The Village Girl

Chapter Twenty Four - [Seetha]

It didn't matter anyways.

I was pregnant, and I was thrilled.

Though here and there I would worry about the whole boy or girl situation, for the most part, I was just relieved that there was someone in there.

If I had any choice, I think I would have preferred a girl first. A little girl would have been good for the serious, and always busy Aaryan. I wondered what kind of father Aaryan would have been like to a baby girl, who the world would ask less from than if the baby was a boy. I think it would be easier for him to be himself. To be just a loving father.

With a boy, Aaryan couldn't just be a father. The boy couldn't just be a son either. A baby boy would be an heir, and from the very beginning, there would be hundreds of things that would be expected from an heir. Aaryan told me what it was like for him as a child... how much was expected from him. Aaryan barely even had a childhood in my opinion. His father did not raise him the way my father raised my brothers. In fact, Aaryan barely spent any time at all with his father.

And maybe that was why the King always wanted at least one daughter. Maybe he wanted to just be a father.

And who knows, maybe that was why he was excited to be a grandfather... he could finally have a relationship with a child that was like his own.

And maybe that was why he was always so kind to me.

Anyways, all of this was beside the point.... I didn't have a choice. I would only ever know if it was a girl or a boy on the day he or she was born.

I suppose all I could wish for at this point was that everything went well...

---

Aaryan was gone for a couple days to handle some affairs a few villages over and so once again, I was alone. I didn't really mind at this point. I had gotten used to it and I understood that Aaryan had responsibilities he had to fulfill and I was more than grateful that he was just handling some simple issues rather than marching out to war like he did with the King of Kiyo. After 'monitoring' the meals for servants, they were having dosai and saambaru today, I went to the temple with Lady Suhanya as I did quite often these days and then we would return to the palace.

Usually I would have had to go to my lessons, but since I was pregnant, Lady Suhanya instructed that my maids and I spend the evening walking. Lady Suhanya said that walking a lot would help with the birth and I believed her because my mother used to say the same thing.

As we walked around, my maid friends and I chit chatted, and I was happy to say that I always had a good time with them.

We made our way through the highway, giggling away about a new boy that Rekha seemed to have been flirting with, when we heard a loud "hey!"

I turned around, seeing that it was coming from one of the rooms we walked past. When I looked into the room, I saw Aarun sitting on a colourful pillow, surrounded by some young men, all of whom looked like nobles. They were all lounging around, drinks in hand and looking somewhat drunk. There were also quite a few young women there, and it was quite obvious they weren't there because they were friends.

Aaryan's younger brother smiled at me, and he was wearing that usual look on his face which seemed to suggest that there was a joke that I had just missed. "Look who it is."

He spoke as if we had not seen each other in a while, when in reality, we saw each other quite often, though we never really spoke.

"It's been quite some time since my sister-in-law joined the family, yet I don't think any of you boys had a chance to formally meet her?"