"Everybody in this Palace has lost their minds." Vrishaketu announced, storming into Vrushali's bed-chambers. 

She raised her eyebrows, lifting her head from her sewing.

"What happened now?"

"The Empress invited me for sherbet and sweets and we chatted about Uttara's favourite colour and I told her a story about an adventure Pitamaha had with Mahamahim Bheeshma! The one in which those villagers in Panaprastha had come with the complaints of that one-eyed monster!" 

Vrushali blinked several times as he flopped heavily onto the bed, beside her.

"You--you had sweets with the Empress. And you told her a story?" That was... indeed strange. Even more surprising was the fact that Vrishaketu, instead of either sitting through the invitation huffily or straight up leaving, had told her a story.

(It gave her some hope that he might be on his way to healing.)

"Yes! She asked me to tell her about an adventure of my Pitamaha I had heard of, and-and she kept making all sorts of not at all veiled comments about 'being part of the family' because of Baba!" Vrishaketu said indignantly. "Can you believe the sheer audacity of the woman?!"

"Yes, I can, actually." Vrushali said, thinking of the fiery woman and how she had said that despite the fact that she would never forgive her husband, she was willing to consider him, and them by proxy, as family(This might have been helped by the fact that her Radheya was dead and gone, and therefore his being included in the family would make absolutely no difference and no one would have to make an actual effort for his sake because he was not there anymore-- She did her best to keep her turmoil from showing on her face.). "Anyone else wouldn't dare overstep like that, but the Empress would." 

But the fact that he had still not got up and had told her a story... well.

Vrishaketu continued ranting about Draupadi and Vrushali smiled softly, her heart steadying a bit as she looked at her son. As much as the grief still crushed them, she was glad to see Vrishaketu at least slowly start to return to his old self. He would still never be the same as before of course, after all the horror he had experienced, but then again, none of them would be.

The friendship with Uttara had been good for him. Having someone close to his age to spend time with seemed to have helped lighten him up a little. She would give the girl a hug the next time she met her--if she would permit it of course.

Vrishaketu was still going on. What was he saying?

Something, something, "Rajkumar Arjun"--

At the mention of Arjun's name and the expression on her son's face, she abruptly zoned back in to what he was saying.

"--believe that Uttara would lock me up alone with that man--"

"Wait, wait, what?" Vrushali cut him off, bewildered. "Lock you up?!"

Vrishaketu shot her a reproachful look. "You weren't paying attention."

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. He huffed and she leant forward to give him a big kiss on the cheek. Seemingly mollified, he draped himself all over her.

"So what were you saying about being locked up?" She asked, running a hand through his hair.

"Uttara had the bright idea that locking me and her father-in-law in the same room would somehow be conducive to our improvements in our 'relationship'." He scoffed. "What relationship?! And it was so ridiculous!!!! And awful!"

Vrushali thought that with everything she was hearing, her eyebrows ran the very real risk of disappearing into her hairline.

"So, then what happened?" she asked quietly, wondering if being locked alone in a room with Arjun had caused any of his trauma to rear up his head, like it had when he had seen him in the forest.

"We talked. He's so--so aggravating! I can't tell if he does that on purpose or if he's just like that--He was pretending to be all nice and stuff."

Alright, Uttara had definitely achieved something if Vrishaketu didn't immediately declare Arjun the worst person, ever. As it was said, sometimes results were obtained even by wrong methods, though one should not resort to such methods if they could be avoided of course.

"He's so clueless and naïve about some stuff honestly! And like.... he's... I don't understand why he pretends to be so-so inoffensive!"

Vrushali couldn't help the snort that escaped her.

"Pretends to be what?!" she laughed, much to her son's consternation. "Pretend to-- have you considered that you might be thinking that way because you find him to be a little less distasteful than you expected, after you actually spoke to him?" she suggested.

She obviously did not forgive Arjun for killing her husband or three of her sons and she suspected that she never would, but she was all for giving people a chance to make their own impressions on her rather than judging them on other people's opinions even though one of said people had been her own beloved husband. If Arjun was willing to try to get to know them, then even though it would be difficult, she would try not to judge his character based on the war or what he had done to one who was--had been his enemy.

"Oh I found him plenty offensive!" Vrishaketu said in a burst, opened his mouth to say more and then abruptly fell silent.

"Vrishu?" she ventured.

When he still didn't open his mouth, she became concerned. It wasn't like him to stop in the middle of a complaining rant.

"What did he do?" She asked, feeling the first stirrings of anger within her towards Arjun.

"He just let me keep talking!"

Vrushali stopped short. "What?" She asked, confused.

"I--I started-" Vrishaketu trailed off awkwardly again and his lower lip started to tremble.

Vrushali wrapped her arms around her son and allowed him to burrow his face into her neck.

"What is it darling?" she asked softly.

"I just.... I suddenly started talking about Baba and... all my Bhratas and--" his voice broke "-I started talking about them as if they were still here and with us and not dead, and he just... let me.. go on till I realised that they were dead all over again--" He broke down into little sobs. Vrushali's heart broke as she tightened her grip around him.

He had come to this room, all ranting and raving, his voice strong and steady and full of indignation and she preferred that so much more to these broken sounds coming from him now.

It might have seemed like a little thing, merely slipping back into old tenses due to not having acclimatised to it yet, but actually it was also the reminder to the difference their lives now than from before, the lack, and it was easy for the grief to bubble back in.

"It's alright sweetheart." She attempted to soothe, kissing his brow.

"It's not alright!" He said, pulling back and rubbing harshly at his teary eyes.

"No, it's not," She agreed and caught his hands in hers. "It is what it is and we'll have to accept that."

"You know," she said after a while, "Sometimes I slip up as well."

"Really?" he said, raising his head from her neck, which was by now wet with his tears.

"Mhmm, and so do your kakis. And I bet so does everybody who has lost somebody."

And he burrowed his head right back. Vrushali chuckled softly and kissed his hair.

And well, it seemed that Arjun couldn't actually have done anything about the whole thing except for point out what Vrishu was doing and that would have been even worse, even if it might not seem so.

"And my dear, I'm afraid Prince Arjun wasn't actually at fault for once." She said gently, once he had calmed down.

To her surprise, instead of arguing, Vrishaketu sighed deeply and said, "I know."

"I just. I know it wasn't his fault this time, but I can't make myself face him again and I know its practically inevitable that we will come face to face again--and soon, and I will probably have to talk to him again!" He sounded frustrated. "I don't want to see him!"

"We must all face things in life after all, even if they are unpleasant and so we are all warriors, even if we don't all wield weapons. But you wield weapons as well!" She tried to end on a cheerful note. Vrishaketu shot her a look but didn't say anything is dispute.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




The next night, as Vrishaketu was heading back to his chambers after saying goodbye to his grandparents, since they were leaving for Anga again tomorrow, he crashed into Prince Arjun again, because of course he did. The Gods hated him after all.

Thankfully this time the crash was not so literal.

Ugh. Alright so he knew that his most recent upset with the man was not so reasonable, but everything else? Absolutely, completely reasonable and he still couldn't stand the man. But he had made all sorts of promises to people to 'talk' and not be as rude as possible and he really shouldn't have made promises he didn't want to keep.

Vrishaketu decided that he should try adopting a veneer of politeness no matter what happened. It would be hard, especially since Prince Arjun wasn't a woman(Or was he?) and he had no compunctions about not mouthing him off as he had demonstrated on several occasions before. Well, he would try it anyway.

"Rajkumar." He greeted, as politely as possible.

Prince Arjun seemed surprised that he had spoken first.

"Vrishaketu!" He exclaimed. And then fell silent and stared at him. Alright, this was getting awkward.

The older man then took a deep breath, as if grounding himself.

"I am sorry."

Well, after everything that he had heard so far, Vrishaketu couldn't say he hadn't been expecting this. At the moment he couldn't even summon up the energy to rage. He was just too exhausted.

"For what?" He asked dispassionately.

"For everything. We all have lost something in this war but I have personally caused so many losses for you. So have Nakul and Bhrata Bheem, but especially me. I apologise for all of that and I apologise for any pain I've caused you even after the war has been over. I have pestered you when you've wanted to be alone, I have brought up bad memories for you and I have tainted memories of the things you enjoyed in this place, I have tainted even your father's haven in the forest! And even though you might not forgive me, I am so, so sorry for everything."

Prince Arjun's eyes were glistening by the end and he looked down.

Vrishaketu pursed his lips. It both seemed like a sincere apology and like one that had been practiced several times. It could be both of course-- he would know, he had often practiced apologies for his family so that they would be perfect, he thought with a bone deep pang.

He didn't like the implications of his irrational fear of seeing the man alone in a dark place being brought up but at least he hadn't mentioned the word 'fear' or anything, so Vrishaketu didn't think that the man was taking hidden a jibe at him.

Part of him was still skeptical, but somehow, he knew that at this moment that Prince Arjun's apology was sincere. He didn't know how he knew, but he just did.

The sincerity of his apology would not make him forgive the man of course because he knew that he wouldn't be getting this apology if it hadn't turned out that his father was related to him, but at least he knew that man wasn't being derisive.

Maybe he truly thought that apologising would fix things. Vrishaketu would have scoffed at this thought a few days ago, but since he had had that conversation with him after being locked up by Uttara(he was still very upset with her. She tried to apologise, but he thought he would keep her in suspense in regards to his forgiveness till his next visit to Hastinapur a couple of weeks later. He knew it was kind of mean, but she should not have locked him up with someone he didn't like at all!), he had realised that, well. 

Prince Arjun seemed to be terribly naïve and hopeful about somethings, if all of that wasn't a farce. It was very strange. Vrishaketu had known from very early on that life was often cruel and that some of the only good things it offered people was good friends and a good family, and sometimes people were not even fortunate enough to have those. He had never been disillusioned about life since he was little, but Prince Arjun despite being a whole middle aged man, seemed to think that even after such a terrible war, he could ever hope to 'make things right' in some way?!

To him it seemed either insanity, or willful ignorance. Perhaps it was both.

Regardless, if it was a sincere apology like Vrishaketu thought it was, then it deserved an acknowledgement at least.

"Alright. I can't forgive you--"

He paused to see the expression on Prince Arjun's face. If he saw the man getting angry or something, he was out. But instead, he saw a look of resigned acceptance settle on his face, which is why he continued, "But I do think that you mean your apology, which is why I will accept it."

The look on Prince Arjun's face morphed into surprise and then he broke into a sweet smile. Vrishaketu barely stopped himself from raising his eyebrows. If he looked like that when Vrishaketu had only accepted his apology, god knows what he would have looked like if he had impossibly forgiven him!

Why was this so important to him?! He was just his greatest enemy's son! So what if that enemy turned out to be his eldest bother? They hadn't known it when it mattered, when his father had been alive!! Vrishaketu's throat constricted again and he couldn't bear to be here for another moment.

"I--I must leave Rajkumar." He managed to choke out in a steady voice. "We must leave for Anga early tomorrow morning."

"Ah of course." Prince Arjun said, his smile dimming, but not dropping.

As Vrishaketu walked off, he didn't realise that he had thought that Prince Arjun was only someone he didn't like at all, and not someone he hated the most.

Wohooo, we get some progression. Does Vrish think Arjun has a sweet smile? Who knows! 

Let's hope the progression is natural. I'm trying to keep it as realistic as possible and it is obviously a slow burn relationship.

And Vrushali's POV after quite some time!

I have the finale planned in my head to some extent, you know. But the whole trouble is getting to that point.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Don't forget to vote and comment if you did!