Sanjīvanī - A Revival

Sanjīvanī

I.

A hand on her shoulder.

The eyes of her husband.

"I'm...going to, uh..." he said, his voice choked with trying to hold the tumultuous tide of grief in. "I'm going to perform his last rites."

A nod.

His eyes beseeched more of a response.

"Won't you come?" he said, a flicker of hope underlying his plea. He needed her there; however else would he muster up the courage to finally set their son free? "He'd....want you there."

Arjun wouldn't take his name, afraid that saying it out loud would break whatever bound the two of them to this horrible, horrible land. A land where blood battled blood.

A single tear slid down her cheek.

She didn't want to set him free.

"I'll come," she whispered hoarsely, ever so quietly she wondered whether her husband had heard her. But he had, he had heard the voices that seldom made their way onto her lips. He had heard her heart screaming, her womb weeping for their loss, the pain of losing a child far more than birthing him.

She was barely a shroud hanging off the body that used to be hers.

The body of Abhimanyu's mother. The identity that had been so cruelly and agonisingly crushed under Drumasena's mace.

She looked down at the boy on the pyre. Her boy.

Sleeping.

Her trembling fingers brushed his forehead for the last time. 

"My beautiful son," she whispered to him. "Go, my Abhi. You've made us very proud."

As the flames began to envelop the boy she had once cradled in her arms, Subhadra could only think how they would ever move on from this. The fire crackled away, devouring the last vestiges of the child she had nurtured by her bosom. The child whose phantom laughter would echo in her ears through the remnants of her life. 

Beside her, she heard a sob, Arjun crumpling to the ground, his face in his hands. After all, he had lost their son too. She sank to her knees, gathering him into her arms as he cried into her shoulder. 

The man, the legend, the archer. Broken beyond repair.

A bright, promising life, now lost.

------------------

II.

The seasons changed, the days turned into months, and slowly, the world outside continued to spin, indifferent to their sorrow.

Subhadra watched the princess of Matsya go on with her routine, spending her time in contemplative silence. When she did speak, it was never the way she used to. In fact, Subhadra painfully missed the girl that had walked in to her chambers that day in Matsya.

"M-May I come in?" a voice tentatively called out from the door. The princess of the Yadavs turned her head, her copper gaze skimming over the girl before her. She seemed shy, almost afraid of her presence.

Uttara couldn't calm her jitters-she would be meeting Princess Subhadra soon and didn't know what to expect. Prince Arjun, Brihannala to her, was a pretty nice person underneath the rugged, and if she could, rather graceful exterior. Samragyi Draupadi, whom she knew as Sairindhri Malini, who was known to spew fire in the faces of those who wronged her. Uttara's uncle Keechak had seen that firsthand. She had an elegant and charming countenance, her familiarity with Uttara leading them to get on quite well. It was from her that she had heard of Abhimanyu's many skills.