Incognito

20

Zac was a bundle of nerves as the mia wrapped his torso in cloth. He sat down on the cot and pulled his tunic over his blue skin. He watched the mia winkle her small nose as she bandaged his foot. Wrinkles appeared on her forehead and the cloth and she growled, unraveling and restarting.

He quietly fed the baby a tin of green and white mush as the mia tried and failed to correctly brace his foot. His free, wounded arm felt alright but he was sure the mia would insist on that being wrapped also. He assumed that it would be helpful while he worked on his father's land. If his father would give him a job. He handed Prosper the dish and began to wring his hands.

Mia said a bad word halfway before stopping and glancing at her baby. She gave up on Zac's foot and moved to his arm. She picked up the wood and set it around Zac's muscular arm. He suddenly placed a finger on the scar that faintly ran down her forearm. She froze but quickly continued her work.

"I have been a horrible guest, Mia, and I wanted to-"

Mia put a finger to his lips. "I do not say thank you and I will not accept you saying thank you either."

He sighed. "Then I will say I am grateful to the person who has kept me alive."

"That would be God." Mia grinned as Zac growled.

"Are you always so difficult?"

"And forever will be." Mia held a finger onto his bandage and tied the end off with her teeth. Her brown, warm eyes never left Zac's even as an auburn hair fell over her right eye.

Zac could not stay with such a pretty girl so close, teasing him. His self-control flew away. He abruptly stood and his face was inches from hers. She shied away and still, he pursued. Holding her hands against his heart, he nudged her chin up with his nose. His lips drew close and a second before he met hers she turned and his lips banged into smooth skin.

Confused he blew out in frustration.

"Not in front of the baby," Mia whispered.

"But some time?" Hopefully, he bit his lip.

Her fingers deftly buttoned his shirt. He waited for a response and never received one. Mournfully she instead said, "I know who you are."

Fear prickled him like icicles as she moved away. He stood solid as ice as she dressed Prosper and slung the baby onto her back. With a few bounces and a cape, the hunchback girl was ready. She took Zac's hand and led him from the diminished fire, he asked.

"How long?"

"Pft, it does not take one long to recognize the duke's son and the earl's brother. Once the bruises healed and your color returned I knew you were a Holden. A little older than when I last saw you, but Holden non-the-less."

Zac shook his head. "And yet I am still to learn your identity."

"As it must be," Mia replied.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mia could tell Zac was lost. She had been too, not so long ago. The trees all look so similar and there are no landmarks. But once you learn enough about the trees you no longer confuse him with his twin. She was seeing people though the same focals. Names and faces blurred together but once you know someone you can never again forget them.

Passing him in a crowd, Mia could not disregard Zac anymore. He consumed a small room in her heart and she could not force him out or relocate him. Begrudgingly she found that she had come to love him. In the short time of knowing him, in which he slept and healed, the mia had come to know a notorious man.

Mia pulled up her hood, covering the sleeping baby's head and step into the village of Leeland. This exertion could end badly in so many ways. She scolded herself for not planning better. It was market day which meant many people ventured from their homes to the street. The colorful tents with myriads of baubles were good because she could blend in but horrid because someone may recognize either one of them under their hoods. Smells wafted through the air and she realized that she was likely to lose Zac or her thieving fingers in this tempting plaza. The venue boasted many sensuous trinkets and goodies and the mia felt Zac pulling her off course.

The crowd was noisy enough that Mia had to pray that nothing startled Prosper awake. Still more opportunities for things to go wrong washed through the mia's mind when a vendor called out. 

"Lookie here, love, a hunchback, and her blind beau," he jeered.

The mia sensed Zac stiffen before she felt his hand harden like stone. Dear Lord, help us, she prayed before muttering to Zac, "Come along." She pulled his dead weight on, but the crowd had stopped them.

"My, the boy has got to be blind to fall for her."

"Can't even stand right, the hag"

"Must be drunk and that is the only one he could find."

The laughs were crisp with mocks and their words marinated with instigation. Like a starved fish, Zac fell for each twisted words.

"Close your dirty mouth," he growled at the closest man.

He snorted and stood straight a whole foot taller than Zac. "Wanna duel for her honor, pretty boy?"

Mia could tell just by body language that Zac sometimes hated that he was so dashing. He was ready to throw away everything to prove that he was not in fact "pretty" but deadly. Mia quickly took off at a sprint for an alleyway, Zac dragging along behind her. Within a few narrow turns, she had deposited them in a secluded corner, viewing distance from the duke's estates.

"Mia," he indignantly started but the mia stopped him. 

"Do you understand that you almost got us discovered and killed?"

He opened his mouth but the mia started again. 

"I can't take you any further. You and I mustn't be seen together. Go home and live a good life, Zacary."

Zac stared at her, his eyes narrowed slits. "Mia, my father can help you. You and Prosper can live in the castle or we can give you a home. You needn't live in the woods."

"Why would your father serve a brigand? If he were to learn of me, he would have my head, if not much more."

"You saved me." Zac took her arms. "Mia, without you I would have died. I own you so much."

Mia sets her own hands atop his shoulders. "You repaid me. You saved Prosper and me from the river."

"You would never have been drowning if I had not provoked you. Please, Mia, come with me."

He slipped his arms around her back and squeezed her close. Which was a horrid idea, since Prosper then was awakened and screamed.

The mia's eyes grew wide. "I must go." She began to climb onto a roof when Zac called for her to wait. But she did not listen. She was a wanted criminal on the border of the capital city, an hour away from her home with a screaming baby that biologically belonged to a dead knight and a gorgeous duke's son below her. No, she would not, simply could no, wait.