Démarche
Noun | Meaning :
A political step or initiative.

The exquisite Chedi parterres were reticent.

As the time passed in a blursday for the princess since livid smokes blanketed her father and his head rolled to the maiden her had wronged— father, the word which bled in her mouth since a parchment burnt in her delicate petite palms, the women's wing of the castle was the embodiment of kenopsia.

Aakarshika tilted her head, shutting her eyes as it played like an echo in the back of her mind. Her sister was supposedly not the best person to receive the news but she did not wish to push her mother and the other prince in the quandary. Mayhap, acceptance would dawn sooner with direct communication and more silver-tongued words of her who was infamous as the harbinger of hävitys, phantoms and phantasm on her fingertips.

Her wheat skin glimmered against the golden hour while another hand lackadaisically supported her on the misty grass, mahogany tresses like meandering waves analogous to a moonless night even as she held a captivating magnetism. She was the siren the previous regent knew was destined to sit on the throne.

~°~°~

The aureate hued chambers glowed quietly, the diyas lit across the gold plated walls giving an ethereal visage to Aakarshika. In the entire palace of Chedi, perhaps it was the only expanse that she made as her haven. The odyssey from Indraprastha to Chedi was long and fatigue coated her muscles. As she took in the shades of lilac and lavender with accents of deep amethyst giving a regal aura to the antechamber, Aakarshika felt an aching in her bones, into her soul.

This vast chamber was once her mother's and the only thing she received as an inheritance. When the eldest daughter of Shishupal gazed at the embellishments in the room that only added to the heavenly beauty, she felt her irises being sheathed in tears.

Aakarshika blinked rapidly in an attempt to restrain the stars that battled to be set free and slowly walked to the bed that spread out largely, even for a royal.

The antechamber was huge, rivalling even that of Empress Draupadi, with a bathing chamber and antique settees and futons taking up a large corner. An Oak table had various parchments spread out and the silks of the bed were nearly pressed by the maids.

The sister of Karenumati felt as if the moment was surreal, unable to accept the hard set reality that her father, the man who had merely given birth to her, was indeed dead. And perhaps as a daughter it was a sin to feel such emotions of elation and bliss, and perhaps it would condemn her to the deepest gates of hell. But Aakarshika would gladly spend the rest of her nights with true demons and be damned rather than face the nightmares disguised as dreams of the day.

The grandiose brass doors clinked merrily, heralding a visitor.

"My lady, Kumara Dhrishtaketu desires to have your audience." The chief of her palatial compeers deeply bowed, a warrior-like elegance in her every gesture. Sulochanaa, as she was named, possessed sharp eyes of a hawk and a leonine physique. One of the best spies the subcontinent was cognizant of, swearing to defend her motherland in the times of a despotic ruler. She was one of the eldest one's favourites.

At her mistress's motion she spun on her heels once more, and the elder prince strided through the thresholds, settling near the latter's feet with a muted dip on the muslin mattress. His clammy palms fisted themselves in desperation, his demeanour speaking of his restlessness.

Aakarshika cleared her throat, a lazy smile on her chiselled ethereal face.

"I am not willing." The son of Katyayani sighed, drawing random circles on his wrist— an action she knew he often did whenever he was edgy. She hummed as the end of a taffeta curtain veiling the palladian windows grazed against her bare shoulders and her hackles rose in reflex, almost an inbuilt mechanism as her dominant hand reached for the dagger strapped to her waist.

She laxed momentarily, a pretence of being unguarded lacing her stance, "Not willing what?"

"The seat of the ruler." Dhrishtaketu thickly swallowed, dusty eyes raw and fragile. "I can't be the king. I don't want to."

"Dhrishta—"

"No, please hear me," he rambled in a soft husk of a boy merely entering the stage of manhood. Tension settled on his shoulder and developing biceps, nerves prodding up as he smeared a hand of his on his sweat-etched features. Aakarshika waited in incredulity, patiently running a soft hand through his matted hair pulled behind by a glinting headband. "I've always grown in your shadow, Jiji, and never in my wildest dreams have I envisaged occupying the throne when you are present. I am your subservient, always have been.
Please, I- I am not prepared. This isn't how it's meant to be."

Harini hissed outrageously, as if ridiculed, "I can assure you that pretty much nobody here was primed for whatever has come to pass in these volatile times.
The universe listens to the brave. Rise and claim your rightful place, foolish prince. Do not let the countrymen hear of this impotence that has come upon you."

"Agrajaa, please. I beg of you."

She hummed again and sunk against the comfort of the sheets, acknowledging that it was no more silly jest. Dhrishtaketu was seldom perturbed, and when he was, it always zeroed into cacophony for them. Her baby brother was obedient, the most fond of her among the three of the reigning queen's children.

"Have you presented your proposal before the quorum? You know we cannot arrive at sensible and salient resolutions before their approval." She slowly nipped at her blush painted lips and he mutely nodded his head.

"To Mata, and she concurs."

There was a shift in the vicinity. The woman of viridescence abandoned her laid back stance and let her dupatta loosely cover her bosom in a modest praxis, bringing her knees closer to her breasts.

"Indeed, Putri. Dhrishtaketu's decision favours our people. You're more eligible than any other supposed heir." Katyayani brusquely made her way in, an earnestness in her ever nurturing eutony. She was the endless sea who nurtured four pearls in her lap, each reflecting their innate pulchritude.

Aakarshika often took pride in the relationship she shared with her stepmother. Katyayani held no prejudice against her, always looking after. Now as she walked to her again as she was accustomed to like always, even when her own blood detested her, the queen tenderly cupped her face and softly kissed her forehead. "My little one," she said, an emotion that made the princess' heart flutter at the affection it carried. It reminded her of a home she'd never been to, hiraeth. "I have only ever seen the light of our life in you. For the ones I've given birth to, I am their mother. But you have always held me in high regards, never let anything hurt me on your watch, and have come as the daughter I earned. I was not blessed to carry you in my womb, but you are my child. You will always be.

This is my plea, my decree, my adoration. Be a kingless queen, Aaru, be the crown of the Chedis. The land calls for you."

The heiress dipped her head, dutifully folding her hands, "As you command, mother."

Katyayani's lips curved upwards in a loving smile, her soft hands caressing the long tresses of her eldest daughter. Her heart abruptly felt the yearning to pass the prahar with Aakarshika, a premonition sitting deep inside her gut that something after today just would not be the same.

She glanced at Dhrishtaketu and flicked her eyes to the strong oak doors and her son understood, seeking the blessings of his sister and mother before leaving the enchanting chamber. "What words are hesitant to leave your tongue Maa?" Aakarshika gazed at her stepmother through the lashes of amethyst irises, her eyebrows ruffled curiously.

Katyayani merely shook her head, her earrings chiming against the soft breeze that fluttered through the open balcony. Aakarshika however, could not silence the anarchic whispers of her mind and her lips let free the sounds she had been anticipating to know the answer to.

"Mata, you know the relationship between Shishupala and I-" Aakarshika's sentence was hesitant and she stumbled over her words. Katyayani stilled slowly, her hand that rested on the supple cheek of her daughter, falling to her lap. The princess’s tongue darted out to wet her lips, her eyes narrowing as Katyayani nodded. "Would that symbolise you being cognizant of the trauma I had undergone in his hands?" Her words were barely a murmur, her slender frame subconsciously drawing away from her mother and her mind reeling into itself to protect her from the answer she knew, an answer she did not want to hear but needed to.

Katyayani swallowed forcibly, her nerves pulsating nervously. Her breaths came in short gasps, the veins of heart constricting. The young female made no move towards her, her own eyes widening in astonishment through her heart had known the truth. "You did know." The princess gasped accusingly, stumbling from the silken sheets to the ceramic tiles of her chamber. "How could you?" The tyrannised aristocrat demanded, her mind not able to process the chaotic thoughts that swirled in her mind agonisingly.

"YOU MADE A MOCKERY OF ME!" Aakarshika bellowed. "How could I have not realised this earlier?" Her chest heaved as she clutched at her long only waves, her petite body shivering. "You would never come after Shishupala would whip me, a perfect reason always at the tip of your tongue, so genuine...So believable!"

"ALL OF IT!" She shrieked with an undertone of disbelief, the strong facade of her stoic nature shattering into fragments as she clutched a vase and hurled it at the ground, watching as it broke into pieces. "You would forge a smile, as if I were alright, as if your consort was doing nothing wrong. The loving smiles, the motherly gestures...ALL A DAMNED LIE!"

"Aakarshika no!" Katyayani sobbed, tears breaking free of her restraint. "No, my child no. I loved you, none of it was forged. I simply did not know what to do."

"KNOW WHAT TO DO?" The step daughter of the reigning queen roared. "I have seen twenty three winters in my life and you have been present for twenty of them. I suffered at his hands everyday! Scars taint my body, my soul blackened and charred from his burns and YOU DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO!" Aakarshika screamed, a desperate cry lodging itself in her throat, making her unable to let another letter slip from her tongue.

When at the prime injury of angst hits, it's seldom that one lets it consume them wholly, fighting against it for its fury that kicks in first. The adrenaline that makes them throw their limbs works on the rudimentary concept of hope. Aakarshika did not want it to stab a knife into her heart again and twist it all over such that she spat cruel crimson, but yet here she was, bellowing till her insides begged for some semblance of life. Life— it was slipping away.

She was a corpse of what she could have been, of a dying hope, of the legacy her mother wanted her to be.

"Putri-"

"Don't." She snivelled lastly, violently dragging glass bangles out of her wrists. They fell in splinters, like something of herself. Gone. "Don't call me that. I am not your daughter. I was never your daughter. I am but a perpetual monument of your silence hailing his sins, of his monstrosity against me. Here in the world shall never know me as your offspring, to-be queen mother. Today, bearing the sun, the flares and the earth as the witnesses, I've forsaken you. You bear not an iota of rights on me.

Whatever farce that was, has come to a dirty cessation. I hope the future holds bliss in its womb for the both of us."

The swirls of loo in the chambers had coalesced into something sort of smokes of suffocation, the daughter of Aparna was cognizant for when she rose on her feet again like a lotus amidst ocherous muddy sludge, she reached out for the threshold and dragged herself away. The colossal vaults of the gilded castle shrouded in eventide lividity were weeping clouds for her when she felt a tug on her frail arms known for the wittiest war executions. Shrutashrava was a haunting sculpture of actuality she was fleeing from, and the figures of the other royals around her drilled in the fact that she was not nubivagant but very much walking the earth yet. Perhaps somewhere between the realms of the living and the dead, where she did not wish to be.

"Abhishree? What's the matter with you? And-and you have got a temperature, what are you even doing here devoid of your crochet- do you not know of the fickle seasons? They've never suited you-" her grandmother was in blabbering spirits when the Chedi princess slowly freed herself from her gentle clasp, her swollen eyes bloodshot and rooted to the impeccable marble beneath stinging her cold feet.

"Pautri?"

"I have been an incredible doofus, Pitamahi. What an absolute idiot. So naive, so doltish-" Aakarshika chuckled almost tearfully, swiping a hand over her kohl smudged eyes. There was a crack somewhere, then a slow shattering. She gritted in her teeth and wretched herself away from the ominous thought.

Shrutashrava softened further, if it was even possible, "My little one," she crooned, gasping softly when the first scion leaned away from her touch. The latter slowly shook her head, yet not meeting anyone's gaze as the grief strung together its grasp to stifle her breaths by wounding around the nape and the neck with fizzing rage.

Rage. She breathed, unearthly eyes flying up in esteem and brimming with catastrophic passion. "But I am not going to make the same mistake again," she mumbled, balling her fists against her ivory white lehenga. She was the goddess of serenity in the ire of the caligo, yet burning like wheat fields when the setting sun's rays soused her skin. "I won't. Gati!"

Her voice came as a thunderclap as did an untainted mare of lilac eyes and pounding gaits, racing through the once gleaming aisles to halt at its mistress. When the front limbs of the Shreevaahana lifted to kiss the blazing cresets, several swords trembled against it.

"You know where we need to be," She heaved, clapping the saddle of the quadruped and mounted him like Durga upon cannibalistic lions, her hair like nightfall's blue ocean waves falling on her bare waist where another scar had a tale to narrate. The magenta dupatta was somewhere forgotten in between, much like shame. Aakarshika scoffed at the thought and grazed her fingers against the muzzle, husking, "Go."

‘Krishne,’ a phantom kissed her ear and when she whisked to the source, it was a blur.

Gone was Aakarshika like a dream, like the ancient afflatus of the lord of love in the murk of darkness.

"We shall have to hasten for the throne shall not be emptied of the heiress for too long now," Katyayani rumbled from the ajar doors, the usual icy demeanour befitting of a royal settling over her taut jaws. She folded her hands before the mother of her dead husband and his kinsmen, "Send the invitations for our allies, Suketu. We shall prepare for the coronation on the upcoming day of lord Brihaspati."

A long update to compensate for the huge hiatus, we suppose?

Do let us know how you liked it!

Signing off,
Dhruvi and a_Vagrant