Vakṣaṇī Dharmā : The Song of Mahabharat

8| Changing Tides

"Mrithika, Mrithika I'm really sorry. I didn't know you were um....more than sixteen. You never told me"! Arjun yelled as he ran behind her.

Mrithika whipped around and glowered at him. Well, she had to agree she never did tell him about her age but still, she did not look that young and this guy was supposed to have a really good eye sight.

"How on earth do I look like a sixteen year old, Arjun"? Mrithika deadpanned.

Arjun paused for awhile. "Well, um...there's your height and you look quite kiddy and all that...." He mumbled under his breath and looked anywhere but at her accusing gaze. He scratched the back of his neck as he waited for her reaction which he doubted was any good.

"In what way do I look kiddy, exactly"? She asked in a brittle voice with a fake smile that did no good.

This got the archer tongue - tied, he knew that one slip of a wrong answer could land him in a wrong direction. He wondered how Govind handled such situations flawlessly and times like these wished he was with him.

On the other side of Bharatvarsh, the lord of Dwarka very well heard his thoughts. A sly smile tugged at his lips as he mused, "You're all alone in this, Parth".

"Uhhh....why do you braid your hair"? He asked abruptly which made Mrithika knit her eyebrows.

"What"?

Her voice was funny as one of her brows lifted in a high arch, she could see that Arjun still held his sheepish smile. " I mean, I've been meaning to ask this, like only married woman braid their hair so...are you married"? He asked the last part in a whisper, glancing across his surroundings to see if anyone was eavesdropping.

"Cut the bullshit, Arjun. Stop trying to change the topic and NO, I'm not married for god's sake".

"Oh", He said and wondered if things have changed as such in Kalyug. 'Yes, must be a Kalyug thing', He thought, nodding his head.

"Okay so, what's your age"? He asked sheepishly.

Mrithika shook her head at his obliviousness, "You know what, Arjun? I'll talk to you only when you guess my age correctly, try using your brains".

With that she sashayed across the corridors, leaving Arjun in the dust, who was guessing what might be her accurate age.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

"How does this one look"? Dushala, the only daughter of Gandhari and Dhritarashtra, asked as she held a red skirt with golden embroidery along its hem.

Mrithika gave a blank stare at the skirt and sighed. Dushala was going to be wedded to the King of Sindh, Jaydrath, on the whims of Duryodhan. Her marriage was about to be in a matter of four days and she felt bad for the girl, the girl who was so excited for her wedding that she no idea of what it held for her later. And that made Mrithika the least enthusiastic of all when it came to such matters.

Dushala dragged her away to her quarters the moment she saw Mrithika all alone in the Palace corridors as usual since Nakul and Bheem were off sneaking in the kitchen, Sahadev was nowhere to be seen, Yudhisthir was busy with royal work as usual and Arjun and her weren't on speaking terms from the past two days due to his inability to still correctly guess her age.

At first, Mrithika disliked the girl because of her overly excessive gawking that made her feel uncomfortable, but when Kunti finally took it upon herself to introduce the two, they clicked off. Mostly because Dushala and Mrithika were the only girls in the entire palace.

Dushala was the one who took the responsibility of giving Mrithika her first set of Dwapar clothes, and she had to admit, they were amazing. Being used to shirts and pants in modern era where ethnic clothes were limited, these ones felt light and flowy. She wondered if Dushala was thoughtful about her previous wardrobe that made her do such arrangements.