Nothing's Conventional About Us

XXII ~ Carmine

Carmine is the colour of the blood
That I picture on my fingertips.
The colour of the haze 
That settles around me.
The color of my blade, 
Thirsty, so thirsty. 
You better hope and pray and beg
That it is not the colour of your blood. 
Not that it would save you...

Carmine

Her lithe steps did not even make the grass and moist soil under her soles squelch. No fabric on her body touched the ground, as she carefully maneuvered through a narrow dirt path, parallel to the path where she could hear Princess Bhanumati's footsteps squeeze the particles of soil beneath her bejeweled flats. 

Poor girl. She had no idea  that one wrong word, one wrong gesture, and she would die at the hands of an immortal. A goddess who would make her perish in utter silence if she proved to be so much as a hindrance, and then make certain to make it look like sheerly accidental. Certainly with no witnesses. 

Such a shame, she wanted to smirk. 

But why would one even join hands with such evil if they did not deserve to perish without a single nod of acknowledgement towards their life? 

However, if the Kashi Princess turned out to be an unwitting victim or person or circumstance, then she would also gain protection. And acknowledgement. 

But well...

The Panchala Princess's footsteps quietly halted as soon as the foliage and layers of trees separating the two parallel paths thinned. Soon after, the glances Kashi princess's bright red and yellow dress appeared through gaps in the foliage, and Krishnaa thanked her own clothing tastes to have worn her darkest shade of carmine to this little outing. It would conceal her presence behind dark foliage and little blood sprinkles with equal efficiency. She needed these little human tricks till she had completely mastered her immortal powers. 

Hushed voices erupted from a tiny clearing amidst the thick of the grove. 

"Are you utterly insane, to be here, now?", Bhanumati's almost stage-whisper-like voice demanded. 

A sinister chuckle was the answer. 

And the newly-made Goddess's heart truly stilled for a moment. Some human traces took a while to disappear. For instance, scars as deep as this one. 

Infact, this was why she had been hunting him twice as hard as he had been hunting her. 

She needed him to be gone, dead and done with. That was the only way for her to receive true closure from the horrors of her past. Because she did not want to be able to recognize this chuckle as quickly as she did. 

And she certainly did not want the unnecessary terror that shot down her spine at the recognition. 

Dammit, she was a Goddess now. She could snuff him quicker than a child could blow out a candle. And yet, the terror seemed to coil around her spine like an unrelenting serpentine beast. 

But she would not succumb to its roils and threats. Not any longer. But she would certainly bide her time and make him writhe in suffering before she even struck. She owed herself that much. 

"Well, Your Highness, I am yet to see you making a single move as of yet. Is it a wonder that I will turn up to remind you of the brief timeline that we are to work within?", his voice sounded just as gruff and slippery as ever. The embodiment of everything she hated in a person. 

"Oh, do quieten, King of Sindhu. She has been nothing less than a predating falcon ever since he has left. I am very well convinced that she carries knives underneath those lush fabrics.", the Kashi Princess ended in a scoff.