#gauri

“Ah,” she says, eyes glittering when she sees the divine beauty, “is she not pretty, Arya?”

Shiva thinks ‘pretty’ does not even begin to describe her. Mohini is short and dark, all lissom limbs corded with lean muscles, and open hair rolling all the way down to her calves. With her dimpled cheeks and long lashes, she looks very unlike Vishnu, whom Shiva knows and dotes upon. For a moment, Shiva is possessed by a strange desire to speak to her, certain that even Saraswati’s songs would not match the sweetness of her voice, and he is almost jealous of the Asuras.

Parvati’s laughter brings him back to earth, to the mountain no longer churning, and Vasuki slithering wearily around his shoulders.

“My dear Vasuki,” his wife says, eyes crinkled with amusement, “leave your lord to his musings, now that Kama, rascal that he is, has decided to strike my poor husband once again.”

“No!” Shiva says, louder than intended, and blushes. “No,” he repeats, “it is nothing like that.”

The excuse sounds weak even to his own ears. Parvati laughs harder. Shiva decides the next time he gets hold of Kamadeva, there would be no return from the burning.

2.

As if Kama striking him was not enough, Rati shows up on Kailash the following week, eyes bright with mischief.

“We won the war easily,” she tells Gauri, as if that was what she had come to discuss all along.

Shiva does not trust her one bit. He is proven correct when Rati follows that up with, “It is all because of lovely Mohini. Did you see how she charmed the Asuras?”

“Of course we did. Arya was very interested,” says the traitor previously known as Gauri, Shiva's wife.

“Was he?” Rati covers her smile with a coy palm. “Of course he was! Such beauty, such grace! Why, I feared if this went on unchecked, I would lose my place as Goddess of... you know.”

Gauri throws him an amused wink, barely holding back her teasing delight. “I do know,” she agrees.

Shiva pretends that this time, he will stick to his resolve of never speaking to his wife again.

3.

“She is alone now!” Kali says, bouncing excitedly next to him. “You should go take your chance! Shoot your shot! Ask to court her!”

“I am your husband,” Shiva says exasperated, even as he laughs at her antics. “Are you not even a little jealous?”

Kali ignores his question and rolls right over him. “Maybe you shall have a babe, the sweetest child in all the three worlds! What if it is a boy? With her dark face and your dreadful hair? Or a girl? Oh my, please let it be a girl.”

“That is Vishnu,” Shiva tries, ignoring the comment about his dreadful hair. “Your brother. Why are you like this?”

Kali waves a dismissive hand. “She is my sister, not my brother. Besides, any sister worth her salt would aid her sibling’s pursuit of a gentleman.”

The words warm Shiva’s heart more than Surya’s fire ever could. “You think I am a gentleman?”

Kali turns her nose up at him and points to the enchantress. “Not if you do not go after her.”

Shiva does as he is told. After all happy wives make for happy lives.

4.

It is incredibly easy for Kali to tell him to ‘shoot his shot’ from cold Kailash, but as Shiva soon finds out, it is significantly more difficult than it looks.

For one, Mohini takes one look at him and starts running. She is not even fleeing from him – Shiva would never pursue a woman who did not want his company – she merely appears to enjoy teasing him. This lines up with what Shiva knows of Vishnu. What does not line up is the crowd of gods gathered in the clouds, cheering them on. Cheering him onwards.

“This is mortifying,” he calls out to Mohini, as Kama and Vasanta drop flowers on them, and Vayu makes their clothes flutter dramatically. “Stop, I beg you!”

Mohini only laughs. It is the dearest sound in all the world – sweet as the nectar she stole for the gods, breathless as Ganga at Gangotri, and delirious as Varuni's newly brought sura. Shiva feels Rati’s pull upon his ascetic self, and willingly lets it consume him.

Mohini’s joy is worth the pain of Kama’s love.

5.

Afterwards, they lie together in a shadowed glade, beneath a blossoming Kadamba tree. The air carries the scent of spring flowers and oncoming rain, and of their shared affection.

Shiva rolls around to look at her, at Mohini, Mistress of Illusions, and asks quietly, “Are you alright?”

Mohini laughs. It is more breathless than it was before, but it is still the most delightful sound in the world.

“Of course I am,” she says, making sparkling patterns in the air. “But I will demand recompense for my torn necklace - and you may not have any help this time.”

Shiva finds himself smiling as well. He reaches out a hand, all the way from the earthly air to the gardens of the divine, plucking lotuses from Indra's pond. Then, from the weaver spider he borrows a silken thread and strings it through the flowers.

“Will you have this?” he asks Mohini, offering her the garland.

“Mighty ascetic,” says the enchantress, “any gift from you I shall treasure and wear all my immortal life.”

+1.

Mohini is visiting them on Kailash when Lakshmi comes to see Uma. She is a little miffed to be drawn away from Ayyappa, sure, but the new goddess is good company, and Uma is eager to be her friend.

Mistress Wealth is an indescribable beauty, with her gold-bright face and ruby lips, and her hair a riot of obsidian curls. Her smile, bright as Varuna's best pearls, widens when she sees Uma.

“Greetings,” Lakshmi calls, waving a dainty hand. “It has been a while.”

“It has indeed,” Uma agrees, pulling her to the side. “Shiva is with the baby. Come meet Ayyappa!”

“You had a child?” Lakshmi lights up. "Oh, oh, may I see him?”

“Of course!” Uma shakes her head and adds, “His mother is Mohini.”

Lakshmi furrows her brows. “Who is- ” she begins, and then stops.

Uma turns to look back at her, bewildered, only to find Lakshmi staring at Vishnu-Mohini, who has emerged from the antechamber at the sound of voices. They are also in the process of swapping between forms – male one moment, female the next.

Uma swallows her laughter at Lakshmi's besotted look, turns to her sibling and gestures at the quick changes. “Why are you doing... this? My head hurts from looking at you.”

“You wound me!” Vishnu-Mohini clutches their chest dramatically, which is hampered by the fact that their breast swells one moment and disappears the next. “I must find out which form looks most pleasing on me. Oh, who is this lovely goddess?”

Lakshmi stirs as if from a trance, and immediately blurts out, “Are you married?”

“Not yet.” Mohini winks at her. “Are you proposing? Where are my gifts?”

Lakshmi holds out her hand and pulls an ornament from thin air – a weighty necklace of garnet-studded gold – and offers it to Mohini with the most serious look Uma has ever seen on the restless goddess's face.

“Marry me,” she says, “and you shall have my heart and mind and all treasures of land and sea.”

Mohini takes it, eyes gleaming. “I like chasing and being chased.”