She should have been accustomed to deathly silences by now, she reasoned.

For those silences were nothing but preludes to the silence that would prevail after the massacre had fed itself to its content on the very perpetrators who had catalysed a war.

The whole palace had fallen silent, once again, it seemed, to herald the conclusion it was nearing. For the last shred of hope to avert a war had been mercilessly thwarted in the name of claiming one's rightful inheritance.

Rightful inheritance.

Even as Bhanumati repeated those words to herself, they seemed to be holding an acidic sarcasm in their bearing. For their definition lay murked in oblivion.

This fight for inheritance, this claim of legitimacy, warranted a war to be realised into materiality.

The diplomatic envoy of peace had come, presenting the cause of the cousins he branded as usurpers. And he had denied the proposal that had been presented.

-"He said"- as relayed by her handmaiden, -"That he wouldn't part with a needle-point of land without a war."

The last few words played in her mind, repeating themselves as if they were meant for her to be memorized.

Not a needle point of land?

How vindictive could he be?

How could five villages hold greater significance over the lives that were now caught in the crossfire to be potentially begotten by the war?

How thoughtless could he be?

How arrogant could he be to prioritise his pride over the numerous lives that were now on stake?

He had once gambled with the convolutions in codes, which had led its way into a possibility of a future that had nothing but doom in store for them.

And today, he had launched himself into yet another gamble, by defining their prospect in a manner deemed to be ineffaceable.

'Vishnu!' - she called out in the dark, her whisper resounding in the silence of the Prayer Hall.

Vishnu stood towering in front of her, his discus proclaiming their consequent fate. She looked at him, as if she were searching for answers to her questions.

Thus he had stood in the Sabha, on this day, revealing his true form, his empyrean identity. His magnanimous Vishwaroopam, at the utmost extremity of its divinity, beatific as The Creator, and yet fearsome as The Destroyer when enraged, and still bearing the phantom calm that The Preserver provided. There had he stood, in the intense divine magnificence of his form, blinding the mundane eyes of its beholders, who stayed immune to perceive such divinity at its pinnacle.

Even as it granted the sense of sight to one, who had been bereft of it lifelong. That one, desired to not let his vision corrupted by any other sight that the worldly realm had to offer. For Dhritarashtra had immediately asked for his sight to be revoked, for he wished to see nothing after he had seen the Lord in his court, standing in defiance of the mere ferrous chains his son's imbecilic pride had prompted him to reserve for imprisoning the envoy.

He had wanted to imprison the envoy, after he had presented his proposal. He had heeded the prudent advices of none. He had chosen his vanity over reason, by throwing the numerous persuasions he had received to the winds.

Such was his hatred, such was the spite that he fostered, that he had mustered the audacity of attempting to imprison Krishna.

And Krishna had left, along with Satyaki, after having enunciated the eventuality of the war, and in conclusion, their fates, embroiled in the war.

She didn't feel anything except an amalgam of numbness and trepidation inundating her, breaking away the final reserves of the hopes she had nursed, albeit hopelessly. She wasn't supposed to fear a war, because of the environs she had inhabited all her life.

But she did fear a holocaust.

She did fear a genocide.

This was a time, when all what she had been accustomed to broke the very customs they were supposed to be bound in.

The whole Land of The Bharatas would bear the brunt of the animosity between the Kuru brothers. They would be at the receiving end of the enmity that they had. The venom between them, would lave the land in the shade of the deepest crimson that would remain indelible for an eternity.

This, was how far those pieces of Dice had rolled.

They had once had their moment of vile pleasantry at the expense of their helplessness brought upon by the sheer, blind, rigidity of the codes that bound them.

And now, fate would have its moment of vengeance for those very mortals who had dared to use her at their own convenience. For she was no slave to their whims, for she would direct them to their end.

Mired in her thoughts of awe, evaluations, fear, and apprehensions, Bhanumati lost all sense of her surroundings as she sought solace in the incomprehensible eyes of the likeness of the Lord wrought in stone.

She didn't hear the hurried footsteps that neared her. Neither could her ears detect the significantly heaving breath of her handmaiden who had come rushing to her.

'Princess!'- she huffed, to an unresponsive Bhanumati who still stared at the immobile embodiment of Pundarikakshya, her statuesque posture still persistent on her quest for clarity.

'Princess!'- The maid shook her. This time entreating a response by touching her.

The warmth of her hand slightly brought Bhanumati back to the darkness that was only slightly, yet insignificantly, perforated by the dimly lit lamps in the hall.

-'What is it?' she said uncertainly.

-'The Crown Prince,'- she began, causing Bhanumati to start slightly at the pronunciation of her husband's honorific.

-'I shall not run his errands.'- she said, with a clarity that momentarily intimidated her.

-'If he requires me, he shall have to wait.' she said, after a pause.

This time, she was building a wall of fortitude that would be resilient enough to resist an attempt being dented by soft persuasions. This time, no reason he could provide could assuage her stand to remain immune to them, from letting them cross the wall she would build.

This time, the privilege of forgiving and forgetting could not be availed at all.

-'He has hurt himself, badly, Princess.'- she clarified.

Hurt himself? , she wondered.

Finally, those dove-like eyes took leave of the lotus-eyed likeness of the Lord she revered.

***

He kept pounding at the iron statue the smith had forged, this time. His mace was relentless, merciless, and bereft of anything but strength.

A strength of a feral kind.

One that knew no technique of the art that war was. One that remained aware of just one instinct -

-Destruction.

-Destruction that would be beyond any resurrection.

He was bleeding profusely, as sanguine streams flowed unimpeded from his tanned hands. A few wounds gaped from the smooth, dark canvas of his back.

Yet, he was unstoppable, as if he were shattering the very man whose ferrous embodiment he shattered in the manner of a habit.

For this was what he was breathing for.

That idol had broken into splinters, some of which had found their way into his skin, aggravating his injuries. Yet his anger kept him immune to the pain they brought forth.

He seemed to be hellbent on reducing them to a pile of ferrous dust.

So that the identity of the statue those specks of insignificant dust once were, could never be traced to what their assemblage had once been.

He simply couldn't allow them to possess even a shred of what he had, what he had cultivated for all these years. The undivided kingdom, was his.

And, that , was the only way he saw it. There couldn't be another dimension to it.

He spared no thought to the opinions, the advices, the persuasions that others had in store for him to consider. For him it was nothing, but dry, monotonous sermonizing, that made no sense to him. Every word of advice re-infused a fresh aggression in him, only fuelling the strength of his purpose.

Vasusena had greatly incremented the length and breadth of the Empire by virtue of sheer military mettle in his Digvijaya campaigns. He had begun the consolidation of the Empire by conducting the Vaishnava sacrifice.

And now-

'How dare they?' Duryodhan spat breathlessly to himself, as his mace connected with the ferric shards for yet another time, sending a tremor through the compact ground of the Kridangan.

Suddenly, in an inexplicable manner, a sanguine orifice on his back tingled as a slight, familiar warmth acquainted itself with it. That characteristics warmth seemed to rekindle his senses and corrode the immunity his anger had spewed as a shield.

And without a single movement of combat, his mace stopped mid-air, as if it were simply obeying a reflex instruction meted by that touch.

'Shall the Vaidya be summoned, Princess?' came a soft feminine voice.

-'No.' came her answer, in a contradictory yet co-existent, cold-yet-warm demeanour.

-'I shall attend to him.'

Her conclusion needed no elaboration, explicit or otherwise.

***

Notes:

1. Glossary:

1. Pundarikakshya: Lotus-Eyed One. Another name for Lord Vishnu.

2. Kridangan: Practicing arena. (Most likely)

3. Vishnu: The Preserver Lord in Hindu Mythology

4. Vishwaroopam: The magnified form of Lord Vishnu, an accumulation of all the possible forms that the Lord could assume, encompassing the attributes of The Destroyer, The Creator, and The Preserver himself, and portraying his existence in anything that exists in any form, whether worldly, or divine.

2. This is entirely a work of fiction, based on mythological references, and the authors perception, if there is an error, or a contradiction anywhere, do drop in for suggestions and opinions. :) 

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