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Love, Luckycharms <3

---

Seeing the child... holding in my arms... something changed inside of me.

I was no longer the same man I was moments ago.

Seetha had become my life, obviously... but somehow, this child had become even more than that. This child was my blood. Half of me and half of the love of my life, and there was something special about that.

As people cheered, all I could think of was that I wanted to give this child absolutely everything. That, and the fact that I did not know how to thank Seetha for blessing me with such a gift.

My life was forever changed.

---

My father stayed with us for a few days before saying that he needed to return to the palace. I knew I should have gone with him... Seetha too... but I wanted Seetha to rest before a long journey.

I also thought it would be better for Seetha.

Her mother was here.

She needed her mother. Her mother was teaching her how to be a mother... how to breastfeed and care for Little Aathi... and that would be best for him too.

My father was a little reluctant but eventually agreed. He agreed with me. He knew I was right.

So after spending some time enjoying the festival at Nandioor, though spending most of his time at the Western Fort, my father left with the army of men who crowded this tiny village.

And I did not realize how much of a good idea saying here was until a little later.

Unlike my father, I stayed at Seetha's tiny home. Though living here had its... problems–like the little privacy we had– it also had a lot of benefits.

Aathavan would often wake up at all hours of the night, wailing like a demon.

I never understood how such a sound could come out of such a tiny thing.

Seetha was always up to tend to him first. She would try to feed him and usually that worked, but sometimes he would continue to wail. When that happened, miraculously Seethas mother, or even her sister-in-law, Maya, would show up, scoop the child into their arms, and bounce him up and down or coo at him while still being half asleep themselves.

Somehow they always succeeded in quieting him down. It was magical, to some extent. I assumed it was because they had done it so many times before, but whatever the case, I was quite grateful.

As soon as her mother or sister-in-law would come to the rescue, Seetha, exhausted from no sleep, would collapse back onto her mat, trusting her family to handle it.

I imagined what it would be like back at home... with just Seetha and I in our room.

It would be disastrous.

It really did take a village to raise a child, as the saying goes.

I imagined getting no sleep at all. I wouldn't be able to get any work done... and now I understood why the men of royalty never took part in raising children. In fact, they often stayed in separate rooms altogether. They had a lot of work to do, afterall. They needed their sleep.

However, the more time I spent here, the more I realized that this logic did not make sense after all.

Men here were always quite busy as well... and that did not take them away from the child rearing process. I learned this when there was a day when Seetha had a fever and while I stayed by her side with Lady Suhanya and Seetha's mother, Seetha's father strapped Aathavan onto his back and went to the field to work.

I was worried, but when Lady Suhanya told me that Seetha would be okay and I went out to check on my child, I saw her father sitting on a log, rocking the wailing Aathi. When he stopped crying, her father strapped him right back onto him and continued working.

When I asked her father why he chose to do that, seeing as he could have easily just left Aathavan in a crib for us to check on him when we needed to, her father responded by saying that babies needed warmth and touch. He said that children grow to be happier and more mentally strong when they spend a lot of their infancy feeling the warmth of family.

His words surprised me.

But it made sense.

I suppose it also explained my own personality.

But anyways, men certainly took part in raising the children here.

And of course, don't get me started on how busy the women here were. It was not a rare sight to see women working the fields, in the market or anywhere else with a baby strapped to their backs.

People made a lot of excuses back at the palace.

While spending time here, I wanted to make myself useful. It felt strange not having things to do.

So every morning I continued to wake up early. I would use this time to let Seetha sleep while I cared for Aathavan. I would change him, carry him around, and sometimes, if Seetha's mother or Lady Suhanya were up and not busy, they would help me give him a bath.

Then I would just sit there on the porch, Aathavan lying down on my chest, and watch. I would watch all the men and women get to work, the world begin to wake, while the sun began to rise.

When Seetha woke, she would freshen up and bring me tea, tea she made with her own hands like the ones she made her father, and while we drank our morning tea together, Aathavan calmly resting on my chest, I would feel an unfamiliar bliss and happiness. I had never been so happy in my life.

I had never felt such peace.

---

And then the children would wake up and the day would begin as chaos erupted in the household.

It seemed that one of the reasons Seetha's family loved my presence was because the children were somewhat frightened of me. They were quite behaved with me around because the fact that I was a Warrior Prince made me intimidating... though that did make me wonder what these little devils were like when I wasn't around since they were still... little devils.

A few days ago, Nithi, the daughter of Shiyam and Mayu, who I had gifted a wooden sword to because she wanted to be a warrior, begged me to teach her how to use a sword. This lead to all of her cousins and siblings to ask me to do the same thing.

I took advantage of this and said yes, taking this as a chance to teach these little monsters a thing or two about discipline. I was not easy on them because they were the children of wife's siblings, in fact, maybe that made me go harder on them. They were, after all, my 'family' now too.

And everyone knew now how hard I can be on my 'family.'

Soon enough , I was making kids cry left, right and center. Especially when news of my little lessons passed around the village and other parents began sending their brats over too.

However, these children were smart, beginning to understand that tears meant nothing to me. They would cry, I would stare at them with my cold hard glare, unamused and unsympathetic and then they would eventually stop.

Parents were thrilled.

What surprised me was the fact that Nithi was easily the best of my 'students.'

Maybe this whole warrior thing was not just a phase for her.

We did not have female warriors in our army. We used to, centuries ago... but with new kings and new ideas, that changed.

I began to wonder whether or not I would permit her into the army when I was King, if this fascination of hers actually continued.

I wasn't completely sure.

It would cause a lot of problems... but if she as good, why not?

There was, after all, a good reason for why the god of war was Durga... a woman.

I pondered the question as I walked through the line of children who shouted "yah!" together, almost perfectly in sync as they practiced sword patterns with sticks.

Patterns of movements were, of course, useless in war, but excellent for discipline.

I noticed some children lose focus for a moment, stumbling, but before I snapped, I followed their gaze and saw Seetha walking over to me with a cup of water, cradling Aathavan with her other arm.

"I can't believe you," she said as she reached me and I found myself smiling. She was glowing these days. Happy. "I don't know how you managed to tame half of the kids in the village by getting them to shout "yah!" all morning."

I took the cup from her with a smirk. "They're actually better than most of my actual warriors," I looked at Nithi, who was right at the front. She heard what I said and grinned before continuing to practice.

Seetha chuckled, but when she opened her mouth to respond, we heard a loud, startling crash.

I stepped in front of Seetha and Aathavan instinctively as I turned to face where the sound came from. The children began shouting in shock as well and suddenly it was chaotic again.

There was dust all around the stable that Seetha's cows stayed in and when it cleared, there was a huge hole in the side of the stable. After a moment, the roof collapsed on one side as well and at that moment we noticed that outside the hole, the almost fully grown bull Erumai stood triumphantly, dust all over him, pieces of wood around his short horns.

The beast look pleased with himself... proud of himself for ramming a hole into the side of the stable though the doors were wide open.

Maadu, who had been grazing just outside, rushed over to him, either in anger or because she was worried, and when Seetha finally snapped out of her gawk, she shouted angrily. "Erumai!" She hollered as she ran towards the bull.

The children started laughing instantly, probably because though Erumai was the name of this bull, it was also an insult that people would shout when dealing with a brainless idiot.

I suppose the name was even more appropriate than I had previously thought.

Despite the humor of the situation, I rushed after Seetha, some children following behind us. I was worried she would be hurt by Erumai, or the now unstable building.

But apparently, I had no reason to worry about the bull, seeing as despite the fact that it was many times the size of Seetha, when it noticed her coming towards him, it pounced back in a panic and began to run off, running out of the stable and off into the fields, mooing loudly.

"Hey!" Seetha shouted. She turned to me, "hold him," she ordered as she handed me Aathavan. Then, as her family finally made it to see what the commotion was, Seetha grabbed one of the children's sticks, picked up the skirt of her sari and started running after the somewhat pathetic bull. "Get back here!"

One by one the children of the village ran past me, joining Seetha in her chase of Erumai.

Soon, her worried parents and siblings also joined in and as I watched it... as I watched Seetha running around after a bull, shouting while waving a stick in the air with a couple dozen children chased her too, I burst out laughing.