MIRAGE OF HEARTSTRINGS

PATIENCE'S FRUIT

If there is something that has always been going on from starting among the kaunteyas—Sharing is caring.

But not always.
Not everything.

Not when it is only one's.

Nakula realized it at morning that looked no different from any other.
The palace woke gently that day. Courtyards filled with the soft clink of bangles, servants moving like flowing water, sunlight filtering through carved jali screens and spilling across polished stone. Somewhere, Lakshman laughed — sharp, bright, unburdened.

Everything was normal.

And yet, something inside Nakula had gone unnervingly still.

He stood at the edge of a corridor, watching Duryodhana walk ahead of him — unhurried, distracted, speaking softly to a servant about something inconsequential. His Angavastram hung loose, his shoulders relaxed in a way Nakula had learned to recognize.

His Fruit.
This harvest of his Patience, Hardwork and Pain. The years of burning that led to Nakula's tranquility. Not fully. Not yet.

But still the piece which has been lost.

Alive in front of his eyes.

Unaware.
Unwatchful.
Carelessly.
Too trustfully.

Nakula did not follow immediately.

He let the distance exist.

That was new.

Earlier, he would have closed it — unconsciously shortening steps, aligning his pace, creating coincidence. Now, he simply observed.

And the thought arrived, fully formed, without resistance:
He doesn’t know where he is standing.

Not physically.

Existentially.

Duryodhana moved through the palace like a man allowed freedom because no one had yet decided to restrict it.

Nakula’s lips curved faintly.
That, he thought, was a flaw in the system.

He spent the rest of the morning doing what he always did — overseeing messengers, reviewing border correspondence, correcting a steward who had misallocated supplies meant for the outer villages.

Efficiency calmed people.
Nakula understood this.

When systems worked smoothly, no one questioned who had adjusted them.

By noon, he had quietly re-routed two duties that usually brought Duryodhana into the western wing.

Not removed.
Just…....delayed.
No announcement. No command.

Simply an adjustment that made Duryodhana choose a different path without ever realizing he’d been guided.

Nakula watched it happen from a balcony above.

The way Duryodhana hesitated briefly, frowned as if something felt off — then shrugged it away. Not carelessly. Comfortably.

Good, Nakula thought.

Confusion without awareness was the safest beginning.

Later, in the shade of a neem tree, Nakula encountered Arjuna.

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

His third brother sat on the low stone ledge, bow unstrung, gaze unfocused. There was tension in his shoulders — a tightness Nakula hadn’t seen before.