My Star

Raja just wants to escape, so she looks to the stars.

 

My Star

 

Raj always loved being able to ride her horse, Marjiva, at night, because it was a chance to get away from the noise at her parent’s house. She was able to ride that strong, mottled gray animal without anyone yelling at her or telling her to do something she didn’t want to do, or the sounds of whatever her younger brother was doing with some s**t in the room next door.

 

With only the sound of the wind rustling through the grass and the light of the moon and stars to show where she was going, Raj brought Marjiva to a trot and appreciated the feeling of the wind in her hair until they reached her favorite spot in the field. They were all alone, or so she thought.

 

For a while, with the mare’s reigns tied to a fencepost, Raj was relaxed and in her own realm of thought as she lay on the blanket she had brought. After a while of just staring at the constellations in the night sky, the Indian girl saw Marjiva perk up her ears, staring in another direction.

 

Sitting up, Raj saw that someone was indeed coming. However, it wasn’t her father, as she was expecting.

 

“Vanni? How did you get all the way out here?”

 

The dog-man shrugged as Raj made room for him on her blanket. “I was bored and saw the tracks. Figured there’d only be one person this far out in the middle of nowhere.”

 

Nodding, she snuggled up against her boyfriend, resting her head against his arm. “You must’ve gone a long way on foot…” She whispered as she felt his hand on her waist.

 

“My feet feel like they’re about to fall off.” Vanni answered, causing Raj to laugh, sit up, and rub his feet, just to be nice. It didn’t last long though, because soon he pulled her back, shaking his head and motioning to the spot next to him. He wrapped his arms around her and whispered into her ear that he loved her and thanked her for keeping his secret. “Why did you come out all this way anyway?”

 

“I’m looking for my star.” Raj answered.

 

“Your star?”

 

She nodded. “When I was little I’d stay outside at night and wish on the nebula in the Orion belt. When I learned how to ride by myself, I’d go here and look at it. Sometimes it gives me a good feeling to see that star up there…”

 

“What would you wish for?”

 

“A lot of things. When I was little, I’d wish for more time to play with my sister, and later I started wishing for the horses to grow up to be nice and healthy. Sooner or later, I realized that those were all selfish wishes, so I started wishing for other people to make up for it. I’d start wishing that my sister was happy with her husband and that someday, I’d be able to contribute somehow too.”

 

“Contribute?”

 

“Yeah, someday I could help with international relations or help the little guy on the street raise his family. But now that I have a degree, I guess I can help the little guy…”

 

Vanni nodded. He wasn’t sure how long they settled into that comfortable silence for, but he felt his eyelids getting heavy pretty quickly and he drifted off to sleep with Raj in his arms.

 

When they finally stirred, daybreak was painting the sky orange and pink. Marjiva had long since fallen asleep nearby, and Raj felt her heart skip a beat when she saw that it was dawn. How could she have let herself fall asleep last night?!

 

Well, in her own defense, she was rather comfortable in Vanni’s arms, and his chest did make a nice pillow…

 

Forget that, she thought frantically, how am I supposed to explain this to my parents?!

 

The answer seemed quite simple to her, really, once she thought of it. She would go with Vanni. Maybe this could be the chance she was looking for to tell them she was moving out… it’d be over the phone so she wouldn’t be slapped, and then she would finally be able to live on her own.

 

“Vanni, we need to get out of here and get Marjiva back home. We can stop at your place to get the stuff you need and we can go out for breakfast.” Raj told him.

 

“Why the sudden rush, Raja?”

 

Quickly, she untied the reigns from the fencepost and motioned for Vanni to get on the strong Appaloosa. “My parents will hit me if they knew I ran off at night, so we need to make it look like I never went riding. Besides, I want you to help me start moving out today, if it’s not too much.”

 

“Sure! Did you find someplace to stay?” He asked as Raj helped him mount Marjiva. Luckily, Marjiva was strong enough to carry them both, making for an easy trip back to where Vanni had parked his car.

 

“There’s an apartment that I found in town. It’s decent-sized for its price, so I made the first few months’ rent on it. Now I just have to move all of my stuff.”

 

“Are you moving closer or farther away?” Vanni asked as Marjiva began to canter across the field.

 

Glancing back at him, the Indian smiled. “Closer to you. The thing I wished for last night is granted now.”

 

Kissing him briefly before helping him off of Marjiva’s back, Raj smiled. She decided then that she would give anything for this man and that she truly did love him back. He cared about her, and she was ready to give anything for him.

 

When she finally got home after bidding Vanni goodbye, she was careful about making sure nothing was out of place in Marjiva’s stall, and though she could hear her father snapping at her mother in Hindi, she didn’t dare turn back. Vanni was waiting, and so was a life where she could do whatever she wanted to.

 

Author's Note

This is pretty old... Vanni belongs to Gallifery of deviantART.