*Third Person's POV*
"So where to?" Kitty asked as they walked into the cold, snowy night.
"West Country. Tinworth and Tutshill. If I'm in the mood, then Wimborne too. It's going to be a long night, Pryde," Sirius replied putting on his leather jacket.
"Okaaaayy... Wait! Are we supposed to walk all night or what?" She asked horrified.
He chuckled. "Nah! We need to walk just a little bit 'cause my babe is too loud and she draws attention. We'll be riding her all night!" He smirked.
"Do you know it sounds reeeaally weird?" Kitty raised an eyebrow.
"It is supposed to be," Sirius smirked.
They walked over to his motorcycle, and Sirius gave her another helmet.
"Hold on tight," he said as he stretched out his arm to her and she did. Sirius turned on the spot and they disapparated.
With a loud crack, they apparated to a deserted street in Tinworth.
"Uuugghh! I don't like this. The weird squeezing thing..."Kitty grumbled.
"I pity the person who asks you to write about things you hate," Sirius commented.
"Why?"
"Because it would be a five hundred pages book and also few sequels to it," he laughed.
"Oh shut up!" Kitty rolled her eyes. "What is this place anyway?"
"Tinworth. Let's go."
They mostly walked in darkness. Sirius pulled out the map of the village to read. He waved his wand and started muttering spells under his breath.
Kitty was walking behind him, looking around. It started to snow.
"Wow!" She awed. "It's amazing, isn't it?" She asked trying to catch the snow flakes.
"What? The snow?"
"Yeah!" She giggled hopping around. "It's... Mysterious."
Sirius stopped in his tracks and looked at her.
*Sirius' POV*
She was jumping and giggling trying to catch the snowflakes like a 5year old.
"Mysterious? What's mysterious about the snow? The colour?"
"No, silly," she laughed still engrossed in catching the snowflakes. "No two snowflakes are similar. Just like our fingerprints. They have different shapes and symmetries. I've read about them. They look reeaally beautiful under a microscope. I always loved the snow 'cause it looks beautiful. In South India, it never snows. And snow always looked beautiful in books and telly. I've seen hail once! My grandparents said that it was the first time it happened at my place," she grinned. She looked happy.
"Don't you miss miss your people?"
"Hmmm?" She turned to me at last.
"Your people...at your place?"
"Ummm...sometimes," she shrugged.
"Not even your family!"
"My mum. Well, there was nothing interesting there, anyway. And I've to live in...kinda fear everyday."
"Fear?" I raised my eyebrows. Why would she live in fear?
"Yeah! Sort of," she chuckled. "You see, the only thing that runs in parents' minds when their daughter comes of age or graduate, is to get her married off to a nice guy. A.k.a a stranger."
"A what?!"
"I mean, arranged marriage. Well, love marriages are not accepted my most of the families 'cause of religion, caste, financial status and blah blah blah... It's all complicated. And being me, it was always a war zone. My parents are totally strict. So, we were never at peace. I hate the total marriage thing. I donno. Maybe because I haven't seen a happy marriage. I've got may aunts and uncles but not one happy marriage. Life becomes mechanical. And a girl should makes like millions of sacrifices and never gets the love and respect she deserves. It's a curse to be a girl in our country," she sighed.
It's rather amusing to see her talk. She waves her hands a lot, widens and narrows her eyes, creases and raises her eyebrows...
"I'm sorry," she said looking at me.
"What for?" I asked.
"Well, you just asked me a simple question and I kept blabbering like a baboon," she bit her lip.
I chuckled. "No. I'm just listening. Ofcourse you talk a lot. But, I don't understand why is it a curse to be a girl at your place?"
"Well, you see, you'll have loads and loads of restrictions. You cannot do whatever you want or wear whatever you like. But, there are only few families who don't restrict their girls much. But, the point is, you'll be judged the moment you step outta your mother's womb—"
"People everywhere are judged the moment they stay step out of their mother's wombs."
"No. You don't understand. I mean, listen, people over there hates having a girl child—"
"What?!"
"Yeah. Because they think girls are a burden. 1. Because they're girls. 2. They don't bring you home anything, they just take. 3. The dowry. So...
Men... Most of them treat girls like toys or things. Women are always looked down. Everything in the world changed for centuries... Except that one thing.
You want a girlfriend, a mother, a wife, an actress, a model...everything but a daughter! Why don't they realise that only a daughter could turn to all those things?! Pathetic!
You wear some short dress or sleeves or whatever cute dress, then you are likely to get groped, molested, and if you are lucky, raped. All they say is, 'She was asking for it!' I mean, who the FCK said that if a girls dress is revealing or short, your pants should go down? I don't understand. It's always the girl! 'Teach your girls to dress properly and not to socialise with guys much!' The fuck...'Teach your sons not to stare or touch and be gentlemen.'
Women aren't powerless. The people make women powerless. It's even horrible in villages. The women are illiterates and they belong to the kitchen.
Women aren't secure. Not in a crowd, not in a school or college, for fck's same not even in their own families. Because the molester might be your uncle, cousin or sometimes even your father. Even kids get raped. I donno how they 'provoked' the men. Sometimes you can't even study what you want. You can't stay single after your 25 or all the fingers will be pointed at you. And love. 95% of the guys say they love you 'cause they wanna shag you. You impress her, you get her, you shag her and then take her for granted.
People are soooo stupid. You wear short clothes, they call you advanced, fast, bitch. You cover your body completely, then you are boring.
A girl has more guy friends, she is a slut. A guy has more girl friends, he's a fckn man...a stud!
You raise your voice against something, you're a rebel.
You stay calm, you're shy and a coward.
It's like...you know...a bird, in a cage hanged to a tree in a forest.
Our politicians are like, rapes won't occur if a girl stays home after sunset and doesn't wear short dresses.
I mean...what's with the short and revealing dresses? These are just a pair of legs. Every human has legs. And these are just boobs. Just more fat, some muscle, tissues, capillaries and ducts. What is with boys? What's soooo attractive about a ball of fat on the chest? Like, if you can love a girl for the fat on her chest, then you should love the girl for the fat on her stomach too, you little pieces of shit!"
I laughed hard at this point.
"No. That's not funny, Black. Like, kinda four years ago, this girl was raped in a bus. She tried to fight back. They put a rusty rod in her and pulled out her uterus and then thrown out of the bus with her injured guy friend. Later, the rapist said she shouldn't have fought back, she should've stayed calm and let the men do their work. Oh, come on let me slice you dick and see how you could stay calm!"
"What the FCK was wrong with them?" I felt like I wanted to puke. "That's horrible!"
"And the passers by didn't eveb help them. Because 'I fuckn don't wanna involve in this! I want a peaceful life!' The FCK! It could be or your family there someday and how do you feel, when you are left alone...abandoned like that? It's not the problem of one country. It's the problem of the whole world! Humanity is dying. All people care about is, 'I me myself!' You don't care about the needy or the dying! You just make sure you are filled. The soldiers die everyday protecting their nation and all the media shows is how a celebrity was caught kissing a girl, or what they wore, or the wardrobe malfunction!
People are just 'Educated Illiterates'
All they say is, 'Life is a race!' No. No. Life isn't a race. Life is doing the right thing, doing something that makes you and others around you happy. Life is helping others and being a person one could rely on. Life is forgiving people and is all about spreading love.
But no. People don't want that life. All they want is everything more. More than they can eat, more than they really need. Earn, earn, earn till you die. And then what? What do you get?
People will forget what you said or what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel.
That is the essence of life what people really miss. You need to love one another as you love yourself.
I... I just got fed up with life, with people... My dreams..never fulfilled, my goals...never reached. I was never supported. It really awful when your dreams get crushed... Terrible being crushed down by the people you love and get defeated. I was a very rebellious kid," she paused and looked me in the eye.
"You become rebellious when you don't find love in your family. Even my dad doesn't like me. I mean, her hit me loads of times. Not just a slap mind you. He used to hit me pretty bad. Blood, sprains, blah blah blah... Never mind," she waved her hand dismissively. Never mind? What the FCK?
"I donno people say he loves me," she continued. Tears filled her eyes. "But I never saw the " love ". My mum said he didn't even stay with her when I was born. Like, I didn't come outta my mum, but was taken outta my mum... And he didn't help her much. My grandfather did everything. Both my grandparents. But when my brother was born, like after some 6years or something, my dad was on cloud nine. That's when I noticed things change. I slowly became kinda invisible, unless you've got some chores or something else. I turned rebellious. And being rebellious makes you strong and reckless. But on the other side, it also makes you thick and lose your senses...makes you stupid and deep down, makes you vulnerable. And that's the string others find and they pull it and use it to get to you. Be it a person who promises love or an enemy who tries to break your defences. And when you don't have the right people around you at that point, you break...you collapse. But, naturally when you are a rebel, you are strong...so after sometime, you pull yourself together, get up, and move on, pushing the wound deeper and deeper inside of you, and get more rebellious, but the point is, you still have the vulnerable string. You'll never lose it. After getting defeated a couple of times, you start to think. You think and learn from your mistakes and try to start everything new.
But here comes the glitch. Being a girl, and a place where people describe you for you past only, it becomes hard to survive, hard to forget your past because every moment, someone is going to remind you what you did and what a piece of shit you were. After a while, you start reminding yourself what a horrible piece of shit and a loser you were and people only used you for their needs. You need to be strong at the heart and move on.
And one day, I realised that my mission in life isn't merely to survive, but to thrive and to do so, with some passion, some compassion, some humour, some attitude, and some style. And that you alone are enough and you have nothing to prove to anybody.
I am always obsessed with the armed forces. I was actually planning to join...I was preparing...but then I came here. My love for this place and some strange magic brought me here. So, here I am, a totally confused and a misplaced sperm. I donno what I'm doing. I think I'm scared. Scared that I'd make a mistake and gets one you in trouble...or worse... I... I donno," she choked. She didn't realise that tears were streaming down her face. Her eyes were puffy and her lips were trembling. She looked horrified.
At that moment, I don't know why. I did it. I pulled her into a hug. She stiffened at first. But then relaxed and hugged me back. Her scent filled my lungs.
"Oh my God! I'm crying!? Why am I crying? I'm sooo stupid!" She mumbled.
"Do you know you talk a lot, Pryde?" I asked rubbing her back. She sniffed.
"Yeah! My mum used to get irritated. That's when I started talking to myself. It's better to talk to yourself than to others."
"Does hugging me makes you lose control? People say I'm irresistible," I grinned.
"Oh shut up, Black."
"You talk a lot about love and pain. Do you have a boyfriend?"
She shook her head. "If I had one, I would be missing him, right?
"Did you ever fall in love?"
She nodded. "With the wrong ones."
"Those memories!"
"What?"
"The people I saw in your memories. It was them, wasn't it?"
She nodded.
"Well, what happened with them?"
She lifted her head and looked at me. "Black, we're wasting a lot of time." She let me go and took a step back. "Oh my goodness! Did you forget why we were here in the first place? Merlin! I diverted you... I'm sorry. I know I should have kept my mouth shut. I know you are bored to death...listening to me blabber all that stupid shit... I'm sorry."
"Pryde, it wasn't a 'stupid shit'. I...listened to you. It's not something you listen everyday and it's not boring. It's... You told me what's in your heart," I smiled at her.
She smiled back. "Cone on! Let's get this map done. We've got two more villages to go."
"Nice try, Pryde. But you didn't answer my question yet."
"Get this map done, Black," she smiled and hopped off trying to catch the snowflakes.
"I'm going to find out," I muttered to myself and got back to work on the map. "Alright. Let's do it from the air!" I called her. We walked back to the place I his my motorcycle and she flew into the sky.
When I was done with the map, we got back to the ground.
"All done?" She asked.
"Yeah," I gave her the map and she looked at it and gave it back to me.
"Where to?"
"Tutshill."
And we disapparated to Tutshill.
AN: Hellooo guys! Thanks for the reads.
I know this is a long chapter and some may find it a bit boring... But I feel this is an important conversation between Sirius and Kitty.
Sirius getting to know Kitty...
I Hope you are enjoying the story...
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