Daughter of the Naga

by Svetlana Ivanova

  "It is not so at all, Nikita," Queen Jayara said at last, her voice sympathetic and kind as ever. "Even the mightiest and wisest don't know what's hidden in the depths of their soul. Regardless the game that the children had proposed, we already knew you were what we asked for. Yet now it agonizes my heart even more knowing that the fate has outwitted me."

  "The fate has outwitted you?" I said with a frown. The Queen's face grew sadder as she nodded.

  "As you might know of my oath," she said. "I would never bear a child of my blood so that the Fate could never break my heart. But now it proved unfruitful for they have already brought you here."

  "I don't quite understand, Your Majesty, what are you talking about?"

  The Queen looked at me with tears welled up in her eyes.

  "You are a child of mine, Nikita, from another lifetime."

  My heart gave a constricting pump. It was too much to take in this one simple truth. I realized I hadn't been breathing until I gasped for air again.

  "How could that be possible?" I whispered, stunned and frozen with unfathomable feelings.

  "You are, indeed, the Queen's daughter from the future," the Hora spoke in his deep voice. I almost forgot he was here. "If the vision I had of you did not fail me, you were sent here because of your unseen bond with the Kingdom's legacy. That is your bloodline."

  I looked at Queen Jayara again. She was now weeping silently in an unspeakable grief I had soon come to understand. Unable to bear the pain of seeing her tormented state, I moved over towards the crying woman. She looked back at me with a stream of fresh tears flowing down her ageless face.

  "Is it true that you're truly my mother?" I whispered, my tight throat quivered with emotions.

  "I have known it ever since you first told me of your birth mother," she confessed. "I just knew then that you are my child from my other incarnation."

  Everything suddenly made sense. The Queen wasn't just familiar, she was my mother.

  "Mother...mom? It's you. It's really you, isn't it?" I said, causing her to sob even more in remorse. Then she pulled me into her arms, embracing me tightly.

  "Oh, child of my heart," she cried.

  "I've missed you so very much, mother," I wept like I was a little girl again.

  We held each other crying as sorrow and grief came crashing upon us like stormy winds.

  Queen Jayara was my past mother. The gods had granted her wish yet asked for a sacrifice in return. The first born child of this devoted Queen was the deal. Although she had tried to escape the debt by swearing an oath of chastity, the gods still had a way to make her pay for the consequence.

  The sacrifice was me. I was doomed to the Unforgiving Fate.

  But deep inside my aching heart, I was overjoyed to see her. I had never dreamed of the day I could hold my mother again. It was so strange what the Lord of Time had done to us both.

  "I am so terribly sorry, Nikita. It is my fault that I brought such a horrible fate upon you," she whispered tearfully as we pulled away. Her hand smoothed my hair longingly. "It is nothing but my own selfish doing. To protect the empire and our people, I've become a horrible mother and caused you so much pain."

  I wiped the tears from her cheeks. I heard Sambo blew his trunk and sniffed.

  "Don't despair...mother," I said. "I will be alright. The gods might have brought me here as a sacrifice, but I won't bend to their will. I am the one who makes my own destiny."

  Far above the tower, I heard a jackal howled in the sky. It was as if my words had solidified an oath. After a while, Sambo and the Hora left the hall to let us be together.

  We sat holding each other's shaking frames. Then a thought sudden forged its way to the front of my mind. I pulled away from the Queen again. As if on cue, my mother held my shoulders at arm's length and looked at me.

  "You saw me and Amarisa," I said at last.

  "Yes, I did," she said.

  "Amarisa and I...we...we..." I said but couldn't seem to find the words to explain.

  "Is it so the way I thought it was?" she asked.

  I nodded sheepishly back, biting my bottom lip in nervousness.

  "You might think I am a plain old woman who couldn't see the charm and mischief that glimmer ever so brightly in your eyes," she said to my utter embarrassment and fear.

  "I did not mean such disrespect," I said and felt my throat turn dry like desert sand. "But...but Amarisa and I love each other so dearly. I couldn't help it, mother! Please don't make me leave her or my heart shall break."

  "Nikita, my beloved daughter, hear me first before you deem me cruel," Queen Jayara said, wrapping her arms around my body and rubbed my back to calm me down. "It is never in my power to stop you and whoever you bind your love with, so far I am delightful since your happiness clearly equals mine."

  I looked up at her again. My eyes widened.

  "You don't find it strange at all that we're both girls?" I asked rather in disbelief. The Queen laughed for the first time since we were here. She shook her head at me in amusement.

  "Oh darling girl, there are so many strange things in this world," she said. "Love is just one of them. You know why Lord Shiva is sometimes seen as half male and half female?"

  "He's intersex?" I raised an eyebrow, which made my mother laugh again, harder.

  "No daughter, it means the true being of the Lord is genderless," she said. "Just as your soul is formless and infinite. You can't define it. You just love the soul born in a body of the same gender, and that is all."

  ~*~

  Relief flooded my chest. I smiled and burrowed myself in my mother's bosom again. She kissed the crown of my head.

  "Mother, you're not angry or upset with us, are you?" I asked her.

  "It's not a common thing indeed, but our culture believes if two women take each other as a spouse, it is because they were fated lovers from their past lives, and no one shall interrupt the harmony of their union."

  I looked at her in gratitude. It meant so much that she accepted it wholeheartedly.

  "Now, I know why my father is still in love with you. He never wishes to marry another woman," I murmured. I could almost see her smile. The elder Queen was thinking about her future husband. A man she had never met. Although we were not biologically related in this lifetime, I felt like we were already mother and daughter in heart and spirit.

  "He must be a great man."

  "He is. I don't know what happened to him after I ended up here, mother," I said. "A part of me wants to go back, but another part of me wants to stay."

  "Sweet child, I wish I could revoke my words so that the Fate would spare you."

  "Don't blame yourself anymore, mother," I wiped away her tears that streamed down her cheeks. "At least, I have found you again, and it is all that matters to me."

  I remembered the day my father told me my mother had passed away, I climbed onto the maple tree and waited for the moon to shine. I stayed there all day into an early twilight. The trees were silent. At dusk, my father came at the foot of the tree and waited until I came down. Then he and I slept under the tree all night yet the moon did not rise.

  I wondered how my father would feel if he knew I had found her again in a realm far beyond our own.

  I stayed content in her arms and felt the love that I had been craving the most for all those years.

  When I was younger, my mom and I used to sleep outside watching the full moon together in our backyard. There was a true birdsong with trills and warbles. We lay beneath the canopy of leafy branches of a Cypress for the longest time, staring at the moonrise and twinkling stars.

  That night, Queen Jayara, my past mother, tried to explain to me the theory of rebirth and reincarnation. She had told me that the boundaries of the afterlife were like the stars in daytime. Just because I can’t see them during the day, it doesn’t mean they aren't there in the sky. Reincarnations are the same. Your true essence travels through time and space, going in and out of form as part of the cosmic energy. In one life
, you are a man. In other, you are a woman. Just as when a star dies, a new one is born. In the mortal world, our fates are like threads perfectly entwined like a cobweb, and only the spider knows its design.

  "We are merely passing by and when we have finished one lifetime, we move onto another—sometimes greater, sometimes lesser depending on our Karma."

  "Mother, please tell no one about the secret of my birth," I said, pulling away from her warm embrace, "especially, Amarisa. I don't want her to know of my terrible curse."

  My mother looked pained.

  "I don't know how long we could hide such a heavy truth,” she sighed. “Her mother is a wise woman, and her father loves her beyond words. I can't decide what they should and shouldn't do in regard to our only girl," she said, "but surely, I promise you, Nikita, this is just between you and me."

  ~*~

  On the thyme-scented, bird-hatching morning in early spring the next day, Amarisa came to my chamber. She looked relieved to see me again.

  "I thought Mother Jayara would not let you return," she said as she held me. "I heard from the palace maids that she took you to our sacred temple. I thought she was going to ask the gods to take you away from me."

  I laughed and stroked her hair then kissed her bare shoulder.

  "You worried over nothing," I said. "We were just talking about the war."

  "And that was all?" she said. "Did she say something about telling my parents of us?"

  "No, our secret is safe with her," I told the princess then pulled away to look at her. "She knew of our special bond and is not against it. You can stop worrying now."

  "Good lord, I'm so relieved," she said. I smiled back.

  Later, we went on a dragon gondola ride, floating along the city moat to the West Baray, which was the largest of its kind and sprawling over hectares of square land like a small ocean in itself. Several guards' boats also trailed behind us, but they didn't dare to interrupt our privacy.

  Amarisa still questioned me all the details of the previous night with her mother, but I tried my best to sidetrack her from the truth. Amarisa didn't know that I was Queen Jayara's daughter from the future.

  "The Queen didn't do anything unpleasant or threaten me to leave you," I reassured her as I busied myself with a pencil sketch on my drawing pad. My hand became a bit stiff, but it didn't take long to breathe life onto the paper. Amarisa possessed the epitome of beauty and simplicity —a rare quality that no one had. I hadn't drawn anything quite like this.

  "I know of Mother Jayara's kindness and loving nature, but I worry that my parents don't feel the same," Amarisa spoke from the other end of the gondola. The splattering noises could be heard from the bottom of the boat as an oarsman moved his oar at the stern

  I looked up from my sketch. Her face depicted her state of mind, and her posture accorded with her less elevated mood. I put my drawing pad down and moved over to the distressed princess and gathered her in my arms. She welcomed my affection.

  "There is nothing to worry about, Amarisa," I said as I smoothened her dark silky hair that caught in the gentle breeze. "No matter what happens, I will never leave you."

  "Tomorrow, King Father will come back to the city," she said in a soft voice as she wiped off a black smudge from my fingertips with her handkerchief.

  "Will you be able to see me then?" I asked and she nodded.

  "Of course," she said. "As long as the sun still rises and the flowers still bloom, I shall come to you."

  I smiled back and kissed her cheek. The boat crawled slowly through a field of pink lotuses and leaves that rose above the water. The fragrant scent brushed deliciously against our noses.

  "Let us enjoy today and think no more of tomorrow," I said, tipping Amarisa's chin to look at me. She nodded again with a small smile. I gave her a soft light kiss on the lips and moved back to my earlier place.

  I picked my drawing pad from the seat and began my work again. Amarisa plucked a young lotus and began folding its petals into her own design.

  'Time is like a lotus flower.' Queen Jayara had said to me. 'You visualized the flower opening at dawn, the way the outer petals peel away to reveal the inner ones. An inner petal would never know the older, outer ones, though it was also shaped by them. Only the viewer who plucks the flower can see how each petal is connected to the others.’

  I knew I should live through the mysteries that were teeming around me, but for the first time, I wanted to find the viewer and ask him or her what lay ahead of me.

  Should I blame the gods who brought me here? Or Vishnu, the Lord of Destiny? Or Shiva, the Destroyer? Who am I besides being the daughter of the chaste Queen? Who should I blame for my fate? Who was responsible for the life I was leading?

  Meanwhile, I was pondering my life's universal questions, Amarisa came to me again. She put her palm on my cheek when she noticed the looks on my face.

  "Tell me what is troubling you," she said in concern.

  "Nothing," I said with a shake of my head. "Do you like the drawing?"

  I had finished the portrait. The princess let out an adorable gasp. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  "Nikita, it's so beautiful!" she said.

  "You're beautiful." I smiled.

  "Why did you draw me as the Apsara?" she said, sounding impressed.

  "In my eyes, you're still that celestial maiden the night we first met. The princess who makes my blood sing and my heart dance," I said and grabbed her body, pulling her onto my lap. The gondola gave a slight swing under us. Amarisa gasped, which caused me to giggle.

  "And you must be the reason why the flowers grow and rainbows arch," she teased me back. I laughed. Then she handed me her elegantly folded lotus. I took it from her hand and brought the scented flower to my nose.

  "I love you very much, Amarisa," I told her.

  "I know," she said. The princess wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the lips, causing the same tingling sensation in my body.

  Maybe, I should let the future arrive at its own pace, unfurl its secrets at its will. I should let the past go like the outer lotus petals.

  Here and now was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER 37

  Our days passed like molasses. The King and his Queen had returned to the capital. The Game Day was then announced to be set in a matter of two moon phases.

  I finally returned to the encampment, and we all labored under more strict training. As usual, no one suffered worse than me. Tepi and her self-appointed assistant from the Underworld were busy planning strategies. To keep ourselves from going mad with anticipation, Vorac, Tusita, and Atith, with their passion for the celestial winged horses, occupied me with the flying lessons.

  Morokot and Samudra became my advisers on self-preservation. Morokot proved to be very knowledgeable in this matter. She knew all the tricks that Issarak might have intended to weave from his crafty mind. In contrast, Samudra taught me the rules and moral obligations of the Game. I wondered if all these would help me.

  Amarisa came to the encampment with her royal parents every noon. At night, when everyone had fallen into their slumber, she would wrap herself in a veil in disguise then came to my chamber. The princess was utterly worried about my well-being. Every time she saw a fresh cut and bruise on my arms or my legs, she grew sad.

  I considered it sweet and womanly of her, but I reassured her that I would be in no danger as my friends would protect me in a time of need and that I was, after all, slowly becoming a warrior myself.

  Amarisa would spend the first watch of the night with me. I would report to her all the things that happened during the day and she would listen.

  One time she fell asleep in my arms and woke up at the crack of dawn in panic. I saw her off before the other palace servants noticed she had gone amiss.

  But during those tranquil hours, Amarisa was aware of my longing, and she soothed my hunger with as much intimacy as she could give.

  The wait was finally over. The big day had arrived with more ex
citement and eagerness in the air. At the Main Pavilion, the King and Queens sat with other official attendants. Sambo made the announcement before the sun rose from behind the mountains.

  "On behalf of the King and Queens," he began, looking over us. "I announce the first quest for the Game. Both teams shall bring back a tail of the Mayura bird by tomorrow before sunset."

  Issarak and his friends smirked at us from the other side of the field. Behind them were their bronze Hamsas.

  "For the next quest," the Guru said again. "You must bring back a scale of the Rainbow Fish. And the last quest is the most important testament for all great warriors. You have to catch the king of the forest, Gajasimha."

  The crowd gasped in wonderment.

  "The winner shall be declared the leader of our holy army." The Guru turned and bowed to the monarchs again. The Brahmin priests chanted a few mantra of blessings and blew their conchs three times. The drums were struck continuously as a sign to start the game.

  Before we left, I turned around to look at my mother and Amarisa. As I expected, they both were enveloped in unspeakable emotions. Each showed me love and support through their eyes if not with words. Then I caught a glimpse of Kesar sitting in a concealing corner, watching me.

  It pained my heart, but I was delighted to see her again.

  "Come along, Nikita," Tusita said. I turned back and followed my friends to the stables. Everybody, except Samudra and Raksa, got ready to fly.

  "Where are we going to find the phoenix?" I asked Tepi.

  "According to the Hora, the Mayura's whereabouts are most likely in the eastern quarter of the sky," Tepi said. "We must fly east before Issarak finds the bird first. Their flying Hamsas are fast and powerful, too."

  "We will win this, Nikita," Tusita assured me with a pat on my shoulder. "I am the daughter of the sky lord and guardian of the east. I won't disappoint him in this quest."

  We mounted the Ashvas. The winged horses began to gallop into the field. I could see Issarak's bronze bird leaving a white streak of smoke in the sky.

  "I think we must hurry," Atith said. Everyone nodded in agreement. After a running start, our divine horses unfolded their enormous wings. We rose into the air like a flock of doves.