The Son Returns - Krishna Meets Devaki

The prison doors fall open. Chains dissolve like morning mist. Devaki and Vasudeva blink in the sudden light, unable to believe what they're seeing.

DEVAKI (voice barely above a whisper): Is it... is it real? Are you truly...

KRISHNA (kneeling before her): Mother.

The word breaks something in Devaki. Sixteen years of grief, of watching six children murdered, of knowing her seventh and eighth were alive somewhere but unreachable—all of it floods out.

DEVAKI (weeping, touching his face): My baby. My baby who crossed the river in a basket. Look at you—so tall, so strong. I missed everything. Your first words, your first steps, your childhood...

Krishna: "You missed nothing that mattered. Every moment of my life, you were in my heart. Every achievement was for you. I grew up loved in Vrindavan, but I grew up knowing—always knowing—that my first mother waited in chains."

Devaki: "I should have protected you. What kind of mother lets her child be taken?"

Krishna: "The kind who obeys divine will even when it breaks her heart. Do you think I don't know what it cost you? Every night in this cell, every prayer you whispered, every tear you shed—I heard them all. I felt them all."

VASUDEVA (placing a hand on Krishna's shoulder): We dreamed of this moment. But we thought it was only a dream.

Krishna: "Dreams are just visions waiting for their time. This was always going to happen. Kansa's tyranny was always going to end. You were always going to be free."

Devaki: "But why? Why did it have to take so long? Why did six children have to die?"

Krishna is silent for a moment. When he speaks, his voice carries the weight of cosmic truth.

Krishna: "Mother, do you want the comforting answer or the true answer?"

Devaki: "The truth. Always the truth."

Krishna: "Those six children were six asuras—demons—who had accumulated terrible karma over many lives. By dying at Kansa's hands, in your presence, at the moment of my impending birth, they were liberated. Their karma was burned. They achieved what yogis spend lifetimes seeking."

Devaki: "My children were... demons?"

Krishna: "Your children were souls in need of liberation. And you—by being their mother, by grieving for them, by loving them even for the moments you held them—you gave them what they needed. Your love was their final teacher."

Devaki: "But the pain... the unbearable pain..."

Krishna: "I know. And I will tell you something that I tell very few: I felt it too. Every death, every grief, every moment of your suffering—I experienced it with you. We were never separate, mother. Not for an instant."

Devaki pulls him close, this son who is also God, this child who is also the source of all creation.

Devaki: "Will you stay? Will you be my son now, truly?"

Krishna: "I will be your son for all eternity. But I cannot stay in Mathura. There is work to do—enemies who will come seeking revenge for Kansa, a kingdom to protect, a destiny to fulfill. I will build Dwaraka, and you will live there in honor."

Devaki: "Always leaving. Even now, already preparing to leave."

KRISHNA (smiling): Always returning. That's the part you should focus on. I leave, but I return. I go far, but I come back. And wherever I am, you are my mother. That bond is stronger than distance, stronger than time, stronger than death itself.

VASUDEVA: We understand, son. We always understood. Do what you must.

Krishna: "But first... (he touches Devaki's forehead) ...I want to give you something."

A vision floods Devaki's mind—she sees her six children not as murdered infants but as liberated souls, radiant, free, thanking her for the love that released them. She sees Krishna's childhood in Vrindavan—the butter theft, the demon battles, the love of Yashoda. She sees everything she missed, given back to her in an instant of divine grace.

DEVAKI (tears now of joy): My son. My impossible, wonderful, divine son.

Krishna: "Your son. Now and forever. Now come—a kingdom awaits its freed prisoners, and I have a tyrant's throne to empty."