Our Journey (the Fourth Book in the Her Weakness series)

Chapter 56

Clarke's POV

As soon as my eyes adjust to the brightness, I notice the farmers' market that Lexa mentioned. It is... So much bigger than I expected. I thought it would be a couple stalls, like a mini market. But no, this is a full on market. And it's huge, with a wide variety of things they're selling. There's a couple of rows of stalls, and each row has maybe ten or twelve stalls on each side.

Most of the stalls have something above them, like a blanket or cloth, to block out the sun's intense rays. Maybe it just feels more intense because we've been underground, but it feels almost like the desert in its intensity.

"Wait, where do we leave our horses?" Raven asks.

"There should be stables. Right... Over there." Lexa points and begins leading us in that direction.

The stables are nothing more than an area to leave your horses with some areas of shelter from the sun, as well as an area to tie your horse if that's what you prefer. We bring our horses to the temporary holding pen and take off the saddle, leaving in the bit and the bridle. Once we've finished and have stored the saddles in a safe place, we lead the horses to the pen.

Octavia ends up leading her horse, then Raven's. Leading a horse up close and personal is tricky enough for people who haven't been doing it for awhile, but Raven's leg makes it dangerous. Horses are large, heavy creatures, and if you're not careful, they'll step on your foot when you're leading them if you're not careful. It hurts. Trust me, I sadly know from experience. And with Raven's leg... It's too big of a risk, even Raven agrees with that. So it's Octavia that leads her horse for her.

Once Octavia's done and I have checked on Raven's leg, we head to the farmers' market. We don't particularly need anything, but it's cool to see what they have. And just because we don't need anything apparently doesn't mean we don't want anything, because we all find stuff.

Raven spends a good half hour or longer (I'm not sure, we left her after twenty minutes) at an artist's table who makes things from metal. She talks about how he made it, since he's a blacksmith. I'm glad she has an interest in this and all, but listening to them talk about it is like hearing an entirely different language.

Octavia finds a rainbow colored switchblade. And honestly, I want one too. It looks amazing. The outer covering is rainbow colored metal, and so is the blade itself.

For me, I find a really nice leather bound notebook that I can write down our adventures in. And a rainbow knife, because who doesn't want one? I'll probably never use it and it doesn't seem practical for battle. But it looks cool!

Lexa gets more sword cleaner and a new rag at my urging. Lexa loves cleaning her sword, which seems kind of cliché because she's the Commander and all. But it calms her, that's what she says. Quiets her mind. I've begun letting her clean my swords too, since she can't clean her swords whenever she gets stressed, that would be way too often. So now she cleans mine, and occasionally Octavia's as well.

And as for her rag she has used to clean the swords, it's been used for years. By now, it's ripped and torn and even when it's washed, you can't tell what color it originally was. So yeah, I made her get a new one. And gods, now that I think about it, it feels a bit domestic. Me, making my fiancée buy a new rag because the old one is dirty. That's kinda domestic, right? I wouldn't know.

Being out in the sun is nice as well, though I am more than happy when Lexa says we should start heading back. By now, the sun has begun to set, painting streaks of reds and oranges across the sky. It's beautiful and I try to memorize what it all looks like as the merchants begin packing up as well.

We put the saddles back on our horses and begin the trek back down. It's easier and quicker going down than going up, and we make it down in a little over half the time it took to get up there.

We take the horses back to the stable and then head to the place we're staying. The streets are more full of people now, heading home after a day of work or going out to buy food for dinner.

When we get back inside the house, the heavenly smell of Lincoln cooking meat permeates the air.

"Need any help in there?" I offer as Raven and Octavia take their stuff back to their room and Lexa takes ours up as well.

"No, thank you." Lincoln says politely, smiling kindly at me. "Maybe you can have Octavia and Lexa set the table while you check on Raven."

I furrow my eyebrows. "How did you know I want to check on her?"

"Raven's limp is slightly more pronounced than usual. Octavia was carrying her things for her and Raven was not complaining. You are worried. It paints a clear picture." Lincoln explains.

"Smart. Yeah, I checked it earlier but I want to check it again to make sure. She seems like she's doing better, but I don't know if she's trying to hide her pain again." I admit worriedly.

"She has learned her lesson on that one, Clarke." Lincoln says.

"How do you know?"

"I am certain you remember the night you learned she had been hiding the pain she was in for weeks. Later that night, I went off to get more firewood and there were no animals around the entire time I was gathering. You had scared them all off. So if you managed to do that, I am certain you managed to scare some sense into Raven."

Weird place to end it, but it works! Raven definitely has learned her lesson haha, I would have the sense scared in me too! And guess who actually has a rainbow pocketknife? This girl! Actually, I have two but on one of them, the blade is black not rainbow like the other. On both the handle thing is rainbow! I brought them both to college since they're small enough of blades to be allowed! They're handy for opening packages and stuff! If you're curious about what they look like, I could post a picture of them on my Instagram? I haven't been using it (Instagram, I mean) much though because I seem to be rather busy in college (shocker, right?)... And with me writing literally everyday for my books plus homework... It's a lot haha. Thank you all for reading and for your amazing comments! Stay awesome!