KRISHAVYAYAM

26. Blooms Of Felicity

A phantom thing. An unfathomable hiraeth. A lingering oracle. An inevitable end. Too good to be true. Too beautiful to not be haunting.

Dvaraka was majestic, every inch fit to be the lord's abode. There was a distant nostalgia, some sort of yearning that sprouted in one every time they'd sit to observe. There was nothing human about it, that which was to find its aim in the depths of an ocean not long after being forsaken by its soul. An eldritch, seraphic thing coated its walls at all times. The unnerving feeling one would have at the sight of the palace's residents, could be brushed off as mere flaw of their faith in themselves but it was verity that mortals sensed they were being stripped off the clothing of lies and deceit they'd wrap themselves in, to stand before Dvarakadheesha who delivered justice to all and punish one for their misdeeds.

He was the punisher at all times. Always, except when the mothers decided their child was to return to their solace. There were no conditions for their compassion, and the Sudharma Sabha was the testament to it.

Golden, milky, soft radiance. Eyes like the universe, they call her the siren goddess. The king found her in a majestic lotus. She's come from the azure oceans to rob a handsome cowherd from his sleep. Never has misfortune touched where her shadows fall. The dagger beneath the folds of her skin- oh, it's her wit. She has seen the self proclaimed emperor create pawns in her loved ones. The gliding movements as she slips through the fingers of one and all, she's time and timeless.

The Vidarbha princess stood unyielding, the prime one wedded into the city furnished like the thousand-petalled lotus. Rukmini was genial, slipping into the threads of sororal comfort with the new queen as if they'd never been two varying individuals. As if a part of her own self wasn't so wickedly wretched away from the clasps of them all, only to return a hundred monsoons later.

"Never Maharani for you, always your Jyeshtha Bhagini." She ran a hand through the tresses of Krisha who nearly teared up at the comfort she radiated by her gracious glance alone. "You will find your heimat here, like every soul does. Dvaravati is hiraeth, is it not?"

The mischief in her smile had the princess of the flares gape at her in wonder. "How'd you know what I had been thinking?"

"Well let's just say I have quite some magic up my sleeves too. It isn't just some blue people around here."

The earth-goddess. The curst gem's heiress. The warrior princess turned queen. The preserver is in awe of her persona. When Bhama walks her abode, the earth is an embrace. Her bosom. She fancies cradling her babies, abundant patience manifested. The soil up your arms and in your nails, these are her kisses. These fragrant flowers and leaves and misty grasses, this petrichor is her. Everytime you strut barefoot on shores, she sings to you in ghostly brontides.

"Unless she herself doesn't approach me, doesn't deem me capable to know what storms in the heart of hearts and what makes her so dubious of me that she did not let me know of herself, I cannot raze the thin strip of antsy laying our paths," Satyabhama articulated with her slender arms duly folded behind her back, more to the curtains wherein a shadow lay before it dissolved into the familiar touch of anxiety.

'You have felicitated me with the deference of being your companion, Krisha, and it's your call to tell me what went so wrong until then that you won't let me know of your true identity. That you thought that I'd not accept the one my husband loved, that our bond that stood prior to your reunion with Hari would strain. Until then, I'm anyone you'd talk to for the sake of a company but not the friend who'd forgive every tiny mistake and any blunders. You must know that you will have to mend your ways if you want to bring change in our circumstances,' she didn't say but Kamalnayani heard through the tacenda anyway, vowing to heal the scars that were in her and had fallen in the camaraderie that she and Vasudha shared.