Viraah

~*~|| Interlude ||~*~

Dwarka [six months ago]

"Rajkumar Arjun wants permission to enter, Your Highnesses", the queen's guard bowed low as his words halted the much enthused conversation occurring between the two current inhabitants of the chambers. 

"Arjun!"

Vaidarbhi Rukmini, the queen consort of Krishna stood up fluidly from her seat, her ethereal face aglow in delight. 

"What are you doing dvarapala? This is his wife's palace. He doesn't need permission to enter. Bring him in", the queen of the Yadavas gesticulated at the flustered guard who went back out, harried. 

"Mahadeva! I repeatedly told your brother to send me word when they reach the borders so that we have adequate time to prepare for receiving them. But no, those two tend to forget how normal people function when they are together"

Rukmini chuckled to herself, mentally going through the list of things she and her co wives had meticulously planned for this particular occasion itself.

Arjun was Krishna's favourite cousin and Dwarka's golden boy. 

The mystical city of the Yadavas had almost adopted the enigmatic prince of the Kurus since the day the latter had set foot in their land. 

Both Dwarkadheesh and his land seemed to illuminate with barely restrained excitement whenever the third Kuntiputra would be in vicinity. And today was perhaps the most awaited day, since the time she had been married and brought to this city, as the Vrishnis and their subjects looked upon the arrival of their favourite Pandava prince. 

"Subhadra, why are you still---", Rukmini turned towards her strangely mute sister in law and stopped short seeing the pallor on the usually luminous face of the beauteous daughter of Rohini. 

"Oh my dear."

The princess of Vidarbha pulled the former queen of Indraprastha in a protective embrace, her heart aching for the ebullient girl at whose scarlet heels, prosperity, laughter and cheer had followed throughout, gracing both the halls of the Yadavas and the Kurus in equanimity. 

"Forgive me sister, I was..", Subhadra began disconcerted, trying to pull away but Rukmini hushed her and held tight. 

People have seen the quiescent queen of Arjuna as how she appeared most of the time. Soft and diminutive, almost submissive in comparison to the force of lightening that sparkled clear in her husband's towering frame or the vivacious tongs of fire which brewed beneath the dusky skin of her co wife. 

What people didn't see was the spine of iron which had held the reigns of her fractured family and the heart of a lioness which had enabled Subhadra to hold strong through a bitter separation and waves of tornadic humiliation for more than a decade and raise a warrior prince of her own.

Someone who would go on to write history with the tragedy flowing through his blood. 

They have confused Rochana's gentleness with meekness.