The proudest father in Kuśasthalī
King Kakudmī walked the terraces of his sea-palace at night, troubled in a way no enemy had ever managed. His daughter Revatī had mastered every art a princess could master, and every king who came asking for her hand looked, to her father's eye, like a candle held up against the sun. He made a list of the greatest names in the land and crossed each one out in turn. "There is one who will know," he said at last. "The grandfather of the worlds himself."
✦ Visual cue — An aging king alone on a moonlit palace terrace above the sea, a scroll of names in one hand, a stylus in the other, scratching out name after name.