War For Love

~Twenty Five~

"You should go back home, Siya." Sahib said looking down at the woman who had her head pressed against his shoulder.

Siya swallowed nervously, the darkness of the night allured her just like the man beside her enchanted her. He was so much alike to the dark sky. Endless and divine. With every passing day, it was getting so difficult for Siya to leave Sahib. Although, they knew they would meet again after a few hours. Siya disliked the separation amid them. Even if it lasted for a few hours. Siya knew they'd meet again and yet the few hours without him felt so much painful.

"A few moments more? Please?" Siya almost pleaded. Her voice dangerously soft. Sahib felt a shearing pain in his heart at her plea.

He wanted to be with her. Always. But like they say, sun has to set for one single glance of moon. They are not meant to be together and yet sun rises everyday only to set, to have a single glance of its moon. Sahib knew they were no different. Love before marriage was forbidden in their society and Sahib could bear everything and anything but he could never bear anyone questioning Siya's virtue and character.

But how could he turn down her wish? Reluctantly, fighting with the saner part of him, he squeezed her hand, pulling her closer to him. The night was cold, winds blowing made Siya to shiver slightly. Sahib grabbed the blanket Siya had given him along with the kurta before wrapping it around her and her heart almost leaped out of her chest. The warmth his actions gave her, swelled her heart. How can someone not love him? Siya knew how Sahib was so against of them meeting in secret and yet he was sitting with her because she wanted it.

"Can I ask you for something, Rudra?" Siya asked and Sahib looked at her, his eyes boring into her dark ones, drying her from inside out.

"Hm."

"Tell me something I don't know about you and in return, I'll tell you something you don't know about me. How does that sound?" Sahib hesitated at her unusual wish. She could have asked for so many things and yet she wanted to know about him.

Sahib was a private man. Sharing something no-one knew about him was such a difficult task. But the woman in front of him was Siya. She has been risking everything for him, her family, her life, her goals and this is the least he can do. Siya wanted to have his name and that's something Sahib can't give her but telling something about himself to her, seemed a fair option.

"You have weird wishes, Siya." Sahib pointed out and Siya rolled her eyes, hitting him lightly on his bicep.

"And you are a weird person!" Sahib snorted at her childish reply before he again gazed at the moon. His moon. Siya felt a blush erupting on her face as he looked at her like a child looks at his long lost mother. With compassion.

"No-one knows much about me, Siya. They don't know where I come from, they don't know about my family or about me, in general. People often think of me as an uneducated, barbaric man but I am a barrister by profession, Siya. I have studied half of my life on a foreign land, in a foreign institute."

Siya knew Sahib weren't like the majority of the men or people of their village but what she didn't knew was that Sahib was an educated man. That he had lived half of his life away from their country, learning about law.

"Then why don't you practice it?" Siya asked innocently and Sahib almost smiled at her question. Almost.

"I can but that's not what I want, Siya. I can't earn and live my life, lavishly when my people are dying here from starvation. My family died serving for our country, Siya. They died protecting their people and I know, there's no better heaven than blending in our country's land. There's no color better than the red which would paint my country in the color of freedom."

"You're doing everything to pay tribute to your parents?" Siya asked, her voice getting heavy with the lump that formed in her throat and he shook his head.

"It's my mere responsibility, Siya. I'm just completing my mother's last wish to live for my country and die serving my people. I am a very selfish man, Siya. Every action people think is my sublimity is actually my respect to my mother's last words."

"Your mother seemed very brave." Siya said, rubbing his palms and Sahib felt her action like the blanket of warmth in a cool winter morning. Comforting.

"She was. She could fight with the police officers all alone. People of my village used to call her Kali. She was so fierce, so fearless, so brave and such an inspiration to people. She was everything a woman is told not to be." Siya didn't knew Sahib's mother was such an inspiring woman. After a long silence, Sahib spoke again.

"Can I confess one more thing, Siya?" She swallowed her lump down before nodding her head.

"Yes, please."

"My mother was so much like you. You're so much like my mother. And sometimes, I feel immensely blessed to be able to meet two such women in my life and at times, I feel so cursed because I couldn't have any of you with me forever." Siya felt her heart wrenching at his words.

She wrapped her arms around his upper torso, pressing her head against the bare skin of his shoulder. Her affection was so overwhelming for him that he had to gulp down his emotions. He placed his head on her, pulling her more tightly, enveloping her in his arms. He wished this night to last forever and for the sun to never rise and he could have her in his embrace and love her without any fear and restrictions. Siya too wished the same. She wanted to have him in her arms forever.

"When did love become a destination, Rudra? Love is a journey which has no destinations but endless roads, sometimes with roses and sometimes with thorns." Siya said, her voice soft, soothing to his ears and he felt his heart calming down. She had a way with her words and actions.

Only she could make his heart to race like a marathon and only she could calm him down on a stormy day.

Siya was akin to that pure unadulterated fruit of his some good karma which made her love him unconditionally. She demanded nothing in return. When he thought, he only had a country to love, Siya made him beleive that a woman was also what he needed in his life.

"You don't want our lo— relationship to reach its destination?" Sahib asked, almost stunned and Siya smiled at how he corrected himself. He didn't use the L— word, not sure if what he feels is truly love or not.

"Goals end when they reach their destinations, Rudra. And I want to feel my growing love towards you, everyday. I want to live with you every day, exploring each and every inch of our beautiful journey. Love has no destination, Rudra. Love is a never-ending journey."

Sahib didn't had any more words to say. She had said so much that he felt no need to say anything anymore. He just pulled her closer, warming her with his bodily heat. If she wanted love without any destination, she shall have it. If she wanted to love him without the greed of marriage, he would present himself to her, on a platter. He would give her the world, the skies of infinite love and land of strength. He would give her his ocean to swim in and his air to breathe. He would give her everything she would desire. But not the promise of marriage.

"Rudra,"

"Hm?"

"Do you miss your Ma and Baba?'' Sahib took a while to answer her question. How hard could it be to confess the truth? Hard enough to lie? Or hard enough to ignore her question? But he decided against the fallacy and nodded his head in answer. .

"Who wouldn't, Siya?"

"I remember losing my Grandma when I was six, Baba always told me that she is looking at me from the sky. That she is the brightest star of the sky. Maybe your parents are there too." Siya said, trying to give him some moral support.

Faith. Five letter word that keeps the world going. Faith is the ultimately only thing binding the universe. A broken person has nothing but the faith of something good to happen one day. Every lost person lacks faith that makes the world look colourless to him.

But instead of getting something from the faith, Sahib started laughing. Laughing. The Sahib, who leads all the protest and attacks, the one who is often beleived as an angel sent from mighty God himself was laughing.

Siya froze when the vibrations from his chest rolled down to her in waves. This was the first time she had heard him laughing, the soft, melodious rumble made Siya's heart to beat like never before. His laughter receded back but the smile on his face was still intact. Sahib was a beautiful man. No words could ever do justice of how gorgeous that man was. His midnight eyes and dark skin made her insides to tremble. Beautiful was just an ordinary word in front of him. Sahib's lips parted at her unwavered gaze on him.

None of them really needed words to make the other understand what they felt for each other.

"What?" Sahib asked and Siya shook her head, blinking several times to come out of his trance.

"You should smile more often. When you smile, the nature smiles." Sahib rose his brows at her poetic sentence.

"And when I frown?" He asked, almost teasingly.

"Then my soul frowns." Sahib gulped at the intensity that rolled out of her and he cleared his throat.

"Okay, so my dearest Siya, I'm going to burst a myth of you. Do you know how far are these stars are from us?" Sahib asked in reference to what she had said about his parents being one of the stars and Siya furrowed her eyebrows together in response.

"Very far?" Sahib snorted, shaking his head.

"The stars are almost ten thousand light years aways from our earth. The nearest star we have is 4.37 light years away, which means the stars you're seeing right now is actually four to five years old. And I'm talking about our nearest star— Sirius." Siya rose her brows at the new information Sahib had just given her.

"So?"

"So, there's a possibility that the stars we're seeing now are probably dead. Though the possibility of it is only ten percent but the possibility of it being dead is present. So maybe the star you think is your Grandma, has exploded now." Siya blinked at his added up information and felt the urge to laugh on herself. She has been fooled all these years?

"So is that your way to call me dumb?" Siya asked with a slight giggle and he rolled his eyes, shrugging his shoulders.

"Maybe."

"How charming of you to call a woman you desire dumb. I thought we just needed lectures from you on laws, but it looks like I need to send the men of our village to you to learn how to smartly call their woman dumb too."

"That would be great, no? More of Sahib and more of Siya, hm?" Sahib said, almost jokingly but Siya felt a pinch in her heart and she snuggled closer to him.

"I don't think there's another Sahib in this whole world, Rudra."

"If there's only one Sahib in this world then so would be his Siya. Because Sahib doesn't walk without his Siya beside him." Siya felt her heart fluttering and she almost shoved her face in the crook of his neck, making him chuckle.

"But Siya will walk without Sahib beside her."

"Would she?" Sahib asked, chuckling at her pursed lips and she nodded her head before looking at him lovingly.

"Hm, after all, Siya would chase her Sahib all her life. And for that Sahib needs to be atleast one step ahead of his Siya."