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arrow & a kiss (double update)

Hello again everyone, after such a long hiatus, I know most of you have given up on me, but during the darkest times of mine, I realised how much a good story can be of help, make you feel better... and I also realized it sucks if it doesn't have a proper ending. So here I am, writing the rest of this story as I promised. Now, as a bonus, we finally see some supernatural, and things heating up. It's extremely long, I hope it makes it up to you. Love you guys for supporting me and being with me to this time. Enjoy.

The pain was hard to bare as Padmavati forced her belly under layers of wrapping. During their journey to Malwa, she was praying to the gods that her child would find room inside her body to grow and not extend her belly any further, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. A five months old baby was hard to hide. It was Ila's advice to wrap her belly, she told her that some girls who got pregnant outside marriage hid their pregnancies this way. It made Padmavati's stomach turn that she has to treat her child as if he's illigetimate even before he's born.

Trying to get dressed by herself was causing her to sweat and shortness of breath, but the heat of the desert was enough to drain a person out of energy. She wanted no servants inside her tent and insisted that this was necessary for her safety, reminding Khilji the incident of her poisoning with fake horror when he offered her some maids. Every jewelry and piece of clothing is harder to put on with the pregnancy limiting her flexibility, but she manages finally, exhaling loudly.

Khilji was showering her with all kinds of clothes and all of them looked like pieces of art. She had no idea where he got such a taste. She couldn't help but feel thankful for having so many heavily embriodered shawls to drape over her belly, even though it looked irrelevant sometimes, they did the job.

Looking at her reflection covered in ochre and gold, she covered her curls with a thick shawl and draped the remaining length of cloth across her belly. She applied kohl to her eyes to protect them from the unforgiving rays of sun.

*the beauty of a flower pales, next to your ravishing charm*

As Padmavati meet her own dark eyes in the mirror, she remembered Khilji's song, the one with he sung with great sadness as he kept his eyes on her face. She wanted to look at him, slowly burn him in the fire of her beauty. Knowing him must have made it easier for her to fill him with false hopes.

*amidst the flowers in the garden, you are like a rose among thorns*

Getting to know him, Padmavati thinks. It was needed for her escape plan, for her revenge. Now she finds herself staring at her own image, wondering what made her the sun to his world, heart to his body, and the rose among thorns. His voice and the memory of dancing flames surrounded her like an insidious, intoxicating smoke, blurring her mind, twisting her guts. He was nothing like the men she knew, and her wisdom fell short for any form of description she tried to make up for him. It just did not make sense, did not balance.  She felt herself slipping into a trance-like state, where the moment he stood close to her and told her to blow into the embers played in her mind over and over again. The more she tried to define it, to understand it, she drifted away from meaning and got closer to a place where only sensations existed. The warm wind of his breathing, the vibration of his closeness, the fire coloured light of the sunset shining on his eyes, the sudden combustion of flames.  She felt herself being anchored to the moment, impossible to move out of it. Dear God, it was heavy.

 If it weren't for the startling voice of drums and horns outside, Padmavati would surely be caught staring absently into her own eyes through the mirror by Malik Kafur who came to fetch her for the celebration. Their eyes meet via the mirror the moment he steps in, and Padmavati falls into a inner conflict whether to consider him as a man or a woman while fixing her dupatta over her hair.