Saving Satyavan ✓

Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ Sɪxᴛᴇᴇɴ

There was a new celebration in Darchan.

Bottles of wine and milk were brought out from their hiding places. Families dressed in their best clothes and danced around the stalls and houses. Children fearlessly took to the streets and jumped around with the adults or convened in their own small circles to play with colored powder or little pots filled with soft clay.

Savitri sat on one of the steps of one of the houses. She had her chin resting in a cup that her palms made and her elbows digging into her knees. The pain wasn't excruciating, but slowly, it numbed her upper thighs. She didn't bother to move her legs, though. The leopard must have been feeling the same pain when Suman shot his leg. She didn't know how much an arrow could hurt.

The festivities continued merrily in front of her, completely ignoring the solemn-looking girl that sat with despondence on the steps of a random person's home. Suman was nowhere to be seen. Savitri guessed that he was probably out drinking and partying with his new friends too. While he hadn't killed the leopard, he had played a part in its downfall, so he was also being celebrated.

Some hero, Savitri thought scornfully. Killing innocent animals.

Her brain argued with her. The leopard wasn't innocent. She was reminded ruthlessly of the children and adults that he had killed; of the families he had tortured and the villages that he had ripped apart. The leopard was just as guilty as any other rakshasa or criminal, and yet Savitri still felt upset for killing him.

He could have had a family, she wondered to herself. Do male leopards have families?

Uncultured in the lives of animals, Savitri huffed and turned her attention back to the bright festival. Colors that were thrown in the air like during Holi sprinkled on the people and roads like snow.

"Hey! Hey! Slow down," Savitri called to a group of small boys who ran past her. She groaned and rubbed her eyes when they didn't listen. "Fine, you'll understand later."

She sure understood. A black eye was what she got when she didn't listen to her tutors or, on a rare occasion, her father. But children were like that. They never listen until they get into trouble. She knew that all too well. Suman liked to tease her that she had never been a child, and sometimes Savitri thought that he was right. A real child wouldn't have been cooped up in a palace with only tutors and animals for friends. A real child would have had real friends, not fake ones only trying to win a better position in one's father's court.

"I don't think I've ever had any real friends," Savitri said when Sarfa slid into a seat next to her. Covered in pink and blue powder and drenched in water from the boys who kept throwing cups of them into the air, Sarfa frowned.

"I think you should have had real friends," she said. "Surely, you did. Where did you grow up?"

Savitri sighed. "In a palace," she muttered. "With nobody around me except for tutors and maids."

Sarfa offered her a small cup of milk. "Well, did you get along with any of them?"

"Not really." Savitri took a sip. "They viewed me as just another job. I was too young to understand. I stopped tutoring when I was sixteen."

"Why?"

"Political wars." Savitri shrugged. "My father had differing views than they did and they left. He was growing old, and the stress was only increasing the number of lines on his face, so I told him that it was fine."

"You gave up education for your dad?"

"I've given up a lot for my dad," Savitri said. She drank from the cup again and savored the sweet, if not, slightly bitter and saffron flavor that her tongue soaked up. "Then again, I suppose that I've given up at least something for everyone that I've met."