#uttamaujas

The camp was cloaked in a deathly silence that was only broken by the occassional wails and the crackling of funeral pyres. Yudhamanyu stood outside one of the tents silently, head turned downwards, seemingly deep in thought.

"Manu-" Uttamaujas poked his twin's arm, suddenly remembering something.

"Hmm?" Yudhamanyu said, not looking up.

"Vikrant! Shit- We- we forgot Vikrant, we forgot to get him, we have to go now!"

Yudhamanyu's head snapped up. "What? How?"

"I- I was driving the chariot, remember? And after we got Arjun, I- we went straight back to the camp and then he was so angry he was yelling at everyone and I couldn't hear myself think and- We have to go! There's a chance he's still- he's-" Uttam's voice cracked on the last word.

"Uttam! Come on!" Yudhamanyu was shouting at him. He couldn't see much out of the remains of his broken chariot and Vikrant's body hanging on the remains.

Vikrant was bleeding, his head struck open due to a wedge headed arrow that he had stepped in the way of. To protect his older brother, who was driving Yudhamanyu's chariot then. To protect him.

"GO!" Vikrant managed to slur out, but uttam was frozen, still looking at him. In that moment, time seemed to stop.

"Uttam!"

"GO!"

"COME ON! WE NEED TO LEAVE!"

"LEAVE! GO!" Vikrant kept saying. His words kept getting more and more garbled.

He looked at Duryodhan. He looked at Vikrant. Throwing Vikrant a look of the greatest regret imaginable he let go of his hand and leapt towards Yudhamanyu's chariot and grabbed the arm extended toward him. A bead of sweat snaked down Yudhamanyu's forehead. Uttam leapt to the front of the chariot and grabbed the reins.

He couldn't say it. He couldn't give himself false hope. Almost like a corpse, almost like a ghost, he walked, one foot after the other. Yudhamanyu treaded just a bit ahead, holding a torch, the slick black sooty oil on it dripping, creating a trail as they walked. As soon as they came away from the main campsite and onto the battlefield, the smell hit their noses like a wall of arrows created by an astra. The last thirteen days had made the blood seep into the ground and rot, making it difficult for even the most skilled charioteers to manouveur through the mud and slush. It wasn't uncommon to hear the squelch of a decomposing body under one's foot or wheels. Even Uttam's own hand was occupied in hitching his clothes up, above where the blood could reach. It wasn't like the water they would have to wash the clothes with was clean anyways.

Holding their breath, they walked ahead. The lights of the opposite camp flickered mockingly at them.

"We had gone westward, right?" Yudhamanyu asked again.

"Mm," Uttamaujas did not speak, partly because of the lump in his throat, partly because he was holding his breath. He had failed Vikrant. He promised- he promised Vikrant he would be back for him, and- No, no, no- damnit, uttam, stay calm, he chided himself. He needed to remember.

"Come on, Prince. You made me try wrestling, it's only fair that you try driving too!" Vikrant had said, and without waiting for an answer, begun to tie the horses to the chariot.

And what an afternoon it was, the dappled sunlight in the woods the only witness to Vikrant's hands on Uttam's hands on the reins. The trees the only witness to how close they sat, the grass the only witness to how badly Uttam drove and how Vikrant laughed.

The wind had whipped Uttam's hair into Vikrant's face and he had swatted it off, playfully chiding him to keep it out of the way, and it had carried Uttam's whispered endearments to Vikrant's ears.

Argh, no, no, not that. Uttam shuddered involuntarily, as if to shake off the memories, and blinked hard. He sighed, finally exhaling and then curling up his nose at the stench that came with next inhale. His head felt light. Way too lightheaded for something like this.

"Uttam, you with me?" Yudhamanyu asked.

Uttamaujas grunted again.

"Uttam! Stay alert, it is your charioteer we're searching for, at your insistence! At least try to help me out here!" He sounded annoyed.

Uttam grabbed his arm. "Manu, we- we were fleeing, and you blew up a broken chariot. The fire still has to be going, it can't have gone out yet," He said, his teeth gritted and his lips pressed together and his forehead carrying too many creases to count.

There were three fires, still going steady(although dimmed due to how much time had passed.) They walked to the furthest one, Uttamaujas' lips moving in a constant prayer, his teeth chattering in the bitter cold. Yudhamanyu moved his torch over the wreckage, but found no body. He looked at Uttam. Uttam looked at him. They silently walked toward the next pile of burning wood and flesh, hoping that Vikrant's body still existed in a salvageable enough form to take back to the camp.

It wasn't there. Uttam's heart sank. Involuntarily, his eyes filled with tears.

"Hey, let's check- let's check that other place," Yudhamanyu tried to console him. But his voice was barely heard. It had grown late enough that crows, owls, vultures, all of them were circling the battlefield, looking for something good to eat. They were living a more luxurious life than the warriors, Yudhamanyu mused darkly.

Uttam swallowed and nodded. They trudged through the sludge, trying not to step on the bodies and miserably failing. A vulture swooped past Uttam's face, and he cowered and recoiled.

When they were kidnapped as children, they were kept a pit in the ground so deep that no one would be able to enter. It was a dead, dry, forest. Whoever their kidnappers were, they didn't place guards anywhere. They arranged corpses on the ground, all in plain view. Every day, without fail, vultures would come to feast on their remains, their growls and titters and screeches echoing in the air long after they were gone. The vultures were the guards. The sun shone into the pit, but it brought no relief. The water gurgling in the stream nearby made Yudhamanyu and Uttamaujas feel even more thirsty because they couldn't have any of it. It made Yudhamanyu brazenly unafraid, with a hatred of birds in general. And Uttamaujas? Uttamaujas became scared of vultures, with their unseeing grey eyes and bulging red fleshy necks with no feathers. He dreaded every time one swooped past him with it's jagged wings and cries that seemed to only spell death.

Yudhamanyu instinctively stepped forward, drawing his sword and shielding Uttam with his body.

And as Yudhamanyu moved, as they came in the vicinity of the spot they were trying to get to, Uttamaujas saw it. A body, lying on top of other bodies, half hanging off a broken chariot, broken reins still in hand.

A wound on his head which had clotted by then.

A stomach torn open with guts spilling out, eaten by the vultures like some fucked up version of sevai.

His heart grew as cold as the wind blowing around them.

They had found Vikrant, but there lay his body, too broken to be taken back, too wet, too rotten to offer to Agni.

He rushed forward, tripping and stumbling over their broken chariots and crashing to his knees in front of it. AND THAT DAMNED VULTURE WAS STILL IN THE FIRELIGHT LOOKING AT HIM AS IF HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PROUD OF IT AND CALL IT A GOOD LITTLE BIRD FOR EATING OUT THE CORPSE OF THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE!

A broken cry ripped out of Uttam, knocking out all the air from his lungs, frightening off even the scariest of scavengers looking to feast on what was his.

"HE LIED!" Uttam cried out, hand gripping the broken chariot "HE SAID HE WOULD NEVER LEAVE ME, HE SAID HE WOULD WAIT!"

"Utt-" Yudhamanyu tried to step forward, try to comfort his brother, but got swatted away like a fly. His arm stung due to the slap. Uttam's arm stung too, but he didn't care.

Yudhamanyu felt a bone deep heaviness and exhaustion settle within him. He knew those feelings weren't his own, but he still had to do all he could keep his knees from buckling.

"JUST KILL ME! WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO LIVE FOR?? MANU!!!!! YUDHAMANYU!"

He was crying out, screaming for dada and Yudhamanyu and Vikrant and father and- and anyone else he could think of, going on a tirade about how he had no one now, but when Yudhamanyu actually reached out for him, he pushed him away.

And god, it hurt so much. He had seen it happen with Agnijaa and Dhrishtadyumna, fifteen years ago and then continuing since then, he had seen it happen with Kumara and Panchalya, and it had happened with them, before. It still hurt.

"Uttam," He finally said, getting a punch thrown at him for the effort. When he tried to restrain Uttam, though, his brother was relentlessly beating on his chest in a fit of hysteria, insisting that he had nothing to live for now and that he should just be killed and that he wouldn't care if he died. An anger older than his bones awakened within Yudhamanyu. Dislodging his arm from Uttam's grip, he smacked him across the face with a resounding tHWACK.

"UTTAM! Stop it! YOU SAY YOU HAVE NO ONE, YET YOURE TRYING TO PUSH ME AWAY WHEN I TRY TO HELP! DADA MUST BE WORRIED SICK FOR US, AND EVEN RIGHT NOW I AM THE ONE WHO DID MOST OF THE SEARCHING, I AM REALLY TRYING HERE, SO IF YOU COULD STOP FIGHING ME LIKE I AM YOUR ENEMY I WOULD REALLY FUCKING APPRECIATE IT!"

But just as he finished his rant, his cheek stung.

Oh.

Oh.

Uttam was trying to hurt himself, not Yudhamanyu. Then, Yudhamanyu just tried to restrain his blows without dealing out any of his own, and after a few moments of struggling, Uttam's wrists were clutched tightly in his grasp. It was then that he got a good look at his face. He looked tired, he looked devastated, apologetic, as if waiting for him to stop.

"I was trying to make you hate me! Why won't you do it!"

Yudhamanyu hugged him tight. "I would never." He said with the utmost seriousness. "Alright, now. We- we need to take the body back,"

Uttam did not say anything. He shook in Yudhamanyu's grip, silent sobs wracking his frame, his arms holding his twin like a lifeline.

After what felt like forever, he composed himself, wiped his eyes, and lifted the body. Bulging, rotten, half-eaten. Heavy, swollen, pecked out. It was handsome once. But with Vikrant not there anymore, it had ceased to be all the good things Vikrant was.

Yudhamanyu built the pyre. Uttamaujas cremated Vikrant.

Yudhamanyu consoled him.

Uttamaujas took a bath, and cried himself to sleep.