Aftermath: The outlasting Krishna-Arjun journey

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟞: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕒𝕨𝕗𝕦𝕝 𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

Arjun's pov

The blissful fortnight in Dwarka had put fresh heart into them. They returned to Hastinapur with Madhav, Subhadra and Satyaki in high spirits, determined to work for the betterment of their kingdom and its subjects.

Their aunt and uncle welcomed them back warmly, but the deadened tone of one of Bhanumati's handmaidens as she greeted them for formality's sake dampened them straightaway, particularly Yudhishthir.

However, the aloofness of all of their cousins' surviving family put together did not bother Arjun as much as his brother's one surviving family member.

After how Vrishaketu had reacted last time, Arjun simply did not possess the courage to approach him again. What was he to say, anyway?

And yet his heart constantly longed for a day the child would be like his own, his only remaining connection to the brother and nephews he had been deprived of.

The memory of Vrishasena's death made him sick. In a bid to exact revenge on the King of Anga for his part in the unfair killing of Abhimanyu, he had inflicted upon his oldest son a painful death.

He had given his own nephew a painful death.

In order to shut Vrishasena's death out of his head, he was forced to focus more on Karna's.

Not a single night had passed since the day their mother revealed the truth when the King of Anga's bloodied corpse failed to visit Arjun. Sometimes it issued death threats like it had done so often when living. Sometimes it laughed. Sometimes it cried.

And just sometimes it gave him a smile--the saddest smile you could imagine--and told him not to blame himself, that he was sorry for having kept the knowledge from him, addressed him as his anuj and assured him they would meet someday to make up for all that they had lost.

Irrespective, Arjun always woke up in cold sweat, swallowing back screams, feeling like the world could never be right again.

It was not always Karna whose corpse visited him. As often it would be Abhimanyu's. Srutakarma's. Prativindhya's, Sutsoma's, Satanika's, Srutasena's. Drishtadyumna's and Shikhandi's. Pitamah's. Gurudev's. Vikarna's.

Madhav would often be there to hold him when he woke up.

During the early days of their friendship, Arjun sometimes used to think with a hint of amusement that it was a convenient coincidence that Madhav always turned up when he needed him. Now, he knew better. It was not a coincidence, especially when he was dealing with the Lord of the Universe.

No one's presence but Madhav's could make his head stop spinning after a nightmare. Not even his jyesht, his mother or his wife. After a point, he realized, he had stopped seeking any. Maybe it was Madhav's powers as the Lord of the Universe that worked magic over him.

The Lord of the Universe. Whose power he witnessed at every step. Whose true form had almost blown him away.

Was it possible some bits of information might have escaped his knowledge?

***

It was Panchali who suggested, one late afternoon as they were strolling in the gardens, that he ought to take up his bow again.

"What for?" asked Arjun.

"Just for comfort," said Panchali. "Stop linking your Gandiva with the war and return to wielding it out of your pure love for archery and your bow itself."

"There is no battle to be fought at present," said Arjun, listless at the thought of his cherished Gandiva, which he had tucked away in a safe corner of his room the day they'd returned from Kurukshetra. "Until the Aswamedha yagna, that is."