Draupadi

CHAPTER LVII

"Family is everything"

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It's a one of those nights, where everything is so beautiful it hurts. 

We're sitting in my room, which has now become a common room. Age has blurred all rules. I sleep alone most days, some days one my husbands sleep with me, sometimes I sleep next to Subhadhra but most nights it's just me. 

I lift the wick of the lamp  a bit higher and gently watch the moonlight pour in with an intensity that physically hurts. I think grief makes beauty ache.

I sit next to Krishna and lean against him lightly. They're talking about old sweet memories and it makes everything in me feel so empty and full at the same time. 

"Remember when you wanted to marry the ocean queen." Yudhisthra says as he laughs, his head tilted back. It heals a small crack in my heart to watch him laugh like that after so long. He looks like the boy I married- sweet, so full of the ache to be righteous that he didn't know what to do with love.

Arjuna blushes and says "I was seven" 

"Seven and dreaming about your bride. Wow Arjuna" says Krishna. 

We all look at Krishna with a look that says 'look who's talking'. He shrugs "I was just always too handsome for my own good." 

"Yeah handsome." I scoff. "What? I am gorgeous." Krishna says, giving me his most handsome man face. 
We all burst into peals of laughter. 

Bheema pours us hot rose milk in cups. We all receive them gratefully. For a little while we sit in silence.

"This reminds me of Indhraprastha" Sahadeva says quietly, his voice sounds so much like Shruthasena that my heart misses a beat.

"How many nights have we spent sprawled against our room, talking and laughing? Memories like that are always hard to forget." Yudhisthra says.

"I remember nights in exile where we would all lie in a straight line. Nakula would always fall asleep first." I say.

"Yeah, and you would talk a lot after  we'd laid down for sleeping, after the initial exile period." Nakula says, the last five words silently.

"Bheema would always sleep last, he would talk back to me. Yudhisthra and Shadeva always listened in silence."

"Hey, I listened to you too." Arjuna says.

"You weren't even with us for most of exile" I tell Arjun with a side eye.

"I always knew we were okay when Nakula slept immediately." I say, "It assured me."

Krishna then says "Hey talk about how assuring I was for you."

I give him a look that says 'Krishna, really'.

"My favorite moment was when we all sat together and ate. It was simple but beautiful, especially when we had mangoes. I never understood your love for mangoes back then."

"It was our childhood summed up in a fruit." Arjuna says," they made us so happy."

"Well, you know what they say, the soul always remembers sweetness." I say with a smile.

Then I look to Krishna and tell him ""I remember when Krishna would visit in the forests," I say, tilting my head toward him. "I used to feel like I could breathe again. Just seeing you."

"Madhav is always like that, like magic." Arjun says almost to himself than the rest of us. We all nod and Krishna just throws his head back and laughs.