Genre: Romance/Fluff

"You can't sleep." a hoarse voice rasped, interrupting the gurgling of the water and the otherwise silent night. 

Urmila jumped up from her seat, whirling around to her husband's dimly lit form. Lakshman leaned against the resting cabin, rubbing his eyes. 

"Wha-" she gasped, holding a hand to her heart. "Don't scare your wife like that, Laksh! I could have died, I could have fallen into the river and been eaten by the catfish, or worse, have had my brand new coral pink sari destroyed!"

"Coral pink." Lakshman snorted, trying to blink his sleepiness away. "Then its fate is already decided. You would be setting that sari free. It hasn't seen its coral family for so long. Maybe it wants to go home." 

Urmila made a series of wild hand gestures, paired with squeaking noises, that could, at best, be described as offended. Yet she  didn't say anything as Lakshman walked towards her, taking a seat on the long bench near the railing of the royal sailing boat.

"It's nighttime, you should be sleeping," Lakshman muttered, watching a school of bright orange and white fish move through the moonlit river with an unreadable expression.

Urmila looked at him sharply, surprised. "You noticed," she laughed, voice lilting in disbelief. "Most of the time, you're too asleep to notice when I get up."

Lakshman scratched his cheek sheepishly. "Well it was hard to ignore the way the bed creaked when you got up. The sound was supersonic. It was like someone had exploded the whole ship. You were lucky my eardrums didn't burst."

Urmila rolled her eyes, brushing a stray curl away from her face and choosing to look at the rippling river as well. "Well an artist's brain never quiets down, certainly not enough to let them sleep. Every time I try to take even a little nap, a new idea pops up." Then she scoffed. "But of course, you wouldn't know."

She didn't see Lakshman moving his gaze from the water to her. "Of course," he breathed quietly, as if in awe. "I wouldn't know."

Making a sound of content, Urmila folded her hands together as her elbows leaned precariously on the metal rod separating her from the waves of water. 

Occassionally, a fish would jump up from the water, causing a spray of crystal-like drops to splash up, and Urmila's mouth would drop open, clapping her hands together in excitement. Her glass bangles would hit each other and make noises like the bells on an infant's silver anklets.

Lakshman continued to stare at her instead of going back to sleep, lips parted ever so slightly and hands folded tightly in his lap until the knuckles turned white.

Sometimes, Urmila would look at him curiously, and he would quickly look away. But inevitably his gaze was drawn back to her, time and again, left on her joyous form as she pointed towards the colorfully spotted coyfish.

They were two delicate lovers on a gently rocking boat, drifting away into the twinkling horizon.

A/N: Just some Lakshmila content. I don't understand why, but I've been very disappointed with my writing lately. 

 I was very much considering saving this for Married to the Serpent King, but I just couldn't bring myself to. I've actually been writing a lot of scenes and shorts in this book for MttSK, so there's eight different completed Lakshmila drafts I'm staring at that I'm saving for the other book. 

Thank you for reading. Have a nice day, everyone.