The Ballad Of Nirvana

Chapter 19

“Yes, I would have done that either way, even without mentioning, but now that you proved that you care about your people I will mention your name too. Thank you Indriya.” The Queen admitted heaving a sigh in the end. “I will have limited time to spend with him, he is not as ...accepting as you are.” She explained.
“It’s cool, I get it. Be safe though, his head is a labyrinth or rather should I say, it became a labyrinth.” Indriya informed her by throwing her hands up in the air. “I know my son Princess, I know what he needs and what he has done instead.” The Queen gave her a pointed look.

“And, I almost forgot, Princess, Happy Birthday to you! That is why I was here in the first place wasn’t I.” She said with a stunning smile.
“Thank you, Matha.” Indriya smiled back.
Then the Queen vanished in less than a fraction of a second.

Indriya opened her eyes, she heard her phone singing to her, a birthday song. She pushed the thought of the dead Queen from her mind, she did not throw it but she just put it aside like putting aside a photograph of a loved person.
It was singing a happy birthday song for her, so she woke up smiling and screamed “Yes, Happy birthday to me.”
Indriya brushed her teeth, put on her earphones and played her favourite songs.
After a while she just couldn’t sit still, so there she was dancing and singing so loudly that the dead in the cemetery miles away could hear her.

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Chag woke up startled when he heard someone singing loudly in the building, he realised it was Indriya because it didn’t sound like someone was choking on their food (courtesy of Mythri. She was a terrible singer.)
Just then someone knocked on his door and he let out a deep guttural grunt to allow the person inside. To his surprise it was Mythri, she looked just as startled and grumpy as he did.
He reached for his spectacles as he sat up on his bed, “Whoa, what’s with her today?”
“Don’t know, do you think we should find out?” She asked worriedly.
“Hang on, what is the date today?” Chag checked his phone. “Oh shoot! it is her birthday today.”

“Mythri, go get some cake and a necklace or something and get a gift you want to give her.” He nearly leapt out of his bed and rushed into the washroom.

Chag couldn’t comprehend what else he should give his cousin, he knew the huge fight his friend and Indriya had the day before, so he came up to a logical conclusion that he should give her a necklace instead of the portrait he made of her. Honestly, he did not like the portrait because his cousin looked absolutely flawless and his portrait was not very...convincing.

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Mythri was in the bakery looking at all the cakes, she was so puzzled at having so many choices that she honestly thought she should have made a cake at the bungalow kitchen instead.
She asked the baker what the best choice of cake would be for a teenager who was obsessed with books and music and he looked at her like she was mad.

“Young lady, I think you should know that, you look like a dork yourself.” The plumpy baker replied, smirking at her pointedly. But Mythri considered cutting his wrist open with a knife and healing it again just to see how he would like to ‘reconsider what he just said’. But she simply smiled and said “Pack the Red velvet with this written on it.”
She handed him a note that said ‘Happy birthday Indriya/Princess.’ Yes, with a slash on it.

Mythri bought a blue sapphire chaplet necklace after bargaining with the shopkeeper for a hell lot of time. She even threatened him that she would press charges of treason against him, after which he gave the necklace for half the price. She was on her way home, when she realised she had to get her gift.
So she sat down on one of the benches and thought about all her memories with the Princess. She pulled out each one of her memories one by one and assessed them, every detail for how she spoke to what she wore.
Thanks to Mythri’s mechanical brain, this side of her always puzzled her, the kind that had to assess too many human emotions. The part of her that strangely made her cold rigid heart  feel warm and calm, sometimes it even seemed to...flutter when she was around….