Kairavi

Chapter 81

Yudhishthir and Bheem returned a short while later.
Kairavi understood that Nakul was still cross about the Arush situation by the glum looks on their faces.

"Well?" Arjun inquired. "He wants to be left alone." The eldest pandav updated them.
Sahadev put Arni's hand in his and nodded reassuringly. "He will come around."

Chandreya didn't quite have a reaction to that.
She was standing at a crosswalk where both the roads seemed to lead to the wrong destination.
Nobody could tell why.

'Would my son become an enemy of mine? Because I left him?' Her mind flew to places.
She asked herself the questions, which she didn't want the answers to. But the heart and mind are slaves to no one.

'Surrender or lose your head!'

"I can't breathe here, Arya. I want to go outside." She spoke urgently, slightly out of breath.
"What happened? Are you okay?" Concerned, Panchali stroked her hair; but Chandraja pushed her hand away. "Outside." She wheezed.

The youngest Madreya nodded and helped her up.
He gestured to the rest of the family to stay inside, and that, he would take care of her.
Kairavi marched out of the hut with her husband.

She gasped in some shaky breaths, failing to heave in the air she desperately needed.
She crouched and put her hands on the knees.
Her pants refused to subside, so Sahadev ushered her to sit on a raised platform under the peepal tree.

"Sit down." She plopped down with a light thud, having her husband catch her before she slid to the ground.

The tears that she had been holding back till now, leaked out of her orbs rapidly.
She began sobbing without caring who hears her.

"You okay?" Like a magnet and iron, Arni threw herself in his arms while shaking her head vigorously.
"What happened?"
"Would this abandonment have my son become my enemy?" She wept. Sahadev kept silent.
That made Kairavi break the embrace and stare at his face.

"Tell me!" She demanded.

"No, dear. Why are you asking that?"

"Because I had a dream. I and Arush were dueling with swords.
Pitamah had taught him well, and did exactly what I wanted; but why was he fighting with me?
A-and when he lost the match, I put my foot on his neck and said, Surrender or lose your head!"
She recited the entire hallucination just as a frightened child does to a parent.

Her husband hushed and pulled her back into his arms, kissing her hair.
Even he didn't know what the dream was trying to convey.
"I am not sure... But I hope it is not something we should be worried about."

"Which mother says that? Surrender or-" she choked while crying like there was no tomorrow.

Sahadev rubbed her back till she composed herself.
Being one of the most intelligent people of the era, he was somebody who could actually find coherence in the most illogical aspects.

"Look, you can't be certain about dreams. They are just concoctions of the most random things going on in your mind.
Maybe, the thoughts about Arush and the war got muddled up in your brain and created that nightmare?"
He tried to be the voice of reason.

"Sure?" She croaked, making him nod. Kairavi sighed and kept staring at the trees.
Ishwar knew when Nakul was going to come to his senses and return to the hut.

The hand that was resting on Sahadev's bicep clenched suddenly, alarming the youngest son of Ashwinis.

He looked down to find a motionless Kairavi, fixed in her position.
It seemed like she wasn't even breathing.
Her eyes were wide open and her eyebrows scrunched in aghast.

His vision traveled further down and saw a silver blade on her neck.
He craned his neck to catch sight of the person who possessed such audacity; to put a sword at the queen's neck.

"I know what your dream means." The dark-hued person said.

"What are you doing, Nakul!"

Sahadev grabbed the sharp metal surface and shoved it away from his wife's throat, seething with rage.
"Saving the rest of the sanity she has in herself." He stated calmly. Chandraputri turned her head to look up at her husband.

His face held no emotions. Neither pity, nor sorrow.
Neither resentment, nor fury.

He was defeated.

"It was a premonition." He continued, without breaking eye contact with her.
"You manage to solve the most tangible conundrums, but you couldn't crack the meaning behind this one?"
He spoke monotonously and threw the sword on the ground.

"Oh, so this is how you're going to take out your anger on me? By goading?" She challenged.
However irked Chandreya tried to look, she could never pull off an intimidating contortion on her naturally innocent face.
Nakul smirked and shook his head.

"Unfortunately, I love you."

"Get to the point.
What did the nightmare mean?" Sahadev snapped, still furious over the fact that Nakul had the nerve to put his wife at the edge of his sword.

"Why do you think Munishreshth Parshuram gave you his parashu? To keep as a memento?"
Kairavi's eyes flickered towards the hut, where the axe was safely kept.

"And why do you think pitamah took the pain to bring it back to you?
If he wanted, he could straightaway go to Mahendragiri."
Nakul paced in front of them while speaking.

"He came because he knows what your Gurudev wants.
He is a shishya himself.
He can understand his teacher's kinesics pretty well, I'm sure.

He obviously wants you to learn shastravidya."

'Vijay bhavah, Bhairavi.'

The pieces fell into place now.

The name Bhairavi meant "Terror". She is the fifth of ten vidyas.

Seated on a lotus with four hands, one with a book, one with rosary beads, one with abhay mudra, and another with varad mudra;
she wears red garments and a garland of severed heads around her neck.

She has three eyes and her head is adorned with a crescent moon.
In another form, she carries a sword and a cup containing blood and the other two hands showing abhay and varad mudras.

[A/N: The above paragraph is from wikipedia.]

That is a woman.

Benevolent to her children, and iniquitous to sinners. If her heart cradles empathy, then her core kindles the flames of retribution as well.

Every creature is under her love and security, but those who consider themselves better for her refuge, she shows them whose womb they came out from.

She is the purifier of sinners as Mahagauri; slayer of evils as Katyayini.

Janmdatri bhi woh, Mrityudatri bhi woh!