Roxy or Anwesha, the name she had adapted in this time, was really blindsided when she had woken up in a house made of ivory wood work. It was beautiful and reminded her of Thailand but it didn’t take her long to realise she should have been dead or at least somewhere in the Sundarbans, muddy and injured and potential fodder for crocodiles and tiger alike.

It was then she had came to know, that she was in Kashi, in reality. Also not just Kashi, but Kashi 6000 years in past. Holy Cheese !

Anwesha still remembered the day she had regained her consciousness, upon hearing the bells of the Kashi Vishwanath temple. The chief priest of the temple was the  person who had found and saved her and then sheltered her.

He had quite literally revived her from death, coming in the form of Jagannathan himself.

He had found her flowing in the river Ganga, one morning when he went to provide  arghya to Suryadev, the sun diety . He, with the help of the rowers present on the river bank, saved her.
He had then taken her home to his wife and children and nursed her back to health.

Now after about 3 months of thanklessly helping her up on her feet, filling her in any information, even getting her a copper seal ( an ancient passport ) to travel to Indraprastha- the priest who had come to see her as a daughter was ready to let her go.

It was unexpected, she never imagined even after reading through all the different regional versions of  Mahabharata and also some fanfictions she found on the mutternet ( an advanced version of the internet). Never had she imagined she would be standing 6000 years in the past, dressed in an ancient version of crop top or blouse and dhoti made of  jute, pristine and milky.

Today she had embarked on her journey to Indraprastha, the land settled by the most influential people of the time, after Vasudev Krishna, of course. The Pandavas and Krishna were the only ones who could help her now,  but she needs to get to their abode first. And of course noting the social structure getting there wasn’t the only thing she had to do. She had to get close to one of them, and she had chosen whom she shall serve- the Pandavas queen, Yagnaseni.

And for that she had thought of a tragic sob story – a young widow whose husband had to go to war the day of their wedding itself and never returned; cursed and outcaste by in laws and her kin, she seemed to find purpose of life in the service of the queen.

She had taken a bullock cart to the borders of Kashi, and from there she had to walk through the forest of Khandavprastha, to the city of Indraprastha. The cart refused to trespass the forest grounds which was the residence to the fabled Nagas.
The forest looked dangerous, she thought as she started walking along the river Yamuna. She knew Indraprastha was situated on the banks of Yamuna, but she didn’t  know where with precision, of course. She was confident, with her limited knowledge of Geography, that if she followed the coast of the river she would reach the illustrious city at one point. Hopefully.

The forest was very dense, just like mentioned in the Mahabharata- to such an extent that even sunlight didn’t  peak through the canopy of the tall trees or reach the forest floor.

The grass was wet and mushy, and felt weird against her wood bark sandals.
Strange! This place oddly reminded of her time in the Amazon rainforest, when she had been assigned a project of catching antiquity smugglers by the name Red orchids, who were making deals in the deep waters of Amazon.
She could feel the dark aura, this place excruciated. Mysterious and illusive, out of some fairy-tale. Grimm’s Lore or Fairy tales to be precise - horrors and wonders from Europe.

Anwesha took out the small dagger, the wife of the priest had given her, for her protection- which she had accepted gratefully.  She started marking the trees with English alphabets as she moved. It was like a labyrinth from the Greek mythology built by architect Daedalus on Minos command. An ingenious  maze commission to keep the demon Minotaur, yet unlike Theseus who had the help of Princess Ariadne.  But here she was without any support, navigating this oasis of a place on her own.
She walked and walked, enjoyed the abundant floral life, which seemed to grow on these fertile banks of Yamuna, undisturbed by human intruders, thanks to the constant fear of the Nagas. The sound of the gushing water, seemed to be the only  familiar in this strange place, apart from the pungent smell of wet soil.
She had been walking for quite some time, and decided to sit on a rock and rest for a while.

That was when she noticed she had returned to where she had started, the tree in front of her was marked ‘a’. Dread filled her body, she felt cold. A chilly breeze blew from south adding to the eerie.

Anwesha had been walking in circles or maybe she was hallucinating. It just didn’t  feel right.

She had been sitting on the rock for at most 5 minutes, thinking about her situation and how to escape it when she heard a rustling sound from the bushes, behind her.

She stood up and turned around to look at a ferocious looking beast standing in front of her. She tried to back away as the creature took small calculated steps towards her, barring it’s  sharp canines at her.

It wasn’t  a lion or goat or even a snake- it was a mix of the three. Of all the creature she had read about in books about Indian mythological creatures, this one had never caught her eye. Maybe no one remembered it or maybe they were rather assured at its extinction and didn’t  want to reminisce the memories of the terror it inflicted on them. Whatever the reason might have been, she would be the one suffering due to her ancestors ignorance and secrecy.
She grabbed her bag tightly, unwilling to part with it as she made a run towards the north. The creature let out a high pitched hissing growl before pouncing on its hoofs and chasing after her.
She ran as fast as she could, jumping over rocks and stepping on low branches of ancient trees, swinging on strong prop roots to make a safe escape but the creature continued for a while. She thought she had got rid of it for good, when suddenly it pounced on her from the right. She dodged it by whisker, thankfully. She had reflexes of Mowgli of course.

She continued to run, the musky smell of wet soil and the creature both following her like a shadow as she ran in some unknown direction to save her life.
The creature kept growling and pouncing at her and had scratched the lower part of her dhoti. Being as clumsy as she was, she tripped on a rock and tumbled down on the soil, which was strangely not wet.

‘Where is the slimy pungent smell coming from.’, she wondered but she decided to plead for her life with the creature instead.

“Please let me be, I don’t  even taste good. I am full of pollutants.”, she swore to the animal which continued to look at her with a primal hunger.

Having no way left, Anwesha grabbed her knife and knew it at the animal’s head, as the knife passed right through it, without harming the animal at the slightest.

She gasped as the animal continued to prance towards her, in a slow pace, enjoying his chase before hunting his prey.

Luckily by then Anwesha, thanks to her presence of mind had unlocked her power to read minds and could sense presence in hundred around her. She quickly took her pallu and tied it over her nose, before the creature could attack her, yet again.

Breathing through the fine cloth, strenuously, she witnessed the creature vanish into thin air, as if it never even existed in the first place. Maybe it didn’t. She tried to get up, her ankle ached due to her sprain, making her fall down again. She was unable to get up on her own without any support and she couldn’t possibly find any help here.
Her  string of thoughts were  broken as something sharp pierced the soft spot on her neck, like fangs of vampire thirsty for blood, as she lost her consciousness.
The next time she gained her senses, she was tied to a tree with ropes made of dried thorny creepers. The bondage was tied quite loosely if she was honest, not that she was complaining. It would be easier for her to escape that way.

“Awake finally, I see. At perfect time of course.”, a slithery male voice said, making her look in the direction.
In front of her were three makeshift chairs of creepers, intertwined, decorated with aparajita and datura flowers.

‘Oh datura. It must have been camphor turned with dried datura flowers with the stigma of hibiscus that cause her hallucinations and also the source of the wet soil like smell.’, Anwesha pointed out to self.

On one of those thrones sat a lad, quite young around her age. She was dressed in the hide of a reptile, possibly from the crocodiles of Yamuna. It did look like unpolished crocodile skin, painted in a deep green dye. It was tied around the waist of the lad, worn like a dhoti. Over his head her wore something akin to a hood, made of snake skin. Parts of his body were also painted green, with scale like detailing added to it. His wore jewels of silver and gold also with a shiny yellow sapphire.

“Who are you ?”, Anwesha asked, still gawking at the boys weird appearance. If she was in the 21st century she would have thought the boy as a cosplayer or maybe part of some weird cult, though the latter could be a possibility 6000 years in past as well.

“ You stand in my regime and dare to ask my identity? You surely have an audacity along with a pretty face. I like it.”, He chuckled lowly as Anwesha looked at him annoyed, giving him a side eye.

“I forgive you for the ignorance and applaud you for your courage. You stand in the presence of Brihadbala, the son of Takshak and prince of the Nagas. You shall find yourself to be fortunate for I have chosen thy as my mate, and shall marry you tonight in the presence of the five tribes who reside in the illustrious forests of Khadav van. My esteemed father has gone to invite the king of gods, as my tribe prepares for the celebrations of our union.”, he stated with what looked like a smile, as if what he said was the most normal thing ever.

“Mate ?”, Anwesha pretended to stutter nervously as she worked on freeing herself from the bondage.

“ Yes, please don’t be nervous dear. For you are a mere human, you must me unaware of our noble customs. On every full moon night, we who belong to the clan of Nagas, seek blessings from our esteemed goddess Manasa and go on a hunt for partner. Whoever we pursue, if to our liking and alive at the end of the game, is taken as our lifetime partners.”,  he answered her doubts, slowly getting up from his chair and lazily walking towards her.

“ So you chose me as your mate ? But you don’t even know anything about me ? I could be married, for all you know.”, she protested, putting on a fake ‘ brave face’ to hide her inward annoyance at his blatant audacity.

“Of course I chose you, your bravery and beauty unmatched. You will fit the role as the tribes future queen, after my mother, once I teach you the arts of illusion and magic. And do not joke with me. I am well about the queer customs of humans, who dress widowed women in white as they treat her like an outcast. As you adorn the same white colour, I would presume you are a widow. Though I do not care or put any value to it, nor do my people. I will love and accept you with any imperfections you may possess, beloved mate.”, he said with a strange sincerity in his voice.

Anwesha would have had admired this guy as a romantic, like herself- his love filled voice would have aroused forbidden emotions inside her, that is if he had not tried to kill her earlier like a psychopath. Though if given the opportunity Anwesha would probably have done the same but she would never admit that, of course.

Though she could have tried to make a run, but she continued to stand there listening to Brihadbala’s words with concentration as he continued to blabber about their customs and his dreams about ‘their family’. He was a sweet guy tied to customs, she figured that out.
Suddenly she heard the sound of hooves resonating through the forest floor, heading their way. Brihadbala’s eyes shot open.

“We must hurry away, it’s them. You follow me as I go. The princes of Indraprastha are on hunt.”, he said with an urgency in his voice.

“They are our enemy and his father’s absence I can’t  meet them or their strength in battle.”, he admitted looking a bit ashamed as he turned and chanted something.

What happened next shocked Anwesha more than any other events that had occurred that day. The lad turned into a long green snake with black spots and crawled away into the bushes.

Despite what Brihadbala had said, Anwesha did not follow him but waited for the arrival of the horses.
She picked up her bag from the forest floor along with her veil which lay in the ground. It must have fallen at some point when she had tried to run away from that monster.

As the hooves approached her she lay on the forest floor as if she had tripped.
Two white steads of fine breed as well had many other brown ones stopped infront of her.

After a moment of pause accompanied by thousands murmurs, a man got off from the white stead and inspected her, gauging the harm she could pose.
Once assured of her harmlessness, he approached her and helped her up. She could see his pink handsome lips lift in a smile, as he asked her about her wellbeing.

“I am alright my lord, except I had been attached by a Naga and barely made it ourWith my miserable life thanks to your enigmatic presence , for he scurried away at the mere sound of thy houses matching in this direction, leaving me on the forest floor.” , she narrated her story as she pretended to sob with helplessness.

“ I had not imagine life of a widow to be so hard, my lords. But today I find myself in your presence and feel blessed for I had been on my way to Indraprastha to meet thy great king, the eldest chandravashi heir and the generous King Pandu’s son and beg him for his protection and some odd job to make ends meet.”, she cried as the prince continued to hold her. She could feel a sense of empathy and compassion in his aura which gave Anwesha hope to continue her theatrics.

“Who are you, Devi”, another voice asked.

“A widowed Brahmin woman from Kashi. Thrown out by my in laws and accused of being bad omen and causing my husband’s death, I have no shelter left. Please let me be of any service to you. I seek shelter from there.”, she begged as the man who held her nodded in agreement.

“We should take her along us, Panchali will assign her some job for sure.”, the man stated as the other hummed in agreement.

“Let’s see. But be aware girl try to betray our trust and you will never stand straight again.”, he warned her as she nodded.

Crap. It didn’t go exactly like one would expect an encounter with ancient superheroes. Nevertheless, she joined in the procession that processed to the land of Indraprastha. The abode, dream and home to the fire born princess.

So, first chapter is here. Please leave your opinion and reviews. The updates will be once a week every Saturday.