Probably I'm losing my memory. I was sure that I have commented on earlier parts, but I don't find my comments ... I'm getting old.
JJ; You are just unbelievably talented writer. Can't say anything else.
How accurately you described Rudra's emotions and inner chaos... skilfully made.
I struggled with this tidbit as I did the first parts too... somehow difficult for me.
JJ - only one word for this tidbits PERFECT.
I read it thrice. And everytime it touched my heart. I felt Rudra's fears and his pain too.
You have reflected everything that Rudra felt and what I expected him to feel so perfectly.
For Rudra this was a second setback. Something he called his own and he loved dearly taken away from him. Naturally he feared it to happen the third time too.
His reluctance to accept his love for Paro stemmed from his fear of her rejection. To say the truth even I couldn't trust Paro love. She accepted Rudra as her fate mate when she got the doll sign. Like Rudra she never felt the attraction or the connection for that matter.
I am not saying Paro didn't love him and neither that her love was any less but Paro loved him as a husband and not as a lover. Maybe her beliefs and values were responsible for this.
As for Rudra, he never followed values, he followed his heart. Rudra loved Paro in entirety. His life began and ended with her. Rest things did even matter or came later.
For Paro sadly the order was not the same. For her, it was bholenath first, then perhaps family and then Rudra. Even in the show I felt so or atleast they projected it so.
Rudra married Paro for testing her. But she surely could have passed. Marriage for her was a sacred institution, which she considered as her destiny and one from which she would have never backed off.
You mentioned test for both of them. What test was it for Rudra?
I moreso feel that to really test Paro's love for Rudra, a separation was needed. Making her marry Rudra was more like bounding her permanently to him with or without love.
The universal quote below for true love
"If you really love something, set it free, If it comes back it's yours, If it doesn't it was never meant to be.."
Paro's love