En Rājāngathin Rāniye.... Ongoing G

Prologue: Antham

Spoiler Alert: For K.G.F Chapter Two. The fic will be moving back in time from the next update, so anyone who hasn't watched part two will still be good for a while!

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Raja Krishnappa Bhairya froze as he saw his wife, his Rani, fall back, crimson blooming across the white of her dhavani.

He hadn't frozen in a long time. In years.

The last time he had frozen even for a second, he'd had a bullet lodged in his chest, and her in front of him. In the hands of the enemy. And he had still been thinking desperately, because he'd needed to get her out of there, hadn't he?

He had failed, though. It was only a madman's need to strike fear in the minds of those who were meant to be his slaves that had saved her. Saved him.

And that same madman's need to strike fear in his mind, was taking her from him today.

But he didn't feel afraid. He felt numb. All the fear he was supposed to feel, he saw in her eyes instead.

Her body hit the dirt, her clothes dusted brown now, and the ground beneath her dyed a deep maroon, nearly black. So much blood! They had probably gotten her kidney, some distant part of him realised.

And then he was by her side, kneeling down on one knee, his hand reaching towards the red blotch on her dhavani. Her life blood. The blood of his mother, whom he had once thought beyond the reach of his hands. It stained his hands maroon, reminding him of the kumkum his mother had adorned her forehead with everyday. The same kumkum he had stained his wife's forehead with on the day of their wedding.

Her hands twitched, but he wasn't sure who she was reaching for as he looked up into her eyes. Him? Who had ultimately caused her death with his carelessness? Or her? Their child, his mother, the now lost part of her womb?

In her eyes, wide and brown and teary, he saw such fear, and it angered him. He felt that last thread tying him to his sanity fray, his very soul protesting what he now knew was inevitable.

She wasn't supposed to go like this. Afraid, lying in the dirt. So... Heartbreakingly young.

She was supposed to die in that king sized bed with a mattress of pure down, in the master bedroom of the palace she'd come to love, amongst her children and grandchildren and that old Maniamma. She should have been fatter, face wrinkled and hair shining silver even as her eyes twinkled with the happiness of a life lived fully. And he should have been by her side, waiting to die soon after, because what else would he have to live for anymore?

They say people see their whole lives passing in front of their eyes when they know they are about to die. But as he saw a tear leak from the side of her eye, he saw only longing in her eyes. For what could have been. For him. And he saw her life pass in front of his own eyes instead. Right from the first time he had set eyes upon her, a paltry four years ago.....

No, no, no, no, no, no no no!

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Note:

Antham- The End

Dhāvani - A rectangular fabric draped over the torso, with a skirt and blouse. Part of the traditional South Indian half-saree. Here, refers to the dupatta/chunni/oni of a lehenga.

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