8 8. Mission Back to Palace

Since Zaharia was also in detention now, it was even more difficult for Vinasaka to sneak out. “No matter what, she will find it out in an instant.” But he couldn’t ditch his friend also. Finally, after a whole deal of brainstorming, he thought of a master plan and was so impressed by it himself that he couldn’t control his grin.

Off he went to get into action! As he entered his sister’s chambers, he walked to where the princess was sitting doing something in a paper with a sneering look on her face, so intently engaged that she didn’t even hear her attendants announcing the arrival of her brother. Vinasaka stopped from above and upon a closer look, he saw a disfigured human body painted in blue and then scratched rigorously over and over again to the point that it hardly looks like a picture anymore.

Vinasaka didn’t dare mess with his infuriated sister and instead asked, “Sister, sister? Who is this?”

“OH!?” she hid the paper away upon reflex when she heard the voice, “No one! It’s nothing?”

After calming herself down a bit, she said, “How come no one announced your arrival?”

“They did, but you were too busy!” Vinasaka sat down beside her. Zaharia’s only weak spot was her brothers and Vinasaka knew it after all. She ruffled with his hair and asked, “So? What is it this time? What are you here for? Another favour, another request? C’mon spill it out!” He was found out even before he could try out his plans.

An awkward laugh followed by a sudden clasping of hands in form of request, “Sister, please don’t let others know. Please!”

“You are going out again!!” she almost screamed when Vinasaka quickly sshh-ed her, “But Vin you know the amount of destruction that happens everyti-...”

“I know sister, but trust me this time I did not harm anybody and moreover...,” he was about to take Mir’s name when he stopped. Among his many forbidden acts was also an act which forbids him to involve or talk or even meet a stranger. This was only done to protect Vinasaka. Since there were rumours everywhere, there had been a lot of times when various people had tried to poison him or kill him quietly since he was clearly a threat to mankind and the whole world. Everytime something like that happened, the king had himself taken care of such matters and those people were never seen again. Vinasaka knew everything so he dare not mention Mir.

“Moreover?” Zaharia asked, waiting for him to finish.

“Umm...moreover you know how boring it is to be inside the royal premises all day!” With a little more coaxing, he managed to win over the princess. “Fine, but keep your promise alright.”

“Ay ay madam!” Vinasaka made a silly gesture of a salute and left her sister smiling, hopping out of the room.

They met everyday but Vinasaka would still feel the same amount of excitement as the first day. Mir asked him, “I heard about something happening with royal siblings yesterday in the town?”

“Oh that!” Vinasaka replied lazily sitting against a tree and Mir followed him as well, as he continued to describe the whole incident. After he finished and shrugged, Mir burst out laughing, “You fell down from the tree...in front of everyone?”

“Did you just pick that out from the entire story that I had just narrated?” Vinasaka couldn’t believe him but joined him slowly and soon both of them were laughing hard.

“Why are you laughing?” Mir asked, holding his stomach still laughing.

“Because YOU are laughing!” Vinasaka actually ended up laughing at himself.

When they were both back to being able to control themselves, Mir cleared his throat and said, “I am sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed at your highness.” However, his laugh was leaking from his words again and both remained silent for about a minute before they started laughing again like crazy.

The silence of the dark woods was finally broken and now it was filled with the laughter of these two little boys but on the other hand, cold sweat covered the princess when the king ordered the siblings to be present in the court shortly. Amir was out, so they had to wait for him to come back while the princess trying to sneak out failed miserably and was literally chased by the royal guards. Thankfully she knew where Vinasaka was so she ran straight to the woods but it was no good. The woods were dark and dense. It was impossible to find someone there just by calling them out. However, just as she feared, the royal guards spread out in the forest chasing the escaper miserably as if otherwise their lives were at stake.

Vinasaka and Mir, having heard the screams of the guards, suddenly sprang up from their relaxed state right on their feet. Mir was just clueless but could sense some tension in Vinasaka, “Your hi-...,”

“Not good, we need to run......., hide!” Vinasaka took his hand, stopped him mid sentence and pulled him along.

The two of them kept running away from the voices when Mir was like, “This won’t do!”

“Huh?” As Vinasaka was about to confirm what Mir was thinking, Mir pulled him and they were soon inside a cave.

“This thing exists??!!” Vinasaka had no idea about this cave and who knew that this was going to become the very secret hideout of these two kids very soon.

Both of them finally sat down, panting for air when Vinasaka discovered Mir looking straight at his hands. Following his gaze, he noticed that his hands had been bleeding.

“How did this happen?”

“Oh I didn’t notice...maybe while running back then?” He seemed not to care too much about it, “Anyway, this is no big deal. It’ll heal quickly on it’s own. It has always been like this,” he shook his hand indifferently as if to show it didn’t hurt but suddenly clasped the part where the cut was, with another hand and screeched in pain.

“Does it hurt a lot?” Mir’s voice was definitely one that of concern but lost as to what to be done in order to help. He wanted to help but he didn’t know how to. For now, he could only accumulate his water spell in his palm and help him clean the cut but he wanted to do more.

“It’s okay Mir, you don’t have to look at it that way, it wasn’t your fault,” Vinasaka told him as he found Mir intensely staring at his cut with the most pathetic eyes.

“See it’s healing,” Vinasaka put his hand forward to show him how it had stopped bleeding. It was something Mir had never seen before; such a fast healing mechanism, now his eyes which were considerable of a bigger size, were staring right at his face, “How?”

Vinasaka wanted to let him know everything...everything about himself but was it safe? Could he trust him? After all he hadn’t known him for long. So he just shrugged instead.

The voices of the guards were faintly heard ensuring that they were safe but Vinasaka understood that something was wrong and that he had to go back but how?

Zaharia has also been trying to hide from the guards since the guards didn’t know yet who had escaped. All they knew was they had let a very suspicious figure escape the royal premises and they might very well be in danger if they are unable to get hold of it. The princess who was currently being chased relentlessly, stopped by a tree to catch her breath when she heard something and looked up.

The very moment she looked up, her eyes were frozen in a particular direction. On a branch quite high, there sat a familiar person with his back against the tree, playing a melodious tune on his flute, momentarily having shut off all other distractions.

“What are you doing here?” Zaharia whispered but loudly which she thought he wouldn’t be able to hear but as if interrupted, he opened his eyes and looked down. With a playful smirk, he added, “Excuse me? Is entering this forest prohibited? For commoners?”

Hearing this Zaharia clenched her fists and was about to shout back when suddenly, probably due to his voice, the guards were heard running to their direction. She looked back in awe when she felt a hand grabbing hers and pulling her behind the tree. When she finally got back her senses, she found herself stuck together with the very guy whom she has been drawing and stabbing since yesterday, her mouth covered with his hand, the other hand on her waist, pulling her tightly against himself and making sure they both were well hidden behind the tree.

At first, it was hard for her to believe the situation she was in but later when she slowly shifted her head to look at the hand that held her waist, Mohnish seemed to realise what she was thinking but instead of letting go, he said, “Hold on,” he grabbed her even tighter and the next moment she found them on the branch of the tree that he had been sitting on earlier.

“I am sorry about...that but it’s safer here,” he said slowly. Her face was visibly red and she probably wanted to thank him but only ended up saying, “Hm.” She watched the guards walking below them rapidly turning their heads here and there to look for a clue when a guard screamed, “Here, it’s here!” which led all the guards to follow the voice. Even Zaharia could see a figure covered in rags moving at lightning speed in the opposite direction.

“Could it be?” For a second, the princess became stiff at the thought of the shadow belonging to Vinasaka but turns out that another small figure was waving his hands rapidly underneath their tree. He has found them. Both Mohnish and Zaharia climbed down instantly, “Vin, are you okay?”

“Yes, let’s hurry,” Vinasaka was about to run when Zaharia asked again, “Who was that?”

“Not the perfect time, I’ll tell you everything later. Let’s go for now,” she was pulled by her brother and when she looked back at Mohnish. He didn’t expect that but there was a small bow directed at him. He smiled proudly as he bowed his head back to return the unexpected gesture.