Sankarshana - The Mighty Bringer Of Joy

Curses and Consolations

Balarama glanced up from some documents he was checking to look at his brother. Krishna sat beside him, also supposed to be doing some official work, but he seemed to just be sitting, blankly staring at the words on the sheet in his hand. Balarama decided to just elbow him to get his attention. Krishna turned to him, brows raised.

"Forgotten how to read, have you?" Balarama asked with a slightly mocking expression.

Krishna didn't respond, and instead, he turned away entirely. Balarama grimaced a little, wondering if he was genuinely upset about something.

"What's wrong?"

Krishna shook his head without a word.

"You look like moody, six year old Kanha. Don't pretend now. What is it?"

"I really wish I was a moody six year old."

Balarama put the documents away. "You aren't. You're apparently an adult who suffers through the most ridiculous stuff. You were at Kurukshetra and you haven't spoken properly to anyone since your return. I'd yell at you for not speaking to me if you didn't look so broken all the time."

"You know what happened at the war anyway." Krishna mumbled.

"There's definitely something that I don't know and you're refusing to tell me."

Krishna chose silence once again, because his brother could read him like am open book even if he tried to lie.

"Come on, now. That war was unbelievable anyway. One more event, right? That's all. What happened, tell me?"

"You have no idea how annoying you are." Krishna whispered, gritting his teeth, but wanting nothing more than to tell everything to his brother.

"And you have no idea how annoying you are. Kanha, what's the point of pretending like this? You want to tell me, but you're afraid I'll be hurt? I can almost see that on your face."

Krishna remained still and silent for a couple of moments until he conceded, "It's not fair that you understand everything."

Balarama couldn't help but chuckle. "I'm not going to be hurt by anything. If you trust me with this, I assure you it's not going to hurt me. Your behaviour at the moment hurts me more." He paused for a moment. "Wow, I almost sounded like Yashoda Maiya!" Little Kanha would steal butter and then lie about it to Yashoda, and she would express her disappointment in his lying to her in a similar tone.

Krishna laughed, still making no eye contact with his brother. He was afraid he'd crumble if he looked up.

His brother, however, glared at him, annoyed, and lifted his face up almost violently. "You'll tell me now or I'll be beating you up."

Krishna almost smiled at his brother's excessively overused threat. He knew Balarama wasn't going to beat him up or anything. But he also knew he wasn't going to be able to hide anything any longer. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.

Balarama wondered what intense monologue the boy was going to go on, for which he needed so much preoeration, but he refrained from making random comments at the moment, for once.

"After the end of the war, I spoke to Devi Gandhari. I don't need to tell you how pained she was by the war. You know how many children she lost and how, and the last thing I want to do is recall all of that."

Clearly, Krishna was already recalling scenes of limbs being ripped apart and all of that. Kurukshetra had been beyond brutal for the ones who had died, but the ones who had survived seemed to relive the war every moment of everyday. Balarama placed a hand on his shoulder and Krishna attempted a little smile, his eyes still closed.