The rains came softly this year.
Not as storms that tore the sky apart, but as a patient, ceaseless descent—droplets threading stone and leaf together, washing Arkavaira into muted hues and softened edges. Courtyards darkened. Pathways gleamed. The air grew cool, heavy with the scent of wet earth and old moss.
Six years. Ten months.
Within House Vyomtara, the rainy season was not treated as interruption—but as invitation.
The inner music hall stood open.
Tall pillars of pale stone framed the space, their surfaces etched with ancient motifs of sound and motion—strings, spirals, waves shaped by hands long gone. The windows remained unshuttered, allowing the rain's rhythm to seep inside. Water traced thin paths along carved stone channels, never intruding, never restrained.
Sarvani Vyomtara sat at the center of the hall.
She had set aside her formal robes for something simpler—soft lavender fabric, silver-streaked hair braided loosely down her back. Before her lay three instruments, arranged carefully upon woven cloth.
The triplets stood barefoot before her, eyes bright with curiosity.
"Music," Sarvani said gently, "is not art first."
"It is discipline."
Aditya tilted his head. "That doesn't sound very fun."
Sarvani smiled. "Then you have not yet listened closely enough."
She gestured toward the instruments.
"The rainy season opens the body," she continued. "Breath deepens. The mind slows. This is when sound settles into the bones."
Her fingers moved first to the veena.
The instrument was beautiful—polished wood, long and graceful, its curves smooth as flowing water. Sarvani lifted it with practiced ease and placed it gently into Aditya's hands.
"This is yours."
Aditya's eyes widened. "It's heavy."
"Yes," Sarvani replied. "Because it carries weight."
She guided his hands—one to the frets, the other to the strings. "The veena does not forgive impatience. It demands intention. Every vibration must be chosen."
Aditya swallowed, his expression sobering.
Next, Sarvani turned to the flute.
She selected a slender bansuri, pale and unadorned, its finger holes darkened and smooth with age. She handed it to Sasi with both hands.
"This is breath given shape," she said. "It will teach you restraint."
Sasi accepted it carefully, almost reverently. He tested its balance."It's light."
"But it will reveal everything you try to hide," Sarvani replied softly.
Then—last—she turned to Aryan.
From beside her, she lifted a cloth-wrapped object and placed it before him.
"This," she said, "is not an instrument you play."
She unwrapped it slowly.
The damaru emerged.
Its body was carved from dark, polished wood—deep brown, threaded with faint crimson veins like living grain. The hourglass form was precise, perfectly balanced. Thin cords hung from either side, tipped with small beads of pale stone. Along the drum's surface, subtle spirals curved inward—not decorative, but deliberate, as though guiding motion itself.
It felt… old.
Not ancient in years—but ancient in purpose.
Aryan did not reach for it at once.
He studied it.
Sarvani watched, saying nothing.
"This damaru does not respond to force," she said at last. "It responds to rhythm. Not music—rhythm."
Aryan lifted it.
The moment his fingers closed around the handle, the cords stilled—as if waiting.
Aditya blinked. "Did it just—?"
Sarvani's eyes gleamed faintly. "Good. It recognizes stillness."
She stepped behind Aryan, guiding his wrist—not to shake, but to tilt.
"Do not strike time," she instructed. "Invite it."
Aryan moved.
Once.
The beads brushed the drumheads—tak—a sound so clean it cut through the rain without clashing against it.
The air shifted.
Not dramatically. Not visibly.
But the sound lingered.
Sasi's breath caught.
Aditya forgot to blink.
Sarvani closed her eyes.
"Yes," she murmured. "That is the pulse beneath sound."
Practice began slowly.
Aditya struggled at first—pressing too hard, then too lightly. The veena hummed, complained, resisted… and then, after Sarvani corrected his posture, it sang. When he produced a clean note at last, his grin returned tenfold.
Sasi took longer to form even a single tone.
But when he did, it was pure.
The flute's voice slid into the hall like mist, weaving between raindrops, folding seamlessly into the rhythm of falling water. Sasi listened more than he played—adjusting breath, honoring the silence between notes.
Aryan practiced least.
But most precisely.
He learned the damaru not through repetition, but through timing. A single rotation. A pause. Another. Each sound aligned not to beat, but to breath—to heartbeat—to the rain itself.
Sarvani watched him longer than the others.
"That instrument," she said quietly to Varesh later, "will grow with him."
Varesh nodded. "And him with it."
Days passed.
Rain endured.
Music filled House Vyomtara—not loudly, not constantly, but truly. Notes drifted through corridors, sometimes clashing, sometimes dissolving into laughter.
Aditya's veena grew steadier.Sasi's flute learned restraint.Aryan's damaru learned authority.
One evening, as the rain deepened, Sarvani asked them to play together.
No instruction.No correction.
Only listening.
The veena laid the ground.The flute carried breath through it.The damaru marked time—not as command, but as truth.
The rain adjusted around them.
Or perhaps… they adjusted to it.
Sarvani closed her eyes, tears gathering unbidden.
"They will master them," she whispered. "By eight."
Varesh did not ask how she knew.
Outside, Arkavaira slept beneath the rain.
Inside, three children learned that power could sing, breathe, and pulse—not as force, but as harmony.
And in Aryan's hands, the damaru turned once more—cool, steady, eternal—beating not to summon chaos…
…but to remind the world of balance.