The endless light was folding inward now, and as it gathered, Krishna spoke — and his voice, even mid-vision, was warm.

"Do you understand what just happened, Arjuna?"

Arjuna shook his head. He could barely understand his own pounding heart.

"You did not earn that sight by being the strongest archer," Krishna said. "You did not win it in a contest or buy it with gold or unlock it with a secret word. I gave it to you. Freely. Because I was pleased with you, because of the love between us."

He let that land.

"Out of my own power I opened the whole universe before your eyes: this supreme form, blazing with light, holding every world inside it, without beginning and without end, the first of all that ever was. The very oldest thing there is, older than the stars."

Arjuna's breath caught. "And others have seen it before me?"

"No," Krishna said gently. "No one. Not the great sages on their mountains. Not the gods in their bright heavens. Not the warriors of old whose names you sing. In all of time, you are the first eyes to behold it."

Arjuna did not know what to say. He had been so busy being afraid that he had nearly missed how rare, how tender, this was — a gift placed in his hands and no one else's.

"Remember this," Krishna said. "When you doubt that you matter, when you feel small in the great war ahead, remember that the Lord of all the worlds chose to show you what he showed no one else. Not because you were perfect. Because you were dear to me."

The light drew in a little more, soft as a closing flower, and Arjuna felt, under all his fear, the first warm flicker of being truly loved.