Part 1.
Her— no, his— muscles ache. New skin covers the bones that roasted in fire, new muscles and organs make the body their home. Nestled in this new body, Amba’s soul feels an emotion that is new, and foreign, and different from anything else it has experienced before. Comfort. Never before has it truly felt at home in its body as it does now. Something deep within himself curls up and settles in his body, and a strange sort of bliss washes over him. He likes this, he decides. Now all he needs is a name.
He takes Sthunakarna’s leave, and finds his grandfather. Hotravahana treats him differently, and he wants to stomp his feet like a child and say ‘But I am the same person, why won’t you treat me the same!!’. He wants to throw childish tantrums, but he knows, in his heart of hearts that it will not do anything.
He also suspects that the real reason his grandfather acts different is not because he is a man now, or because there is a fire in his eyes that feels foreign to someone who watched him grow up as a happy little girl with her every wish fulfilled, but because the dark energy seeping out from him, the determination in his eyes— it scares the old man. It breaks his heart, but that is the price to pay, he thinks. He is an abomination now, a thing pieced together with fire and blood and anger and darkness and magic. Everyone’s eyes follow him as he goes about his business and tries to think of a plan to do what he set out to.
His mind spins with possibilities, but nothing concrete comes out, and at night, as he lies in bed, wide awake, he imagines recognition dawning in Devavrata’s eyes just as life bleeds out of them. Amba wanted a home, a family. He’s still the same person as she was, so he thinks he does too. But after days of distance, after feeling like an alien in a place he was supposed to be safe in, he walks away from his grandfather’s cottage, shedding the last bit of hope he had for a home. He builds a little tree house, its walls covered with plans scrawled on leaves with berry juice.