#so like the chapters previously titled “on consent and will” and “haridra utsavam” are now “sempiternal” and “rumour has it” respectively

[krsnaradhika]

Sempiternal : Krishāvyayam.

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To me, you are the only sempiternal. You are my serenity and my restlessness at once. My serendipity and magic. You are so beautiful- the man of my poetries.

I am fortunate to have you, my beloved. I shall await you in our paradise, in the arcade that shall await us someday. I love you. I love you. I'll always love you.

She slipped from his grasp like sand from between taut fists. The universe was here to steal her from him again, like it did everytime. There's nothing too novel to his bruise, yet nothing seemed as agonizing as it was.

He was swarmed in the aphrodisiacs his mind deluded him with, the visions of a whimsical damsel, the waters called to him. Between shivering hands and sweat glazed skin of swarth, he caught hold of the stallion’s harness and raced through the grass mist, smelling of earth petrichor and orphic sandalwood. The rumbling rain’s messengers, phantoms of brontides and frosty zephyrs were adding to the desperation that was in him, bleeding for a mallacht that was hers and he grew restless in. Oh if the intoxication of being human wasn't getting to his lovelorn heart.

Krishna’s stalwart gaze traversed nowhere from where a distant flame crackled, an enchantress with bows and arrows lurking in the shadows of the Ashoka trees, she was the goddess of the night. Through misty grass and biting cold of the dusk, he ceased where she planted roses of dalisay. “Mohini,” he said, and the princess with her giggling and flustering handmaidens buzzing around met his eyes in surprise, “I need you to come with me.”

“Are you well Kanha? You shouldn't be out at this hour, Panchala’s hair has grown cruel in these winters and you haven't even taken a shawl-”

“Not now about it, please,” he heaved, a hand yet engaged to prod the spotless horse that carried the almighty while the other ached to hold her in it. Shri’s eyebrows of a bow’s image met at their juncture and she maundered through the hay and flowers like the moon escaped from thundering clouds. “Come with me.”

“Sakhi, let Pita Maharaja and Jyeshtha Bhagini know that I shall be back shortly. Worry less, I'm going to be safe,” she crooned to the companion with goodwill who looked positively her way. The grin and sororal ways were saying it all.

She didn't ask where. She didn't have to know. There's no shame in love and no bindings when it comes to him. Strangely enough no questions and clawing monsters came to her thoughts when he did. There was never any interrogation attached to him. And so like the abhisarika heroine of an ancient aesthetic dance she put her arm in his and Kanha pulled her up, settling her ahead of him as the carrier of hope neighed in delight. The ivory quadruped did not need any coaxing for then it raced ahead to the paths of teal forests and elysian esoteric, the hero of the era and the princess of the flares clasped in each other.

“I need you to trust me”

“I know, I do. What is it, you do not seem serene?”

Her rising and falling bosom and curly ringlets cascading to her cheeks, the bit chapped lips and intoxicating eyes were adding to the beauty that was the nightfall. Kanha wondered where the moon was at first but then an epiphany came that it was sitting in his embrace all along, tidying the folds of his yellow brocade silks while blushing in divine lotuses. “I need you to tell me something. Something has to be confirmed. Do I scare you?”

“Never. The future does, yes. But the past that has been shared with you and this present that blocks all other thoughts can never. I want to see this pristine beauty that you are, ever in milks and honey and thus- thus you heed to my pleas. Let go of being so headstrong, the gods and these deceiving stars have never been kind to me.

I've thought this through. I have only ever been yours, but I don't want the moon to be stained crimson from my faults. Accept my apologies for being so brusque that time my love, I was n-not-”

She gasped when the horse halted to crystalline blue showers and breathtaking verdant cliffs. Simultaneously the moon appeared from behind the clouds as the frogs croaked hopping into stagnant green waters, cuckoos cooed yet and the papiha called for his lover. The azure of her lehenga camouflaged with her beloved's sapphire skin and he descended to grace the arrow arum flowers with the genial touch of his fingers, blowing where the dandelions swayed. The butterflies in Kamalnayani's core danced to the tunes of his flute and she was wide-eyed at the romance this picturesque vista was, longing for a love that she had presumed to be star-crossed.

“Kanha, this- this place. It's stunning and I'm not in my senses anymore-”

“If you say no, I will leave with my family and return only when you let me be yours. If yes, I'll take you to an utopia where I don't pledge a stormless sea but an unsinking boat. For the final time, it's your call and nobody is compelling you. Listen to what your heart of heart has to say, and let me know. I respect you as a person before my love for you.”

Enough with the suffocations, please.

Madhusudana had long forsaken the vibrant headgear and the extravagant crowns the moment he had decided to let go of his apprehension and then he charged out of his chambers in haste. The peacock feathers of Hari were glued to her opal bracelets and his hair now fell to his shoulders, unbounded and unruly, and he ran a hand through them to push away the cool droplets soaking them. Kanakangi, the woman of gold as the world called her, was starstruck and in catharsis yet again. The universe was notorious for their agape love.

“I promise you and the universe, O damsel of faultless spirits, that the curse inflicted upon your stars is mine too. The last blood moon that paints the future grotesque, was from a crime committed by the both of us in a birth you do not remember.”

Kamalnayani staggered a step as beads decked her honey eyes, blood coming to her mouth. She wished to run into his arms and run away from the last destined wound that fate would bring to her at the same time. She was weaker with every plea of his and whatever came ahead, would ruin the both of you. But not to destruction, never to destruction.

“Abandoning every uncertainty and fear, every dharma and conflict that plagues your conscience, put faith in me that I'll not let everything flow away like the queen taken away. Every curse that is yours and so mine too, for I cannot escape from the labyrinth of your soul and everything that you are, Svaha’s heiress to her grit.”

Kanha let one of his knees buckle in as he fell to the tawny soil with a thud, a thousand years flashing before his burning ethereal vision as she swallowed the pain that was his too. She hurt him and yet he was here. She knew she would do it again, so stained with ignorance. [When will you learn to be only yours, Chittachora? When will you go alone for the country that awaits you, the Bharatavarsha that laments in wars undeclared? Do you not deem me able to carry this curse alone, even if the punishment is of the both of us?]

[Let me have it too, Mohini. Let me have my share too but don't drain me of life by your fear of the togetherness of the both of us and disrespect the goddess you are by your detestation for your ownself. Do not take away the love in your veins that is for me. Let me be the fortunate one, let me have your heart like you've robbed me off mine.]

“Will you be my wife?”

I promise you, I will not go anywhere. There's no curse, no blessing, no hex that I won't shatter for you. I will never leave your side, I can never.

He was an art. The brawn biceps of his straining in the emotions that conquered him whole, the lips of his colored lilac at their commissure as they flaunted a blush pink shade, he was the kalopsia she wished to revel in. He was an art. He awaited the heartbreaking atelier.

She tasted salt on her mouth and sobbed because he did too, almost. She shook and trembled while hearing him so in her consciousness, ever known to his quintessence. As the stygian took over, the moon and the stars eager to let these sweethearts unite with fervor, Mohini caved into the trance that he bestowed upon her, burying her face in his neck, “Yes, yes, yes!”