"How in the world does anybody get inside?" Suman questioned, skipping over to the cave. He ran his hand over the large, smooth bounder in front of the entrance. "It's completely blocked off!"

"This is the realm of the gods that we are in," Savitri said tiredly. "They're not going to make everything easy. After all, humans are technically not supposed to be here."

"So, then how do they get through?"

"Magic, probably?" She yawned. "I don't know. I'm not a god."

Suman laughed. "Somebody's tired," he teased. He studied the darkening sky. "Perhaps we should turn in for the night? Try to go inside tomorrow?"

"We've come this far and you want to try tomorrow?" Savitri gave a small cackle. "Oh, Suman, don't make me laugh this late. I'll become hysterical."

"But...you just did..." Suman shook his head and ran after Savitri, who was rounding the cave.

It looked ordinary on the outside, but after seeing Takshaka's kingdom's cave, Savitri doubted that there were only stone walls on the inside. Hanuman had said that the first cave they came across would be the entrance to Naraka (which made Savitri wonder where the entrance to heaven was), so she trusted his instructions.

The stone seemed to have been eroded, from either water or from time, she wasn't sure. There were some notes and inscriptions carved into the large landscape that the stone provided. Some of them were too crooked or eroded for Savitri to understand, but others had names of people or the villages or kingdoms that they were from. Some had love or death letters. Just how many people had made it to Naraka?

On the other side of the wall were different paintings. Some were handprints, some were stick figures, and some were beautiful, intricate drawings depicting various scenes of a person's life. One was a woman kneading dough. Another was a boy practicing fighting. Some had groups of men charging into battle. A lot of them, though, were of a person lying down on beds or mats or even the ground. Looming over them was Dharmaraj, with the tip of his mace pointed at the chest of his victim. They never showed the soul leaving the body. Savitri guessed that nobody knew what they looked like.

"Somebody had a lot of free time," Suman noted. He was a few feet away from Savitri, studying the tally marks on the walls. "Do you think they were lost here?"

"It's not an island. Anybody could have found their way off." Savitri joined him.

"Yes, but Kailash is very big."

"And only has one or two paths. Whoever drew the tallies either died or found their way back down."

"Maybe," Suman agreed. "But can you imagine being trapped on a mountain?" His cheeks lost their color suddenly. "All alone, defenseless, and with nobody to help you?"

"You would go mad," Savitri said. "But, lucky for me, I have you to keep me sane, or maybe it's the other way around." She grinned.

Suman pouted. "That's very mean." He huffed and stomped towards their discarded weapons. "I'm going to try to start making the fire. Do you mind getting some wood?"

"Sure." Savitri removed her hand from the wall and returned to the forest once more, finally getting the chance to explore the luscious scenery. It wasn't much different from the forest on the ground except for the snow and lack of food. She was able to find plenty of firewood but hardly any food.

Suman had gotten a small fire starting when she found him again. The flames lapped hungrily at the small twigs she offered to it and seemed to be smiling. Savitri brushed that off as a trick of the mind - she was too tired to be seeing things straight.

"Don't worry about the food," Suman assured her when he caught sight of the knot in her brows. He reached for his quiver and dumped the contents onto the ground between his crossed legs. Multicolored petals and stems fell out, along with a few arrows and a plethora of fruits and vegetables.

"...How deep is your quiver?" Savitri asked incredulously.

"Deep enough to carry all of these." Suman gazed at his bounty proudly. "I got them at the market in Darchan."

"Hm." Savitr plucked an apple from the stash. "From your monkey dance? Or your monkey friends?"

"My cattle friends, actually," Suman quipped. "And at least I had friends. While the little miss princess was busy being antisocial, I was gathering gold."

"Gold? More like bronze," Savitri scoffed, although she couldn't deny the softening sweetness of the fruits Suman had snagged. "And who says that I didn't have friends?"

"Me."

"I had friends!" Savitri defended. "I had Nandini and Sarfa and Mansa and Ganga."

"And Pammi," Suman teased mischievously.

"Very funny."

"Fine, I get it, you had some friends." Suman played with one of the flowers. "What about me?"

"What?"

"Am I not your friend?"

Like a whirlpool spinning vigorously, Savitri found herself sucked back suddenly into the memory of the conversation that she had with Sarfa the day before they began climbing Kailash. What about Suman? She had asked. You both have some palpable chemistry...

"You are my friend too." Savitri pushed the words out of her mouth. "I just assumed that you already knew that."

"I like to hear it," Suman said. "Makes you more humble."

"Oh, look who is talking," Savitri shot back.

A slow, sly grin morphed on Suman's lips, creating a face that Savitri had never seen before. Half-lidded eyes, drawn eyebrows, a curled smile and lax pose - since when did Suman get so handsome?

Nope, not this again, Savitri cursed herself. This is all Sarfa getting in your head.

"Is the fire too hot? Are you too close to it?" Suman asked. "Your cheeks are bright red."

"No, they aren't," Savitri snapped defensively.

Suman's eyebrows rose. "Yes, they are." He leaned over the fire and touched her forehead with the back of his hand. Bruised knuckles rubbed against Savitri's slightly sweaty skin. "Well, at least you are not sick." He removed his touch. "Should we start creating a shelter? I don't know if it will rain, but the sky sure is dark."

"It's night, Suman," Savitri sighed. "Of course, it will be dark."

"I meant that the clouds looked heavy."

"Then you should have said that."

Suman paused. He grinned. "I like this side of you." He winked. "Where was this Savitri when you were yelling at me before?"

Savitri shrugged and rose to her feet. "Assessing you," she said.

Together they scourged the forest for some medium sized branches on the ground that still had most of their leaves on the smaller branches. Using the twine that Suman found, they tied the branches together and leaned their long, raft-like creation against the side of the cave, creating a miniature cavern. They didn't go to bed, though, and made their way back to the fire pit to rest again. Suman began to stitch together his flower garland and Savitri pulled her bow out. It sparkled with Hanuman's blessing, whatever it was that he had blessed the weapon with.

"I think you should have this back." She offered the bow to Suman. "I won't be needing it soon."

Suman smiled. "Keep it." He pushed it gently back towards her, their fingers briefly touching. "You may need to use it one day. Or you could just keep it as a memory of our awesome adventure!"

"Ha, I'm sure that this is something I won't forget," Savitri scoffed. She placed the bow on her lap and began to tighten its string, which had been rippling loosely ever since their last battle with Jamrat. Her thumb brushed over Suman's handwriting and she hesitated.

Jeevan, she thought. Life? I suppose it makes sense now. She couldn't help but smile.

"You know, Suman?"

"Hm?"

"I'm actually going to miss your company."

"You are?!" Suman looked up from his garland and his face brightened like the glowing moon above them. "Yay! I'm going to miss you too, Savitri, but you can always come visit me, since you know where Sage Agastya lives." He pursed his lips. "I should have your crown done by then. I'm making this one first..." he held the unfinished accessory up with a scrutinizing gaze. "Then again, perhaps I should re-evaluate my hobby choices..."

Savitri chuckled. "It looks fine, Suman," she assured him. "Beautiful, really."

"Thank you." Suman's cheeks flushed.

"You're welcome. And you know, you can always come visit Satyavan and I after this is all done! I'll show you where I live. I'm sure my mother-in-law would love you."

"Of course." Suman flipped his hair. "Everybody loves me."

"Now you're just pushing it," Savitri laughed. She tucked some of her hair aside and removed the flowers that held her braid together, pulling the strands out and combing them with her fingers. As she was re-plaiting it, she felt eyes on her.

"You're lucky," Suman grumbled, his cheeks still quite pink, then turning red. "Your hair is beautiful. It flows so easily."

"Beauty is subjective," Savitri said. "But thank you."

"Why don't you keep it out?"

"I think it makes my face look big."

"I think it makes you look pretty."

"Really?"

"Really." He bent his head. "Prettier than the flowers, even."

"Oh." Savitri's neck warmed and her heart thumped rhythmically: thump, thump, thump, like the beat of a war drum. "Thank you..."

The emotions that cascaded inside of her were all too familiar. First, the drums. They were the proudest and always beat the loudest. Then, the trumpets, ringing in her ears and vibrating throughout her body so that it made everything tremble. Next came the elephants and warriors - the rush of blood that flushed her cheeks and turned her skin all red and hot. The gallop of horses made her hands sweaty. Yes, this feeling was very familiar...

"Princess, we shouldn't stop," one of the guards warned her.

"There is a man," Savitri heard herself saying in the chalky memory. "Look, look how handsome he is. Who is he?"

"Satyavan," the handsome man had heard her and carefully approached her palanquin. His smile made the caterpillars in her stomach bloom into butterflies. "And you are, my lady?"

"Princess Savitri," Savitri remembered her response, and she knew what came next too. The elephants. The drums. The trumpets. The warriors and horses. Then they married, hastily, lovingly, and she was swept into the mundane life of a housewife.

Suman gave me an adventure, she realized through the rush of emotions and adrenaline. I...I don't want to lose that adventure...

She thought about the old days of her marriage. Of the mistakes she made when she added too much oil to the food or forgot to add salt. The mismatched pattern on the mats and the wonky bedmaking. Satyavan would laugh at her, then she would find herself laughing at herself as well, and they would both fix her mistakes, but she would always complete them on her own, for he would be taken away by his parents or by his work.

"He was never very carefree," she found herself saying out loud. "He had a strict schedule that he liked to stick to."

Suman stopped stitching. "Satyavan?"

"Yes." She giggled. "Sometimes it got him into trouble. There was a time, once, when he was so attached to his schedule that he completely forgot how to get home!"

Suman laughed. "Did he find his way?"

"Eventually," Savitri said. "Through the help of some village men." She sighed, and for the first time in what seemed like a very long time, a wave of relief swept through her and cleansed her soul. "He made his way home, just as he had done every night and our life continued."

"Sounds a bit boring, if you pardon my opinion," Suman mumbled. "Living to a strict schedule every day. Did he not like adventure?"

"Not very much. He preferred to have a plan. He was never fond of the unknown."

"Nobody is, but I suppose that's what can become fun sometimes," Suman said. He paused, thinking. "At least, that's what Sage Agastya taught me."

"You're very close to Sage Agastya, aren't you?" Savitri asked.

"We are," Suman agreed. He chewed on his bottom lip. "He was...he is, like a father figure to me. I've known him since I was a baby, so..."

"Oh." They've known each other for quite some time, then. "I see."

"Hm..." Suman looked around awkwardly. "Well, we should probably try and get some sleep." He stood and offered Savitri his hand. "We have a long day tomorrow, after all."

"That's true." Savitri regarded the boulder with a determined sparkle in her eye. "Tomorrow, we get inside the cave."