Near the border of Surabhan, some kilometers out, lay the village of Namaras.
That night, the heavens broke open.
Rain fell not in drops but in stones, each sheet of water striking roofs and earth with a violence that could dent clay and split wood.
The storm howled like a beast, swallowing every other sound.
And yet, through the roar of the skies, another cry rose. Thin, sharp, insistent—
the cry of a newborn child.
Not in a home of safety, nor in a hall of healers, but in a shed of brick and leaking mortar, the child came into the world.
The midwife, weary and hard-eyed, pulled the infant into her arms and glanced at the mother.
Her breath was gone. Her body already slack.
"Dead." the woman said flatly.
"Is the father here?" she asked. The assistants shook their heads. No one had come.
The woman clicked her tongue. She looked at the baby—red, squirming, loud—with something caught between pity and disgust.
"Bastard..." she muttered.
The storm raged. She opened the window. And without another thought, she cast the newborn into the torrent.
The infant wailed. Rain lashed his body, filth from the gutters clung to his skin.
His cries grew hoarse, faltering… until sound failed him.
Yet even silent, he squirmed still.
His body shivered. His tiny fists clenched.
The will to live clung stubbornly, refusing to be drowned.
And then—large, rough hands.
A shadowed figure stooped and lifted the child from the mud.
The man cursed under his breath, water streaming down his face.
"…ugh. It had to be a baby..."
He wiped the dirt from the child's cheeks with the back of his calloused hand.
For a moment, he studied the face, expression unreadable.
Then he snorted.
"Well, whatever."
He carried the child through the downpour into the heart of Namaras, to a warm-lit building that smelled of smoke and spices.
A restaurant.
He set the baby on the counter, washed him clean in a basin, then sat down heavily to eat as if nothing strange had happened.
The child, scrubbed raw and warm, quieted at last. His tiny chest rose and fell, steady, unyielding.
The man glanced at him and smirked.
"…hmn. You're a stubborn one."
He chewed, swallowed, then spoke again, words dry as old timber.
"Rudrasar.got a problem with the name?file a complaint when you grow up."
And so it was. The man who had plucked a child from the gutter gave him a name and a place at his table.
This man was Varunath. Chef. Owner of The Spotlight, the famed restaurant of Namaras. Gruff, sharp-tongued, unromantic to the bone—yet that night, he became something else.
The reluctant guardian of the boy who would one day shake gods and worlds alike.