The days after the river incident passed in a strange quiet.
Ganesh returned to his duties in the hermitage, but something had shifted. He still rose before dawn, still stood in the cold water, still sat in meditation beneath the banyan tree. Yet the practices that once steadied him now felt like thin walls against a rising storm inside.
When he closed his eyes, he no longer found calm.
He found faces.
The angry gaze of the deva.
The wounded trust in Keral's eyes.
The blackened trees of the grove.
No matter how he breathed, they returned.
He began to dread meditation.
Agnivrat noticed.
One evening, as the fire burned low, the sage said, "Your body sits still, Ganesh, but your mind wanders like a hunted deer."
Ganesh lowered his eyes. "I try, Gurudev. But the river follows me even here."
"Then do not try to push it away," Agnivrat replied. "Bring it here. Tell me."
Ganesh hesitated. Then words spilled out—the fear, the doubt, the sense that wherever he stepped, suffering followed.
"I stood between them," he said, voice tight. "And still they burned. What if I am only a bringer of trouble? What if my walking only sharpens the world's pain?"
Agnivrat listened without interruption.
When Ganesh finished, the sage said quietly, "You are beginning to see beyond action into consequence. That is not a curse. But it will make you restless."
"Restless?" Ganesh repeated.
"Yes. Because you will no longer be satisfied with doing what you are told. You will want to know why you walk at all."
Ganesh looked up. "And is there an answer?"
Agnivrat smiled faintly. "Not one that can be given. Only one that can be found."
The words lingered, offering no relief.
In the weeks that followed, Ganesh felt a growing distance—not from people, but from the hermitage itself.
He watched the routines around him: chanting at dawn, lessons by midday, rituals at dusk. They were good. Sacred.
Yet they felt… contained.
Is this all? he wondered. Is dharma something that lives only inside these trees?
One afternoon, while gathering water, he overheard two disciples speaking.
"The devas plan to strengthen their patrols near the river," one said. "They believe asuras still lurk there."
"And the asuras?" the other asked.
"They have gone deeper into the forest. Some say they prepare for retaliation."
Ganesh's heart tightened.
The fire he had tried to hold apart was still burning.
And he was here, carrying water.
The thought left a bitter taste.
That night, sleep brought him a dream unlike the others.
He stood on a long road stretching into darkness. Behind him lay the hermitage, glowing warmly. Ahead, the path vanished into shadow.
A voice asked from nowhere:
"Where do you belong?"
Ganesh turned toward the hermitage.
But his feet did not move.
He tried again.
They would not obey.
Then he looked into the darkness ahead.
Fear rose within him.
But so did something else.
A pull.
He woke with his heart pounding.
For a long while, he lay staring at the roof of his hut, unable to shake the feeling that the dream was not a dream at all.
The next day, Agnivrat sent Ganesh to deliver food to a group of wandering ascetics who had camped near the forest edge.
When Ganesh reached them, he found not only sages, but also a small group of devas and asuras sitting together, sharing food around a common fire.
He stopped, surprised.
Such a sight was rare.
An old ascetic beckoned him. "Come, child. Sit. Eat with us."
Ganesh hesitated, then joined them.
As they ate, he listened.
A deva spoke of guarding mountain passes from wild beasts.
An asura spoke of teaching restraint to his kin who still followed violent ways.
A sage spoke of wandering simply to remind people of humility.
Different origins.
Different forms.
Yet the same quiet purpose.
Ganesh felt something loosen in his chest.
After the meal, he asked the old ascetic, "How do you sit together so easily, when the world outside cannot?"
The ascetic smiled. "Because we meet as walkers of the path, not as bearers of names."
The words struck him deeply.
Walkers of the path.
That was how he wanted to see the world.
That night, as he returned, the hermitage felt farther away than it had that morning.
Days later, Ganesh made a mistake.
While helping with evening rituals, his mind drifted again to the river. His chanting faltered. He missed a verse.
Another disciple corrected him sharply.
Ganesh flushed, irritation rising.
"Why do you always look elsewhere these days?" the disciple snapped. "If you cannot focus, do not sit among us."
The words stung more than Ganesh expected.
He stood and left without a word.
Outside, beneath the darkening sky, anger and shame warred within him.
They don't understand, he thought. They don't see what I see.
The thought frightened him.
It sounded too close to pride.
He sank to the ground, pressing his fists into the earth.
"I don't want to grow apart," he whispered. "But I don't know how to stay."
That night, Agnivrat came to him.
They sat together beneath the banyan tree, the world quiet around them.
"You walked away from the fire today," the sage said gently.
Ganesh lowered his head. "I'm sorry, Gurudev. I couldn't stay."
"Why?"
Ganesh struggled for words. "Because when I sit there, I feel like I am pretending. As if I am repeating forms while something inside me is shouting that the world is larger than these rituals."
Agnivrat listened, then nodded slowly.
"This place has given you roots," he said. "But roots are not meant to bind the tree forever. They only hold it while it grows tall enough to face the winds."
Ganesh looked up sharply. "Are you telling me to leave?"
"No," Agnivrat replied. "I am telling you that one day, you will not be able to stay. And when that day comes, you must walk without bitterness."
The words struck Ganesh like a quiet bell.
He had not said if.
He had said when.
Later, alone in his hut, Ganesh sat awake, staring at the darkness.
If I leave… where will I go?
And who will I be without this place?
No answers came.
Only the distant murmur of the river.
Yet deep within, beneath the doubt and restlessness, something stirred—an unspoken certainty that his path would not remain within safe boundaries.
Far beyond mortal sight, Shiva watched the boy growing apart from the shelter that had shaped him.
"Good," the Lord murmured.
"The cage of comfort begins to crack. Soon, he will step into the open sky."
Ganesh lay back and closed his eyes, though sleep did not come.
The hermitage still stood around him.
But inside, the distance had already begun.