| Hawaaon Ke Paighaam | Messages Of The Wind

| Zurich |

Murtasim sat relaxed, one hand low on the steering wheel with his other wrist just resting on the elevated console between them. His fingers stroked each other absentmindedly, and Meerab watched in a trance as his ring, the exact colour as the leather seats, moved with them. It glided up and down hypnotically as he moved his fingers, and so lost in thought she was, that she didn't realise when they slowed down.

"Bhook to nahi lagi?" His words were like vibrating particles in the air between them, suspended and expectant.

The question itself was very Murtasim; the one she had grown up with. The one who had had a first-hand show of her appetite throughout the years. Finding that Murtasim here, in the middle of foreign Zurich, on her first romantic outing, that too with the new, much more complex Murtasim, was comforting. She hummed in denial and shook her head, her waves bouncing around her from the lack of styling. Or just basic brushing for that matter.

Good Lord.

She looked out of the tinted window and prayed that she wasn't underdressed for whatever he had planned. She had been sure it had been a dinner, dessert and maybe an activity on the side. Maybe the theatre or the opera. A cruise on Lake Zurich if he was feeling adventurous. It was the dinner and dessert part which had her biting into her bottom lip. He'd never taken her somewhere where she could've gone dressed as she was right now. Of course, the fact that she could technically go anywhere she wanted wearing even a sack of potatoes if she went with Murtasim Khan was another matter altogether. She was positive people would over backwards and wait on her hand and foot if they knew she was with him. Still, it didn't ease neither the lip biting nor the feeling that she was underdressed for her very first, proper date.

They drove for a while before the car took a sharp exit off the motorway and the lights suddenly went dark. The street lights reduced considerably and trees lined the little country road on either side. Meerab finally decided it was time to come out of the shock of her 'impromptu Murtasim sighting' syndrome; a phenomena was which now becoming increasingly normal around him.

"Kahan ja rahay hain?"

He turned to look at her, a tiny, tiny smirk curling the edge of mouth, but stayed silent.

"Is this part where I find out you're really a Khan?" she continued, thinly veiled sarcasm filtering through.

"Matlab?" he humoured her, his face serious as he concentrated on the dark road ahead.

She flicked her hair back and leaned onto the little space in between them.

"Wohi. Gaddi-nasheen. Zameendaar. Corrupter of women, awaara, ayaash...neither kind or fair." She spelt out succinctly, her eyebrows raised in challenge as she waited to see his reaction to the description. It was true for most of his contemporaries, after all.

It got darker and foggier, the trees getting higher and thicker until there were just vast fields surrounding them. Meerab squinted her eyes, her nose pressing against the glass as she tried to discern the landscape outside. The car rounded a corner and suddenly stopped as bright, intrusive lights came into view. Murtasim clicked open his belt and opened his door, turning his head just a tad.

"Tum abhi baithi raho."

If Murtasim Khan was good at issuing orders, then Meerab Murtasim Khan was better at defying them; especially ones which tested her curiosity. She was out of her belt and half out of the door just as he rounded the car. Without missing a beat, his hand extended as she ambled out of the car, steadying her as she straightened whilst she looked at him sheepishly. Meerab blinked as Murtasim gave her the look; the one which said 'I know what you just did but I'm going to let it slide'. He then took her hand and led her around the car until Meerab's mouth fell open and their feet came to a stop. His body enveloped hers from behind and his lips skimmed her ear as she stared blinkingly ahead.