ENCHANTED- BY LOVE (completed)

22

*** Sruthi ***

"This is harder than I thought," the queen said to herself staring at the list on her study table.

"Your highness, the king is arriving," Naina informed but the queen was too stressed to acknowledge. Naina tried to say it for the second time, a little louder, but the king has already made his way into the library.

The queen, to the utmost surprise of every one of us, is still engrossed in her work.

She never did that! 

I turned to look at the king's reaction to being ignored but he simply smiled.

"Books before husband, Vaishu?" he asked playfully while walking towards her.

"Oh," the queen said startled. "I am so sorry....I am just panicking because I thought I would be in charge of 67 people but it turns out there are 189 women in the palace and...." she said looking at the list.

"Vaishu, look at me," the king interrupted and the queen turned towards him. He applied the sindhoor and deliberately continued to maintain eye contact. The queen stopped talking and just looked at him, her eyes full of love!

"You were saying?" the king asked focussing his attention to the list. It took a couple of seconds for the queen to catch up.

"Right..." she said, "I have to handle 189 women and I know nothing about them....so I memorized their family details, likes and dislikes but am not sure if it is enough."

The king looked at her blankly and then at the papers infront of her.

"Your memorized all of this?" he asked. The queen nodded.

"And you are asking me if it is enough?" he asked again.

"Yes," the Queen answered.

"Well," the king chuckled, "It is not enough."

"What else should I learn?" the queen asked innocently.

"Not learn, talk," the king corrected, "You want to know them? You talk to them."

I noticed the queen's expression change. She is starting to panic and I completely understand that. The queen is objectively very charismatic. Her kindness adds to her charm but unfortunately she does not see herself in that light. She thinks she needs to take everyone's feelings into consideration before doing anything. She once told me that if she is a room of 10 people, she will try to predict all their reactions before speaking a word.

'I think on behalf of everyone in the room before blinking my eyes and that is plainfully exhausting' were her exact words. 

The meeting with the queen's cabinet was not easy either. It took her days of preparation and research and although she did a good job hiding it from everyone except for the inner circle, she was incredibly stressed throughout. I could only imagine how hard it would be to do that all over again but with thrice the number of people.

"Vaishu," the king said gently holding her hand, "What happened?"

"189 people....different backgrounds...different opinions..." the queen started talking, more so to herself, than to the king, "How can I....this is a disaster...I should..."Shush Vaishu, stop thinking!" she said to herself similar to the way the king tells her.

The king was surprised the moment he heard the last statement. "Are you mocking me, Vaishu?" he asked.

No she is not. 'Shush Vaishu, stop thinking!' is the queen's mantra to calm herself down. Inspired by the king's words, sure, but she is definitely not mocking him.