The fire did not burn the way fire used to.
Its flames bent sideways, curling like cautious fingers, as if unsure whether they were allowed to rise straight. Swaminathan noticed it immediately. He always noticed such things. Bicchu noticed too, but only to poke at it with a stick and chuckle softly.
"See?" Bicchu said. "Even fire's learning new tricks."
They had stopped for the night on a strip of high ground overlooking what had once been a riverbank. The river now ran lower, thinner, sometimes vanishing altogether before returning without explanation. Around them, the land breathed unevenly, as if recovering from a long illness. Night insects sang out of rhythm. The stars shifted subtly, rearranging patterns Swaminathan had memorized in his youth.
Swaminathan sat stiff-backed near the fire, coat folded precisely beside him. Bicchu sat cross-legged, relaxed, his posture changing every few minutes without thought.
Silence stretched between them—not an awkward silence, but a heavy one, weighted with unsaid questions.
It was Bicchu who broke it.
"You don't like the way I live," he said casually.
"I did not say that," Swaminathan replied.
"You didn't have to." Bicchu glanced at him, eyes reflecting firelight. "You look at me like I'm unfinished."
Swaminathan frowned. "I look at you like a man without anchors."
Bicchu laughed, a short sound. "That's fair."
The fire crackled, bending again as a gust of wind moved against all expectation.
Swaminathan hesitated, then spoke. "You adapt too easily."
Bicchu raised an eyebrow. "Too easily?"
"Yes," Swaminathan said. "As if nothing matters enough to resist change."
The smile faded from Bicchu's face. He stared into the fire for a long moment, the playful lines around his eyes tightening.
"You think it's easy," he said quietly.
"I think," Swaminathan replied, choosing his words with care, "that survival without principles is merely existence."
Bicchu nodded slowly, as though acknowledging a point he had heard many times before.
"Then listen," he said. "And after that, you can decide what I am."
He shifted closer to the fire, the movement instinctive, fluid. When he spoke again, his voice had lost its lightness.
"I wasn't always like this."
Swaminathan remained silent.
"There was a time," Bicchu continued, "when I had a proper name. Not Bicchu. A long one. A family name that meant something. I had land—real land, not this restless ground we walk on now. Straight roads. Fixed seasons. Predictable days."
He paused, fingers tightening around the stick in his hand.
"I believed in rules," Bicchu said. "Believed they protected you. I believed if you followed them well enough, the world would reward you with stability."
Swaminathan's gaze sharpened.
"And then?" he asked.
"And then the ground moved," Bicchu said.
Not dramatically. Not all at once. At first, it was small things. Crops that ripened too early or too late. Winds that ignored the calendar. A law that worked one year and failed the next. We argued. We held meetings. We blamed outsiders. We blamed ourselves."
He smiled faintly, without humor.
"We tightened rules instead of loosening them."
The fire dipped low, then flared again.
"There was a flood," Bicchu said. "Not like the old floods. The water didn't just rise—it chose where to go. Avoided strong walls. Found cracks. We had built barriers exactly where the river used to flow. The river laughed at our certainty."
Swaminathan shifted slightly but said nothing.
"My father," Bicchu continued, "was a rigid man. Like you. He believed retreat was failure. When the water came, he ordered us to hold the embankment. Stand firm. Protect what was ours."
Bicchu swallowed.
"I obeyed."
The night seemed to lean closer.
"We lost everything," Bicchu said. "The embankment collapsed. The houses went next. People who ran early survived. People who stayed to defend rules drowned."
Swaminathan felt a tightness in his chest.
"And your family?" he asked.
Bicchu's jaw clenched. "Those who adapted lived. Those who stood firm became part of the riverbed."
Silence fell again, heavier now.
"I survived," Bicchu said. "Not because I was brave. Because I was willing to bend. I ran. I lied about who I was to get food. I changed trades, accents, beliefs. I learned when to agree, when to disappear."
He looked up at Swaminathan then, eyes clear and unflinching.
"And every time I adapted, I lost something."
Swaminathan met his gaze.
"What did you lose?" he asked quietly.
Bicchu exhaled slowly. "Certainty. Pride. The right to say 'this is who I am' and mean it tomorrow."
He poked the fire again, watching sparks scatter unpredictably.
"People think flexibility means freedom," Bicchu said. "It doesn't. It means choosing which part of yourself you can afford to sacrifice today."
Swaminathan absorbed this in silence.
"I don't wake up knowing who I'll be," Bicchu went on. "I wake up knowing I must respond. Some days I'm a helper. Some days a trickster. Some days I pretend to believe things I don't, just to stay alive."
"That sounds like erosion," Swaminathan said.
Bicchu nodded. "It is."
The word settled between them.
"I envy you," Bicchu added unexpectedly.
Swaminathan looked startled. "You do?"
"You know who you are," Bicchu said. "You carry it like armor. Heavy, yes—but solid. The world pushes, and you push back. I don't push anymore. I flow."
"And what remains when the flowing ends?" Swaminathan asked.
Bicchu smiled sadly. "That's the question that keeps me awake."
A distant rumble echoed through the land—not a tremor, but something deeper, like a giant shifting in its sleep. The fire bent low, almost extinguishing itself before recovering.
Swaminathan felt the familiar pressure again, stronger now, more attentive.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Bicchu asked softly.
"Yes," Swaminathan admitted.
"I think the world listens when we talk about these things," Bicchu said. "Like it's measuring us."
"Measuring for what?" Swaminathan asked.
"For how much we're willing to lose," Bicchu replied.
Swaminathan stared into the fire. For the first time, his certainty wavered—not collapsed, but trembled.
He had always believed flexibility was convenience. An excuse. A way to avoid the hard work of standing firm.
Now he saw the cost etched into Bicchu's posture, into the careful way he never settled too long into one shape.
"Why tell me this?" Swaminathan asked.
Bicchu shrugged. "Because you're walking toward a choice. I can see it. And I don't want you thinking bending is easy."
Swaminathan nodded slowly.
"I still believe principles must endure," he said.
"And they should," Bicchu replied. "But remember—endurance isn't the same as rigidity."
The fire finally settled, flames rising straighter now, as if satisfied.
Above them, the stars shifted again, forming a pattern neither of them recognized.
That night, Swaminathan slept poorly.
And for the first time in his life, he dreamed of standing firm—alone—while everything he had refused to bend quietly slipped away.