Love Across Time : Mahabharat

One Hundred Seventeen : Let Her Go

~𝓛𝓮𝓽 𝓗𝓮𝓻 𝓖𝓸~

Weeks bled into one another, each sunrise a fresh reminder of the life Aanya refused to live. She retreated within the confines of her chambers, a self-imposed exile mirroring the one they had just endured. The world outside bustled back to life, a symphony of activity that mocked her grief. The joyous shouts of children playing, the comforting murmur of conversations, all echoed with a hollowness that scraped against her raw nerves.

Only for Uttara did Aanya emerge from her self-inflicted purgatory. The young woman, her eyes perpetually rimmed with red, carried not just the promise of new life but also the agonizing weight of loss. Aanya, bound by protectiveness, became Uttara's anchor in this storm of grief. She held her hand through tearful nights, whispering words of comfort that even she didn't quite believe. In caring for Uttara, Aanya found a semblance of purpose, a flicker of light in the suffocating darkness that threatened to consume her.

The day they returned to Hastinapura played on a loop in her mind.  Everything seemed the same, yet everything was irrevocably different.  Aanya squeezed her eyes shut, the echoes of Dhritarashtra's rage for Bheem, a rage strategically manipulated by Kanha, still ringing in her ears. Gandhari's chilling curse for Kanha, followed by her breakdown, these were the memories etched into Aanya's soul.

The Pandavas were burdened with the weight of rebuilding a shattered kingdom. Aanya, however, couldn't join them. She had built a wall around herself, not just to keep the world out, but to cage the guilt that gnawed at her from within. The pain wasn't just for Aashvi and Abhimanyu, the children she'd held close and lost forever. It was the crushing weight of destruction she had helped unleash, a wave of vengeance that had swept away not just their enemies, but a part of her own soul.

A soft rapping on her chamber door snagged at Aanya's attention, a pinprick of sound in the vast silence of her grief. Her breath hitched, a tremor running through her like a creature sensing an approaching storm. With a fortifying inhale that did little to steady her shaking hands, she rasped a single word, her voice rusty from disuse. "Enter."

The door creaked open, and Arjun stepped inside. The air hung heavy between them, thick with unspoken words and a love fractured beyond recognition. Their eyes, those windows to the soul, remained stubbornly shut, unable to bear the reflection staring back, a hollowness where hope once resided. Aanya turned her face away, as Arjun busied himself with a stack of scrolls, the rustle of parchment a poor substitute for the comforting rhythm of shared breaths they once knew. Each crisp crackle echoed the fracturing of their bond, a painful reminder of the life they'd lost in the ashes of war.

Arjun stole a glance at her, a silent question lingering in his gaze. He yearned for the warmth of her eyes meeting his. But Aanya remained a statue sculpted from grief, her back a wall against the storm of emotions he longed to unleash. He waited, a flicker of hope battling the despair that threatened to engulf them both.

Arjun lingered, stealing a final glance at Aanya. His heart mirrored the heavy silence that hung between them. He yearned to bridge the distance that had opened like a gaping wound, a battlefield scar upon their love. But the words, once as easy as breathing, were now trapped behind a dam of grief, a dam threatening to burst with unspoken emotions.

"Don't," Aanya's voice was a fragile whisper, a plea laced with pain. "Your words are like daggers to my heart. I can endure my own suffering, but yours is a torment I cannot bear."

Arjun's heart shattered into fragments. "Seeing you like this kills me," he confessed, his voice barely audible.

Her eyes reflected a storm-tossed sea. "Then let me drown," she spat, her voice rising in bitter defiance. "Let me consume myself on the funeral pyre of our children."