Ellora

Twenty sunlit days left for Robin to die.

Ruby looked at the Sun and waved to Robin. "Come! Quick! You're going to miss it!" Ruby shouted, flailing her hands in a grand gesture. Robin kept looking at her as Ruby looked in awe at the sunlit sky's setting Sun which created a rainbow. You had to stand at that special place to watch it. The Sun's rays fell on her face just as Robin cupped Ruby's face tenderly, and kissed her cheeks gently. Ruby looked puzzled. "What are you doing," she said, "Look! Look there, You're missing the sight!" Robin smiled and nodded. The sunlit sky with its rainbow, was to be seen everyday, could be missed once in a while. But to miss her amazed face, shining red, could not be missed in a lifetime. Just as the Sun dipped beyond the horizon, Ruby sighed. "I'll always remember these sunsets, Robin, with you." Robin could only nod. As she took his arms, Robin thought, "Me too." And he prayed so that many sunlit days would come.

When the war hit, the Gulf was surrounded by the Enemy's Navy. Every able bodied men was sent to war. So was Robin. Ruby, with a childlike negativity clawed at Robin as he went to leave. "I will come back alive," Robin promised. Ruby shook her head. "No. You can’t go!" She sobbed. That night, they didn't watch the sunset. But at that spot, the next day, at sunrise, Ruby said to Robin, calmly, without a hint of the hysteria she was suffering from..."Marry me, my love." "You don’t want to..." Robin stopped. "I don't want to?" Ruby raised her eyebrows. You don't want to marry a half dead man, he was going to say. "I want to marry the love of my life. The one who promised to come back to me alive," Ruby said. "I love you," Robin said. "I love you," Ruby said and hugged him tight. In their embrace, Ruby slipped a thin knotted rope she had made on his left hand, ring finger. So did Robin. "With this, I wed thee," Ruby whispered. Robin was grasped with a heightened emotion and unlike himself began to cry. Cry in rapture, cry, having found a place to belong to. Ruby hushed him, and hugged him again, rocking him in the embrace like a baby. After what seemed like several decades, they broke their embrace. Ruby's face was tranquil. And looking at her, Robin found a new reason to look forward to surviving. The day Robin left, Ruby stopped going to their special place. "My dear husband," she wrote. "The day I visit there again, it will be with you. I look forward to that day." Robin would read the letters, how things were back home, and keep the letters, folded carefully in his breastpocket. He would read them every night, lying in the hay of the barracks. Not a day passed that he didn't think of her. Likewise, for her. Two months passed like this. Till one day the next month, the letters stopped coming.

Robin's platoon was missing. No one knew how. Sent to intercept an enemy secret, they themselves went missing during the mission. Five days later, the platoon was found - they had been ambushed and left to die in nature because of the oil leak nearby which had ignited, charring the bodies of friend and enemy alike... but Robin was missing. He could be found nowhere, not even amongst the few half-charred barely alive bodies. Ruby fainted when she heard this. "If you bring him back alive, God," she thought, "I will do anything you ask of me." She would pray everyday. It seemed like God listened. Because, on the second month after that, Robin found his way home, with a critical secret of the enemy that helped to stop the war. All the locations of the oil trade, and the coal mines in the enemy front. And the position of the dictator of the enemy country. Robin was awarded. But when he saw Ruby, he couldn’t meet her gaze as she ran to him, to hug him.

He stepped back, looking askance. For a moment, she looked heartbroken. Then she whispered, "Look at me." Robin wouldn’t. An applause, and Robin was lifted off his feet. In the ruckus, Ruby lost him. Going back home, she prayed to God again. This time for solace. "You said you would do anything," a voice chimed at the back of her head. "I did," conversed Ruby, surprised. "He is the only person who knows where I am, who I am, what I can do. But only at a price. He can’t be with you, and if he *can* be with you, it will be at the cost of his newborn." "You can’t be God," Ruby said, horrified. "I am only a messenger." The voice faded away.

The next day, Robin found a letter. "You are right. I can't be with you. Not at the cost of our unborn babe. Come to our place at the sunset." Robin went. But couldn't find Ruby.

Until Ruby found it written : Twenty sunlit days for Robin to die. She became hysterical again. What have I done? She thought. Lord, please, please! She shouted. That day she went to the place. As she was about to jump, Robin held her from the behind, around her waist. For the first time in all of those days, he said, "Hush. Look. Look." Ruby opened her eyes. On the valley far away, a babe was crying. The rainbows were created from droplets of his tears. "Our newborn babe,"  Robin said, contented. "What?" Ruby sounded confused. We were blessed with a baby from the Rainbow Goddess. She witnessed our love so many times. "Hurdles create hurdles, but very often the solution lies with us," the voice faded. As the Sun set, Ruby and Robin lovingly carried the baby to their home. "Ellora," she was named, as she giggled and cooed. Noone but the Rainbow Goddess knew of the great things she would do. Ruby and Robin loved each other for the rest of their lives. At each sunset, which still mesmerized Ruby, Robin stood there, wanting to say something, but couldn't. One day, he summed up courage and said, "Ellora will never age. She will stay as long as the Earth lives, in hiding, and in times of great distress, she will ignite the fire of righteousness. She must go." Ruby smiled the tranquil smile she had shown only once on their wedding day. Of course she will, she seemed to say. Ruby tilted and rested her head on Robin's shoulder and said, "Of course she has to go. But only once she learns how to cook for herself." Robin let out a guffaw and hugged her tightly. Ellora, now 16 years old, smiled one last time at her parents, and left, to a far far away place where no one could find her. Like Spiderman said, with great power comes great responsibility. Ellora would have to finish her penance so she could stop tragedies in the world from happening, long after Ruby and Robin died, leaving only their love to set an example to the world.