Now the wonder in Arjuna's heart turned, suddenly, into something that stung. Because gazing at the boundless form, the Lord of all the gods, older than the maker of worlds, Arjuna remembered who he had thought Krishna was. Just his friend. Just his cousin. Just the clever, smiling companion who drove his chariot.

And he remembered all the things he had said.

"Hey, Krishna!" he had called across crowded halls, the way you shout to a friend you have known forever. "Hey, Yadava!" — using the family name, easy and familiar. "Hey, friend, come here!" He had teased Krishna, argued with him, leaned on his shoulder, asked him to pass the water, woken him up when he wanted company. He had spoken to him exactly the way he spoke to anyone he loved and trusted and felt completely comfortable with.

A hot wave of embarrassment rose in Arjuna's chest. All those times — and he had been speaking to *this*. To the One the whole universe rests inside. To the form before whom even Brahma bows.

"Whatever I said to you so boldly," he sang now, his voice low, "thinking you were only my friend — please understand. When I called out 'Krishna, Yadava, friend!' I did not know. I did not know this greatness of yours. How could I have known? You walked beside me like an ordinary companion. You let me treat you like one."

He paused, searching his own heart for why he had done it. "Maybe it was carelessness," he admitted. "I was not careful with you the way one should be careful with the holiest thing there is." Then a gentler thought came. "Or maybe — maybe it was love. Maybe I spoke to you that way because I loved you so much that I forgot to be afraid."

He did not yet know which it was — carelessness or love. But either way, his easy old words felt suddenly far too small for the One who stood before him now.