MIRAGE OF HEARTSTRINGS

FIRST CRACK BEFORE FALL

It began without intention.

That was the worst part of it — Bhima could not point to a single thought, a single decision, and say this is where it started. There was no vow, no resolve, no moment of weakness dressed as courage. Only a day that looked like every other day, and yet refused to remain harmless.

The palace was awake before the sun had fully risen. Servants moved through corridors like practiced shadows. Somewhere in the eastern wing, a conch was blown — soft, ritualistic, the sound of order continuing as it always had.

Bhima stood in the courtyard, sleeves rolled, hands already dusted with grain. The sacks had arrived at dawn — supplies from the southern villages — and before anyone could assign the task, he had taken it upon himself to oversee the unloading.

Not oversee.

Do

His shoulders flexed as he lifted sack after sack, placing them where they would not strain the backs of the younger workers. He corrected nothing aloud, spoke little, only adjusted placements, redistributed weight, made the work smoother without drawing attention to it.

This was familiar ground.

This was safe.

"Rajkumar, you need not—" a steward began.

Bhima shook his head lightly. "It’s fine. I’m already here"

Already here.

That phrase echoed oddly in his mind, but he ignored it. Bhima had always been already here — wherever strength was needed, wherever effort was heavy and gratitude unnecessary.
When the work was done, when the last sack was stacked and counted, he washed his hands at the stone basin, the cold water biting his skin awake.

That was when he noticed it.
A small detail. Almost nothing.

The path leading from the inner chambers toward the eastern gardens had not yet been swept. Dew clung to the stones, slick in places. Normally, it would have been attended to before the royal household stirred.

Bhima stared at it for a moment longer than necessary.

He thought of the way Duryodhana walked — unhurried, distracted, often lost in his own thoughts. Thought of how he never looked down, how he trusted the ground beneath him to be steady.

The thought arrived fully formed, uninvited:
He could slip.

Bhima frowned, immediately irritated with himself. It was a foolish thing to consider. Hundreds walked those paths daily. Nothing had ever happened.

Still—

He picked up a broom.

No announcement. No order given. He swept the stones himself, careful, thorough. The dew was gone within minutes, the path clean and dry as if it had never been otherwise.

Only then did Bhima pause.

Why had he done that?

He leaned on the broom, breath steady, chest rising and falling with the slow rhythm of a body accustomed to work. There was no answer that felt alarming. None that demanded correction.

Anyone could have slipped, he told himself.

Anyone benefits from care.

Satisfied, he returned the broom and went on with his day.

Later, in the training grounds, the air rang with the sound of steel meeting steel. Bhima sparred with the guards, his movements powerful but controlled, always pulling back before injury could occur. Sweat darkened his tunic. His laughter rang once, brief and genuine, when one of the younger men nearly knocked him off balance.