Dried Lilies, Withered Hearts And A Lonely Path

•Chapter-18• Beach Talks

The past few days had been both enlightening and exhilarating for Khushi. Everything felt as exhilarating as freedom to a caged bird and as enlightening as learning the difference between knowing and experiencing to her. 

From the start, well, from the day Saesha started coaching her on the startlingly magnificent and humongous history of the surs. She knew there were more people like them. She just knew, for there can't a ruler without people. What's a king without his subjects? Nothing.

She was aware there were more people like them after all her own father is supposed to be one of them. A demigod. A sur. A royal of the air clan. A mystery. She doesn't like thinking about him much. It makes her sad.

So, she wasn't surprised that she never paid much mind to this notion. Didn't care much about this fact. Their presence was easy to ignore. For some moments, she could even imagine the Rawte's as humans. It was simple when they weren't using their powers and just teaching her out of the books.

Living inside the four walls of the house, interacting just with the nine members of the Rawte family and their chosen animals. They seemed like any other human family out there with some quite crazy choices in pets but human nonetheless. It was so easy to forget...to overlook the fact there were more like them.

She hadn't worried about what the other people will think or say? She didn't have to for the people she was living with didn't seem to mind. And she didn't worry or think much about the others like them anyway. By chance, if she did, it was easy to make herself believe that everyone else will accept her too. No one will question her or her rights.

But now her whole thought process has been tilted upside down and made her question her own silly thoughts. She should have thought about everything.
But she didn't and the encounter in the forest left her reeling, turning her whole perspective upside down.

Forcing her to think, to worry, to wonder.

She couldn't banish the thoughts of those people out of her mind. She couldn't banish Saesha's silently withering and bleeding figure out of her mind. The deep cut, the protruding white bone of Saesha's wrist, the steel in Saesha's watery eyes, the wavering breathless words used by Saesha to distract her.

All of it was forcing her to think. All of it was making her question things. It was terrifying her.

Why did that man attack Saesha? They knew she was the queen but still, they attacked her, why? Who were they? Weren't they afraid of the repercussions? But they did. They called her majesty and still attacked. Didn't they know the risk? Weren't they afraid? But what if they really didn't have any reason to worry?

No, Kanil loved Saesha. Khushi was sure. But why then? How were they so fearless?

Was it because Saesha is human? Do they really hate humans so much? In all the history books, she hadn't found many pieces of evidence on their human interactions. Even the Rawte's don't interact more than necessary with humans. Is this the reason they're keeping Khushi hidden? She is half-human, after all.

So will the other surs also hate her? She does not know nor she could ask Saesha anything about it. Cause Saesha isn't here. She hadn't seen Saesha for the last two weeks. The last Khushi had seen Saesha, it was in the astronomy class with Kanil. Saesha was smiling apologetically at her direction. Clearly, sorry for intervening in her class.

Khushi really didn't mind her presence. She could understand why Kanil wanted to stay close to Saesha after the attack. What she didn't understand was why he didn't come to her rescue? And what did he read in the stars?  She is sure he read something for Saesha and he left just after the class. After all, Kanil did look like he had seen a ghost when he was staring at the moon and stars. She didn't know where they went? She didn't know why?