Chapter 3: Traveling Part 2

We stopped at the side of the road. "Norma, do you have one of those mirrors I could borrow?"

"Ah, no, I forgot to grab one," She responded as she was searching her pockets, "You should use some of that water over there. It looks pretty reflective." I nodded and walked over to the water. I pulled out one of the bolts to my crossbow from my bag, and pulled the head off of it. Well, here goes. I looked into the water, and saw my face. I started with the right side of my face. I began with the top of the sideburn, slowly easing the way down my face. "Damn," I thought, "Too dull." I reached into my pocket. "I know I brought my metal sharpener to Arendelle with me. Did it fall out of my pocket?" The metal sharpener I used was a nice rock I found that sharpened my metal pretty well. I didn't want to use my sword, which was hiding underneath my coat, so I began to scour the river edge for a different rock. I found a great one, it was flat on one side. I started to scrape the metal bolt head against it, and then I brought my face over the water again. I looked down at my face in the water, and began to cut down the right sideburn again. I brought the bolt head down from the resting point at the top of my sideburn, and sliced the facial hair from that area right down. It looked somewhat scruffy, but it would have to do from this point forward.

I looked up at the sky for a moment. Rain clouds, I noticed. Hopefully, it wouldn't start raining while I'm doing this. I started the metal bolt head at the top of my other sideburn once more, and started to slowly ease it down. I was making good progress when a deer jumped out of the tree next to me, and startled me. I got a cut and a big bald spot on my left sideburn. I shooed the deer away, when I noticed that I dropped the bolt head. "Fantastic," I thought sarcastically. I got down on one of my knees and poked through the grass looking for it, when I heard a voice yelling, "Honey, we need to go!"

I gave up on the process, picked up my bag, reattached it to my belt, and ran to Skonhed. I jumped on, and Norma told me, "Belinde's getting sick, she's got a little bit of a cold. We should take off before the rain comes." I agreed and took off right away. We rode off to our next destination, Raisdorf. We arrived in the late afternoon, hitched our horses up to the inn, and walked in. The man at the counter had balding gray-ish hair, and immediately burst out laughing as soon as I walked in. "What is with your facial hair? Making a new fashion statement?"

"Haha, very funny. Can I get a room for 4?" He giggled and said, "Sure, show me 40 coins." I reached into my pocket, and grabbed what I thought would be about 40 coins. "If that's not enough, tell me tomorrow, we need some rest." He nodded with his warm smile, and showed us up to our room. "Have a nice night, Fashion Maker!" He told me, before chuckling in a very high voice. He nodded to Norma and the kids, with his big smile, and then left the room.

"Honey, are you sure you know where you're taking us? Where we're going? And do you know if we'll even be safe?" Norma asked me. "Norma, do you trust me? I know where my uncle lives, he'll provide us with a place to stay. He's able to protect us easily. He is related to the King of Corona, you know."

"Yeah, but they're like, very distant, right? 5th cousins or something like that? And how do you know if he'll accept us?" Norma questioned. I sighed and replied, "He's my uncle, I know he will allow us to live with him. If not, then we could find a place to stay in there. You know they won't know who I am without my facial hair, right?"

"I still don't feel safe. You could protect us, but then again, you versus hundreds of men? I don't think you can do that." I was starting to get a little angry at Norma. "Norma, listen. I will protect us, you can believe that. In my pocket, I have hundreds of bolts, and they're all fully functional. You don't think I can reload at a fast pace? It's why I've trained as a crossbow expert for all these years, for God's sake."

"Listen to me, I think we should keep on moving. We aren-" I cut Norma off. "No, you listen to me, Norma! If we keep on moving, we will die, at the hands of a bandit or an angry civilian! I don't want to take those chances, we are staying in Corona!" I crescendoed throughout my speech, getting louder and louder with each word. I looked over at the Norma, and her lip was quivering. One of her eyebrows started to sink lower on her forehead, and as I looked over at the children, I noticed that I had gotten too loud. Belinde had started to cry. I looked back over at Norma, and was met with a slap. For a split second, I considered slapping her as well, but I decided that it would get me nowhere. Norma stepped past me, put Belinde into her bed, calmed her down. Norma then said to me, "I thought this household was a democracy." She then laid down for bed, leaving Jorge and I awake.

I sat down on my bed thinking about what had just transpired. Jorge sat down next to me, and whispered to me, "Pa, I think we should stay in Corona." I nodded. I then left to the bathroom for our room, telling Jorge that I would finish shaving my facial hair. I stepped into the bathroom, reached into my pocket for a match, and lit up the lantern in the room. I grabbed the razor and a bar of soap, and applied some soap to the area I missed. I started to shave down the left sideburn again, looking to get any areas I missed. I then shaved the scruffy right side, applying soap and then bringing down the razor. I looked in the mirror, and noticed that I looked a lot different with just a mustache. I stepped out of the bathroom, and asked Jorge how it looked. He stuck out a thumbs up. I smiled, and then laid down for bed. "You go to bed too, Jorge. We'll be fine in the morning."

The next morning, I woke up slowly, my back screaming in agony. I first sat up on the side of the bed, and then rose to my feet. Norma was already up. "We need to talk about last night." I nodded, and then sat down again.

"I understand that you were both tired and upset at having to lose your facial hair. But it wasn't polite raising your voice at me. However, I know that I should not have slapped you. That was a bad decision on my part. So, I just wanted to apologize for the slap. It was unnecessary."

I nodded, and replied, "I would like to apologize for raising my voice, as well. As you said, I was tired, and very upset about my facial hair. But in addition to that, I was a fool. A damn fool, who scared the kids. This has been our first fight in a long time, and I'm glad we didn't go to unnecessary routes, like that one guy in Weselton. I can't remember his name, but he ended up divorcing his wife because she didn't bring him the right flowers. Do you remember that?"

She giggled and said, "I remember, yes. He was the one with the funny twirly mustache. Gregor, right?" I nodded with a smile, and we embraced. "I have a proposition for you, Norma."

"What is it, honey?"

"We stay in Corona for half a week, see if we're safe, and if not, we keep on movie. Does that sound good to you?"

"It does."

She hugged me tightly, and then we decided to leave for the rest of the day, off to Corona. The smiling man at the counter handed me two coins, and said, "Oh, you got your facial hair looking better! Great job, mate!" And then giggled again. I looked at him bewildered. "Oh, you gave me two coins extra, and I couldn't cheat a family out of two coins. Have a nice day, family!" I nodded, and we left. Off to Corona, we go.