Madri looked him in the eye."I will always love you." Then she plunged the stake into his chest as he had asked her to.

It wasn't as precise a blow as she would have liked to end his pain once and for all, not with the skilled way he was dodging. She struggled to get the stake in deep enough to his heart, unsure if she could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at her, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one.

"That's what I was supposed to say..." he gasped out.

Those were his last words.

His failed attempt to dodge the stake had made him lose his balance on the edge. The stake's magic made the rest easy, stunning him and his reflexes.

Pandu fell. The curse had taken effect the moment he and Madri satisfied their sensual desires. He had to die if he ever neared a woman and he chose to die at her hands instead of the curse slowly seeping his life out.

Yudhishthira's pov

The two queens of pandu- Kunti and Madri, were shaking their husband, and the 5 sons- me, Bheem, Arjun from Mata Kunti and Nakul and Sahadev from Mata Madri were kneeling beside them, and Pandu's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.

"Bring the mashal closer putra" the chief rishi said to me gently. And when he looked over, his dad was dead and glowing on top of the pile of woods. Glare from a lamp had snuck in and had lit up the old boy like some medieval saint.

"NO, I can't, Mata Madri is still alive " I yelled trying to escape, as tears threatened to break through my eyes. She maybe my stepmother but she loved me as much as her sons. Mata Madri had decided to commit sati, meaning, be burnt alive on her husband's pyre, out of guilt being the one to kill him.

"You must respect their decision, yudhishtira" he explained me gently while trying to make me light the pyre.

"But I can't burn her, she is my mother, she raised me!" I said trying to pull myself back. What would you do if you were told to burn your mother alive? The one who raised you, the arms that held you through sleepless nights, the eyes that see your every distress and the heart that loved you?

I let every part of my body take in the scorching heat of the flames, and whispered my name Yudhishthira, the one steady in every war, in the most arduous war, the war of life. The darkness I felt now with my closed eyes felt like my future, the scorching heat from the fire felt like the adharm which was to suffocate me all my life, the burning flames felt like the pain of betrayal and loneliness surrounding me for lifetime. My brothers lost a father, but I won't let them feel the void, even if that means walking on sharp knives willingly, I would be their father. My mind told me as i let the fire detach me from my childhood, me from the world.

On the other end I heard kaka Vidur ask my brothers why they wouldn't shed a single tear on their father's death. My breaths hitched as I waited for thier answer, their answer left me speechless. I had to live up to their trust and love for me. Their words echoed in my mind.

At pita ji's death, jyesth is now our eldest brother, and we trust him blindly. He is our father now, and shedding a single tear would mean we don't trust him enough.

A sudden, unanticipated death like of dad has a way of jolting us to our senses. Life as you know it will never be the same. It can be reinvented, reshaped into something different- but its never the same.

~~~~~~~~

"JYESTH!" I was pulled to the reality with bheem screaming in my ear! We have skill demonstration today! I had to see my father's death as an absence, rather as a different existence. Whoever says pain becomes lesser as time passes by, is a liar.The spaces between the times you miss them grow longer. Then, when you do remember to miss them again, it's still with a stabbing pain to the heart. And you have guilt. Guilt because it's been too long since you missed them last.

I just realised I was leaning on the tree for the past 2 hours, thinking about the past. A lone tear escaped my eyes, but my 4 Anuj didn't fail to notice it. Time doesn't heal all wounds. We all know that's bullshit; it comes from people who have nothing comforting or original to say.

Nakul made me sit. "Jyesth, what happened? Most of the time you are lost in your thoughts, you seem distressed and distracted..." he asked gently.

"Jyesth, tell me who dare try to make you shed a single tear? Your Phalguna will kill him this very moment" Arjun told me wiping my tear before it fell to the ground.

"You know, I wish I had paid better attention to Dad and mata madri, their stories. . I didn't think of time as finite." I trailed off.

"You are not alone then, I didn't fully appreciate the stories she told me until I became adult, and by then I had to make do with snippets pasted together, a film projected on the back of my mind." Sahadev said looking into the never ending, life must be hard on him, he had lost his parents at a tender age, trauma to surround him for lifetime, like a bud nipped from the plant and then trampled over by fate. They were too young to truly understand the loss then, and they were too old to hold in my arms. Yet, I wanted nothing more than to clutch them against me as we faced the burial of their mother.

People you love never die. That is what Father had said, all those years ago. And he was right. They don't die. Not completely. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide ships in unfamiliar waters.

"Grief is one big, gaping hole, isn't it? It's everywhere and all consuming. Some days you think you can't go on because the only thing waiting for you is more despair. Some days you don't want to go on because it's easier to give up than to get hurt again." Nakul said as Bheem hummed in response.

"You see, Nakul, we need faith, but it rare yet wonderful" Bheem said, "that's what makes faith so tough to grasp, but also makes it so wonderful. It's all about believing in something—whether it's God, or other people, or even yourself—when you've got nothing else to go on. Nothing but a little voice inside telling you it's more than a hunch."

Bheem and Sahdev took my hand in theirs and began to speak flippantly to me, as one would to distract a child.

~~~~~~~~

Alone in the royal chamber filled with luxury Kunti, the first wife of pandu, and the mother of Pandavas sat alone.

Pandu. For a moment her heart hesitated. She remembered when her husband had died and her co- wife Madri committed sati, her agony, the long nights alone, reaching across the bed every morning when she woke up, for years expecting to find him there, and only slowly growing accustomed to the fact that side of the bed would always be empty.

 The moments when she had found something funny and turned to share the joke with him, only to be shocked anew that he was not there. 

The worst moments, when, sitting alone at breakfast, she had realized that she had forgotten the precise black of his eyes or the depth of his laugh; that, like the sound of violin music, they had faded into the distance where memories are silent.

~~~~~~~

Swords clashed. A girl behind a black face cover was trying to duel jarasandh, but how long could she hold?

"Become the samragi of aaryavart, become my wife!" He roared at sivi Kumasi whose decision was as firm as a mountain.

"But don't forget samrat jarasandh that I helped you, we both get to have her alternate in our bed" a man covered by the dark screeched.

"I will not, my honour is my life, I will rather die" Devika, the jewel of purus yelled trying to put jarasandh on back feet.

"Game up then" jarasandh whispered with a swift motion of sword he had devika at his feet with his sword on her neck.

"No one can reach here sivi Kumari, rethink your decision, no one will save you, your stepmother sold you to us"the black man said gritting his teeth. And she gasped at the unhuman thing her stepmother did, but her stepmother never had a trace of humanity to begin with. Her stepmother hated her with such hatred that it would make on doubt the human ability to love itself.

~~~~~

I don't know about the step mother thing, just my idea

That's it, tell me how was this one, I have no idea what I wrote, just followed what my heart said..

Don't forget to vote and comment.