The Village Girl

Chapter Four - [Aaryan]

When I tried to think of what it was that drew me to her, all my mind would say was everything. Whether it was the admiration I had for her ability to tell stories or the way she looked away whenever our eyes met... everything about her seemed to captivate me.

I was lying in bed, my hands behind my head. It was yesterday that I had given her my bangle and as I returned to the fort and considered my bold words to her, I wondered if I was truly being a fool. Was I moving too fast? Should I have thought this through?

But I knew what lust was and I knew what a simple infatuation was. And I was certain that this was neither. I had an odd respect for this young woman, and a simple desire to know her.

I was never taught what romantic love was... it was always expected that my wife would be a princess who I would marry for the benefit of our lands. I had already been engaged to four different women in the past, all of which were voided once my mother and father realized that the marriage would no longer benefit our kingdom. They were certain a better opportunity would come, and once it did, I would be ready for it. And in all of these cases I never asked questions. Not because I wanted to be an obedient son, but because I did not care.

No princess or potential bride that I met ever interested me. They were raised to be obedient wives with the sole purpose of bearing children for their future husbands. And in my mind... that was what they became. Any potential wife of mine was simply a political investment.

I did not care for romance or love. 

So it did not help that my mother never spoke to me of love, and neither did my more rational father. But I wasn't entirely oblivious to it. In my life, I had read thousands of stories, many of which were love stories, and in all of them the feeling of true love was described as a wholesome feeling of longing, a lightness in the heart and a desire to simply be with that person.

And that was what I felt right now.

I knew nothing of this girl except that she was a farmer's daughter with a cow named Maadu and a desire to not marry a simple minded man. Yet, whether I tried to deny it or not, I was falling in love with her.

I believed in the gods and how they had plans for every human on this earth. So had I been struck with an arrow of love? Had my time come? Had the gods finally decided it was time for me to end my ignorance? Was that why it all happened so fast?

Maybe I would never know.

Or maybe Seetha, the farmer's daughter, would bring me more answers.