Vajra An Elven Tale

Chapter 19 Part II

Chapter 19 part II

Old wounds run deep

Unknown...

There was snow falling from a pale blue sky. Flakes of transparent, pointy flowers of purest white December from the heaven. From a memory, blurred with time he recalled how they made Kavita's eyes shimmer. There was a soft glow of inner joy, as she watched them melt in her palm...his heart would surely skip a beat then.

 Then her hazel eyes smudged into molten gold orbs. With her thick lashes dusted in finely powdered snow, it was Swara watching him; a soft smile tugging her lips. Sanskar took a breath, the frosty air burning his lungs and exhaled slowly, watching the smoke rise from his nostrils.

Finally he looked around. They were in the middle of some frozen lake.  The thick surface of ice obstructing the view of the depth below and glittering rosy in the sunlight, it made a tapping sound as he stepped.  

She was wearing hues of warm peach and golden brown. Her clock trimmed with fur, thick and snuggly. There were snowflakes resting on her hair, like flowers interwoven into the complex braids she had turned them into.

" Where are we?" She asked as he approached. Unconsciously he took her hand in his, it was toasty warm. Sanskar looked up and smiled at her.

"I don't know," he admitted shrugging a little.  

"You brought us here, didn't you?" She pointed out, her eyes widening. " You said you had something to tell me..."

Her voice tailed off as Sanskar wondered what he would have planned to tell her, in a landscape sprinkled with fresh winter.

Then her voice called from a far distant memory.

"There will be someone else who deserves to hear you say those words...someone who can say them back..."

"I wanted to tell you..." he stopped, fishing for the best choice of words.  

"hmm. ..?" She urged him.

"I wanted to tell you, about me."

It might have been the setting sun that glazed the snow till then, for it disappeared as soon as he spoke those words.  In shadows of the twilight the snowy hills looked different, somehow familiar.

" Sanskar?" Her voice was cautious as she spoke.

 "What happened here?"

Somewhere in the newly falling night, a wolf howled. Sanskar flinched.

" I almost died here..."

*

Borders of Vajrateerta, present time.

Sometimes she wished the time would leave some sign of its flow. The continuity, the eternity was exhausting her. And then sometimes she prayed for the moments to hold still, or turn around to the past where things were much much more beautifully uncomplicated.

 The chestnut brown stallion stopped in mid run, as Annapurna pulled back its reins. With an unsatisfied neigh at the chilly morning air, it puffed its front hooves and stilled, smelling the dew drenched air and wondering why she stopped in the middle of nowhere.

She had been there before. It had been so many years ago. Again, it was the time. Standing stubbornly still so that the painful incidents if the past was replayed by her psyche. Annapurna had shed the last of her tears decades before,  now her eyes simply stung, she furiously blinked, and that was it.  There were no more tears to dump her lashes, no need to cry over shadows. She took that decision so long ago, when her love was brutally snatched from her.