The sun, a furious orb of copper, hammered down on Ira's brow, each ray a tiny, insistent mallet. Dust devils danced in the shimmering heat haze, mocking the flat, cracked earth that stretched to a hazy horizon. Not a flicker of green, not the slightest silhouette of a tree dared to interrupt the merciless monotony. Only Ira and Jasmine.

Jasmine, her Vahana, a magnificent black kitten, moved with an uncanny grace across the unforgiving terrain. Her ears, tipped with silver that caught the brutal sunlight and scattered it into harmless sparkles, seemed to sense the treacherous fissures hidden beneath the dust. For Ira, each step was a heavy reminder of the weight of her lineage, a lineage that was both celestial and cursed.

Being a demi-goddess brought her enough love and hate from world and beyond. The creator of the world, Virinchi's child born to a demoness of Asura lineage out of a blessing. She had only known hate and abandonment. Her mother. She had never seen her, never known her touch. They said she had abandoned her right after birth, vanished into the shadowed realms from whence she came.

And her father ignored her existence, and the reason remained unknown.

So here was Ira, walking under the merciless sun, following what Lord Madhav, her guide and mentor, had told her; "The mortals are a volatile bunch, driven by passions and desires that the gods can only imagine. You need to see the world from their eyes. Feel their joys, their sorrows, their fears. Only then can you truly understand your role in the new Mahayuga."

How many yugas had passed since she had followed the line of sight? Who knew? Time had become a fluid thing, edges blurring, distinctions fading since she started this journey. Madhav had not specified eras, or directions. He had spoken of people, alive. Ira only saw barren earth.

Dust, fine and relentless, coated everything - her clothes, her eyelashes, the very air she breathed. She walked towards the sound that wasn't there anymore, the absent murmur of moving water.

The Yamuna lay before her, not a river, but a wound. Where once a broad current flowed, there were now vast stretches of parched sand and exposed, grey rocks. A thin, stagnant line of murky water clung to the farthest bank, barely moving, choked with green algae and forgotten plastic bags. The air hung thick and still, devoid of the vibrant life a healthy river nurtured. Ira watched, a quiet sorrow settling in her chest. This was the mother river, shrinking under the relentless gaze of neglect and heat, a skeletal arm reaching weakly across the barren land. It felt less like a natural cycle and more like a slow, desperate surrender.

"Remember, the Kaliyuga would never be merciful. It hasn't even given their mothers a chance to survive, you won't be left out either. So, think as you do."

As she walked along the parched path, the heat shimmered, blurring the edges of the world. Then, the blur sharpened, resolving into a scene of desperate motion. A woman, her sari the colour of sun-baked earth, was hurtling towards her.

Her breath came in ragged gasps, each one a sob held back, and her eyes, wide and frantic, darted around like she was fleeing phantoms only she could see. She stumbled forward with a clumsy urgency, weighed down by something she clutched tightly in her arms.

Then, in her panicked flight, she collided with Ira. The impact was jarring, like a cornered animal desperate to break free. Ira, rooted to the cracked earth, barely managed to keep her balance. Irritation flared - words of annoyance were already forming on her tongue, but they died before they could escape as she looked into her eyes. It was not anger that burned there, but a raw, primal fear that chilled me to the bone.

"Please," she choked out, her voice a broken whisper that barely carried on the still air. "Please, do not hurt him. Please, do not take him."

Ira frowned, utterly bewildered. Hurt whom? Take whom? Her gaze followed the desperate trajectory of her plea, falling to the bundle cradled in her arms. The sight that met her eyes was... unsettling. The child's delicate skin was marred with angry, weeping boils. They clustered on his face, on his tiny limbs, giving him a gruesome, almost otherworldly appearance. A wave of pity, sharp and unexpected, pierced through the fog of her confusion. It was a visceral ache, a pang of something deep and unfamiliar.

Before Ira could form a question, the woman spoke up. "The vaidya... he said... he said there is no hope. He said it is better... better to relieve him of his pain." Her voice broke completely, tears streaming down her dust-streaked cheeks, mingling with grime, carving pale tracks through the earth-toned mask of her face. "But... he is my son. He is all I have."

Ira listened, her mind slowly piecing together the fragments of her anguish. It was a scene of quiet tragedy playing out under the merciless glare of the afternoon sun. She again looked at the child, at the small, afflicted face. And then, her gaze drifted to his forehead.

There, amidst the inflamed skin, she saw it. Faint, almost imperceptible words glistening on his forehead. The words of fate. It was a story still being written, perhaps abandoned, but not yet finished.

This was how fate would give me a glimpse? She thought.

An involuntary impulse moved within her, something deep and untamed. She knelt, slowly, deliberately, before the woman and her child. The woman flinched, drawing back instinctively, fear flickering anew in her eyes. She probably expected hostility, judgement, or even a cruel hand reaching for her dying child.

But Ira only smiled, a gentle, reassuring curve of my lips that held no malice, no threat. She raised a hand, her fingers light as air, and touched the child's forehead. And then, as if guided by a force beyond her understanding, Ira began to write. Not with ink, nor pigment, but with the very essence of er being, she traced words in the air above his brow. Symbols flickered into existence, shimmering for a fraction of a second before fading - symbols of hope, of renewal, of life surging against the relentless tide of death.

As she drew, she felt a story unfolding within me, a new narrative weaving itself into the air around them. Ira wrote a new destiny for him. She wrote of a sudden downpour, a cleansing deluge that would wash away the sickness, the pain, the despair. A rain that would bring forth a new beginning, a world reborn.

To her left, a tree, gnarled and ancient, bloomed with the Aparajita flowers, an impossible splash of colour in this dry landscape. Ira reached out, her fingers plucking a handful of the delicate blossoms. Crushing them in my palm, she released their cool, earthy fragrance. The deep blue stain seeped into her skin as she dabbed the crushed petals onto the child's burning forehead, painting him with the colour of hope against the red of despair.

"It will rain now," she said, her voice laced with an unwavering certainty that surprised even her. "Let the rain wash away his pain and fear."

She stepped back, creating space for the unspoken, for change, for the impossible. And as if in direct response to her words, a low rumble echoed in the distance. The sun, moments ago blazing in its full glory, seemed to dim slightly, as though something vast was moving to obscure its light. The air, thick and still just moments before, stirred with a nascent breeze, a whisper of change. Looking up, she saw the sky transforming. The clear, burning blue was being swallowed by a dark, swirling mass of clouds, rolling in with impossible speed.

Then, the heavens opened. Not a gentle drizzle, but a torrential downpour, a furious cascade of water that hammered the parched earth, turning dust to mud in an instant. It was as if the sky itself was weeping, cleansing the world with its tears, washing away all that was old and broken.

And as the first fat drops of rain struck the child's face, an impossible thing happened. The boils that disfigured his skin, seemed to... melt away. They dissolved, not with a physical sloughing, but as if they were never there, as illusions banished by the sudden, sharp light of truth. Beneath the onslaught of the rain, the child's skin became smooth, clean, pinked with new life.

The woman gasped, a choked sound of disbelief and awe. She stared at her child, now cradled gently in her arms, then back at me, her eyes wide with a dawning understanding that bordered on the miraculous.

The child, who moments ago had been frail and still as death, stirred. He blinked, his eyes, once clouded with fever and pain, now bright and clear, reflecting the tumultuous sky above. And then, a sound, faint at first, but growing stronger - a cry. A lusty, healthy cry, the sound of a newborn taking its first breath. Born again, into a world washed clean by the rain.

Tears streamed down the woman's face again, but these were tears of pure, unadulterated joy, each drop reflecting the shimmering downpour.

She looked at Ira, her face radiant with gratitude, her eyes holding a depth of emotion that humbled her. "You saved my child, Maa," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "You changed his destiny. Who are you?"

Who was she? Ira? No. Ira was gone. Swallowed by the dust of a life where she was forever abandoned, extinguished. Ira was dead, a brutal punctuation mark to her story.

But from the ashes of Ira, something new had bloomed. Something born alongside the child, in the heart of that desperate moment, amidst the promise of rain and rebirth.

"I am Saroshi."

And this was the first time she had witnessed her power.