ASRAN SERIES- ACROSS THE BORDER

Chapter - 27

Nina then started knitting the leaves around him and covered him fully inside them. When Elly noticed that the process was over, she pulled Peter along with her and went near Nina. She then held her head down and greeted her respectfully.

“Princess Nina, the current ruler of the ‘Asran’, we welcome you to our planet Asper. I humbly request you to accept my apologies for not identifying you sooner,” Elly kneeled and crossed her arms across her chest to welcome the princess in Asper’s old-fashioned way.

Peter looked at the sandwiched Robert and then at her phobic sister acting all brave all of a sudden in front of an unknown person who she feared just a few minutes ago. Moreover, she was even calling her princess and doing the traditional greeting. 

Everything suddenly seemed very foreign to him and he badly missed Robert’s loudmouth right at that moment. If he was awake, he would have explained everything to him. He felt helplessness and that turned into a slight annoyance towards the person responsible for sandwiching his friend, Robert. 

“What did you do with Robert? Let him out of that wrap,” Peter demanded as he was worried about his sandwiched friend.

“I did as you have asked me to do. Did I not tell you earlier? If you ask for my help then I would help you and now I merged them,” Nina said without taking her eyes away from the sandwich roll.

“Yes, I did ask for your help but Robert always stayed awake when he merged with Nameless before. Right now, he is unconscious,” Peter pointed at Robert and told her.

“His method is raw while I made a proper procedure to unite them and with no pain,” Nina said to him.

Peter gripped his hands together and stared at her. Elly waited patiently for Peter to kneel and she even signaled him indicating that he should kneel and not argue. But Peter was in no mood to listen to her as he was worried about Robert.

So, Elly hit Peter’s leg behind his knee to make him kneel in front of the princess. But then instead of kneeling it only made him lose his footing and he fell forward. As to balance himself, Peter tried to hold onto the object standing in front of him to reduce the falling effect. 

By mistake, all he could grab was Nina's clothes on his way to the fall before his face hit the ground first. No one expected that Nina’s dress would get torn by Peter because of the impact and a loud ripping sound was heard later. Her pink animated innerwear came in sight of everyone and her whole body almost turned red from embarrassment. 

Moreover, Peter hit the floor hard and he almost got knocked badly on the head. Also, his nose turned dark red and even blood oozed out from it. He rubbed his forehead with his hands and noticed that he was holding a dirty cloth in them.

“Whose clothes are these? It stinks,” He commented and shook it in front of his face while completely ignoring the eerie atmosphere around him.

Elly watched everything in horror with her mouth wide open and she didn’t know how she should react for some time. Even Minias’ could not stop laughing but then closed their mouths with their four hands as they did not want to make any loud noise to avoid angering their angel, Nina.

“You… You…” Nina’s face had changed to bright cerise color from anger and she wanted to hit Peter very badly.

Ellie looked at Nina once and then at her brother, Peter. She could not decide whether she needed to attend to his brother, Peter, or the poor princess Nina, whose dress got torn by her stupid brother. She looked back and forth at both their faces but she still could not decide on whom she should go to first.

As Nina couldn’t bring any words out of her mouth because of her rage, she took the horn and blew it angrily. Minias immediately started marching towards Peter in a unified row and then they started to remove his pants. 

“What are you doing? Let me go…” Peter screamed and tried to hold his bleeding nose with one hand and then pulled his pants up using his other hand.

But Minias overpowered Peter very easily and successfully pulled his pants out. They then marched towards Nina with Peter’s pants above their head. Nina took the pants from them and pulled the pants above her torn dress and even buttoned it. 

But how much ever she tried to keep it up on her hips, it would not stay. The pants kept on sliding down from her waist due to the difference in their body sizes. So, she pulled the torn part of her dress from Peter’s hands and tied it around her waist on top of the pant to make it stick to her body. 

She then walked towards the corner, she was sitting earlier when they came into the cage with a gloomy face. Peter slowly stood up from the ground and searched his bag for a pant. He also took out a bottle of medicine to apply to his wounds.

He did not take another glance at Nina and ignored her. Elly went and sat next to Nina and did not say a word letting the atmosphere turn awkward.

“Elly… Elly…” Peter called his sister twice but then she did not react as she was afraid to offend the princess of Asran.

So he wore his pants in silence and then wiped his face with a medicinal herb which immediately healed all his injuries. He took out one of Elly’s dresses from inside his bag that he brought along with him. He then walked towards Nina and placed the dress next to her along with some dragon fruits.

“This is my sorry for what I did earlier. I should have not torn a lady's dress in front of everyone,” Peter said with a flushed face.

“So, if it’s not in front of everyone then will you tear my clothes?” Nina lifted her head with burning eyes and questioned him.

“No, I would not do that even then. I am sorry…” Peter said with a straight face.

“But you did… You tore my clothes in front of everyone…” Nina looked at him in an accusing way and mumbled through her gritted teeth.

“That’s why I am asking for your forgiveness. As I did not expect that I would fall so suddenly, I lost my balance and caught… you… your dress…” Peter’s ears turned pink and he almost felt his knees go weak.

He had never experienced this before and this was his first time he was even saying sorry to someone... especially to a girl.

“Just because you asked for forgiveness, it doesn’t mean that I would have to forgive you immediately. I will wait and analyze how you behave in front of me in the future. Then I would decide if you really deserve my forgiveness or not…” Nina said with a straight face.

“...” Peter looked at her small stature and sighed.

As he could not do anything else to comfort her, he agreed with her.

“Alright, fine. As you wish, your highness,” He said and bent down to pick the dragon fruit as he thought she did not want it. 

But Nina hand was faster and took them all in one sweep, she then bit one of the fruit and asked him,

“Don’t you know once you have paid your taxes, you are not supposed to ask for them back?”

“Taxes? When did I ever pay any tax? I am still a kid and is it not illegal to make us work at this age? So, what tax are you talking about?” Peter asked him.

“You have a lot to ask even after you have your nose broken,” Nina huffed and took another bite.

Peter looked at her as if he was looking at an alien and shook his head. He then went back to where he placed his bag and pulled out a few more food items. He gave half to his sister and the remaining half to himself.

When Nina noticed that he had some other kind of food to eat, she kept on staring at his hand. Peter felt a sudden chill and lifted his head to look at the person staring at him so intently.