Wherever You Stray, I Follow (Kunwar Pratap/Ajabde [PrAja])

8//~another punishment~

It is terrifying to know that,
sometimes love breaks

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OUTFIT:

"Tum hi to ho...hmhmmhm...dhara gagan mein....tum hi to ho. Antar maan ki chah yahi....tum ho jahan meri raha wahin..." Ajabde hummed away happily as she slid her hands into the bangles.

The smile refused to leave her face as she fastened her necklace around her neck and looped her earrings through her ear.

"Reet preet ki sadiyon purani....mitt gayi par haar na mani...." she sang as she tossed her dupatta over her shoulder.

She spun around the room with euphoria, her ghagra flared with her expressing her happiness.

Today was the best day of her life. Ever since she could remember she wished to become a soldier and to serve her country as her Kaka had. Ajabde's biggest dream was to become something on her own to hold her own place in society and she dreamt of a husband who would support her in her mission. A life partner who was equally as passionate about her motherland as she was.

Everybody including Saubhagyavati and Ganga thought she was asking for too much, expecting too much as a girl. But is it wrong to have expectations? She didn't ask for a rich husband or some kind of a king who would lay flowers for her at her every step.

She didn't want any of that. She only wanted a partner whose hand she could hold through ups and downs even if all the material he ever gave her were two meals a day.

And who knew...maybe she had found him?

She could feel it in her bones that she had found him. Just thinking about him sent a tickle down her spine. The past two days, she had spent in close proximity to him and those were the highlights of her week. Even now, she couldn't wait to go back to practice tomorrow where she would see him again.

Smiling to herself while daydreaming about Kartikey, she put on her anklets. Her eyes landed on the bandages around her foot.

There was Kartikey, simple, charismatic, and thoughtful and then there was Kunwar Pratap.

He was so complicated that Ajabde couldn't decode him. This was new as Ajabde quickly recognized a person and usually, her first impression of them was accurate but Kunwar Pratap was way too complicated.

He was always angry and irritated but sometimes if she looked too closely, she could sense the pain in his eyes. Sometimes he was an ignorant AND arrogant prince and sometimes he was rushing to attend to her wounds. Sometimes he made her run miles and sometimes he carried her to his room. Sometimes he yelled and sometimes he called her a 'bacha'.

Ajabde was pulled out of her thoughts in an instant as the evening prahar bell rang. If she didn't leave now, she would be late for her first shift, and she planned on never being late.