Ephemera- Of Fire and Ash

Serendipity

Target- 25 votes and 100 comments

Guys, this chapter was really hard to write so please give me a good response for this.

This chapter, is also pretty long with a lot of things, so brace yourself!

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It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

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Yudhishthira sat before the mirror gazing at his appearance, it was a safe time, Draupadi was in the shower.

He delicately removed that heavy necklace he generally wore as it uncovered the cuts on his neck, cuts he had incurred himself recently, in the previous week, yet nobody knew.

While removing the jewellery a sharp edge of the ruby scratched the cut as it began bleeding once more. He shut his eyes as he cleaned the blood and again covered every one of them with the necklace, he felt a sharp surge of pain as the cold surface of the gold touched the scars but he did not show it.

From the beginning, he had concealed them from each one, nobody knew about his mental strife, he would not dare to tell them, they had greater issues on their hands.

He did the same with the scars on his wrist, the only scars someone knew about. He smiled a little as he heard her anklets jingle and decided to play a little prank.

Prank? He chuckled, he never did that, but Dhriti had changed him, pushing aside her painful memories he pretended to be engrossed at staring at himself putting the prank into action.

When Draupadi came and saw him so engrossed staring at his own reflection, she furrowed her eyebrows, no one told her that her eldest husband was fond of staring at himself, only Nakul was.

She decided to prank him as she first removed her anklets, the noisiest one, then her necklace followed by her earrings and then her bracelet, and tiptoed towards him, as she touched him on the shoulder, Yudhi internally smirked as he whispered-

"Purnima?" at this Draupadi surged with anger, as she thought of her enemy, they both hated each other. It all started when Purnima the princess of the neighboring kingdom, mocked her all the time for not knowing everything. She taunted her and called her names.

Her husband could not be smitten by that girl, Draupadi gritted her teeth.

"Oh, love, it is you. I-" Yudhi started.

"Stop with the drama, you obviously don't love me, here I came running to you and you were waiting for that girl." she said angrily.

"Nothing, I was just-" he tried again laughing inside his mind.

"I hate you so much." she said she stomped her feet like a little kid.

As he heard those words, he burst out laughing.

"Come on, Drau, what made you think I was waiting for her." yudhi said between his laughs.

"Then why did you name her." she asked pouting.

"Love, you are my everything, I even know the order in which you removed your jewellery, first your anklets, then necklace, then earrings, and finally your bracelet and then tiptoed towards me."

Draupadi let out a shocked gasp as her mouth formed an o, as she decided to tease him a little.

"So my cutie yudhi, was observing me sitting topless in front of the mirror, instead of wearing his angavastra, hmm.. hot.."