بسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ In The Name Of Allah, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful
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With a last pat on the stallion's smooth obsidian mane, a puff of grey smoke births as Ayan sighs and tears his gaze away from the beast. The lantern, tightly clutched in his muscular fingers, glows out the way for him in the darkness, casting its firey reflection bare in his onyx lens. The rays twinkly sail beneath his eyes, and while some of them are absorbed by its semi-circular hollow darkness, the others tickle his well-kept beard, diminishing out umber locks from the darker ones. It then sweeps over the muddy stable floor until the barn door is bolted open, jerking both the man and the beast.
"Walid-e-Muhtaram?" A childish voice resonates.
(respected father)
Ayan snaps his head to where his son stands, evidently shivering from the cold. "Yaqub, what matter has compelled you to be awake this late?" The man calms the stallion before locking the stable door.
As everything is marred out in the darkness, Yaqub ambles closer in his leather boots, sketching its print on the mud, to the lantern his father is carrying, aiming to seek some clear direction. "I did not find you at dinner, nor did you arrive even after Daadi Jaan narrated the story of Prophet Musa alahi salam's birth."
Ayan smiles. "I had some pressing issues to dea--Yaqub dehan se!"
(be careful)
A loud thump echoes within the walls of the barn. Other horses get their heads out of their stalls to survey the ruckus while the mother sheep scoot closer to their infants as they stir up with fear. Ayan, with a fretting emotion coloring his face, dashes to where his offspring has fallen head first on the muddy ground. He sets up the lantern and gently picks up a wailing Yaqub.
"Hush, mera bahadur sher, let me inspect where you have wounded yourself." The father tugs away the hair that curtains his eyes and the mud that coated his cheeks. He then touches his small button nose, but Yaqub wails loudly, pushing his fingers away.
(my brave lion)
Ayan's brows furrow in a frown upon finding hot crimson liquid on his fingers. Tracing his fingers on the ground, he vocalizes, "This is not such a hard footing for you to brea--" His words die down in his throat as he feels the base be stony to where Yaqb fell a few moments ago. He looks up at his son in perplexity, and his son mirrors his gaze, wiping off tears and blood from his sleeve.
"Here," He lifts up the lantern to his son, "aid me by holding this." And when his son commits to what he has commanded, he pushes his sleeves up and begins to dig. Only after a passing moment, Yaqub gasps, and both their eyes widen with shock. Ayan brushes the dirt off the wooden covering before pulling the chest from the ground.
