"Aaaaaaaa!" Adiva shrieked in anger and watched the two men in front of her with fierce eyes. They gulped nervously and shrunk within themselves to try and disappear from before her. "Me? Chosen for some rubbish treaty? No! Never!" She declared angrily and pointed a finger at them. "You both! You knew about this?" They shook their heads hastily, scared to see her flushed and irritated.
"We swear, we came to know about it just some minutes ago." Yamin told her. She narrowed her eyes in disbelief but huffed and looked away. Sinan and Yamin took a breath of relief and sagged down.
"I an not marrying any ice storm. Let them try! They want to take MY freewill away? MINE?" She thundered gesturing towards herself. "I will irritate them to such an extent that they will have to draw a peace treaty with me instead!" Adiva swore with a dangerous glint in her eyes and turned dramatically, making an exit by banging the door loudly. Yamin and Sinan flinched then relaxed. Sinan whistled.
"That went well!" He exclaimed.
"Better than I anticipated at least." Yamin told him quietly.
The door to the room opened again and a shoe sailed in the air before hitting Yamin right on his nose and then the door was banged shut.
"Ow!" Yamin complained as he held his nose tightly.
"That was more of what I expected!" Sinan told him in amusement. Yamin glared at him and then began to rub his nose. For a while he felt really bad for Mirsab Furaat.
"What do you think she would do next?" Sinan asked him conversationally. Yamin shrugged.
"Probably go and argue with Grand Da!" Yamin replied thoughtfully.
"I will give that a miss." Sinan told him and flopped down on his bed. Yamin smirked and began to walk towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"To witness a temper tantrum." Yamin replied carelessly and exited the room, while Sinan settled on the bed and began to browse through the NYC again. He wasn't too worried about his sister. Mirsab was a very decent guy and he knew that she would be happy if she gave him a chance. But making her give him a chance was going to be troublesome.
•••
Ehlam and Nyqa were on their terrace as they wanted to peacefully watch the stars for a while before the storm began in their house. They knew there were going to be tantrums as high as the sky and they wanted to be mentally prepared for it. They were old now and shouldn't have to face such trials but they were also the heads of the family and they couldn't exactly avoid this.
The wind was quite strong today as it shrieked around the terrace. Maybe it was angry too. Just like their little princess, from whom they were hiding. The whole terrace was covered with carpeted grass and the edges were lined by pots full of different plants and flowers, which were planted by one of their grand daughters in law. The whole terrace smell of jasmines and the wooden swings placed in different places of the terrace, just made it more relaxing and peaceful. Sitting here after their dinner was done was their tradition.
The terrace doors were thrown open by the hurricane and a second later she herself entered. Her beautiful hair seemed to be fighting a battle in the strong winds as she pushed it back again and again. Her eyes were two pools of a mixture of anger and betrayal, with a twinge of hurt. Ehlam sighed as she stopped at a distance from them.
"How could you?" She hadn't shouted. She never did in his presence. Yet he felt her voice crack his heart into half. They were choked with tears, which hadn't fallen yet.
"You know well and good that it's not in my hand." Ehlam replied to her in a defeated voice.
"You shouldn't have put my name into the choices at all. You could have exchanged the name for someone else's or you could have abolished the treaty itself. But you didn't! You chose to have my name be forwarded to them." Adiva accused as the tears began falling. Ehlam stood up and walked towards his precious princess and brought her to his chest as she sniffled.
"They had their representatives over. I couldn't do a thing about it. The treaty promises punishment if we try to do anything with the names my dear." Ehlam explained to her. She watched his age struck face which was still strong.
"I have a right to choose the one I will live my whole life with Grand Da. You taught me about the freedom of choice yourself!" She complained loudly. "I am so young. I can't even think about marriage right now. I need to follow my whims and build up a career and you have sabotaged everything!"
"I know and I am sorry that you can't choose the guy of your wish anymore because of this treaty. But other than that you can do everything you had desired. Have you ever seen me take away your choices from you Adiva?" He asked her gently. "I am helpless due to this peace treaty!"
"You never took away any of my choices and in return of all those times you snatched away my choice in the most important matter. This unfortunate peace treaty is making you weak and I don't like to see you so weak." Adiva replied tearfully.
"Oh Adiva!" He stroke her hair and kissed her temple.
Adiva closed her eyes. Her Grand Da was helpless and he appeared too weak to bear her tantrums. She really didn't want to hurt him and that was the only reason she hadn't pushed it. He was weak but she wasn't. She would be doing everything under her power to fight this treaty, except maybe killing the 'ice storm'. She promised herself that.
•••
Adiva rushed to the breakfast table which was very large. Everyone had breakfast together in the holidays and today was a special day. She smirked as she settled herself on the vast table used only during the special occasions.
Everyone woke up at seven and were on the table at seven thirty during vacations, so as to not become lazy. And it was almost seven thirty. All of the family members that arrived at the table stared at her face and displayed one of the three emotions- genuine happiness for her downfall, genuine irritation due to the unfairness of the treaty, jealousy that she had gotten the 'best' once more. She watched each one and noted their reactions well in her head. Settling back to her relaxed position she began to eat.
Yamin descended the stairs and came to an abrupt hall when his eyes landed on her. He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. She was so calm that he felt something was truly wrong. She couldn't let this go so easily, plain and simple. And her appearance of letting go was, in itself, the biggest proof that something was up. She was upto no good. He carefully descended the rest of the stairs and arrived at the table to take his place next to Adiva, who stayed calm and smiled at him an angelic smile. He gulped nervously. Sinan displayed the same reaction but preferred to stay as far away from her as possible.
When everyone were settled around the table and having their food, Adiva smirked and schooled her features once more. She apologised sincerely to this unknown Mirsab in her heart for what she was about to do, because she didn't have any animosity with him. She just wanted her right to marry on her own will.
"Sir?" The silence at the table was broken by the butler. "There is a letter for you and it was left at the main gate by a rather tearful girl." The butler told Ehlam, who frowned and nodded. The butler forwarded the letter in his hands towards Ehlam, who recieved it and checked the envelope before nodding at the butler, who respectfully bowed his head once and backed away.
Ehlam tore the envelope and fished out the contents, before opening the letter slowly. His face turned red with rage as he read the letter. He picked up the second paper and scanned it before standing up abruptly.
The family members stopped eating one by one and watched him in confusion before they all stood up respectfully. Adiva stood up too and watched along with the rest. Her Grand Da watched all the family members expressionlessly one by one. His eyes softened when they met her's. Adiva calmed down and smiled at him slightly. He came forward to stand in front of her. Her heart faltered in fear. Adiva's smile faltered before she hurriedly calmed herself down. There was no way he could know it was her. She needed to stay strong.
"I promise my Princess, I would not let anything wrong happen with you." He muttered and patted her head twice, before his face hardened again and he began to walk towards the door angrily. Her grandfather and father, along with her uncles all followed her Grand Da hurriedly in confusion. Her eyes widened. What was he doing?
She had thought he would react on the spot and declare the alliance null, just by looking at the contents of the envelope, who won't after reading a convincing letter full of details declaring the future Rasan son in law to be a cheating, conniving heartbreaker and that he was the father of an unknown girl's child? She forgot that he was a Rasan and they were taught very early in life not to take hasty decisions and to investigate before taking any decision at all. She had been sloppy. Maybe she sould have included a fake paternity test inside the envelope? She sighed.
Outside the house, the envelope was being passed around the men, who were one by one shouting in outrage.
•••
Tehlez Furaat shot out of the armchair, as a small army of Rasans stormed inside his mansion, with the guards helplessly trying to stop them. Tehlez frowned and gestured at the guards to let them be. The guards bowed and returned back. Tehlez turned his attention towards the Rasan men, who were all looking terribly furious for some reason.
"Is there a problem Gentlemen?" He enquired politely, even though there was nothing gentlemanly about them right now. Ehlam rolled his eyes and without a word handed over an envelope to him. He frowned at it and accepted it, as he stared at the Rasan head.
Opening the envelope and reading the whole letter, Tehlez Furaat felt the world slipping from beneath his feet. How did this happen? He looked up to see the outrage in all of their eyes.
"This?" He asked Ehlam unhappily.
"Was brought to our home by a crying girl." Ehlam rolled his eyes.
"How could you allow such a grandson to marry our daughter?" Aun asked angrily, while the rest of the men echoed his sentiments.
The rest of the Furaat family came towards the front hall of the mansion. They immediately stiffened when they saw the Rasan men in their homes.
"What are they doing here?" Kizyan spat at them.
"Even we are not interested in coming to your abode!" Aun's brother Kaizer, retorted sarcastically. "But your shameless son pulls us here."
"Do not call my son shameless!" Zilran glared at them, assuming correctly that it was connected to the peace treaty and his son, while Shehra huffed.
"Or what?" Aun came chest to chest with Zilran. Both were ready to fight senseless with each other, when Tehlez pushed them apart.
"STOP! Right there!" He shouted angrily and gestured at them. They huffed but remained standing at their places. Tehlez turned towards Ehlam. "Our son cannot do this."
The screams of outrage and the responses to them began shortly afterwards, but were immediately silenced by two words the Rasan patriarch spoke.
"I know." Ehlam was calm as he said it. The gathering fell silent and shocked as they stared at him.
"You know?" Aun exclaimed, voicing the feelings of the whole gathering.
"Yes I do..."
"Then why bring us here and let us get so worked up over nothing?"
"It was not my fault you got so enraged." Ehlam muttered calmly. "I got you all here though, because I needed to discuss something with you all." Ehlam declared. Tehlez frowned at him.
"What did you want to discuss about?"
"Even though we have been rivals for centuries I still believe that our families cannot decieve the peace treaty by going behind each other's back. I also believe that you bring up your children wisely like we do. And hence I respect you. There might be black sheeps in both of our families every now and then, but we both know Mirsab isn't one of them and so this letter and the pregnancy report is just a plan to sabotage our alliance by someone who is jealous." Ehlam declared. The others kept silent and let that sink in for a while, before calming down slowly. "That's the reason I got us all here today. There might be more such plans and you all need to be aware of this. Let you not fall a prey to such tricks by those who want us to fight each other and weaken."
There were nods and grunts of agreements. Ehlam's eyes glinted with an emotion and except Tehlez, everyone missed it. Tehlez frowned at him. Ehlam turned towards him.
"Is your grandson home? I need to meet him once." He requested. Tehlez mulled over it for a few seconds before nodding his head and lead the way. Ehlam followed him, leaving the rest of their people behind to awkwardly communicate. Serves them right for being hotheaded, Ehlam smirked.
•••