So I wrote two chapters and was considering posting this one later, but since I used to do mass posts, I figure it doesn't matter as long as I finish this story ASAP.

Countdown: two! Though this refers to the number of chapters without the epilogue (which can be considered pretty important) so technically two + epilogue!

Disclaimer: There are many things in this world that do not belong to me. Kubera is one of them.

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Courtship of a Phoenix

…

"Do you hate me?"

Visnu held Shuri to his chest, the latter struggling not to drag her claws down his shoulders and carve mean gashes into his body.

"I always knew this would happen," she whispered vehemently. "That one day, your constant meddling would tear the three of us apart."

He clutched her tighter.

"I thought, no, it made sense." She lifted her head, and for the first time stared straight into those kaleidoscopic eyes. "Even before you told me that the queen always dies so the king doesn't have to, I've long resigned that if there was anyone I were to die for, it'd be you."

With that, she withdrew from his embrace, knowing deep in her heart this was the last time she would ever see her beloved Visnu.

…

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Beginning of the End
N0 - approx. 130 years

…

It began one night, when Visnu crawled out of the bushes. Garuda was sitting solemnly on his throne, his children having left to play and Vinata to do whatever it was she did in her spare time. Truth be told, he could not even keep tabs on his wife anymore. Their lovemaking was sporadic, when she showed up looking a little less than tragic. His heart lurched in pity on those nights as he took her into his arms.

But on this night it was Visnu who came to him and stood beneath him like a humble soldier and not like the god of space and time.

"I have done a lot of wrong to my friends for many billions of years," he said. The first sign that indicated anything was out of place was his emotional voice—as if he were just a push away from breaking down entirely. "But it is you I have to apologize to you for having brought you the most pain and for continuously bringing you more."

"Visnu..."

"I accept that this is entirely my responsibility. If I could have fixed it without your involvement... yours and Shuri's and Gandharva's, I would have long ago."

Visnu started pacing the grounds, and Garuda sat attentively on his throne, unsure whether it was prudent to approach and calm his best friend. What happened next stopped him in his tracks. He caught a glimpse of Visnu's face and saw a despicable, soulless smile full of more self-loathing than he could even begin to imagine.

"I wanted to give you enough time with your children, with your daughter so that you'd have an image of them even after they were gone."

The seraph froze. He couldn't mean...

"But Kali and Shiva are already on the move," sighed Visnu. "And there is one more... another god who has defied the rules and destroyed the balance of the universe."

Brahma? That was the first name that came to Garuda's mind, but Visnu's twisted face and the harshness of his voice clearly indicated he'd not been speaking of her.

"There is a huge tragedy coming," Visnu whispered, defeated. "I don't know when. I don't know how. All I know is that it'll bring calamity upon the entire universe and that I need to keep your three children safe, because they are the key to this person's downfall."

"..." Garuda inhaled tensely. "What is this key that you speak of?"

"The power of the name," said Visnu. "More specifically, Ananta's power. It's gone."

Garuda was confused. "Of course. Ananta was brought down by Kubera. His name and power should have ceased to exist."

"But they didn't. I remember clearly the moment Ananta died. All four Primeval gods do. There should have been a great shift of power between the gods and Suras. But there wasn't. The Name Ananta didn't cease to exist. It just... disappeared."

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N0 - approx. 130 years

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The conversation stayed with Garuda for weeks, unnerving his every move. Visnu spoke in riddles, he knew. Ananta did not cease to exist, but he was gone. Garuda did not know what this meant, but what the Primeval god told him next he could not dismiss from his mind: his three children, Maruna, Jatayu, and Kalavinka each had on them a piece—a faint clue, according to Visnu, of where the name was. It was tied to their Power of the Name somehow. He did not understand and so he did not ask for Visnu to explain. But the principle stayed—when the three of them were together, they would cause mass destruction. And so they had to be separated.

"I will take one," Visnu had told him. "The other two will be naturally trusted to Gandharva and Shuri. At the expense of keeping them safe, we will not be able to see each other."

"For how long?"

Visnu had paused. "Perhaps a decade, perhaps forever."

His head throbbed with the information. What to do, what to do? He glanced to the three siblings, now inseparable. Garuda did not understand how three such innocent looking, such weak Rakshasas could possibly pose as a threat to the entire universe.

But if Visnu said so...

Visnu had come to him in a moment of indecision, had strengthened his clan and introduced the alliance of two others. He had brought Garuda the golden age, through lies and deceit, through manipulation, it did not matter. Garuda would never forget that.

I owe everything to him, the king knew. There was no possibility that he would ever betray his dearest friend. But—

Vinata.

His wife was the one wildcard. On top of being unpredictable, she was unstable, and it was he himself who made their children her one last support. So what would happen when he took them away from her?

Garuda clenched his fists. Again and again, he had hurt her. All he wanted was to do right—to do right by his friends, his clan, most of all by his wife. It seemed that his efforts barely fell through every time.

As he stood in front of Vinata's cave, he ran his mind through all the possibilities. She would beat him. She would leave him. She would fall into depression and die. She would—she would—

"What's wrong?"

Garuda's eyes widened. Vinata's feathers looked beautiful in the setting sun. They glowed golden, ethereal. Her skin was creamy and beautiful. Her eyes were wide and so very naive. Garuda almost wanted to cry.

How could she speak so unsuspectingly in the face of utter betrayal?

"I am about to hurt you in the most despicable way," he said quietly.

But she just stared at him with those wide eyes... And then she laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "Oh stop being so dramatic. I thought we decided a long time ago that we were going to be truthful to each other."

"Yes, and that is why I am here when every instinct tells me to flee in the opposite direction." His eyes were rigidly downcast as her smile slowly faded. "I... promised Visnu I would send away the children."

Her grip on him grew limp. He felt her slipping away from him. Again, so close but so far away. Again, betrayed by the one she trusted the most. He anticipated the impact long before it came, the harsh jagged rock clashing against his head, her hands strangling his collar. She was yelling something incoherent in his face, but all he could see were her tears. Her hair flew. Her eyes glowed like the devil's. Why Garuda was out of breath, he did not even know. Was this the first time she would strike him unconscious? Or was he just stunned by the intensity—Vinata never did do anything but intensely.

"No." Vinata shook her head furiously. "No! I will not let you."

Garuda gently cupped her face. Even through the rivulets of blood running down his face, he could see her delusional smile. She snarled, snatched his hands and wrenched them away from her.

"How dare you?" she yelled. "How dare you take away the most precious thing to me again and again and again and again and again?" He felt her sharp nails cutting into his tendons. "Do you know how it feels wanting so much to snap this neck, knowing that I could never do it? Why do you do this to me?"

I'm - doing it to protect you! He screamed in his throbbing head. The concussion was making it hard to focus and the shape of the red devil, his wife, slowly started to fade.

"You have broken me," she said, "more times than I could count, into more pieces than I could fathom; forced me, coerced me, cornered me into more than I could possibly ever say."

"All I wanted is to protect you." His words sounded empty to his own ears.

"And that—that hurts me more than anything," she scowled.

"Visnu said—" he coughed blood. "Visnu said the entire clan will be in danger if we don't separate the children. And I won't have them in danger. I won't have you in danger."

"Visnu says, Visnu says. So it doesn't matter at all what I say? Even though Maruna and Kalavinka are my children."

He brushed the mess of tresses behind her ears, exposing her ferocious countenance. Please, he begged, please, please understand me. All I ever wanted was for you to understand me. "There can always be more children, but there'll never be another you."

Vinata went blank, her entire body freezing. Garuda thought she would have forgotten to fly and plummeted into the depths below. But she was still there, and she was laughing—laughing at him, at the whole universe even, with her head tilted up like she'd finally found god.

"Oh you delusional fool! There won't be more children. There'll never be more children. This is it, this is the end!"

She'd finally gone off her knockers, he finally understood. Vinata jumped back and twirled in the air, her hands outstretched to catch the breeze. And she was twirling, twirling, spiraling, falling.

"I am finished," said the Nastika with a crazed, carefree expression. "Done with you, done with our clan, done with everything, done with this universe. I'm divorcing you. You can keep me as your pawn, your secretary, your lieutenant, your bedmate. I don't care. But I'll never be your wife again."

"You'll always be my wife."

He could have sworn he saw tears as she faded into the abyss.

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N0 - approx. 130 years

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Garuda would have lied if he said he'd never seen Vinata cry like the day her children were taken away from her. Once, he had but it was so long ago it felt like an otherworldly dream. But—it was why I fell in love with her in the first place. And it's why she's fallen out of love with me.

He would have laughed at the irony had it not been for the solemn atmosphere. He'd never brought himself to laugh at such disdainful things before. This was a different time of the universe; by this point, they had all gone a little crazy.

"First, I entrust Maruna to Gandharva," he said. There had been careful pondering on his part before reaching this decision. Vinata had taken no role in it. Because, she had told him, if you are going to ration away my children like lunch meat, don't think to involve me in this cruelty.

He watched as Maruna's hands unclutched his mother's legs. As the big brother, the Rakshasa puffed out his chest, straightened his shoulders and strode to Gandharva's side. Yet despite his front, he could not disguise the rigidity and walked as if his knees and elbows didn't exist.

"Jatayu, I leave to Shuri."

Both his son and his friend were taken back by the decision—as it was assumed that the males would go to males and females females. The young child looked at his father worriedly, paused and waited for him to correct his mistake. When Garuda remained firm, he shyly scooted to the female Nastika, who greeted him with a warm smile.

"And it goes without saying that Kalavinka will be under your tutelage, Visnu."

"I'll do my best," Visnu promised him.

He scooped up the little girl, who instantly took a liking to him and, giggling, tugged gently at his grassy green hair.

"Wait," Vinata said, and they all looked to the most important, yet least considered Nastika of the group. Her hands hung limply at her sides, and her head was lowered to cover her eyes. "Maruna, Kalavinka."

The children swapped looks.

"Go ahead," Visnu whispered and Kalavinka hopped from his arms. From the looks of it, Gandharva had told Maruna the same.

The two of them ran and their mother scooped them both into an embrace, one on each arm like they weighed the equivalent of two flowers. There were her precious, precious children, and they drowned in her tears but both of them smiled like there was nothing better in the whole, vast universe.

"I love you," she told them both.

Garuda looked away.

"We love you too mom!" said Maruna.

"More than anything!" Kalavinka agreed.

Jatayu didn't say anything, but he smiled as he watched his siblings and Shuri placed a steady hand on his shoulder. She met Garuda's eye and gave him a faint yet questioning smile.

"I hope you understand, Shuri, why I gave the troublesome son to you," he said telepathically to her and her alone. "Gandharva is good at honing rudimentary instincts and Visnu will bring out the full potential of any one of my children but you, Shuri, you know hardship like he does and this child has never known any empathy."

"I know someone else like that." Her nod to another Nastika told him more than he would have liked to know.

His pale eyes saw the small bundles spill from her arms, saw something else spill from her eyes. The sobs of Vinata's anguish were the orchestra that played his life.

"Yes, but that—that is my tragedy."

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Ah, I really hope there aren't that many incongruities, especially with dates of The Finite and what I wrote a year earlier. Yikes.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review!

-SCND