover," Bran shrugged. "I smell a stream a short way ahead. That is probably why the horses chose to stop in this area."
"You smell…? Nevermind," Victoria waved off the question. "Let's get the horses taken care of."
She took her horse's bridle and led the creature forward at a pace so slow that even the exhausted creature became impatient with her and pushed ahead.
"All right! I was trying to be nice after your hard work, but by all means, go ahead," Victoria laughed. Gabriel smiled. He missed her laughter. There was less of it recently than there should be, and he wanted it back.
The question was, what in the world could he do that would bring her joy and laughter to the forefront of his life, when so much uncertainty lay ahead of them all?