Nantan kept glancing at Freya, his expression growing more concerned with each glance. He stopped, and it took her a moment to notice. She also stopped, and turned to face him.

"What-?" she started to ask, but he interrupted.

"Are you alright? You seem... distracted? Just, kind of off?" he asked.

"Uh. Yeah? I think so." Freya looked down at herself, patting her pockets to make sure she wasn't missing anything. "I mean, I guess I had a weird dream last night, so I'm kind of tired today?"

"A dream?" Nantan asked sharply, eyes narrowing. "What kind of weird dream? What happened? Dreams can be very significant! It could be a portent of something..."

"A portent?" Freya scoffed. "That's such a hoity toity word. You're the only one besides the school teacher in El Paso that I've ever met who would say a word like that."

"Don't deflect, Freya! I want to know about your dream."

"No."

"Why?"

"That's none of your business!" she started walking again, forcing Nantan to chase after her.

"Freya..."

"No!"

"It could be important!"

"So what?"

"Freya, dreams are sacred communication from spirits or the Creator," Nantan pleaded, grabbing her wrist. She jerked free and glared at him.

"I don't want to tell you about it Nantan, it's embarassing!"

"I... oh." Nantan flushed, finally getting an idea of what it could've been about. "That's... it could still be... an omen," he insisted weakly.

"I don't care, you're a brave, not a shaman! I don't want to tell you," Freya turned left at the creek they came to and gestured for Nantan to go the other way.

"Freya, wait! I'm sorry. Let's not split up while arguing..."

"I need space right now. Sorry. I'll meet you back here by sundown."

Nantan sighed and watched Freya disappear into the scrub. He ran a hand through his long, dark hair and sent a final brooding look in her direction before turning to follow the creek upstream.

Freya grabbed a big, straight stick and used it to whack at the bushes along the river, channeling her anger and frustration into the stick. Nantan meant well, but Freya was scared of her feelings for him, and even more scared of his feelings for her. She didn't know what their life together would look like. She and her brother were already treated like outsiders here, because her parents had come from out East, and her grandparents from really East.
These Western settlers really didn't like outsiders, which she found strange since many of them were outsiders themselves... or were at one point. They seemed to just not like anyone who wasn't from a founding family or at least settled within the first few years of the town's founding. El Paso was hardly unique in that; Frey told her all the towns he'd been to out here were like that except the really big cities, like San Francisco.
Nantan wouldn't benefit from marrying her, Freya was sure of that. Either they'd both be eventually forced off the ranch by the military, or they'd find a reason to kill him for daring to marry a white woman. Freya scoffed aloud at the thought. Why should they care? They already didn't like her anyway, so why would it matter to them who she married? In truth, it wouldn't. They'd care less that she married an Apache than that an Apache married a white woman.