Ephemera- Of Fire and Ash

Flaring the fire

Hey everyone! It's your author here again, I loved the response I got for the last chapter and I hope you all like this also. Do you all like Dhriti's picture attached above?

It is still disheartening that each chapter gets more than a 100 reads but not even 10 votes, readers, please vote and comment. I have the next chapter nearly done, so if you all vote and comment, I will update it in this week itself!

Do you all want pictures in the book? Or no pictures?

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It was rather beautiful: the way he put her insecurities to sleep. The way he dove into her eyes and starved all the fears and tasted all the dreams she kept coiled beneath her bones.

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"What other option do you see? The poison has spread everywhere already! We must be quick." Sahdev said pained at the state of Draupadi

"He may die!" Nakul yelled back at which Sahdev said, "If we don't she will definitely die."

"Umm, brothers, it is my life force right, shouldn't I have some say?" Yudhishthira tried to intervene in the argument. "So, you are fine with risking his life?" Nakul questioned back. At this Sahdev sighed, "No, but we must save her." Sahdev said as Nakul shook his head in fury and tried to continue pulling out the poison.

"It is my life force; I have a right that my opinion be considered-" Yudhishthira tried again but was royally ignored by his younger brothers who continued to pull out the nightlock from Draupadi.

"We need it, pulling out poison isn't enough!" Sahdev said as Nakul openly glared at him.

"Damn it! It is my life force! My opinion should matter." He yelled as both his brothers looked at him and nodded robotically. "I will do it, it doesn't matter if it will risk my life. We can't let Draupadi die." Yudhishthira said softly.

"See? Even he agrees!" Sahdev said panicking as Draupadi got bluer by the second. "You cant take advantage of his selflessness!" Nakul snapped back forgetting about the dice hall for a second, until it came crashing back, and he sighed, "Lets do it."

"Grab her hand and enter a state of nothingness." Nakul told Yudhishthira in a distant voice as the latter obliged. Yudhishthira took Draupadi's hand and closed his eyes. Nakul and Sahdev, operated with utmost care on Draupadi, the daughter of fire, who was the source of warmth in the coldest nights of their life, the source of light in the darkest moments of their existence.

Suddenly, Yudhishthira opened his eyes with a start, panting and shivering. He felt his brother's gazes on him assuring him to go again. He tried but opened his eyes instantly and withdrew his hand as if he was shocked, finding no relief in the laps of nature or Draupadi's pale hand, because there everything was real. Too real.

He felt himself crash as he tried to scream but no sound came out, he felt trapped in the darkness which had no end, no beginning. He focused, begged for a way out but nothing happened. Blackness was everywhere. Deep down, he knew it wasn't just a hallucination—what he saw, truly existed just beyond the veil of the world, and the poisonous berries Draupadi had had somehow opened his mind to see them when he tried to help her.

Images from the dice hall haunted him, scratching the boundaries of his brain, filling his heart with it and the guilt was too immense to bear. It's like she was trying to push him away. Each time he tried to close his eyes, he wished he didn't open them again, never ever again.

He shivered as he put immediately distance between him and Draupadi, Sahdev asked worried at his state, "Are you ok?" Yudhishthira shook his head frantically, "I- I can't do it." He hugged his knees and said softly, his eyes staring behind them in fear.