Chapter 6: His Collection of Weirdos

Nidhi

The Chaturbhuj Sanctuary was not what Nidhi had expected.

She had expected a military compound — barracks, training grounds, the grim functionality of a war machine. What she found, three days after waking in the medical wing, was something closer to a family estate that happened to have exceptionally good security. The main house was a sprawling structure built in the old Deccan style — thick stone walls, arched doorways, courtyards open to the sky with tulsi plants in every corner and jasmine climbing the pillars. The corridors smelled of sandalwood incense and the faint ozone tang of divine Shakti that permeated every surface like a second coat of paint.

Arjun's people — the house of Vijay, the warriors of Conquer — were not the rigid, uniformed soldiers she had imagined. They were a collection of personalities so diverse that "organised chaos" would have been a generous description.

Hiral met her first.

The woman appeared in the medical wing doorway without announcement, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed and a knife twirling between her fingers in the absent, meditative way of someone who used bladed weapons the way other people used prayer beads. She was striking — dark hair cut short, sharp features, eyes that were an unusual shade of sea-grey that marked her as something other than human.

"So," Hiral said. "You're the one who crawled out of Chandramukhi's dungeon with a rusted dagger and a toddler."

"I also killed three warlocks and two Pishach on the way out. But sure, reduce it to crawling."

Hiral's mouth twitched. Not a smile — more like the preliminary seismic activity that preceded a smile. "The legendary Horseman — or Horsewoman — of Mrityu's line."

"The next in line. Not the current."

"Same thing."

"Not really. You're a little slow, aren't you?" Nidhi watched Hiral's eyes narrow and added: "But since you're cute, I'll let it slide."

The temperature in the room dropped three degrees. Hiral's knife stopped twirling. Her eyes — sea-grey, ancient, belonging to a species that Nidhi was now certain was not terrestrial — locked onto Nidhi's with an intensity that would have been threatening if it weren't accompanied by the smallest, most reluctant crack in her composure.

"What did you just call me?"

Before the situation could escalate into something involving knives, Arjun materialised in the doorway with the particular energy of a man who had sensed trouble from three rooms away. "All right, ladies, that's enough getting to know each other." He stepped between them — not protectively, because Nidhi did not need protection, but strategically, because Hiral's knives were sharp and Nidhi's mouth was sharper and the medical wing had already sustained enough damage. "Hiral, find the others. Living room. Ten minutes."

"Oh, of course, my majesty!" Hiral's bow was so dramatically sarcastic that Nidhi snorted, which earned her a look from Hiral that was trying very hard to be hostile and failing. "Anything else this peasant can do to appease you, my lord?"

"Hiral. Please."

The warning in his eyes was subtle but real, and Hiral — smart enough to read it — departed with a final flip of her knife. Nidhi turned at the last second and blew her a kiss. Hiral responded with a gesture that was universal in its meaning and walked away with the controlled fury of someone who had just lost a social exchange and was already planning revenge.

"I like her," Nidhi said.

"Everyone does. Eventually. After the initial death threats."

"She's a siren."

Arjun's eyebrows rose. "You can tell?"

"The eyes. And the temperature drop — sirens regulate their environmental temperature when agitated. Papa taught me. He said sirens were the only species he'd consider marrying if Maa hadn't gotten to him first."

Something warm passed through Arjun's expression at the mention of her parents, but he didn't push. Instead, he offered his arm — not grabbing, not touching without permission, just offering — and waited.

She took it. Her knee was functional now, thanks to Gauri's second healing session, but the muscles around it were still rebuilding, and stairs were a negotiation rather than a certainty. Arjun adjusted his pace to hers without being asked, which was either excellent empathy or the mate bond making him hyper-attuned to her physical state. Probably both.

The living room was a large, light-filled space with floor-to-ceiling glass walls that overlooked the Nilgiri valley. The view was staggering — green hills rolling into blue distance, the morning mist still clinging to the lower slopes, the sky a watercolour wash of gold and pink. Nidhi stopped in the doorway and stared, because she had not seen a horizon in ten years and the sheer scale of the visible world was overwhelming.

"Breathe," Arjun murmured beside her.

She breathed. The air through the open windows tasted like eucalyptus and morning dew and the particular sweetness of hill-station air that was clean enough to make you realise how dirty everything else was.

Two people were already seated on the largest sofa. The man — tall, broad, with the careful posture of someone who had been trained in combat but preferred to be anywhere else — was Harish. Beside him, tucked against his side with the comfortable intimacy of a long-established relationship, was Gauri. The healer. Who was apparently also Harish's partner, which explained why she had access to the Sanctuary's medical wing.

"Harish handles external operations," Arjun explained. "Gauri handles keeping all of us alive, which is the harder job."

"Significantly harder," Gauri confirmed. "Especially when certain people refuse to sleep and sit in chairs for twelve hours instead."

Arjun had the grace to look mildly embarrassed. Nidhi filed this away as useful information: the Horseman of Conquer could be embarrassed by his healer. Good. Vulnerabilities were currency, and she was not above exploiting them for entertainment.

Sahil bounded in from the adjacent room, carrying Aarav, who was perched on his hip with the resigned expression of a toddler who had accepted that this particular adult was going to carry him everywhere regardless of his opinions on the matter.

"Nini!" Aarav's face transformed — the guarded blankness dissolving into something bright and urgent. He reached for her with both arms, and Sahil transferred him smoothly, reading the boy's body language with the attentiveness of someone who had been paying very careful attention for three days.

Nidhi settled Aarav on her lap and pressed her nose into his hair, breathing in the scent of clean child — soap, warm skin, the faint coconut oil that Gauri had apparently used on his hair. He was clean. Fed. Dressed in clothes that fit. His eyes were still too old for his face, his body still tensed for impact, but the worst of the dungeon's shadow had receded by a few degrees.

"He ate breakfast," Sahil reported. "Idli with coconut chutney. Two whole idlis. And he tried sambar for the first time and made a face that I'm going to remember forever."

"He doesn't like sour things."

"I gathered. The sambar was diplomatically relocated to my plate, where it was appreciated at the level it deserved."

Hiral arrived last, leaning against the far wall with studied indifference, her knife back in rotation. Beside her — having apparently been collected along the way — stood a young man with the particular combination of intensity and awkwardness that suggested someone deeply intelligent and deeply uncomfortable in social settings.

"That's Riku," Sahil said. "Tech and intelligence. Doesn't talk much, but when he does, it's usually something that changes the entire strategic picture."

"Nidhi," Arjun began, settling onto the sofa opposite. "These are my people. Sahil — second in command and professional annoyance. Hiral — Warriorhead, the finest combat specialist I've ever seen. Harish — operations. Gauri — healer. Riku — intelligence. Together, we make up the core of the house of Vijay."

"Your collection of weirdos," Sahil translated.

"My family," Arjun corrected. His voice was quiet, but the weight behind it silenced the room. "And if you're willing — yours too."

Nidhi looked at them. Six people, seated or standing in a sunlit room in the Nilgiri hills, looking back at her with varying expressions of welcome (Sahil, Gauri), assessment (Hiral, Riku), warmth (Harish), and something too vulnerable to be named (Arjun). Six strangers who had rescued her, healed her, fed her child, washed his hair with coconut oil, and were now offering her a place in their family as if that were a normal thing to do for someone you'd known for three days.

Aarav's hand found hers. His grip was tight — the "yes" squeeze.

"I'm not easy," she said. "I have nightmares that shake the walls. I have trust issues that have trust issues. I will insult every single one of you at least twice before the week is out, and I will not apologise because I don't apologise. I can't cook, I break things when I'm angry, and my Divya Shakti occasionally sets fire to curtains when I'm asleep. If you're offering me a family—" her voice cracked, and she hated it "—you should know what you're signing up for."

"Setting fire to curtains," Sahil said thoughtfully. "That's actually an upgrade from Hiral, who threw a knife through the last set."

"It was one knife. And the curtain deserved it."

Nidhi laughed. The sound surprised her — raw, rusty, emerging from a throat that had not produced it in years. It was ugly and brief and it hurt her ribs, and it was the most beautiful sound anyone in the room had ever heard, judging by the way Arjun's breath caught and Sahil's grin went soft and Hiral looked away quickly enough to hide whatever was happening to her face.

"Welcome home, sunshine," Sahil said.

"Don't call me sunshine."

"Too late. It's permanent."