Warning:

Be warned that this story takes on the topic of child marriage.

This story is not made to offend or discriminate against Indian, Hindu, or any other culture in any way. I believe there is beauty to be found in every culture, and those are the things I want to focus on. In this story, it is about standing up for what is right, as well as facing our fears and fighting to find true love.

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You know all those bedtime stories your parents may have told you about a princess locked in a tower, awaiting her Prince Charming to come and save her? Well, this isn't that kind of princess story.

The princess in this story was once trapped from the moment she was born.

In the palace of Naboo, trotting about in the flower garden outside is where we meet the princess of this story: a beautiful burnt orange pegasus with a mane of fine brown in a bubble ponytail, her hooves a lovely pink. Her name was Indira Ghoda. But it wasn't always.

As calm, collected, and happy as Indira appeared, her story did not exactly have the happiest beginning. Most princess stories began where the princess once had a loving family, only to lose them and be trapped with a wicked stepfamily. But Indira's began in a bit of a backwards beginning from the moment she was born.

You see, when Indira was born, she was originally named Kanti Mannan. She was born in a small kingdom called Vijamukh, and she was born a human, the daughter of the Maharaja, which was what they called the king. He was sometimes referred to as Chief, the kingdom being more of a tribal type, and being isolated from many others. In this kingdom, it practiced rather terrible, ancient practices, namely in terms of treating the women as property rather than citizens. It was as though being born female alone in this kingdom was enough to be considered a criminal. If you were a girl, you could not speak unless spoken to, you were not allowed schooling, a voice, or a decision in any matters. But to make matters worse, these young girls were often forced to marry much older men, often when they were barely even seven years old.

But, Princess Kanti, when she was being forced to marry Durmukkah Aghati, a then forty-year-old leader of the tribe Tyachar, when she was only six, did something no other women in Vijamukh dared to do. She ran away from the wedding and escaped the kingdom's borders.

Kanti ran for a long time and eventually hid inside a crate on a cargo ship that brought her to the kingdom of Equinaro, where she was discovered by a royal guard named Jalebi Ghoda. He took her to the castle where his beautiful wife Sarmi was working, and she also met the newly crowned queen. The queen was very kind to Kanti, and she made arrangements for the Ghodas to adopt her, and seeing as she didn't like her name, they renamed her Indira. And because in her heart she wanted to be free as a pegasus, Queen Reigna introduced Indira to the magical book Equinary, and it transformed her into a beautiful pegasus filly.

Learning to be a horse was far from easy though. Relearning to walk on all fours all the time, running on all fours, kicking like a horse, foraging like a horse, and especially learning to fly was far from easy. But as Indira grew, she got better and better at being a horse.

Sometimes, however, Indira did miss being a human. Walking on two legs, having hands, and learning to do everything using her mouth, hooves, or her wings or tail was not the same. It also felt weird to not be wearing clothes all the time. But more so, Indira longed to find true love like every princess dreams. Seeing her adoptive parents together, how much they loved and cared for each other... Indira wished she could find that. The only problem was she was a pegasus now, but mainly on the outside. Deep down inside, she was still a human. And, she quickly realized she wasn't sure if her Prince Charming would be a human or an equine. Finding a mate among the stallions of Equinaro would be easy, given she already had a horse's body, but if she found herself falling in love with a human male... it would be like one of those tragic romances where their love could never be, for as long as she wanted to remain safe, no one else could know she was really a human. And then one day, Indira got matched with a human rider.

Indira couldn't wait to meet her rider. And when she saw she wasn't alone, she was even more excited to see four other horses were being matched, as it turned out they were being matched to a group of five brothers.

Indira's rider was a man named Hunter. He was a clone made with desirable mutations, a member of a squad known as Clone Force 99, or the Bad Batch. She heard tell that he was very sensitive in a lot of ways, and the fact that she knew yoga and how to relax very well, she was more than willing to help him out. And over time, the two became great friends. Indira was very happy living in the Naboo palace with so many kind people, and she enjoyed spending time with the children too. It was adorable the way the younger girls liked tying flowers in her and the other mares' manes.

However, Indira didn't think it was fair to leave behind those other girls in Vijamukh. Thus, once she mastered her wings and her new body, she began a mission going under the cover of night, and helping all the children and young women of Vijamukh to escape and find better futures elsewhere. The kingdom of Maamoh-Yah being a kingdom all about granting its people and anyone who came to live there freedom, Indira brought some of them there, where the royal family was more than happy to help the escapees out of the kindness of their hearts, and Vijamukh's leaders were long forbidden from entering their kingdom to take back their former slaves. Sadly, that didn't stop all the tribes from attempting to bring back their enslaving ways.

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Meanwhile, in a tent somewhere far away....

A young woman struggled as she was forced into that very tent, a cloth bag over her head as she was brought before a well-dressed, middle-aged human male who placed a veil over his face before snapping his fingers. The two men then removed the bag from the girl's head.

The man took a good look at the girl.

"Hmm... she is beautiful like her." The man held the girl's face and looked her in the eyes. "You have eyes like her."

And then, he got his men to remove the girl's left shoe to take a look at the bottom of her foot like he was looking for something. But when he saw nothing there, he groaned in disgust.

"Take her back! It's not her." said the man.

"That was the last girl resembling Princess Kanti in that village, Sire." said the man's assistant.

Mr. Aghati then crossed off another village off another map, on which there were many crossed off villages and kingdoms.

"How can this be?! We've searched every kingdom for the last fifteen years, and still no sign of my bride!"

As you can see, Mr. Aghati was not happy when Kanti never showed up to the wedding, and he was furious when his two men who'd gone after her returned and reported that she'd escaped them, and they had no clue where she went. But he was determined to find her and force her to be his wife, whether she liked it or not.

Over the last decade and a half, Mr. Aghati had his men search for every young woman who resembled Kanti. As the years went by, they kidnapped many young girls, the age range to search increasing as the years went by, but each time a kidnapped victim turned out not to be her, they threw them back like fish that were too small. Normally, they would've kept those victims, but chose not to in order to keep any authorities off their trail. Aghati and his men were never caught, because all of them had their faces covered whenever they inspected victims' faces, and each time they caught and released, they placed a cloth bag over the girls' heads and dumped them somewhere far away from their camp.

"I am going to find you, Princess Kanti. You will be my wife." said Aghati stubbornly.

One day, one of Aghati's men came to him with some news that there was a gala to be going to be held at the High Commission Castle, a ball in celebration of the unity between so many of the kingdoms of Enchantra, and every important royal family, dignitary, and family of great wealth would be in attendance. Everyone who knew about the EHC knew they had their ways of finding answers to many questions, and that they, like non magical governments you may know, had witness protection programs used to hide and protect enchanteds from dangerous criminals. Aghati figured that if the girl he was looking for ran to them to hide, they would have the information he was looking for. So, he had his men come up with a scheme to get in.

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Echo, meanwhile, was on a mission investigating with Captain Rex, everything they could on the clones who were vanishing. They knew Mariverde was targeting the clones for something malicious, and something magic related, but they couldn't determine what exactly. So far, a few clones had been rescued or managed to escape attempted kidnappings, and those who were saved were relocated to different places to ensure their safety. But one day, as Rex's team was doing some investigating around the Nine Kingdoms, they were summoned by Sultana Khalid and Sultana Lanaisha of Maamoh-Yah, who said they had an important mission that could be an important clue to finding Mariverde's whereabouts.

So, Echo didn't hesitate to go to the kingdom and speak with the royal family. They were very concerned about something that shocked Echo. It was clear this was a mission that he and the other clones couldn't do alone.

"Not to worry," said Banjo. "I think we know just who to call in a situation like this."

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Today, Indira was in the garden with Hunter and Wrecker, Crosshair, Omega, and their horses. Tech and Mila had gotten back from their honeymoon a few weeks back, and now that they were married, Mila was moving into the palace with him. At least, until they found their own place. Still, the royal family wanted to do everything in their power to welcome their newest resident into their home and officially, their family, now that she'd finally gotten the last of her belongings unpacked.

Indira couldn't help sighing dreamily as she looked at the roses. She looked at Hunter as he was picking some berries from the bushes.

"Wrecker, try to put more of those berries into your basket than your mouth." he scolded, amid Wrecker's cheeks being stuffed with blueberries.

Wrecker swallowed what was in his mouth and said, "Aww! But they're so good."

Indira found it very admirable that Hunter looked out for his brothers. Being the oldest, it only made sense he took on the role of leader. Indira never had siblings in either of her families. She always wished she could've had a brother or a sister.

When Indira looked at Hunter though, lately she'd begun to see even more to him and feel something she couldn't explain. He was kind of mysterious sometimes, but somehow that just added to his charm, he was handsome, and somehow the face tattoo just added to his charm. And underneath that tough, strict leader type exterior, he was also compassionate and cared for his family. And that was usually when Indira felt this odd feeling in her chest.

Teatra picked up another full basket of berries, Indira coming in to help by grabbing another and going with Teatra to bring the berries to the kitchen to be made into pies.

"Teatra, you've played lots of roles before, correct?" Indira said.

"Yes, I have. Why?"

"Would any of those have included a love interest or say, a girl who likes a guy, but isn't sure how to go about her feelings?"

Teatra was practically squealing.

"Indira! No way. Who is he?"

"It's kind of complicated, actually. You see-"

"Got some more berries coming in." Omega called, coming in with some strawberries.

"Thank you, Omega." Teatra said. "You were saying, Indira?"

"Well, about this guy... he's-"

"Everyone, drop what you're doing!" Anakin called. "We've got a transmission coming in from the royal family of Maamoh-Yah, and Echo."

"Echo?!" Omega exclaimed happily.

She immediately ran out of the kitchen, eager to hear from her brother. Indira decided her love life could wait, and she and Teatra went to go and see what the transmission was about.