If love had prevailed (Ponniyin Selvan AU)

Naraga Thee

Translation: Fire from hell

Nandini couldn't sleep. She had spent the past hour twisting and turning in her bed with closed eyes, but was unable to fall into the beautiful world called sleep.

But that was probably because dreams were taking over her mind while she was awake and they were starring only one character besides herself.

So she had gone outside to look at the night sky, the luminous moon and twinkling stars always gave her a semblance of peace.

But the world doesn't work the same way when you like someone. And so the night sky gave her anything but the calm she desperately wanted.

The twinkle of the stars looked like the mischievous glimmer in his eyes. The night black sky reminded her of those eyes.

Even the majestic tree banyan tree outside their house reminded her of his confident stance.

And the burning flame in the distance...

Wait. Why was there there a burning flame in the distance? A rather prominent one at that. Then the faraway screams hit her.

Panic rushing through her veins, she went back inside the house woke Nambi and said, "There's a fire in the middle of the city!"

He was awake in an instant. "What?!"

"Come outside and look for yourself"

Both siblings ran outside and Nambi's eyes widened with shock at the terrifying sight.

"Nandini, put on a shawl, we're going to see what's happening"

————————

Up close, the fire was nothing like Aditha Karikalan.

No, it was hell fire, from the depths of Naragam.  And it surrounded the once elegant and beautiful Lakshmi temple.

Nandini could feel the tears paving their way down her face. She loved this temple. It was the heart of Thanjai, the representation that they were beautiful and wealthy.

The worst wasn't that, though.

The  family who took care of the temple had a young girl. She was one of the only girls Nandini had ever been close to. Her only friend.

And she was inside.

Nandini's heart felt like it was being shredded, like her soul was being doused in icy water, and she slowly made her way around the temple, to she if anything inside was visible. People around her were trying to douse the flames, but she knew they were to powerful.

That's when she heard a person crying, somewhere beside her.

She turned in the direction of the sound to see a familiar young female form, sobbing.

"Yazhini, you're safe!"

Yazhini, the aforementioned girl, looked up and burst into tears once again, "But Amma and Appa aren't, Nandini"

Nandini made her way to sit beside her friend and put an arm around her shoulder.

"Don't worry, you have me"

And as the night passed and the chaos still continued, the two friend sat together, one comforting the other, reminding her she still had a world to live in and people with her.

————————

The sun was peaking out of his slumber when the royals were finally informed of the fire.

Aditha was struck. Two attacks in consecutive nights? Whoever they were, they were immensely powerful.

Right now, he was bargaining permission to go check the area.