Ascension of Dharma : A Mythic Retelling of the Mahabharata

Later that day, she let him try.

The sun dipped low over the Yamuna, casting golden halos upon the rippling water. Pearlescent dragonflies flitted between lotus blossoms. Somewhere on the far bank, a bullfrog chanted its one-note mantra, echoing like a lazy monk. The qi of the river shimmered in contentment, pulsing in time with the current—as though the very essence of this place leaned in to watch. It was not the king it welcomed—but the willingness in him to be small.

Shantanu, a Nascent Soul cultivator, battle-forged and once-worshipped by battalions, was rolling up his royal silks like a nervous apprentice.

"I haven't done this since I was twelve," he muttered.

"That's twelve years of arrogance in your sleeves," Satyavati said, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Roll them higher."

He did—and promptly tripped over the hem.

The villagers watching from the shore snickered behind palm-covered mouths. One boy whispered to a girl, "He looks like a crane who forgot how to fly."

With a determined grunt, Shantanu stepped barefoot onto the narrow skiff. The wood groaned beneath his weight—not from stress, but as if in warning. The river around the boat gave a little lurch, and the vessel wobbled like a drunkard trying to recite scripture while standing on one leg.

Satyavati merely tapped the wooden rim of the boat with her toe. The boat stilled instantly.

"Balance," she said. "Not posture. Not pride. Just... presence."

"Presence," he repeated with mock gravity, arms held wide like a tightrope walker. "Like stillness in motion?"

"Like fish sense storm before sky knows," she quipped, crouching beside a coil of net. "Become the boat. Not the king. Kings sink."

He grunted. "I've never been accused of sinking."

He was immediately proven wrong.

The moment he cast the net—far too forcefully—it veered sideways like a rogue spirit and wrapped around a lounging duck. The duck squawked, flailed, and exploded in a flurry of feathers. It beat its wings in righteous fury and tugged Shantanu off balance. He tried to salvage his stance, failed magnificently, and landed flat on his back with a splash that soaked the boat and echoed up the reeds.

The river rippled as if laughing, a soft swirl at the edge of divine amusement.

His mango slice bobbed once beside his ear, then floated away with elegant disdain.

On shore, the old fisher Maadi collapsed laughing into a basket of eels.

Satyavati didn't hold back. She laughed with the bright sound of bells strung in breeze—mirthy, honest, and river-warm.

"Your Highness," she said between breaths, "perhaps you should try ruling water before ruling rivers."

Flat on the planks, soaked to the waist and tangled in netting, Shantanu grinned up at her like a man who'd just glimpsed the Dao.

"I surrender," he said, breathless with amusement and wonder. "Teach me, O Daughter of Fish and Thunderclouds."

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing as if studying some curious water spirit that had wandered off-script.

"You listen well for a man used to giving orders," she said.

"I listen better when it's you speaking."

The moment lingered—light, unspoken, suspended like sunlight over mist. Even the river paused. A dragonfly landed briefly on Shantanu's knee before darting off, as if to mark him chosen.

And then—

Satyavati extended her hand.

Not to pull him up.

But to hand him the net again.

"Try again," she said, eyes gleaming. "But this time, don't cast like you're throwing a spear at destiny. Let it flow. Like breath. Like song."

He took the net with reverence, like a sword passed from master to disciple. Somewhere deep within, he felt the pull—not of fish, but of a fate he had forgotten to desire. Their fingers brushed. A tiny, invisible current passed between them—soft, electric, ancient.

"I think I need many lessons," he said.

"Oh, I know," she said, grinning as she turned away to ready the skiff again. "And I charge in fish."

"Expensive," he muttered.

"Worth it," she replied.

And so the sun set with the king learning humility in a net's coil, the river watching with a knowing smile, and the scent of lotus and sandalwood folding quietly into memory.

That night, Shantanu stood alone by the river, watching the moon ripple on the water.

The mango scent still clung to his fingers.

His hand drifted to the river's surface, and for the first time in years, he touched it not to measure depth or cross—but just to feel it.

And the river, ancient and amused, touched back.

By the second day, the villagers stopped calling him "stranger."

By the third, they called him "that big fellow who talks to ducks."

By the seventh, they simply called him Shan-da, an affectionate contraction that in their river-dialect meant "Big Fool Who Tries Very Hard."

The fishing hamlet—still unmarked on any map of Aryavarta—had adopted him in the same quiet, unceremonious way it accepted storms and stars. And Shantanu, Nascent Soul King of the Heavenly War Path, conqueror of mountain passes and sealer of demonic gates, now spent his mornings untangling fishing lines from trees and his evenings chasing goats that refused to be herded.

"Your posture's improved," Satyavati said one evening, watching him squat barefoot in the mud, coaxing a stubborn turtle out of a melon basket.

"I've discovered my true cultivation path," Shantanu replied seriously. "The Dao of Disobedient Animals."

"Step one," he muttered, "befriend the goat. Step two—accept that the goat will never love you back."

She stifled a laugh, turning away under the pretense of inspecting her net. But the corners of her mouth betrayed her.

The villagers loved his effort.

They loved the way he bowed to every elder—even the ones who called him "stiff as baked yam." They loved how he listened to the old stories beneath banyan trees, eyes wide like a boy hearing of the Nagas for the first time.

They loved, especially, how he never pretended to know.

That was rare in kings, they said.

He traded his golden ring (engraved with the imperial seal of Hastinapura) for a carved bone fish-hook from old Maadi, and never once tried to trade it back. He patched roofs with the weavers. He learned how to stack banana leaves so rainwater wouldn't drip through. He taught the children a song from the Northern passes, and they taught him how to skip stones in rhythm with the river's breathing.

"Not bad," said one village auntie after seeing him hand-wash a load of fish-scented linen with only three grimaces.

"Still smells like royalty," muttered another, "but at least he's scrubbing it out."

Satyavati watched it all.

Watched how this man—who once walked with the weight of command behind every step—now stumbled in bare feet beside barefoot children. How he burned his fingers on hot tawa bread but never complained. How he listened—truly listened—when the widowed matriarch told him of her husband swallowed by the flood-tide twenty winters past.

She found herself watching too much.

She told herself it was vigilance. Curiosity. A passing wind in the spirit. But she knew better. The river inside her had begun to swirl.

She began waking earlier, brushing her hair with more attention, folding her robes with extra care. She told herself it was because of the changing weather. Or the qi, which had begun to swirl differently when he arrived. A gentler current, a warmer breeze.

But she knew better.

One twilight, he caught her murmuring to the water in a language older than Vedic, her voice low and sinuous, like moonlight filtered through reeds.

The river answered—though only in silence and mist.

One twilight, as they returned from the river with an empty net (thanks to Shantanu's "experimental" technique of humming to the fish), they sat beside a fire-pit as stars bloomed above.

The moonlight wrapped the Yamuna in silver silk. Fireflies flared like drifting pearls. Satyavati tossed him a roasted yam and he nearly fumbled it into the flames.

"You fight demons?" she asked suddenly, catching him off guard.

"Once. But the worst ones live inside now" he said between bites. "They don't come near me anymore."

"Because you're powerful?"

He looked up at the stars, thoughtful. "Maybe. Or maybe they see a man who's already wrestling himself."

She blinked. "That's... oddly poetic."

"I've had good teachers," he said, side-eyeing her.

She smirked, but said nothing.

Then—softly, almost as if asking the river instead of him—she said:

"And what are you wrestling with now?"

Shantanu didn't answer at once. He let the silence stretch—gentle, breathable, full of flickering emberlight and river song.

Finally, he turned toward her, his voice quieter than the fire's crackle.

"Something I forgot the shape of, until I saw your smile."

And for the first time in a long while, he feared remembering.

Because remembering joy meant risking loss again.

Satyavati froze.

Not from fear. But because part of her—a part wrapped in scales and silence and river-soaked memory—had not been smiled at in a long, long time.

She didn't reply.

But she didn't move away either.

Instead, she leaned a little closer to the fire, so its warmth would hide the heat in her cheeks.

The villagers noticed.

They noticed how her voice softened when she spoke to him, how her eyes lingered a fraction longer. The kids started placing garlands of river-flowers around both their necks "for good luck."

"Long ago," one elder croaked beneath the banyan tree, "a prince cast his crown into the river and became a fisherman, just to win the smile of a girl who spoke to frogs. The river still remembers his vow. They say she matches such fools with care."

Old Maadi winked at Shantanu one morning. "You may not have caught a fish, but you're certainly hooked."

"Hooked?" he echoed, puzzled.

"Hooked," she repeated firmly, cackling as she shuffled away.

Shantanu looked over to where Satyavati stood near the river, wind teasing her hair, eyes scanning the horizon like she was measuring the world for its quietest truths.

He smiled.

"Hooked," he murmured, and the river, ever a collector of secrets, bore it downstream like a blessing.

And far downstream, where lotus petals drifted like prayers, the Yamuna carried the scent of raw mango and laughter into the night—folding it gently into the long, long memory of joy.

And the river, though amused, knew: all joy that lingers too long must one day be asked what it costs