"Don't overdo it and collapse." Idiot.
He didn't say the last word out loud, but it was hiding in his tone.
The first time Blue spoke that warning to her, he said it because she looked... weak. Gawky limbs, big eyes, pigtails: she had the appearance of a little girl. He doubted she could handle much work. Could she manage eating and sleeping with her chores? Probably not. To be caught up in that "Exciting Ranch Plan" meant she was probably a fool.
As predicted, she passed out more than once.
...
She must have mistaken his smirk as a smile, somehow, because she perched on the Blue Sky Ranch fence – which he silently grumbled, but never voiced, his disapproval about – and actually tried to talk to him.
Blue knew he was a grouch and he didn't care about being liked, but she didn't seem to mind. He suspected brain damage.
She gave him presents, delivered by hand with mysterious grins; other times, he would find small gifts tucked into corners and laid out here or there. She figured out most of his likes and dislikes— animal products, but that didn't require brainpower or research... Well, then there was the eggplant she grew in riverside soil, the best area in town... Then came the one winter morning he found a row of amethysts across the beams of the Blue Sky fence. No name, but who else could it be? She spent a week giggling around him like he didn't know.
Blue wondered if the gifts from her farm were the rebuttal to his skepticism. If she was telling him, "I can too handle myself, see! See how well I'm doing!" he would have dismissed her as a larger fool than originally estimated. But she never gloated or hinted anything close. The gifts were... pointless. He gave her advice about ranching instead of thinking too hard.
He saw her just about every day, but Blue knew that wasn't special. She lived close by, and was friends with almost the entire village...which had expanded a lot since her arrival. Bob – who was fond the Blue Sky horses and very fond talking Blue's ear off - mentioned that she was shipping a lot, in both quantity and variety. He had a feeling it might be related to the boom in local businesses.
"Don't overdo it and collapse." There's no way you can be pulling off everything you're doing while getting enough sleep. Rest more, stupid.
Running a ranch with both crops and animals was a big task. The Blue Sky Ranch did not attempt to do as much with three people. How was she able to run the ranch and still have time to run around and talk to people? She cared for her crops and animals while shipping fish, wild plants, and ores?
He was tempted to tell her to slow down (stop) with mining. He felt symptoms of a heart-attack come on when Ann mentioned – in a terrifyingly casual way – about the time she fainted over 60 floors below the earth. It filled him with questions. Why would you – why would any moron - go so deep? What if you faint in a place no one can find you? What if bump your head when you fall and get hurt?
All his questions carried too much concern, too much of something... treacherous.
Instead, he kept his words brief and familiar - "Don't overdo it" - and hoped the implications and missing sentences weren't leaking out.
…
She must hear the unspoken words anyway, Blue reasoned. They started spending time together at festivals, but kept some distance between them. He felt anxious and sick. The Summer festivals weren't even... it was unreasonable. He suspected she'd infected him with something terrible, but he didn't tell her to stop visiting.
He didn't think she glanced at the sky once during the Moon Festival, which was kind of a shame. The point of the festival was to look at the amazing moon that appeared only once a year, but they were too busy with holding hands and stupidly chaste kisses... until the grind began to call. No days off for farmers, only alarm clocks set to six a.m. and strict personal schedules. How he liked it.
The farmer girl always balanced her responsibilities – but now she moved ambitiously. She spoke to him less, and spent more time running around town. Pop said she'd bought every kind of animal, and that old craftsman, Woody, said she was buying up furniture. She even renovated her house. (Blue was glad that getting information from drunks was easy and had little consequences. If either asked why he wanted to know or started making guesses, he wasn't sure if he could hide the reason.)
He tried not to think about if...why...whether or not she was avoiding him, because every reason he came up with was depressing.
Please, take care of yourself. If you need help, I...
I'm sorry for whatever I did that made you not come around anymore.
The unspoken words and questions were piling up on top of him, and one sentence in particular was starting to become heavy.
Blue sometimes jumped hearing his own name, fearful that someone knew about the strange thoughts he was having. A few years of festival dates was not a relationship. A few dates, a few kisses, and he was ready to marry this girl? He was the idiot. No, he was out of his mind.
…
The Blue Feather... You had to climb a cliff to get one, without any safety equipment, because the village - or at least, Mayor Theodore - was insane. The Blue Feather was the only way to propose. Diamond rings fashioned by that old blacksmith, Tai, were nothing more than pretty trinkets.
She wasn't raised in the village, though; would she understand the importance of the feather? Would he have to go through the awkward process of trying to explain it (and himself)?
…
No, of course he wouldn't have to explain. Mayor Theodore was shrewd as well as insane, because he tipped her off. She climbed up and got the feather, and she played the man's role in proposing.
He was surprised, but...
But, any way you cut it, it was the dumbest thing she'd ever done.
He couldn't leave Pop and Ellen so suddenly; he had to keep his job. She wouldn't give up her farm dream to support the ranch, either. She liked to work too hard and too late, and he wasn't sure if he could get her to slow down. Or stop going into those accursed mines. Likewise, he wasn't ready to stop going to the bar at night just yet. They'd probably have a lot of fights. Maybe Blue did love her, but marriage would be stupid.
They did it anyway, of course. Like idiots.
When he started thinking about the problems waiting in their future, with the ranch and the farm and their impending parenthood(!), he could take slim comfort in the ability to say what he meant: "Don't overdo it and make me worry."
{fin}
Notes: This is pretty old and unbeta'd, but... it's complete. I ended up deeply appreciating WYSIWYG stone face that is Blue, because everyone else seems like a robot after marriage in MM.