Eudaemonic | Those Halcyon Days

Opalescent

Arjuna smiled breezily, waking up slightly from the pearlescent doze he had been immersed in, as the soft weight of a svelte frame coalesced with his own, a willowy arm wrapping around his waist like a vine around a sal tree's trunk. 

Her heavy swathe of raven tresses wafted the smell of lotuses in the already sweet smelling meadow air, and spread satiny against the scarred yet taught skin of his chest. Her tender curves pressed against his muscled sharpness made the slow thrumming of his heart pressed beneath the skin of her pearly cheek, race. 

Like it had all those years ago, in the hilly terrains of Raivataka. 

The lithesome fingers which had been carding through his thick curls stilled for a moment and an amused chuckle escaped the lilac stained lips of his Lord. The gentle chime of bangles clinked against the iridescent air and another red dyed hand stroked the open curls of the woman who had so contently curled upon his chest. 

"Am I a pillow?", Arjuna's mirthful timbre bellied his grave baritone. 

"Is my brother?", Subhadra countered swiftly, a small yawn almost misting away the last of her syllable in an endearingly somnambulant haze. 

The cowherd king laughed aloud, the suave sunshine catching glittery hints of his topaz studded headgear as the aquamarine peacock feather tucked in the velvet folds of rich indigo, fluttered in the gentle wind. 

"She has got you there, my dear", Krishna chortled as his crimson fingers massaged a knot in his Shwetvahana's curls. 

Arjuna smirked and closed his eyes yet again, seeing the sparkle of the afternoon clouds beneath his closed lids, as he nuzzled his head further into Krishna's thigh were he had been laying for so long. 

The distant chiming of anklets seemed to get closer and closer as infantile laughter rung sweet in his seasoned ears and running footsteps alerted him to the incoming attack. 

The toddlers had been circling each other for the past few hours, like playful tiger cubs, smeared with dusty earth and the fresh cut grass of the blossoming meadow where they had taken shelter. The whispering trees above head had only summed up to a lilting symphony which has been lulling him to the land of the goddess of dreams. 

A tiny body and the fragrance of saffron milk and nutmeg crashed into him, undignified and shrieking with childish delight and rolled atop his torso over the uncovered part. 

Subhadra huffed in supressed laughter and adjusted her hold which only made Arjuna's newest perpetrator snuggle into his chest more comfortably. 

"Baba!"

Charudeha's sweet voice chirped noisily above head and Arjuna sensed Krishna catching his son in a fluid move before he could fall over his face. 

"You naughty kid. What are you doing? Trying to smother my poor Partha, are you?", Madhava teetered teasingly and cuddled the squirming baby close to himself, careful about the three people entangled like a clumped creeper, on his lap. 

"This is what happens when you all spoil him too much."

The Vidharban princess flipped her thick braid at a side and tugged her protesting child off Krishna's arms and cuddled him close, before dropping her head at the crook of her husband's neck. The melody of her giggles and the fragrance of palash flowers ornamented their pretty group of four, perfectly. 

"Ahh Bhabi, it is our right to spoil our nephew", the Vrishnikumari replied sagaciously. 

"And you have no right to say anything, considering the level of pampering you have bestowed on this brat", Arjuna countered sleepily and patted his son's tiny curly head with his overly large hand in a comedic rapport. 

"Sleep!", Abhimanyu proclaimed squeakily and patted Savyasachi's chest as his tone held that same level of authoritative stature which his father had, when commanding the troops of Indraprastha. 

The three adults burst into gales of laughter which carried into the undulations of the rolling hillocks and embraced the soft music of the surrounding forests. 

Arjuna chuckled and felt his youngest dropping a sloppy kiss on his cheek and Subhadra's soft hand drew little bows and arrows on his chest, her own weight getting comfortably heavy over him, with slowly creeping slumber. 

Rukmini had started humming a lullaby, her smooth voice pulling the toddlers to the domain of Nidra devi steadily enough. 

He felt Krishna bent over him and touch his petal soft lips to his forehead and an instant tingle passed through his body like an electric spark. 

But it wasn't thunderous like when he would search for his divine father in the grey skies, interspersed with ravenous lightening. 

But more like that inexplicably torn piece of a jigsaw puzzle which had flown in from some hidden corner to fit exactly against the ridges and fill in the caverns left. 

"Yes Partha, sleep."

Murlidhara whispered and then the mellifluous notes from his flute played the symphony of the Gods, a near cosmic love interlaced in every fraction of the limerick, carrying the Gudakesha who had conquered slumber, into an inky ambrosia where hopes danced with dreams. 

Arjuna tucked his head in his son's sweet smelling hair and went to sleep.