Aftermath: The outlasting Krishna-Arjun journey

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟟: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕤𝕞

Krishna's pov

It was a chasm, at the edge of which Krishna had hovered for decades.

Arjun's question was the final push needed for him to tumble down it, directionless.

***

"You would have stopped me if you had known." Arjun's tone pleaded at Krishna to lie. "Please tell me you had not known, Madhav--"

"I knew."

Arjun's shoulders slumped.

"You knew," he whispered. "You knew it was my brother I was fighting to death. You knew my opponent was my brother when you told me to shoot him while his chariot was stuck. You knew it all along."

"Yes, I did." Krishna's eyes and throat hurt so much; he could not say anything else.

He released Arjun gently and drew back. He, also, did not wish to defend himself.

How could he?

He had prayed for Arjun never to realize the truth precisely because he had no defence.

He had known it all; he had known beforehand of every incident that broke his Arjun, and he had been unable to stop any of it. He had only lifted his finger when it came to Arjun's life, because he would rather break every rule of the universe than look upon a world bereft of Arjun.

But what of Arjun's loved ones? What of his wishes?

He could have stopped it all, the same way as he had hidden the sun. But he had surely been the most selfish being alive; he had intervened only to save Arjun for his own sake. He had not saved anyone; not changed anything; not stopped the hundred things that had slowly broken his friend.

Arjun broke into his spiraling thoughts in a barely audible whisper.

"And Abhimanyu?"

Krishna dared not breathe.

"When you and I were away, fighting the King of Trigarta, did you know Abhi was going to die that day...in that way?"

"Yes."

The expression of betrayal on Arjun's face made it clear he had refused to believe in it so far. He waited for Krishna to say something--anything--in his defense, but he had no defense.

"He was your sister's son," said Arjun at last.

"He was your son," corrected Krishna. "If there was anyone's son I saved, yours would have been the first one."

"So you could have saved him," said Arjun desperately. "You just needed to keep me near the chakravyuh and not take me away to fight King Susharma. Madhav--you kept me away. Like Jayadrath restrained the others, you restrained me. Since I consider Jayadrath to have killed Abhi--"

"Abhimanyu's death was--"

"DON'T TELL ME IT WAS FOREORDAINED! WHY WAS THE DEATH OF A SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD CHILD FOREORDAINED? WHO FOREORDAINED IT?"

"I do not write destiny, Parth. I am simply an instrument to carry it out, just like all of you--"

"But we do not know of it beforehand, you do! If we knew, we would have acted differently. We would not let our family, friends--children--be slaughtered for the sake of your destiny."

"No, you would not," said Krishna. "As I have told you before, however, every twist of destiny has a purpose, and they all come together in the larger scheme of things."

"All right," said Arjun, a note of hysteria creeping in. "I get it, why you did not tell me the King of Anga was our brother. As Duryodhan's staunchest supporter, he had to die to establish dharma, and I had to be the one to do it. But Abhimanyu? What purpose did his death serve in the larger scheme of things, Madhav?"