54. Dev’s heart and brain

Akshara awoke when she heard Ivan's voice; she gently opened her eyes and discovered she was lying on a warm, rough pillow. "Finally, after many restless nights, I got a pillow," she thought.
Akshara took a deep breath and sat down on the cushion she had been given. Her palm ran across the pillow on which she was sleeping, and the notion that she was with Dev in the royal chamber flashed across her head. "Wait a minute, what? How about a warm pillow?"
When Akshara lifted her head, she saw she was lying on Dev's bare chest in his tangles. His face was one inch away from hers, and her cheeks flushed as she processed the reality that she had been embracing Dev all night.
Akshara carefully untangled herself from him and dashed to the corner of the chamber to straighten her sloppy garment. "Oh my, what type of nightmare did I have last night?" she said as she turned to look at him again and again. "Did I lose my virginity to him in my dreams?"
Akshara caressed her tummy to see whether she felt anything strange as a result of what happened the night before, and she wondered to herself, "What am I thinking? Huh, it's too soon to be conceived with his... (Exhales) I have... Anyway, it's a dream, and I hope it has nothing to do with reality."
By glancing at him, Akshara covered her face with her palms and gulped. "What did I do? Why did I consent to sleep beside him? This was my first warning indication that I shouldn't sleep or rest next to him again, even if it meant freezing to death."
"Hum, I can't quit picturing him in my dreams. How could I have let him into me?" Akshara wept and roamed.
"How can he sleep peacefully when I'm wailing like a lunatic here? Perhaps it's just... a dream. He may be completely innocent and have had no shades to my nightmare. He is not guilty. If he's deeply intrigued in it, he may have taken me."
Her mind flashed with a nightmare. “Oh my god, am I fallen for his charms? I have an intimate relationship with him in my dreams. Those are indeed my darkest desire which I buried deep inside my mind.”
She got panicked when Ivan Shirk shouted at the entrance of the royal chamber, “Dev?”
“Who is calling? It’s the voice of his friend, the red one. It’s hard for me to say the word DRAGON, but I am the bride of a hybrid dragon wizard. I have to etch that fact in my mind and soul.”
Ivan stood at the entrance of the royal chamber and shouted, “Dev, wake up and come out quick.”
Ivan stopped his shouting after watching Akshara coming out of the royal chamber with her head covered with feathers of Dev. Ivan Shirk immediately turned in the opposite direction and told her, “Uh, miss, can you wake up Dev?”
“Am I that awkward or I am having a horrible face like a demon?” Akshara asked him immediately after Ivan turn facing the opposite direction.
“No, no, my friend wouldn’t fall for you if you were like you explained now. Anyway, did he awake?” Ivan asked her, still facing the opposite direction.
Akshara wanted to clear the troubling thoughts and so she asked, “I overheard your conversation with him yesterday. I thought you abandoned us.”
“US?” Ivan asked her in a surprising tone.
“Huh, I mean to tell him and me.” Akshara told him, “General, can you please turn my side? I feel like I am a horrible demon, indeed.”
Ivan hesitated to face her. So Akshara exhaled her discontent. “I think you didn’t welcome the idea of him choosing me to be his bride.”
Ivan quickly turned and asked her, “Hum, what made you think like that? I am on his side in choosing his bride, which is long wanting for many centuries not only by me, the Ayruzians, and the entire kingdom. As a friend, I have to notify him about all the landmines buried in his way because I am his guardian.”
Akshara chuckled. “You are his guardian angel?”
Ivan rolled his eyes in all other directions but not fixed on her face, “I was not anymore. You fill the position.”
“I ever stood in between your friendship, rest easy. You are his brain” Akshara tried to convince Ivan that her relationship with Dev won’t be intimidating to their friendship.
“I may be his brain, but now his heart belongs to you.” Ivan smartly answered her.
“We both share the same motive. So... (Akshara extended her hands for a shake)”
It puzzled Ivan Shirk to watch her hand and so Akshara explained to him about the handshake, “You have to hold my hand and shake it to show peaceful intention.”
Ivan was still puzzled and subtly looked at her. She continued, “It’s like mutual commitment or an oath like or a promise. Huh, it represents our sealing of the bond.”
“What motive for sealing the bond?”
“We... both... together as a team will be on his side even in his bright and darkest times till our death.”
“We don’t age and die like humans. It’s a slow process,” Ivan said in a bitter tone.
“Fine, if you don’t want to shake my hand, it’s fine. But we can be like the team, three of us.”
“You want to team up?”
“Huh, the word team is not the meaning of what it exactly is. I am using it as abstract.”
“I think I can learn your abstracts after we reach the castle, since the sudden selection of the bride of the crown prince may cause possible predicaments with our allied kingdoms. So wake him up,” Ivan tried to warn her about the position she was in.
“I dare not. You can go inside.” Akshara was worried about her fate and lamented to herself, “Now I have to fight over allied kingdoms for him. A single woman army, am I doomed?”
Ivan Shirk rushed inside the royal chamber. Before he enters, Akshara stopped him, and “You can call me Axe. My name is Akshara.”
Ivan replied without facing her, “I will surely call you Axe and nice meeting you. I am Ivan Shirk, general of Ayruzglow. Call me Ivan.”
“Can I call you by your name?”
“That’s what I say” Saying he rushed inside to wake his friend Dev. Akshara was puzzled and looked into the icy walls. She found a feather of Dev sticking to her head. “Oh my gosh, he might think that we had... that’s why he hesitates to see my face.”
Akshara facepalmed her with the most awkward situation and quickly removed his feather from her head. She wanted to throw the feather away but hesitated for a second. “Wait, I have the choice to keep his feathers with me. I may keep it with me. I am his bride anyway.”
*****