The Pixies’ Chosen (Mated to the Monster: Season 2)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

AMMAYI

I lift my book a little higher, trying my best to return to the story that had been absorbing all my attention until my sister decided to pay me a visit. Inika looks as polished as ever, her ivory silk shirt with a pink flower bud design and perfectly matching pink slacks and pumps looking out of place in my comfortably worn and ramshackle apartment. Even her dark curls fall in a silky wave down her shoulders and back in contrast to the constant state of frizz that I seem cursed to battle. Sitting in my apartment, she’s nothing short of a flower blooming in a bed of weeds. Something which our mother never hesitates to remind me with her worried sighs over why I can’t be more like Inika—popular, fashionable Inika who graduated at the top of her undergraduate class and since then has been busy meeting successful young men in the community.

I don’t begrudge her that in the least. In fact, most times I’m of the opinion that it is far better for her to be the center of all Mummi’s focused attention. Oh, I know my turn will be coming once my sister is married, but for now I can enjoy the diversion that allows me to lead my independent life. Our parents objected strenuously when I insisted on getting an apartment to live out on my own but had yielded for the sake of it allowing me to be closer to the campus. A campus where I’ve been halfheartedly working on the degree program that they enthusiastically insisted was the practical choice for me—administration. Because what higher aims could they possibly have for their younger daughter whose ambition never extended beyond being first in line for the newest release of one of my favorite series at the local bookstore?

I would almost feel bad about being a regular source of disappointment looming over my mother and father if they didn’t at least have Inika, who is a dutiful daughter and more than happy to excel at everything that our parents set in front of her. Of course, my relationship with my sister is complicated. On one hand, Inika being the dutiful daughter allows me more freedom so that I can skate by doing just enough to keep our parents off my back while enjoying what I want in the meantime. On the other hand, she seems so perfect sometimes that it almost makes me wish that she would randomly just chip a nail or horrifically stain one of her immaculate outfits just so that I could somehow feel a little closer to her. Instead, I feel small and plain… and like a tolerated inconvenience.

And Inika is definitely inconvenienced. I can see it in the way she is currently sitting uncomfortably on my couch with a pained expression and a forced smile on her carefully painted lips. This can only mean one thing—this is not a social call, as if that much shouldn’t be evident from the fact that my sister is incapable of just relaxing for a pleasant visit in my cluttered, shabby apartment, especially with the leftover takeout currently strewn across my beaten-up coffee table from my recent lunch. She stares at it in barely disguised distaste with a faint look of someone who wants to flee. Even the cup of masala chai I went through the effort of making for her when she arrived has gone mostly untouched.

Which means only one thing—she’s here on behalf of our mother.. That also means there’s no hope of her leaving until she has accomplished whatever mission Mummi sent her on. Not with the way her jaw is locking and her smile is tightening with a determined force.

Maybe I should point out that all that tension in her face is going to give her deep lines around the mouth and eyes, but I push the thought away as quickly as it comes. Of all the things I can possibly say to my sister, that would likely be the most disastrous. I’ll just save that for my ace when I need to cut losses and get out of an impending argument with her quickly. God knows I certainly can’t win one against her otherwise.

In defeat, I lower my book and slide the bookmark in place before setting the book on the table and giving my sister my full attention.

“Okay. What is it?” I query with a heavy sigh. “We’ve been talking about nothing for the last forty-five minutes, and I’d like to get back to the elven prince’s ravishment of his human captive.”

My sister’s gaze drops to my book briefly and then rises again only for her eyes to roll upward to the heavens beseechingly for help. Simultaneously, her fingers rise to pluck unconsciously at the small pendant of Lakshmi hanging from her neck from a delicate gold chain. I give it a faint glance, noting that in the small image it depicts the deva overflowing riches with all her grace. That Inika is fiddling with it now tells me all I need to know about where her patience is.

“If you would get your head out of the clouds long enough to notice the rest of the world going on around you, it probably wouldn’t have come to this,” she replied with a feigned sweetness that didn’t quite cover the sharp note in her voice. “You didn’t even ask about our parents before you were pushing a cup into my hands with the hope of getting rid of me as quickly as possible.

She’s not wrong. I was trying to hurry her out of here, and I didn’t ask about our parents even though it would have been the correct thing to do once we got settled on the couch. Still, the corners of my mouth instinctively tighten in response to the chastisement. Knowing that she will interpret it as displeasure and summarily report it back to Mummi, there’s little I can do but follow the motion through as I force a smile to my lips.

“Come to what, exactly? As far as I’ve checked there hasn’t been a foolproof formula for avoiding these little visits and whatever Mummi wants to pressure me into,” I point out.

Mummi wields maternal guilt like an expert swordswoman.

Inika huffs just as I expected her to and shakes her head. “Only you would be so ungrateful as to see it as pressuring you into something when she’s just trying to do her best by you, to see to it that you have a good future. You may not always like the methods, but they come from a good place, Ammayi.”

Ungrateful. Now that is a familiar adjective I’ve heard more than once whenever my own interests and desires fail to line up with the expectations my parents had for me. I wish I could say that they’ve mostly given up by now, but unfortunately my parents possess a unique kind of stubbornness. I wouldn’t say that they are optimistic, since they already think I’ve screwed up my future, but just that they possess the sort of pure determination that has them lying in wait to fix my life and get me going in the right direction again.

“In any case, why inquire about them when I know that they are the ones who have sent you and I will be finding out what they want whether I like it or not?” I chuckle softly, though the sound is dry and humorless.

A tiny frown draws down the corners of my sister’s mouth. “Yes, but it would at least give me an opening instead of trying to find a way to draw conversation in that direction without you shooting me down every second word that comes out of my mouth,” she complains.

“Okay, okay,” I concede just for the sake of avoiding a drawn-out conversation. “So why not just say whatever you’ve come to say and get it over with so I can get back to enjoying the peace of my day off?” I pause and scrutinize her from beneath my eyelashes, unable to quash the reckless surge of playfulness. “It certainly can’t be more important at this moment than Lord Drisk’s impressive… gifts,” I finish gamely with a tap of my finger on the chiseled abs of the model on the cover as I watch the color creep up my sister’s cheeks.

Inika sighs in a way that is remarkably similar to Mummi as she settles back and folds her arms over her chest with a delicate little sneer of displeasure. “You are doing this on purpose. You can’t just take this seriously and do what you should do. You always have to make it difficult for me.”

Really, in part it’s because she’s so stiff that I can’t help myself. She is just too much fun to tease, and the fact that it often throws her into a fit of temper that has the result of sending her storming out of my apartment within short order is a significant plus in my book. Preferably without having time to issue whatever requests our parents sent her over to impart.

I wave a hand toward her with a guileless smile. “Go for it then.”

She squints at me, not believing for a moment that I ceased fucking with her. My eyebrows shoot up as I smile back at her.

Her fingers drum on her brightly colored purse for a long moment before she nods in agreement. “Tomorrow is Mummi’s birthday. She is throwing a big party at the house with a number of family and friends of the family attending, and a few of Mummi and Papa’s longtime colleagues. She wants to make sure that you will be there as there are some people she wants you to meet.” My sister hesitates and gestures vaguely at me. “And she wants you to make an effort this time so that you don’t embarrass her. Especially after what happened last year during Garba.”

I groan and flop back in my chair. Introducing me to people is mother code for “going to set me up with eligible sons from within their social circle.” Which was exactly what she had done during Garba. It is no wonder that I avoided most of the Navratri celebrations earlier this month after that disaster. After hopelessly staining my best chaniya choli that Mummi had brought back with her from her last trip to visit relatives, as well as the clothes of one of the men she’d introduced me to, it had cut the entire celebration short for us. And given how big birthday celebrations typically were for Mummi and Papa, I am guaranteed to not get even a moment alone. I thought I was going to be spared until Inika was safely married—what the hell happened to that?

A sympathetic smile tugs at my sister’s lips, and she reaches over with a groan and hauls me back up into a seated position. “Come on, don’t be like that. Just a few hours out of your day—it is a small sacrifice to make Mummi happy. Happy enough that she may lay off you for a few weeks.”

“I suppose that’s true,” I grumble but sigh heavily as I shift in my chair, rolling so that I slump with my cheek resting against her shoulder. “But why me? Isn’t she still desperate to get you fixed up? I thought that would buy me a few months longer at least before I must endure being paraded in front of anyone.”

“Oh, that,” Inika replies with the hint of a smug smile on her lips. “That would be because Dishan spoke to them about marriage, and they approved. Naturally, that just makes Mummi all the more eager to repeat her success with one daughter for the other.”

“No,” I groan miserably as I slump further into my chair. I knew she had been dating Dishan for a while, but I hadn’t thought it was that serious yet. “How could you have given in so easily?”

“Oh, come on, Ammayi,” she protests around a laugh. “Just how long would you have expected me to keep him waiting?”

“A year or five wouldn’t have been unreasonable,” I reply sourly, but when she laughs again, I slap her hands away with an exasperated laugh of my own. “Fine, fine. I will be there.”

“Early,” Inika urges. “Mummi wants our help setting up. You know how big these parties get to be.”

“Fine—early,” I reluctantly agree. It’s just one day—what could possibly happen in one day?