Dvārakā usually announced its miracles.
Conches at dawn. Bells at dusk. The city breathed devotion the way other cities breathed air. Even stone seemed aware that the Lord lived among it.
But on the night Aniruddha was born, the city did not sing.
The wind stilled.The sea quieted.Lamps burned without flicker.
Inside the palace, Rukmini labored in silence broken only by breath and resolve. Midwives moved carefully, murmuring prayers they had spoken a hundred times before. Nothing felt wrong.
And yet—nothing felt ordinary.
Krishna sat apart from the room, neither restless nor smiling. His posture was calm, but his gaze did not rest on walls or people. It looked through them, as if the night itself were being weighed.
An attendant approached, hesitating.
"Prabhu," she whispered, "shall we call the priests?"
Krishna did not answer at once.
When he did, his voice was soft.
"Not tonight."
The attendant withdrew without question. Some moments did not permit ornament.
Outside, the palace gardens lay motionless. Even the peacocks were silent. The moon hung low, pale and unadorned, like a witness who had chosen restraint.
Radha arrived without announcement.
She did not bring light or incense or song. She came as she always did—unaccompanied, unmarked, unavoidable. Guards stepped aside before realizing they had moved.
Krishna turned when she entered.
"You felt it," he said.
Radha nodded. "The hush," she replied. "The kind that comes before something chooses where to belong."
They stood together, neither speaking more than was necessary.
From within the chamber came Rukmini's final cry—fierce, unyielding—and then silence.
A child was born.
The midwife emerged smiling, relief bright in her eyes. "A son," she said. "Healthy."
She lifted the child—
—and paused.
The infant did not cry.
His eyes were open.
Not wandering.Not startled.
Present.
They fixed on Krishna.
The room felt suddenly smaller, as though something unseen had leaned in.
Krishna rose and crossed the space. When he took the child into his arms, the air released a breath no one had known it was holding.
The child's gaze did not soften.
Krishna looked down—
and the world slipped.
Not outward.Backward.
Glass towers.Crowds without silence.Rivers that no longer remembered themselves.Faith spoken fluently and lived rarely.
He felt it then—not fear, not prophecy.
Memory.
A single thought, not his own:
We knew better.
Krishna's fingers curled slightly around the child, instinctive, protective.
Radha stepped closer and looked into the infant's eyes.
Her breath caught.
"He remembers," she said.
Krishna lowered his forehead until it touched the child's.
"Do you remember me?" he murmured.
The child's mouth trembled.
Then he cried.
Not the cry of a body newly born.
The cry of a soul returned too early.
The spell broke. The room moved again. Breath resumed. The midwives busied themselves, speaking quickly, gratefully.
Rukmini reached out from her bed. "Krishna," she whispered. "Let me see him."
Krishna placed the child gently into her arms. She smiled, exhaustion softened by love, and kissed his brow.
"What will we name him?" she asked.
Krishna did not answer immediately.
Outside, the sea remained unnaturally still.
"Aniruddha," he said at last.
Unstoppable.
He did not speak it as a blessing.
He spoke it as recognition.
Radha watched the child quietly.
"A soul with endings in his eyes," she said.
Krishna's gaze did not leave his son.
"Then," he replied, "we will teach him how to guard beginnings."
Beyond the palace walls, in places without names, something ancient shifted—
not in alarm,
not in rage—
but in awareness.
The age did not yet know it.
But a line had been drawn.
And time, briefly, paused to notice.