Ephemera- Of Fire and Ash

Inferno

Madri looked him in the eye."I will always love you." Then she plunged the stake into his chest as he had asked her to.

It wasn't as precise a blow as she would have liked to end his pain once and for all, not with the skilled way he was dodging. She struggled to get the stake in deep enough to his heart, unsure if she could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at her, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one.

"That's what I was supposed to say..." he gasped out.

Those were his last words.

His failed attempt to dodge the stake had made him lose his balance on the edge. The stake's magic made the rest easy, stunning him and his reflexes.

Pandu fell. The curse had taken effect the moment he and Madri satisfied their sensual desires. He had to die if he ever neared a woman and he chose to die at her hands instead of the curse slowly seeping his life out.

Yudhishthira's pov

The two queens of pandu- Kunti and Madri, were shaking their husband, and the 5 sons- me, Bheem, Arjun from Mata Kunti and Nakul and Sahadev from Mata Madri were kneeling beside them, and Pandu's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.

"Bring the mashal closer putra" the chief rishi said to me gently. And when he looked over, his dad was dead and glowing on top of the pile of woods. Glare from a lamp had snuck in and had lit up the old boy like some medieval saint.

"NO, I can't, Mata Madri is still alive " I yelled trying to escape, as tears threatened to break through my eyes. She maybe my stepmother but she loved me as much as her sons. Mata Madri had decided to commit sati, meaning, be burnt alive on her husband's pyre, out of guilt being the one to kill him.

"You must respect their decision, yudhishtira" he explained me gently while trying to make me light the pyre.

"But I can't burn her, she is my mother, she raised me!" I said trying to pull myself back. What would you do if you were told to burn your mother alive? The one who raised you, the arms that held you through sleepless nights, the eyes that see your every distress and the heart that loved you?

I let every part of my body take in the scorching heat of the flames, and whispered my name Yudhishthira, the one steady in every war, in the most arduous war, the war of life. The darkness I felt now with my closed eyes felt like my future, the scorching heat from the fire felt like the adharm which was to suffocate me all my life, the burning flames felt like the pain of betrayal and loneliness surrounding me for lifetime. My brothers lost a father, but I won't let them feel the void, even if that means walking on sharp knives willingly, I would be their father. My mind told me as i let the fire detach me from my childhood, me from the world.

On the other end I heard kaka Vidur ask my brothers why they wouldn't shed a single tear on their father's death. My breaths hitched as I waited for thier answer, their answer left me speechless. I had to live up to their trust and love for me. Their words echoed in my mind.

At pita ji's death, jyesth is now our eldest brother, and we trust him blindly. He is our father now, and shedding a single tear would mean we don't trust him enough.

A sudden, unanticipated death like of dad has a way of jolting us to our senses. Life as you know it will never be the same. It can be reinvented, reshaped into something different- but its never the same.

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"JYESTH!" I was pulled to the reality with bheem screaming in my ear! We have skill demonstration today! I had to see my father's death as an absence, rather as a different existence. Whoever says pain becomes lesser as time passes by, is a liar.The spaces between the times you miss them grow longer. Then, when you do remember to miss them again, it's still with a stabbing pain to the heart. And you have guilt. Guilt because it's been too long since you missed them last.