Bonded

Chapter Four

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India

...

The moment they had walked into the room I had noticed them... Their thickened leather clothing so very different from the traditional robes that the rest of us wear... And the very sight of them had set my heart towards a frightening pace... My wits had fled from me and as they drew closer and closer I found myself seeing no other option but trying to run from them... Only to get my foot caught in my robes as I tried to escape... My body tumbling right into the arms of the bonded pair that I had gotten caught spying upon earlier in the library... Their very target delivering himself to them so that they may drag me over to Master Qiao to tell them how I could not keep my eyes to myself this afternoon... And just as soon as I feel the arms I try to pull away from tightening their grip on me to make me stay put, the tears I thought I had managed to dry start to trail their way down my face... My dismissal from dinner and possibly the palace in general causing a knot to form in my throat... 

I had only wanted to see if I would be able to understand the love that Jian always finds himself gushing about... To understand the poems that Master Qiao instructs us to study... I wanted to see if love truly reveals itself by tying that slim red ribbon around one's pinky connecting your heart to the one you are meant to be with... And my curiosity... instead of being rewarded... Is now about to be punished, my foolish wish to understand so very foolish indeed...

Fools like myself are never meant to know what that kind of love is... All of the fables and poems tell me so constantly... For if you do not know what love is how will you ever know what to look for... How will you ever not be obvious in your pursuit of it if you have to make a fuss over not being able to spot it when it's near you... 

I wish so very desperately that I had kept my eyes to myself...

Maybe that is why I must keep them shut so tightly now...

...

Ronin

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I cannot help but gasp when Kavya straightens himself out with my aide only to reveal the pupil that had collapsed into us was none other than who we were searching for, the blue-eyed dragoness we had been searching for... Her face flushing a red so vibrant I dare say it would match Kavya's hair when not rinsed with ink before she slams her eyes closed barring me from the depths of blue that I cannot seem to tear my eyes away from... The way she allows herself to sag in my lover's arms most alarming... His grip on her one that does not falter... The way he seems to flex himself around her frame so very familiar to the way I sometimes find him holding me... As if she too... Is precious... 

I wonder if he senses, as I do, that this scholar-in-training seems special... Something about her keeping her image in my mind all day... The way that she had not even blinked in that moment we had shared, our eyes locked on one and other as if our dragons had wanted to communicate something between only them that they did not allow us to be privy to... There had been no control in that moment that had seemed as though it was ours... I know that at least on my end it had felt as though I was not entirely in control of myself... I hadn't been able to look away from her...

Before I realize what I am doing my hand reaches out as if to stroke the maiden's tender cheek, only for the cluster of three that we have become flinches as a whole at the clearing of a throat beside us... Master Quiao himself having risen from his seat to join us, a strange pupil standing next to him hanging onto his arm as though the man might disappear if he lets go... "India... Are you alright? And gentlemen... You as well?"

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Kavya

...

I can hear Master Qiao's question but I cannot find it within myself to answer him... My arms still very much refusing to release the pupil I have caught... The way that their body seems to fit against mine so very alarming if only due to how right it seems to feel... How very shockingly right... 

I find myself most confused... My hold on this raven-haired pupil so seemingly fond without my permission... But still so very gentle... My hands comforting by way of stroking the gentle slope of a spine that has found its way beneath my palm... The way that this lovely scholar is trembling so delicately against me making me want to turn away from Master Qiao and anyone else currently laying eyes upon us... 

"W-We are well..." Ronin's voice causes me to jump, and I can feel my face blooming itself to the very same shade of red that has scrolled its way onto my held scholar's cheeks, "We actually came to find... You... And... And... India... To apologize... I fear that we were the ones who disrupted her studies earlier and we did not want her to find herself punished over our intrusion..."

It takes more than a moment to stare down at the Angel trembling in my arms as I am made aware that she is in fact the very same person we had been searching for... And she had stumbled right into my arms... 

Ronin had been right... 

There is certainly something different about this dragoness... For I now understand why Ronin had been both so alarmed and intrigued... The way that India seems mystified enough over our words to open her eyes and reveal the very shade of stunning blue that my future husband had described to me... The stunning shade of blue removed from me and directed directly at Ronin... And then at a grimacing Master Qiao to which my own eyes follow... The student clinging to him stifling a slight giggle while pressing his face into his Master's sleeve to try and hide it... 

The very first words to be spoken in all of our awkwardness being...

 "Oh, dear..."