kingdom of hearts | sumellika

• chapter seven •

"You can dance?" He asked.

"Not really," Madhuri replied. "Ma made me learn it for the sake of being a proper princess and a good future queen." She made no attempts to resist her urge to roll her eyes with annoyance.

"A proper princess, you say?" Amar said, raising his eyebrow. He sounded amused by her answer.

"You know," she began. "Being ladylike, having proper posture like holding a teacup with your pinky finger out, always polite and gentle because a woman should never raise her voice against others. The last part is what my mom always says," she added.

He nodded. "The short answer is that it's the way men expect women to be?" He asked.

She sighed. "I do enjoy dancing though," she replied. "I learnt Kathak. But I don't know if I can still dance properly."

"Kathak is based with the central concept of Krishna's raasleela with Radha right?" Amar questioned. He remembered hearing about that somewhere.

"Yes," she answered. "It's one of the reasons I love it."

"That's amazing," he said. "I bet you're good at dancing, even though you say that you haven't done it in a long time."

"I'm not promising anything," she said. "I personally think I'm horrible at it, but that isn't the point."

"Okay then," he said.

"Do you know the art of using weapons?" She asked in turn.

He pondered on her question. "I know sword fighting...that's about it, I'm not interested in fighting that much," he replied.

She nodded.

"You? Do you know anything?" He asked.

"Princesses aren't trained in fighting, you know that very well," she said. "Then why are you asking me if I know anything?"

Amar answered, "Because something tells me that you seem like the person who'll do exactly what people restrict you from doing."

Madhuri smiled. "You know me well then," she said. "But not well enough," she whispered under her breath.

"So, Madhuri? What do you know?" He asked.

"Archery," she admitted, her ears turning the color of tomatoes. "I picked up the art by watching my younger brother learn it."

Amar nodded. "Nice. You seem to know a lot of different things," he said.

"You aren't so bad yourself, Prince Amar," she complimented him.

He smiled, then looked as if he was in deep thought. "Do you want to see the practicing ground that holds all the weapons in it?"

"I mean, I don't think anyone will approve of me going in there," she said.

"We can be extremely sneaky," he suggested.

Madhuri looked surprised. "Amar...I thought you were more of a mother's boy, who's rule abiding and all that," she said. "But you're a rebel?"

"Every once in awhile."

She grinned. "Let's go then," she said.

He led her towards the practicing ground and stopped before they could enter.

"Wait here," he whispered. "Let me check if anyone's in there before you come in."

She nodded and watched him go in. He was happy to find that no one was practicing, and came out. "No one's there, come on," he said.