✔️Tale as Old as Time (Kunwar Pratap/Ajabde [Praja])

Bonus//~first encounter~

Last chapter lol.

Set before the entire story, during their first encounter.

Using the darkness as her cover, she continued climbing the tower on the top of which she knew resided the crowned prince of Mewar, Maharana Pratap or Kunwar Pratap as he went by in this time.

"Fuck," she muttered to herself as she mistook a loose stone for her next step. It was the freaking lehenga due to which she could not see beneath her properly. Sure, many women did their everyday tasks in lehengas but she was from the future and she wasn't used to this!

No, you didn't misread that. Ajabde Punwar was a 14-year-old girl from the future, as in 2020 and she had been sent back in time to the 16th century to put history right.

Let's rewind a little and start from the beginning.

Born in 2006 was a little baby girl. She was born to an Indian-British scientist who was also secretly a 'Krantikari'. Her future had been decided the minute she was born.

"Iss duniya mein sabse anokhi, meri Ajabde. Iss duniya ka har sukh bhogegi meri beti." her mom had said.

"Yahi karegi humare iss Bharatvarsh ko swatantra," were her dad's first words for her.

As years passed, Ajabde grew and so did her's dad's ambitions. He was ready to give up anything for this country even if that 'thing' was his daughter's entire childhood and the rest of her life to follow. But her mother wasn't ready to pay that price. She had fought to give Ajabde a happy childhood until Ajabde turned 8... and her mother was no longer there to protect her.

Her father and his comrades took her in and trained her. Every. Single. Fucking. Day. Until their project, a device that could travel through time was ready. They planned for several months and sent Ajabde off to the 16th century with their detailed plans and rules written in stone.

Everything was supposed to happen exactly as they had planned, no mess ups allowed, and then once everything they had planned happened in the precise way they had imagined, India would be free and prosperous again.

Ajabde had learned long ago to not question her father's instructions. She did as she was told but when she had been told to go on this mission, she could not have been happier.

Call her selfish but she wished to be away from them, so far away that there was no way she would ever see them again. She would do as they had said, follow every rule, every plan down to its last detail but then she could live out the rest of her life in peaceful solitude.

The girl continued one small step after the other until she had reached the very top. The joy of the accomplishment made all of the pain from her shoulders and legs disappear. She jumped inside the room through the window and with as much stealth as she possessed, she crept through the shadows. She needed to find Kunwar Pratap.

Clearly, all the stealth she possessed was not enough as just seconds later she was turned around by an unknown hand that grabbed her and pinned her against the wall beside a lit torch. He held up the dagger to her throat. The light from the torch illuminated the face of her attacker. A boy, her age- no definitely a bit older. Definitely pre-puberty but still taller than her- by a LOT. Dark complexion, fluffy curls, and the softest brown eyes she had ever seen.

The time she had spent staring into his eyes would have been better spent trying to escape from this handsome stranger but luckily the stars were on her side. He took a look at her and backed down perturbed.

"Tum to ek bachi ho! Yaha kya kar rahi ho?" he asked in an urgent whisper.

"Bachi hum?" Ajabde yelled indignantly.