Chapter 4: Bijli (Lightning)

Three days of running. Three days of forest.

The forest had cooperated. Chiku's forest-speech — the speech that the eight-year-old Dev had used to ask the trees: hide us — had produced: results. Behind them, the trail was: erased. Roots had shifted to cover footprints. Fallen leaves had rearranged to eliminate evidence of passage. The forest had become: an accomplice, the accomplice that the natural world provided when the natural world chose sides.

The natural world had chosen: the child's side. Forests did not understand politics (Rakshas's empire, the Sundering, the three-thousand-year war). Forests understood: a child asked for help, and the child's voice was sincere, and sincerity was the only currency that forests accepted.

On the third afternoon, they found the banyan.

The banyan being: enormous, the enormous-tree that India produced when India decided to grow a tree for a thousand years without interruption. The banyan's aerial roots had descended from branches to earth, creating secondary trunks, the secondary trunks creating: a forest within a forest, a canopy within a canopy. The banyan was: not a tree but an ecosystem. A world.

And in that world: Bijli.

Vinaya saw her sister before her sister saw her. The seeing being: from above (Vinaya flying, scouting, the Pari's aerial advantage), the above-seeing providing: a view of a figure sitting on the banyan's highest branch — a figure that was Pari-sized (six inches), Pari-winged (the wings folded in the resting posture), and Pari-haired (the particular silver-white hair that Bijli had inherited from their mother, the inheritance being: distinctive, unmistakable).

"BIJLI!"

The name exploding from Vinaya's throat — not shouted but erupted, the eruption that seven months of separation produced when separation ended. The eruption that contained: relief, love, rage (the rage that reunion produces — the rage that says: how dare you be alive when I spent seven months not knowing if you were alive).

Bijli looked up. The looking-up being: startled, the startle of a hunted creature who had heard a sound in a forest where sounds meant: danger. Her wings snapped open — the snap being the flight-readiness posture, the posture that hunted Pari adopted reflexively.

Then recognition. The recognition that crossed Bijli's face like: lightning (the lightning that her name meant — Bijli, lightning, the name their father had given her because her birth had been: sudden, electric, unexpected).

"DIDI!"

Two Pari. Two sisters. Colliding in midair — the collision that was: an embrace at altitude, the altitude-embrace that only winged creatures could perform, the performing being: two six-inch bodies holding each other while hovering thirty feet above the ground, wings beating in synchronized rhythm because the synchronization was: instinctive, the instinct of siblings whose bodies remembered being: together.

"Tu zinda hai — tu zinda hai — main sochti rahi ki —" Bijli, crying, the crying of someone who had prepared for the worst and received: the best.

You're alive — you're alive — I kept thinking —

"Main zinda hoon. Saat mahine qaid mein thi — ek Dev ke ghar mein — but main yahan hoon." I'm alive. Seven months in captivity — in a Dev's home — but I'm here.

"Dev? Dev ne tujhe pakda?" Bijli's face — the face shifting from joy to rage, the rage that the mention of Devs produced in free Pari, the rage that was: ancient, racial, three-thousand-years deep.

A Dev captured you?

"Haan. But — Bijli, sun. Woh Dev — Tharun — usne mujhe azaad kiya. Apni marzi se. Apne bete ki jaan khatre mein daalke. Woh neeche hai — Chiku ke saath. Uska beta."

Yes. But listen. That Dev — Tharun — he freed me. Willingly. Risking his son's life. He's below — with Chiku, his son.

"Dev neeche hai? YAHAN? Tu Dev ko mere paas layi?" The rage — fully ignited now, the igniting that three thousand years of racial animosity produced when a free Pari discovered that a Dev had been led to her hiding place.

The Dev is HERE? You brought a Dev to me?

"Bijli. Ruk. Sun meri baat." Stop. Listen to me.

"Nahi! Devs ne hum pe teen hazaar saal zulm kiya — unki galti se Rakshas aaya — unki galti se Sundering hua — aur tu ek Dev ko mere chhupne ki jagah layi?" No! Devs have oppressed us for three thousand years — Rakshas came because of them — the Sundering happened because of them — and you bring a Dev to my hiding place?

The history. The history that Bijli carried like a weapon — the weapon that the wronged carry, the carrying that justifies: permanent hostility. The Sundering had been: devastating. The Great War that had preceded it — the war between Rakshas (then a human sorcerer) and the original Naag race — had been fought because some Naag had allied with Rakshas (those Naag becoming Devs after the Sundering) and some had opposed him (those Naag becoming Pari). The alliance/opposition being: the original sin, the sin that had fractured a race and that three thousand years had not healed.

But.

"Bijli. Woh alliance teen hazaar saal pehle hui thi. Tharun teen hazaar saal pehle nahi tha. Tharun ek baap hai. Ek baap jisne apne bete ki jaan khatre mein daalke mujhe azaad kiya — kyunki yeh sahi tha. Yeh insaaniyat thi. Naag-iyat. Pari aur Dev — hum ek hi nasl hain. Ek hi khoon. Sundering ne hume alag kiya — but khoon wahi hai."

That alliance was three thousand years ago. Tharun wasn't there. Tharun is a father who risked his son's life to free me — because it was right. We're the same race. Same blood. The Sundering separated us — but the blood is the same.

Bijli silent. The silent being: not acceptance but processing. The processing of a Pari who had spent her entire free life running from Devs (who served Rakshas) and who was now being told: this Dev is different.

"Usse milegi?" Vinaya asked. The question that was: the bridge. The bridge that three thousand years of resentment had to cross — one meeting at a time.

Will you meet him?

"Agar — agar woh kuch bhi galat kare — main usse jala dungi." The condition that was: Bijli's signature — the lightning that her name promised, the lightning that Bijli's magic was. Bijli's Pari magic was not light-magic (Vinaya's specialty) but storm-magic — the ability to generate electrical discharge, the discharge that made Bijli: dangerous, the dangerous that a six-inch creature should not be but that magic made possible.

If he does anything wrong — I'll burn him.

"Fair enough." Vinaya — the sister who knew that Bijli's threats were: real but also: negotiable. The threat being the opening position, the opening-position that would soften once meeting happened.

They descended. Vinaya leading, Bijli following — the following reluctant, wings stiff, the stiff-wings being the Pari body-language for: I am here but I do not want to be.

Tharun stood at the banyan's base. Chiku on his shoulders. The Dev and his child — tall, grey-eyed, pointed-eared, standing in the dappled light that the banyan's canopy created. The standing being: non-threatening (Tharun had deliberately chosen a non-threatening posture — hands visible, no magic active, the posture of surrender that Devs used when approaching hostile parties).

Bijli saw them. Her reaction being: the reaction that a mouse has when seeing a cat — the instinctive tightening, the tightening that the body produced before the mind could intervene with: logic.

"Namaskar," Tharun said. The greeting being: deliberate. Namaskar was: Pari formal greeting, not Dev formal greeting (Dev formal greeting was "Pranam"). The using of the Pari greeting being: respect, the respect that Tharun offered because the offering was: the first step across the bridge.

"Woh meri didi ko saat mahine qaid mein rakhne wala Dev hai," Bijli said to Vinaya. Not to Tharun. Not acknowledging him with direct address.

That's the Dev who kept my sister captive for seven months.

"Haan. Aur woh wohi Dev hai jisne mujhe azaad kiya," Vinaya said. Both truths. Both true. The both-truths that complex people contained — the containing that simplified narratives (villain/hero) could not accommodate.

Chiku climbed down from Tharun's shoulders. The climbing-down being: the child's decision to approach, the approach that children made because children did not yet understand: three thousand years of racial animosity. Children understood: new person, interesting, want to see.

"Tum Bijli ho? Tumhari didi bahut tumhari yaad karti thi. Har raat tumhara naam leti thi." Are you Bijli? Your sister missed you so much. She said your name every night.

Bijli looked at Chiku. The looking being: the looking that the hostile give to the innocent — the looking that searches for threat and finds: none. Because Chiku was: eight, and eight contained no threat. Eight contained: grey eyes, curiosity, and the particular directness that children possessed because directness was: all they had.

"Tum — tum Dev ho?" Bijli asked Chiku. Not hostile — surprised. The surprise that a Pari felt seeing a Dev child — the child-seeing being unexpected because Pari imagined Devs as: warriors, soldiers, Rakshas's army. Not as: children.

"Haan. Mera naam Chiku hai. Main jungle sunata hoon. Aur — main tumhari didi ko shahad deta tha. Har roz." Yes. My name is Chiku. I hear the forest. And I gave your sister honey every day.

"Shahad?" Honey?

"Haan. Jungle ka shahad. Bahut meetha hota hai." Forest honey. Very sweet.

The disarming. The particular disarming that innocence performed — the performing that no weapon could match, no magic could replicate. Bijli's hostility encountering Chiku's innocence and the encountering producing: the first crack in the wall. The crack that would become: a door.

"Theek hai," Bijli said. To Vinaya. Not to Tharun, not to Chiku. To her sister. "Main sunti hoon. Tumhara plan kya hai."

Fine. I'll listen. What's your plan.

The plan. The plan that Vinaya had constructed during seven months of captivity and that the constructing required: exposition. The exposition that this chapter would provide — but not now. Now was: the meeting. The meeting that had crossed three thousand years of resentment in: one child's honesty about honey.

They sat under the banyan. Four beings. Two races. One tree. The tree's roots creating a natural shelter — the shelter that the banyan provided because banyans were: the original architecture, the architecture that nature produced before humans invented buildings.

The river nearby — the river that Chiku's forest-hearing had identified, the river whose sound provided: background, the background-sound that meetings needed because meetings without background sound were: uncomfortably silent.

Vinaya began to explain the plan. The explaining that would determine: whether Pari and Dev could work together for the first time in three thousand years.

The banyan listened. The river listened. The forest listened.

Everyone was: listening.