Jaguar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kittydesade) wrote2008-01-05 08:56 pm
kittydesade) wrote2008-01-05 08:56 pm
Entry tags:
[fic] Apocryphal
Title: Apocryphal
Fandom: The Mahabharata (text translation by C Rago [?] and film)
Characters: Duryodhana
Word Count: 1,005
Rating: PG
Summary: Every side has two stories; this is his.
No one ever intends for the atrocity to happen. For the war to consume their homeland, for the bitterness to consume their life. And yet that is no excuse. I make no apologies for what I am, what my life and my choices have made of me. Those were my choices to make.
They had the best of everything, and now that I am gone they have the best of that as well. There is no one who will read my words aloud, although I should not be surprised at that; there was no one who would listen when I was alive. I could have shouted their flaws and the fallacy of their perfection from the top of the highest mountain and no one would have listened.
I was only a child. My family was my world and I thought they were the best of everything. For a few shining days, I thought they loved me.
They did not, of course. The histories will claim that I was the first to turn on them, but they abandoned me and mine long before we thought to raise our hand or voice against them.
We were only children. I wanted to fly. I wanted to fight like the greatest of the kshatriyas, the most skilled and noblest of warriors. I wanted to perform great feats of strength, courage, and wisdom. I listened to the stories that were told to us when we were small and wanted to be the most honorable and renowned fighter in all the land, and who would not? I was the eldest of my brothers, I was first in line. And I was loved by my father, by my brothers.
Even the kindest heart of the most venerable saint would have turned to bitterness by the time they had endured what we had in our youth. Our cousins came and turned our lives upside down and inside out, and we opened our hearts and homes to them and they gave me and my brothers nothing but abuse in return. And then they had the stomach and the madness to ask why we hated them so. Would you not hate the person who held you underwater, who shook you from your perch till your limbs broke upon the fall, who beat you till your skin was all colors of the rainbow but its proper shade?
For no reason other than because it amused them. For no reason at all.
I was the bad person for treating the beautiful Draupadi as my slave, which she was. Not one word of rebuke was spared for the man who had sold her as a slave, who had treated her as though she was property to be bartered away to satisfy his lust for games of chance.
I will own, I went too far. She is a beautiful woman and I have loved her from the moment I saw her, and my cousins have always had the best of everything. Why should they not have the most beautiful, most formidable woman to be their wife as well? Their single wife between the five of them. And how is that fair to her? To be passed from hand to hand like a communal jug of wine?
History records none of this. It remembers only that my cousins won, and I am the villain.
I wanted a country of unity and strength. I wanted to keep to the old traditions and not chance to the favor of the gods. I wanted the best for my people, for my friend, for my brothers. Should I have expected that the boys who never left me a day of my childhood whole and rested, that they would do honorably by their people or mine?
Yes, I am twisted by bitterness. It has been a life too long and too full of conflict, and I have no expectation that I will live past the next battle, no expectation that the next person who reads this will understand. They have not bothered, anyone outside of my poor elderly father and my brothers, they have not bothered to ask my side of the story. They will not care when I am gone.
But you, who read this, listen well. They are not the heroes out of legend that the loudest of them has made them out to be; the legends will be written after the deeds are done, by those who survive to write them. They will not remember those who died as villains to make the heroes live. They will not remember that I was loyal, that I was fierce in my convictions, that I honored my parents and my gods. They will not remember that I was once innocent, they will not remember that I was once in love. They will not remember that I was once honored with a friendship greater than any my cousins would ever know, that I did more than simply act for my own greed or ambition.
Read this, knowing that I wanted the best. Read this and remember that I once tried to advance my friend for no reason other than that he was as worthy to fight beside our finest warriors as any wretch who was born into princehood. Remember that I was not the one who caused our most formidable queen of the age to be sold into slavery, it was her own husband who did that.
Remember this the next time you raise your hand against another, the next time you choose to right a perceived wrong. Remember this the next time you weigh the cost of your actions, for you may be creating the same force or faction you later must defeat. There is more than one truth in this world, and they are not all contradictory.
I am Duryodhana, a warrior and a prince. I have lived by my honor, I have loved my friends and my brothers. I have died, not well, but as a result of my own choices. There is no more that can be done for me now.
Fandom: The Mahabharata (text translation by C Rago [?] and film)
Characters: Duryodhana
Word Count: 1,005
Rating: PG
Summary: Every side has two stories; this is his.
No one ever intends for the atrocity to happen. For the war to consume their homeland, for the bitterness to consume their life. And yet that is no excuse. I make no apologies for what I am, what my life and my choices have made of me. Those were my choices to make.
They had the best of everything, and now that I am gone they have the best of that as well. There is no one who will read my words aloud, although I should not be surprised at that; there was no one who would listen when I was alive. I could have shouted their flaws and the fallacy of their perfection from the top of the highest mountain and no one would have listened.
I was only a child. My family was my world and I thought they were the best of everything. For a few shining days, I thought they loved me.
They did not, of course. The histories will claim that I was the first to turn on them, but they abandoned me and mine long before we thought to raise our hand or voice against them.
We were only children. I wanted to fly. I wanted to fight like the greatest of the kshatriyas, the most skilled and noblest of warriors. I wanted to perform great feats of strength, courage, and wisdom. I listened to the stories that were told to us when we were small and wanted to be the most honorable and renowned fighter in all the land, and who would not? I was the eldest of my brothers, I was first in line. And I was loved by my father, by my brothers.
Even the kindest heart of the most venerable saint would have turned to bitterness by the time they had endured what we had in our youth. Our cousins came and turned our lives upside down and inside out, and we opened our hearts and homes to them and they gave me and my brothers nothing but abuse in return. And then they had the stomach and the madness to ask why we hated them so. Would you not hate the person who held you underwater, who shook you from your perch till your limbs broke upon the fall, who beat you till your skin was all colors of the rainbow but its proper shade?
For no reason other than because it amused them. For no reason at all.
I was the bad person for treating the beautiful Draupadi as my slave, which she was. Not one word of rebuke was spared for the man who had sold her as a slave, who had treated her as though she was property to be bartered away to satisfy his lust for games of chance.
I will own, I went too far. She is a beautiful woman and I have loved her from the moment I saw her, and my cousins have always had the best of everything. Why should they not have the most beautiful, most formidable woman to be their wife as well? Their single wife between the five of them. And how is that fair to her? To be passed from hand to hand like a communal jug of wine?
History records none of this. It remembers only that my cousins won, and I am the villain.
I wanted a country of unity and strength. I wanted to keep to the old traditions and not chance to the favor of the gods. I wanted the best for my people, for my friend, for my brothers. Should I have expected that the boys who never left me a day of my childhood whole and rested, that they would do honorably by their people or mine?
Yes, I am twisted by bitterness. It has been a life too long and too full of conflict, and I have no expectation that I will live past the next battle, no expectation that the next person who reads this will understand. They have not bothered, anyone outside of my poor elderly father and my brothers, they have not bothered to ask my side of the story. They will not care when I am gone.
But you, who read this, listen well. They are not the heroes out of legend that the loudest of them has made them out to be; the legends will be written after the deeds are done, by those who survive to write them. They will not remember those who died as villains to make the heroes live. They will not remember that I was loyal, that I was fierce in my convictions, that I honored my parents and my gods. They will not remember that I was once innocent, they will not remember that I was once in love. They will not remember that I was once honored with a friendship greater than any my cousins would ever know, that I did more than simply act for my own greed or ambition.
Read this, knowing that I wanted the best. Read this and remember that I once tried to advance my friend for no reason other than that he was as worthy to fight beside our finest warriors as any wretch who was born into princehood. Remember that I was not the one who caused our most formidable queen of the age to be sold into slavery, it was her own husband who did that.
Remember this the next time you raise your hand against another, the next time you choose to right a perceived wrong. Remember this the next time you weigh the cost of your actions, for you may be creating the same force or faction you later must defeat. There is more than one truth in this world, and they are not all contradictory.
I am Duryodhana, a warrior and a prince. I have lived by my honor, I have loved my friends and my brothers. I have died, not well, but as a result of my own choices. There is no more that can be done for me now.