Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sati loved her husband's hair, it was what drew her to him. It reminded her of the flowing rivers near her father's palaces, forever flowing and so wild. It reminded her of a time when she was not yet herself, when she was everything, when the world lay in her, when her tears were stars. When she first touched them, his hair gave her muddy memories of nothingness, of her stuck into his hair, as the wind, as a branch of asphodel, as small blue blooms. 

Her brother would tease her senseless about it, she wonders why she worships him so, for he is a tease, and yet he is her, as she is him. He gets her when no one else does. Who knows her better than he, who has been her companion since she was but darkness? He was her accompanying light, in creation and till the last light. He knows her well, he knows her love, for he loves his wife the very same, his ocean nymph, his Sri.

Sati used to brush Shiv's tangled locks every morrow, for her husband was a recluse, he was a nomad she was his only home and though he may not have been so noble as her; Dakshayani was still a princess, and he her lord, though she had long left behind the titles, the tinted windows, her pride still clung to her as a shadow. 

Uma was quick to anger, and Shiv was forever the one at blame. Why dost he tease her so? Why must he corner her to the cliff of rage? Who else was to blame but her lord when she finally fell into the cloying waters of rage? She was quick to anger it's a truth, but it's a secret that a sight of his hair was enough to burn away all her remaining rage. Afterall, Sati was forgiving the tales tell this truth, and if her brush stokes were a bit forceful the next few days, it must be your folly after all, Mahadev said naught to his Devi.

Perhaps her biggest tragedy was the one the bards couldn't sing. Sati died with her husband's hair as her last sight.

When Parvati saw her lord for the first time, his hair was tangled and so unbound.