BATTLE OF LOVE (completed)

CHAPTER 28

Arjun's POV:

We were sent out of the palace with nothing except for a pair of swords and a bag whose contents are unknown. Maybe it had some casual clothes. We ourselves changed into casual clothing before leaving the palace Priya apologized to Dharani saying that she didn't except any of these. Dharani told her that it's not her fault and that she shouldn't blame herself. So here we are on the roads, with nowhere to go. It was already six in the evening and we didn't have any money to afford a place to stay.

"I was about to convince Acharya, but you spoilt everything," Dharani spoke as her frustration was evident in her voice. "You spoke on my behalf as well and bought us onto roads. Now we have nowhere to go."

"One of the promises of marriage is to stay together at all times. Keep up with that promise," I said. Dharani rolled her eyes and looked away. I was impressed that she didn't say anything about not considering this as a marriage.

"Let us spend the night in Lord Krishna's temple," I suggested, "When all paths are closed, God is the only way out."

"I cannot come," Dharani said, "I don't want to raise my sword in the Lord's adobe. That is highly disrespectful and unacceptable."

"Who is challenging you for a war now?"

"Really," she said, "Aren't you the one who would challenge me for a war every now and then?"

"And that's the reason we are here," I said, "Why would I repeat my mistake?"

She seemed convinced and agreed to spend the night in the temple. I knew she is more devoted than me. The temple was beautiful and elegant. We offered our prayers to the Lord, took the prasad and settled in a corner. Dharani started checking the contents of the bag as I tried to plan our future. There is a rule in Minjan that when a citizen from Mitra or Anjan decides to come to reside in Minjan, they would be given free accommodation and food supplies for a week. The accommodation can be converted into a permanent home if the person is willing to pay the rent. This is to ensure that people seeking citizenship would not be confused during their initial stage. We could have exploited this scheme if we had new citizenship documents with our fake names. Unfortunately, we don't have any.

"There are empty stamp papers in this bag," Dharani said excitedly as she finished writing on one of the papers. "We could create documents of our new citizenship and......."

"We need signatures of Acharya along with our signatures," I interrupted her.

Dharani gave me an expressionless look and continued writing. Wait, she wasn't writing actually, she was putting signature. Signature of Acharya. 

"Yeah yeah go ahead and put my signature as well," I said sarcastically and she actually put my signature as well and it was perfect. Like so perfect that even I couldn't distinguish it from the original one. I then looked on to Acharya's signature and realized that it was perfect as well. What? Acharya's signature is the most complicated one I've ever seen and legend has it that no one could forge his signature. That means she was being serious about all this?

"What in the world are you doing Dharani?" I said as I pulled the pen from her hand, "You are committing one crime after another that too in front of me. Do you even realize that you have forged the signatures of two officials for which you could be arrested?"

"Oh please," Dharani said as she pulled the pen back, "Acharya himself taught me his signature and gave me the permission to use it when it is extremely necessary and as far as your signature is concerned may I remind you that I did it in front of you and you were the one who asked me to put your signature."

Well, I was being sarcastic. Anyway, I didn't want to go into that discussion. 

"I didn't teach my signature," I asked, "Then how did you...."

"I did a course on this," Dharani interrupted me. 

"You did a course on forgery? No wonder you have a soft corner towards criminals. Why would you do a course like that?" I asked surprised, "I never knew my wife is an expert in crime."

"Stop it, Arjun," she said offended, "I've never used my skills to do any crime and I've learned it so that it would help in the unfortunate scenario of our soldiers and us being imprisoned by enemies."

"Well that would never happen with me," I said as I read the paper in her hand. She has changed her name to Rani and my name to Arun. I noticed that our new names are just our old names minus a few letters. 

"Is it because you are too confident of your skills that you believe there is no one who could ever defeat you or give you a tough competition," she asked looking into my eyes.

I shook my head.

"It's because whenever I find someone who could give me a tough competition, I would develop good relationships with them. I would rather be a husband than an opponent of my strongest enemy."

"So you would marry any women who could compete with you?" she said folding her arms and piercing me with her gaze. She is jealous.

"Nope," I said, "May I stress the word strongest. You are the only one special enough to be my wife. The only one who is capable of both fighting and caring and doing crazy things."

Dharani rolled her eyes again and she was genuinely at loss of words. According to my analysis, she kind of wants to end this conversation before it turns into a serious romantic talk.

"I am sleepy," she said as she leaned towards a pillar and closed her eyes after a short prayer to God. I smiled and prayed to Lord Krishna to show a way to convince my wife. After which I walked towards the other pillar and fell asleep.

(Hey guys, thank you for making it till here. Please vote and comment. Also, the next chapter will be published on 12 December 2018. So stay tuned. Thank you. Love you all.)