You started it Ruhi! You know how I get about this man. Now, don't complain if this becomes a behemoth. I plead not guilty, m'Lord.
Contrary to popular belief, Arjun hadn't always been Bhishma's favourite.
In fact when the Kuru patriarch had first seen the Pandavas, Arjun had unnerved him. The boy barely reached till his waist, was unnaturally skinny and his complexion reminded one of wet mud after a downpour. Yet his eyes were overly large on his angular face, hidden by that matted mop of unmanageable curls.
And there was a strange hunger in them. Something which threatened to consume everything in its bottomless pit.
Arjun had taken to trailing behind Bhishma like a lost duckling. It irritated the Grandsire very much but he could hardly snap at the runt who looked like he would blow over by a whisper.
"What happened Arjun?", once Bhishma had lost his patience and finally asked him. Kunti's youngest had flinched violently making the wizened Gangaputra regret his harsh tone immediately.
"You look like him", the boy had muttered whisper soft and Bhishma had felt his heart break. Pandu had an uncanny resemblance with his grand uncle. Satyavati used to crow in delight that the younger son of Vichitravirya looked like the late King Shantanu.
Bhishma had embraced the comparatively tiny boy and swept him off the weeded ground in a cloud of his silver robes, letting the dust settle on his unmarked visage, uncaringly.
And one fine day as he had been attacked by the same, now healthier child, talking a mile a minute, his starving eyes twinkling madly, about a warrior sage and a ball picked with a string of reeds, Bhishma had realised that he was ensnared. And would remain so, his entire life.
Even as the same boy had shot relentless arrows which had been speared him to the blood drenched ground of the Kurukshetra, his eyes shuttered and rotten full.
The hunger in them quenched at last.
Arjun was very particular about his diet. Almost to the point of being stringent. Something which irked his gourmet enthusiast of a brother very much but not even Bhima's mouth watering dishes could tempt Gudakesha into the sin of the palate.
Arjun did have one weakness. And his best friend was well aware of his failings and like a true compatriot and guide, didn't leave a single chance to exploit them.
Arjun would protest albeit weakly as Krishna would stuff all kinds of sweets into his mouth whenever he would be visiting Dwarka. The archer supreme was sure there was something in the milk in the city of the Vrishnis. It somehow made their dairy products, including a gazillion variety of sweetmeats, nigh irresistible.
Even to the master of self-control, that Arjun was.
Or maybe it was just Keshava with his syrupy smile and charismatic persona, butter stained fingers and affectionate eyes, feeding him the milky sugary gourmet delights, garnished with a near cosmic love that only the Lord of the Universe could muster for his dark skinned archer.
"You should have been aborted at Pritha's womb when of five months!"
Arjun would never quite forget that one instant, borne out of an uncharacteristic fury from a bludgeoned ego; that the man he had revered as a father, wished he were dead.
The world would perhaps condemn him as he had shamed himself, raising a sword against his oldest brother and Yudhishtir's rapidly paling face, would haunt his memories like a nightmare. A burst of mercurial temper which he had attributed to a long forgotten vow, yet Krishna's knowing eyes had flashed in tempered sorrow.
It would be much later, after the head of Karna would roll in the bloodied ground of the Kurukshetra and the red haze of rage would subside into such a sharp piercing agony that Arjun would almost buckle with it.
With Kunti's revelation and Yudhishtir's curse, it would only cement that an entire lifetime of servitude to a brother, getting staked like common cattle and suffering torturous humiliation and the grief of a war which had taken everything from him---
Ultimately, it would be the final judgment of the eldest Pandava that would seal Arjun's scavenged heart against the man whom he had worshipped once.
Arjun would smile, melancholy overpowered with bitter humor, wrapped neatly in a silken fabric of his tragic fate.
"You never really learned detachment, my Parth, did you?"
Krishna's lulling words and the ice setting in his broken bones would bring a chuckle from his dried split lips as the blurring visage of Yudhishtir, the paragon of dharma, would disappear into the mist, with his failing breaths.
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Arjun had once woken up in the middle of the night, cold sweat and a burning heart racing in a mad scramble to erupt out of his chest. The occasional cries of the vultures circling in the night sky and the darkness inside his tent, broken by the light of a single yellowed diya, had shown the hazy shape of another man behind him.
His reflexes had made him almost take the other's head off, but the muscled arms wrapped around his middle made him realise that he was cradled in his embrace. His face resting against the collarbone, the fragrance of parijata flowers heavy in the air.
"Krishna....", Arjun had whispered confused.
The arms had tightened, and Arjun had felt Krishna's responding whisper make the curls along his hairline flutter slightly.
Embarrassment had flooded his body like a vengeful wave, and the cold evening air had caressed his tear stained cheeks.
His divine charioteer's words had constricted something in his chest, the ribs cracked from Shrutayuddha's spear had jostled painfully as the warrior extraordinaire had nestled closer in his Lord's arms, a whimper breaking from his dried lips.
Krishna's lips pressed a pattern inside his curls and sleep overtook his fatigued senses again, the humiliation fading away at the wake of Hrishikesha's gentle consolations.
They never spoke about it again.
Abhimanyu was his shooting star. A brilliant light, sharp against the inky expanse of his darkened destiny, throwing his warmth all around like a solitary sun. A mirror to his dreams, a fragment of his immense love for Subhadra. A mischievous essence of his Krishna.
Shrutakarma was his hearth in the midst of an avalanche. The symbol of his reverence for his first wife and the reflection of his own self in a miniature version. His uncanny resemblance to his physicality only made the archer want to bubble wrap his youngest's innocence and make an impregnable fort around him.
Iravan was his firstborn. He hadn't had the pleasure of feeling that overwhelming emotion of fatherhood. Yet he had been present in his dreams. A vague memory, well loved and fantasized till the physical manifestation of it had appeared in front of him. He wished he could have tied his snake prince to himself with an unbreakable rope, keeping him in front of his eyes, by force.
Yet he had lost them all to destiny's capricious games.
So when Babruvahan came in front, the son he had experienced the first joy of fatherhood with, the child he had given up for the want of Chitrangada's hand, her love; the Gandhiva slipped from his hands. Even as duty bound him to point his arrows, his heart had long since abandoned the cage of his chest.
Death was an easy price for the life of his boy.
Warning: Slight mature themes.
Brihannala had no idea about the workings of a feminine body. Yes, he was not exactly fully female, neither fully male, but the anatomical distinction of his features tended towards the former - at least as far as the physicality was concerned.
He had swallowed the indignity and the ensuing humiliation of the transformation, and his brothers' well meant if slightly harsh humor. What he had not seen was the strange twinkle in his wife's eyes.
Malini had never been the one to want the female form.
At least that is what she had thought, before she had seen her third husband standing naked in front of the mirror. His face was twisted in perplexity and slight curiosity and his hands moved innocently over his body, in an attempt to gauge the differences perhaps.
But it had only made heat gush through her like she had been struck with a burning meteor.
"Shall, I demonstrate then?"
Brihannala had tilted her head and nodded at his wife, completely unprepared for the ensuing sequence of actions.
Draupadi had made him cry for mercy, sob and plead for benediction, making his towering frame quake with such weak countenance that it would have been humiliating had his mind had not been blanked with a near painful pleasure.
Malini had smirked wickedly, her long hair disheveled and spread over his still heaving breasts, her naked form entwined with his like a possessive vine along a sal tree.
Arjun had laughed hoarsely and had not lamented Urvashi's curse again.
__________________________
Arjun loved all his brothers to death. But he had a special fondness for Sahadev. From the day, he had seen the fair skinned baby waddle his way up to him and then promptly fall on his face, on his lap, Arjun had been attached to the younger Ashwaneya, in a strange way.
He could sit with the youngest Pandava for hours in complete silence. His need for peace and his sibling's penchant for going into a meditative trance, lost in his own mind, suited him just fine.
Sahadev was mischievous in a dangerous way that neither his older twin nor their older brother Bhima could ever hope to emulate, and the youngest son of Madri would concoct up the most heinously ingenious pranks.
And he had Arjun's tendency of getting bruised like a peach.
Arjun would let Sahadev embrace him and draw his energy core to recuperate after each day of relentless battle, contended to remain in peaceful quiet after the mayhem of the war.
At least, till the next sun rises.
The Kurukshetra war had taken a massive toll on Arjun's body. It had been pure adrenaline, the divine purpose of establishing dharma in this yuga and the almost animalistic urge to survive which had later translated into a near insane drive for revenge that had kept him upright for those harrowing eighteen days.
Maybe, it had also been Krishna, whose energy had been eerily in sync with the Pandava prince, which had kept him functioning to his full capacity.
The Lord of the Universe, was he after all.
With the horrific deaths of his children and friends and family, the deadly effects of the divyastras and the innumerable attacks by the great warriors of the other side, but mostly the grief and agony and lingering violent anger, that had been the main culprit; finally breaking Arjun's abused body into smithereens.
Fracturing his energy core into a million fragments.
It had taken months of relentless efforts from the doctors, obscure medicinal herbs procured by sages and the Ashwaneyas, constant care of his wives and Krishna's undaunted presence which had managed to break his burning fever.
Yet, Arjun knew his body would never get back to the near envious fitness and stamina that he used to have before the great war.
And he would never tell anyone, how much he had actually wanted to perish in that sickness, a deliverance more than death.
Subhadra's anguished eyes and Krishna's grim smile did make him wonder whether he had survived after all, or was it just the shell of his body remaining behind like a mirage in the midst of a dried up desert.
I still have like a dozen head cannons left. But, I have to stop somewhere... *sigh*
