KRISHAVYAYAM

82. Fragile Threads

More often than not, coastlines are known for their temperate climates. The sea lapped to the shores. The vast blue expanse sometimes hailing tranquility, to sometimes menacing in high tides that threatened to take away the land the sea had so graciously bestowed upon the feathered blue prince, it was a muse to the aesthetes just as the constellations fascinated the moon.

But not this day ever since the dawn, certainly not for the abode of fortune was searing cold. An age-old fissure in her arm bone made its presence known when the breeze fondled by and the Dvarakaeshvari stared incredulously at the burning logs, pushing them with a tong as onyx smoke flew onto her. Kamalnayani coughed, a deep lour settling on her tender lips before she pushed back her drape over her shoulder and fixed its end to her waist. The twilight came on caliginous and the temperature dropped in a vigorous pace when the flames conversed with its daughter about a reticence that she was not unbeknownst to.

[You could have written to me. You could have let me know, darling sister. You, I have trusted you with everything. The first one I laid my gaze on was you. I am not in my senses because red consumes me but—]

The rest was vague. She was terse in stifled tension. The woman who rose from the flames idly wondered if the red was so strong that it would hinder the paths of her and her first compeer, the regent of the celestial realm. “I know better than to speak between a husband and wife,” she murmured quietly, slightly tilting her head to the side to glimpse at the earth-goddess who grinned as if there were no chasms in her embrace where she cradled her children and other divinities alike.

“Krisha, my sweet sister.” Satyabhama giggled, brown eyes reminiscing tales above and beyond the cosmos, everything constructed of her alone. She is the primal tattva comprising it all. “So long since we saw each other.” And Kamalnayani sighed to herself in half amusement and some half unnamed emotion, “Indeed. The assembly was two praharas ago. So long since we saw each other.” Satyabhama only giggled again, wrapping a hand around her sister-wife's shoulder, not wanting her share of attention to be divided at all.

The aisles of Indraprastha sieged themselves in a rumbling quake for the empress remained seated in her grandiose boudoirs as an oil lamp flickered before her vision, kohl eyes flooded with rivulets that burnt at the sound of footfalls that approached her doors post twelve autumns.

She ended the flowers blooming in her heart and clenched the quilts below her, mourning the morbid when fury built in her. Krishnaa stared at the flares that crackled when a sudden serein came upon them, threatening to take away their might, the thunder clapping above her head. For her husband now hesitated behind crimson curtains hiding the privacy of the Samragyi, not knowing whether to breathe or smolder in the smokes that emitted from her quietude.

[What has remained and what has wilted, how will we know?
Are you here for you want to be or because the ethics dictate you to, Partha?]

“Draupadi won't hold a grudge against you, you know that,” Satrajiti commented with a curt nod, the previous mirth evaporating with the tardiness of mood. The dusk did not appear picturesque, now it only narrated a ballad of fragile threads and aged scars that could become a potential laceration if prodded at too often. “I cannot fault her even if she does, but I do wish she comprehends the gravity of the situation. I was at an impasse,” Vahnijaa spoke, rising from her seat and clumsily fixing her diadem to her curls as her bangles and anklets clinked with her movements and for once, she was the air-headed princess again— lost more in thoughts than in executing fruitful actions.

“It is Arjuna who should have communicated with her before the wedding. She has, dutifully, welcomed all her co-wives into the kingdom but this—” the former clicked her tongue, biting into the apple in her hand which she picked from the wicker basket of their first daughter. Abhishtada had taken her leave not too long ago, away with her father for the bimonthly inspections of the infirmary. “Still, when the truth of Queen Prishati being alive unearthed . . . weren't you disappointed that neither Sakhi Krishnaa nor Kanha deemed you capable to handle it all beforehand? The conspiracy did seem wretched, innit?”