"pinjare mein ek billee ek sher ban jaatee hai"
a cat in a cage becomes a lion
A lone figure lingered in the softly rolling sand dunes, listening to the song of the ocean surf washing upon the beach. She was alone, but not at all lonely. Once upon this shore, she had been the loneliest mare of all. But then she had met a like soul here, a familiar stranger, and they had stood side by side. And just as the salt water washed over the sand and swilled around their hooves, so too had the stallion’s presence, his coming-alive, washed over Darshan, drowning her loneliness and banishing it from her, so that no matter where she was, even if she found herself to be alone in a foreign land, she would never again be lonely, because she knew that, somewhere out there, a bright and beautiful soul was reflecting light like the very moon itself.
That had been Shamwari’s gift to her.
She had followed him back to the Island called Luthien, the place that was his home, and she had stayed there for a time, thriving and enjoying freedom and care under his watchful eye. The life inside her grew, and when their tiny daughter was born, Darshan struggled to recover, barely clinging to life. Two things saved her, gave her the will to fight and thrive again. Perhaps one day, she would tell Shamwari of this, of how her journey to being whole and heathy again had taken her back into the place of darkness she had come from – the place she had sworn to never return to. And how it had brought her back here, back to the very place she’d stood beneath the stars with him. The place where he had planted hope and joy wherever he’d pressed gentle kisses to her skin.
Though it had been over two years since she’d last made the swim to Luthien, she knew it by heart. More than anything, she wanted to return, just to see his face again, to know if he was okay, and to let him know that even though her wanderings had taken her far, far from him, she’d never forgotten him. Darshan was alone, but she was not lonely. Her daughter was not far, and as soon as Vihaan returned to her, together they would make their way to a place that had been Home to them, and might be Home still.
Darshan
the perceptive
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