Love Across Time

Fifty Four

-𝓢𝓸𝓵𝓲𝓽𝓾𝓭𝓮'𝓼 𝓔𝓶𝓫𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓮-

The weary sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the marbled floor of the Somnath Temple. Aanya, a silhouette of grief against the dying light, stood amidst the quiet solitude. Her gaze lingered on the sages, their forms statuesque in meditation, their souls perhaps whispering secrets the wind wouldn't carry.

She sank onto the cool stone steps, the echo of her loneliness swallowed by the temple's ancient embrace. Prayers tumbled from her lips in fragile whispers, a desperate thread connecting her to a world beyond the gnawing ache in her heart. With a sigh that rattled her soul, she buried her head in her knees, the weight of her choices pressing down like an invisible mountain. Each chime of her anklets, once a melody of joy, now echoed with a  melancholy, a symphony of memories, laughter shared, promises whispered in the twilight.

A year had bled into oblivion since Arjun's departure, taking a piece of her with him. Guilt, a relentless serpent, coiled around her heart. The burden of her actions had become her silent penance.

Choosing solitude over the bustling streets of Dwarka was hers to bear. But Kanha's cryptic message, spoken with an air of finality, echoed in the hollowness of her mind, "Your destiny will meet you here, in Somnath," Aanya, consumed by grief, hadn't questioned it then. Now, adrift in a sea of uncertainty, the meaning remained elusive. A month had passed, and destiny seemed to have lost its way. The courage to seek answers had been swept away by the tide of despair.

As dusk deepened, Aanya rose, her form mirroring the fading hope that clung to her like a tattered cloak. The walk back to the cottage was a journey through a world painted in shades of loss. Sleep, when it finally came, brought no solace. It was a battlefield of dreams, where memories danced with the phantoms of regret.

Did he miss her? Did his eyes, too, seek solace in the same moon that bathed her room in its ethereal glow? She clung to the image of him, the warmth of his smile a distant ember in the icy grip of despair.

Aanya waited. Waited for a sign, a whisper on the wind, a message carried by a stray star. Waited for the return of a love that defied the constraints of time and distance. The once vibrant anklets now chimed a mournful tune, a chorus of grief that echoed through the silent halls. The floor absorbed her silent tears, the sages remained oblivious to the heartache that resonated in the very air.

In the quietude of the night, she whispered his name, a plea carried on a prayer that the wind might carry it across mountains and rivers. "Arjun," her voice trembled, "Do you remember? Does the absence carve the same hollow ache in your soul?" The stars held their secrets close, and Aanya clung to hers, a fragile hope that someday, their paths, like two rivers converging in the vast ocean of time, would meet once more.

Aanya stirred from a restless sleep, the first rays of dawn painting the dusty floorboards with a faint, unwelcome light. The chill that seeped through the cottage walls sent a shiver down her spine, a stark contrast to the warmth that had briefly enveloped her in a dream, a dream tinged with the bittersweet memory of his touch. Wrapping his shawl around herself, she inhaled deeply, the faint scent of sandalwood and spices momentarily transporting her back to stolen moments under the moonlight.

The world outside remained cloaked in a pre-dawn hush, as if holding its breath in anticipation of the day's unfolding. Aanya rose, the wooden floorboards protesting with a soft creak beneath her bare feet. The air carried the lingering scent of incense from her nightly prayers, a faint echo of a hope that seemed to be fading with each passing sunrise. Her reflection in the water pot revealed the toll the sleepless nights had taken, eyes rimmed with red, kohl smudged into dark streaks, and hair that hung in tangled waves, mirroring the disarray within.