#nandi

[h0bg0blin-meat]

Nandi

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Grief - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

A half remembered promise broken...

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

It was only afterward, when dawn's light slanted through the shutters, that the tears came.

"Fuck." Sevika's breath jittered. "Not again."

Silco said nothing. Just held her, awkwardly, as the sobs began. By now, he understood. She wasn't crying for him. Wasn't even crying for herself. It was an ache so far down, words couldn't give it shape. The best he could do was listen.

He'd learned how, with Nandi.

"I'm sorry," Sevika breathed. "This was a shit idea."

"You think so?"

"Fuck, no."

She fitted herself against the sinewy curvature of his body. Watery sunrays slid across the bedspread, nearly touching their twined legs. His fingertips traced the smooth dip above her hipbone. She had none of her sister's softness. But she had her strength. Silco liked strong bodies: the muscles, the scars. Proof of a lifetime's work, and the toll it takes.

Sevika's was young in those days. But the marks were already indelible. There’d be many more before the end. 

And he'd be the cause of most.

"I miss her," she said. "I miss her, and she'd hate it."

"Hate what?"

"Seeing me like this." She wiped her webbed lashes. "Seeing me with you."

"She's past seeing." He felt a tremor, and circled her close. "What? It’s true."

"It’s not, Sil. The dead, they're always with us." Her head tipped back, eyes on the ceiling. "Sometimes, I hear her footsteps in the kitchen. I'll be in bed, just waking up. Still rubbing the grit from my eyes. And she'll come floating in, with that glide of hers, holding a cup of tea." Her throat worked. "That's what she’d make me every morning: a cup of tea. She'd put it on the bedside table, nudge me awake, and then go off to the Temple. And I'd lay there, listening to her footsteps in the hall. Waiting for the door to shut, so I could sneak a smoke with the window cracked."

"She knew you smoked in here?"

"She was deaf, not blind. But she let me do it. Said it kept the bugs out." She exhaled a too-wet laugh. "Now the whole place is crawling with roaches. There's stacks of dishes in the sink. Dust on everything. Nothing in the pantry. It's a shithole, and I can't stand to sleep here alone. But… I don’t want to move anywhere else, either. I always thought we'd grow old here. We'd die together. In this flat. On this bed."

"Like invalids?"

"Like sisters." She lay a palm against his chest, learning the cadence of his heart. "You’ve never had any, have you?"

"No." Silco was quiet a moment. "Just brothers."

"Vander."

"Before. Long ago."  His fingertips stroked, lightly, up the vertebra of her spine. "I barely remember anymore.  Except for the dirt. The hunger. The cold. I never gave a damn about dying in a bed. All I wanted was not to die at all."

"You haven't changed much."

His palm found the nape of her neck, and rested there. "I’ve no plans to."

"Hope so." She smiled, crescent-shaped, against the damp crook of his neck. "Hope you’ll always stay the same hard-driving bastard from the mines. With a bergamot in his pocket and a big speech for everything." Her eyes met his, darkly sheened. "Don't change, Sil."

"If death's the alternative, I'll do my best." He cupped her chin. "What about you?"

"Same." She bit the hollow of his palm. "Just a good-time girl from Oldtown. No money, but a mean right hook."

"Meanest in the Lanes."

"It's all my old man left me." Her eyes slid to the window. Daylight was cutting through the slats: the night was slipping away. "He was a piece of shit. Not always, mind. When Amma was alive, he was decent.  Couldn't help himself. She was like Nandi, you see. Soft. Shining. Brought out the best in everybody."

"He loved her?"

"More than life. That was his endearment for her. Jaan. It's from the old country. Means life. He'd sit there at the fighting pits, the big brute, with bloody knuckles and a split lip. But the minute she floated into the stands, he'd be all mush. Like a little kid. You should've seen him." Her laugh vibrated against Silco's skin. "She spoke the language of the mystics. Same as Nandi. When she'd go to the Temple, he'd wait outside on the steps. All respectful, like a foot soldier. When she came out, he'd have little gifts for her from the market. Offerings, almost. Jasmine buds to braid into her hair. Cheap stone rings. Little sachets of perfumed incense. Sometimes, a book, so she could read to him. Her folk were lettered. She had a calligrapher's hand, and a scholar's fluency. Evenings, she'd teach us all: me, Rohan, Nandi. My old man, too. He couldn't pen more than his name, but he'd hang on her every word. Like the rest of us did. It's what she deserved." Sevika shut her eyes. "Then she died birthing Raakesh. And everything decent in my old man died too."

Silco thought of Mother, and her slow unspooling into madness after Daddy's drowning.

"Grief does that," he murmured. "It finds the cracks—and splits them wide." His palm smoothed a soothing path: her shoulderblades, her spine, the small of her back. "You were young when your father turned."

"Old enough to remember the difference." She nestled closer, her knees curling. "You couldn't unsee it. Nobody could. It was like an open wound. It bled all over. He bled all over too. With his brawls, and his bottles, and his fists. In the streets, he'd take it out on whoever crossed his path. At home, he'd take it out on us. Me and Nandi. Rohan. Sometimes even Raakesh, and he wasn't more than a tot." Her jaw gritted. "That was the worst. Seeing the fear in his eyes when our old man shambled home. The same eyes Amma had. She passed 'em down to all her children—and he couldn't look at them without losing his mind. Every day, we were a reminder of who was missing. A slap in the face. So he'd dish one out in kind."

"Nandi protected you."

"In more ways than I can count."

"And now, you're trying to do the same."

"Huh?"

Silco's thumb found the notch of her chin, and tipped her head up. Her eyes were a bloodshot well.  "You think I'm on a self-destructive tear. Same as your father."

Her lips parted, quivering. Then: a sigh. "I know what grief does, too. Especially when it's not just grief."

"Meaning?"

"I told you. There's too much rage in you, and no place to put it." She lay her palm over his heart. "Nandi knew. She could tell right off.  She tried to keep the worst of it at bay. She'd soothe you, and talk to you, and hold you. That was her gift, seeing into the hearts of people. Knowing what they needed. But her gift couldn't fix this. Couldn't fix you. She could only stanch the bleeding." Her fingers curled, as if capturing his heartbeat. "Now she's gone. And you've got nothing to hold you back. No one."

Silco said nothing. He only took her hand, and held it.

"I know," Sevika goes on, "what everyone says. How she was better than me, and all the rest. The good one. The pretty one. The patient one. But that didn't get her anywhere, did it? I'm the one still here."

"So you are."

"You are too." She blinked hard. But a tear slipped loose against her will. "You're all that's left. Of her. Of any of it."

His thumb traced the teardrop's path. "You've got it backwards, love."

"No. It's true. You're more like her than I'll ever be. You both had that specialness, that—I don't know. That grace. Like you were from a different world. Like you could change ours, with just a whisper. Vander's got it too. Only his burns bright as the sun. Yours… it's something else. Something down deep." Her lips were dry. They caught against his, like the words. "Don't lose it, Sil."

He gave her nape a firm squeeze. "I won't if you won't."

"I'm serious. When we take the fight Uppside, you've got to keep it wired. Don't go off the rails." She gripped him fiercely. "I'm no good with words, but I've got two fists. They're yours, as long as you don’t lose your head." Her voice cracked. "Don’t lose it. Promise me."

[whencyclopedia]

Ellora Caves

Ellora (also known as Elura and, in ancient times, as Elapura) is a sacred site in Maharastra, central India. The Ellora Caves are listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site and is celebrated for its Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples and monuments which were carved from the local cliff rock in the 6th to 8th century CE. The most spectacular example is the 8th century CE Kailasa temple which, at 32 metres high, is the largest rock-cut monument in the world.

Continue reading...

[sigyn-foxyposts]

"Nandi gives the siblings backrides!"

Nandi might be the best bull of Shiva.. but he is ALSO the best babysitter for his children! Like am I the only one who can imagine this!! 🥺

[ritish16]

Sada Shiva

[justtigertaurthings]

Hi, I'm Marigold, here's some of my art, including several self-portraits!

[arjuna-vallabha]

Nandi fromPashupatinath temple, by Jimmy Thapa, Nepal

[matashaw]

yea....

Jajajajsajjsjaajja

[lotussed]

Sri Nandi, Tamil Nadu, Painted wood

[mariaaragon64]

Finished the replacement version of Ariadne and the Sacred Bulls: Ferdinand the Minotaur, Nandi, and Dionysus the Bull-Horned One. The original, which is also part of this post, has a large tear in it on Dionysus’ garment. I had intended to have it as part of my art show in May, but now it won’t.

30″ x 40″ oil painting

[realskarra]

They're actually across from each other!!

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Out of My Mind - Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO

He's gone kookoo, Your Honor.

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

Vi wants to speak, but her mind has stalled. Her legs are two pistons pumping: her entire world, a blue corridor narrowing to the rising spire of the Aerie.

Silco skids to a sudden halt.

"Get the fuck out of my face!" he shouts, swiping a hand across his face.

Vi jerks back, prepared to defend herself against whatever it is she's presumably done or said to enrage him. But Silco isn’t addressing her. He isn’t even looking her way.

His seething stare is fixed on something—on nothing—in the middle distance.

The specters, Vi thinks.

He's still seeing Vander.

"I know," Silco hisses, hands clamped to his skull to keep the pressurized contents from spewing. "You're the one person I didn't want to disappoint. And I did. I knowIknowIKNOW."

"Silco—" Vi starts, then stops.

His decibels hold the echo of encroaching hysteria. His entire face, scored by decades of stress and strain and sleeplessness, is a deformed mask.

Carefully, she sets a hand on his shoulder. "Hey—get a grip—"

He shrugs her off, violently.  The fire spitting out of his eyes—good and bad—is infernal.

"Oh, of course, you'd have wanted better," he goes on, neck-deep in manic debate with his demons. "You've always stayed on your high-horse! Meanwhile, I fell, and fell, and kept on falling! No—not fell! You fucking pushed me. Then you had the nerve to go out in front of the city. Crown yourself its savior. You knew—you had to have known, the way it was going to blow back on me. Blow back on our home. You had the choice, and you never took it! Never had the balls! I had to get my hands dirty and work twice as hard to undo the damage you'd done!"

"Silco, there's nothing there," Vi pleads. "You know that."

Silco's teeth grind audibly. Vi doubts he's heard a word. He's too far gone, all his rage riveted to the empty air. His lips spit out a loop of invective

"Well, how's this for a send-off, Vander? Fuck you, and the morals you rode in on. Fuck you, and your cowardice, and your high-minded idealism. And most of all, fuck you for never believing in me. Believing in any of us. You thought we'd all go the way we came, didn't you? Back to the gutter we crawled from. Well, here I am! Still standing, in the shit I was born in. And guess what? I'm the only one left." His teeth, bared in a savage parody of triumph, are a chilling slash of bone. "And I'll die before I let the bastards hurt us again. Any of us. So keep your fucking pity! Keep your disappointment! Get away from me, and stay away—Vander?" His tone drops in pitch; forsaken. "Blut?"

Drunkenly, he lurches forward.  Then a shadow falls across his face. His entire demeanor shifts. The temper liquifies into quiet agitation.

"No," he croaks, and Vi's never heard his voice so small. "Why—why are you here? Nandi—no. Please…"

Nandi, Vi thinks, adrenaline foaming through her bloodstream. She knows this name: the one from earlier. The one that made Sevika's entire face fold up like a paper bag.

A dead comrade.

And, judging by Silco's expression, a lover.

"Shh, Nandi, shhh." He's moving, arms extended, reaching for nothing. "Don't cry, sweetheart. My face looks worse than it feels. See?" He gurns a lopsided smile. But his eyes are soaped with an unnerving sheen. "Nothing's changed. It's still your Sil. Just harder on the eyes, is all. No—no, Nan. That's not true. I've forgotten nothing. It's all here." A shaky fingertip touches his temple. "And here." He lays a palm against his heart. "But it's been hard, Nan. So, so hard. Don't look at me like that. I can't go back. You know I can't. We've come too far!"

Numbness seeps through the ventricles of Vi's heart. She knows—knows—there is nothing in the air, except for the blue aether. Knows that it's a byplay of bad psychic resonance. Knows that Silco's mind has been breached: the hatches of sanity blown to kingdom come.

She knows.

And yet, watching him, she can't help feel like a Peeping Tom. A voyeur, witnessing a private confession that was never meant for her ears.

"Silco—" she begins again, but is silenced by the sheer desolation of his countenance.

"No," he whispers, the syllable wrenchingly soft. "You don't understand. The things I've done. The things I still have to do. There's no stopping them. Once the blade's in motion, there's no pulling it out. It's just—it's blood. Blood all the way down." His gaze orients reproachfully on the nothingness. "How can you say that? I kept my word, didn't I? Kept your sister close. She was the last piece of you. Now she's the pride of Zaun. Loyalty? Do you hear yourself? Gone for years, and now you're back, and all you can do is tally the ways I've fallen short?" He shakes his head, mute with a guilt so ancient, it has calcified to the bone. "I hoped you would understand. I did what I must. And you—no. I'm not letting you take her." He's trembling all over. "I need her. Like I needed you. I can't lose you both. I can't! Nandi—no. Come back!"

Vi's seen enough. The creep-quotient has gone from voyeuristic to visceral. Her skin crawls like a net of worms. Her heart is a clenched fist.

Her real fist is already in motion.

"Silco!"

"Fuck!"

He staggers back, spine colliding with the greasy brick wall of the alleyway. A hand flies to his temple. Blood is a darkly glistening smear where her knuckles connected.

"What the hell, Vi?" he snarls. "Are you out of your bloody mind?"

[badakkacak]

Nandi fanart from supa strikas animated series

[bhrm555]

Sikh woodcut depicting Shiva and Parvati with Nandi, Ganesh, Kartikeya and a lion, from Lahore or Amritsar, c. 1870 by Unknown

[ritish16]

Bholenath

[kbuty]

Krishna and Nandi, 1900s. Jamini Roy (Indian, 1887-1981).