Chapter 12: The Unbalance

They gathered by the fire that night, long after Draupadi and Agnika had fallen asleep.

The wind outside howled like a whisper from some distant age. Inside the cave, the flames danced quietly, casting flickers of gold across the stone.

Bhima sat holding his shawl, still stunned by the word that had broken from her lips that morning.

> “Baba.”

It echoed in his chest like a drumbeat he didn’t understand.

Arjuna stirred the fire with a branch, face unreadable.

Nakula paced.

Sahadeva sat cross-legged, arms folded.

And at the center, as always, sat Yudhishthir, calm as still water.

---

Bhima finally spoke.

> “She cries in her sleep. Not like a child afraid of the dark. It’s… deeper. Like mourning.”

Sahadeva added, “And then she wakes with tears, reaching for one of us — or someone else.”

“She’s not old enough to remember anything,” Arjuna murmured. “And yet… she remembers.”

Nakula snapped, “Why? What is she?”

Their eyes all turned to Yudhishthir.

The fire cracked. The silence stretched.

At last, he said it.

> “She is not a child.”

They froze.

Yudhishthir’s eyes didn’t waver. He looked at each of them in turn.

> “She wears the body of a child, yes. Laughs like one. Holds your finger like one. But that soul—”

“That soul is something older. Something incomplete. Something not meant for this world.”

Bhima’s grip on his shawl tightened. “Then why did she come to us?”

Yudhishthir exhaled slowly.

> “She is what the world does not want to hold. The pain no one claims. The stories too heavy to carry.”

> “She is… an unbalance. A force born to absorb the sorrow of others.”

The fire crackled louder now.

Arjuna whispered, “You mean she’s cursed?”

“No,” Yudhishthir said firmly. “She’s necessary.”

He looked toward the sleeping form of Agnika, curled in Draupadi’s arms.

> “The world… is not balanced. Joy and grief are not equal. There is more pain than justice. More wounds than healing. So nature, or fate, or something higher — it creates one like her.”

> “One who can take in the sadness of others, feel it, dream it — and in doing so, carry it for them.”

---

Sahadeva’s voice cracked. “But she’s just a baby…”

“Yes,” Yudhishthir said quietly. “That’s the cruelty of it.”

Nakula whispered, “Then she will always cry?”

“Perhaps,” Yudhishthir said. “Perhaps until she is strong enough to transform it. Or… until she finds someone who can carry her pain, the way she carries everyone else’s.”

They fell into silence again.

Bhima rose slowly.

He walked toward the sleeping Agnika, knelt, and gently brushed a curl from her brow.

She stirred only slightly — still safe, still small.

> “If she absorbs sorrow,” Bhima said softly,

“then no one in this world deserves more love than her.”

---

The others came beside him.

They looked at her differently now.

Not with pity.

Not with confusion.

But with something deeper — a promise.

That even if she was made of sorrow…

> They would become her joy.

---

🌌 End of Chapter 12