|| Never Without You || [ The Tale Of Arjun-Draupadi ] (I)

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝟸𝟷

Kaampilya, Paanchaal

Arjun sucked in a deep breath, peering at the elderly King who was gaping at them, speechless. 

The stares upon him turned from loving to awe within a fraction of a lightning crack. The court of Paanchaal seemed cold like an icy blister, like a thick fog hanging over a silenced chaos.

 "Prince Yudhisthir. . . w-what are you even saying?" Shikhandi retorted with a horrified stare.

"All this. . . what are you saying?!"

It was happening as Arjun had hunched. 

There was complete silence with what Yudhishthir had said. . . almost shaking the living daylights out of them. 

"Prince Shikhandi, I understand that it may be surprising but. . . that's what we have decided. Princess Draupadi will be the wife to us all. And King, even your daughter wants it that way!" Yudhishthir words drifted through the elegant hall, unperturbed by the numerous whispers that floated like dried leaves that rustled along the winds. 

Drupad's gaze locked with the eldest Pandav briefly, his eyebrows scurrying into a knit once again.

"Prince! But how can a woman marry five men in the society?!" One of the ministers stood up, flaring his nose. 

"Exactly King! How are you going to allow this?"

"This will be a sin, my Lord!" A few more ministers got up, shaking their heads. 

"How could we allow our Princess's respect to be tarnished like this?" Came an uproar. 

Arjun felt a lash of fury torment down his veins. He folded his fingers within his palm, his nails hitting on the insides, gulping down. With the corner of his eye, he saw Bheem doing the same. 

Sin? 

Sin?!

 How could Mahadev's eternal boon be a sin?!

"Please, please calm down! Calm down!" Drupad hoisted his palm after a while at the elevating chaos, and the hall dimmed down to silence once again, as he stepped closer to Yudhishthir. 

The middle aged man exhaled a deep breath of conflict, warring within with the malaise that appeared to jibe him.

For a swift moment, Arjun felt his gaze on him that seemed to tear through him like a vulture.

There was something in those steely orbs that made him instinctively shift closer to Bheem. An unwanted heaviness began to settle in his pit which he wanted to fight back at all costs.

This was the man he had to take captive  a few years ago. . . he remembered everything vividly like it was a memory that juggled out itself from the depths of a grave.

The King in his slashed armor, swearing vengeance under his breath for his Guru. Defeated, yet undeterred. Panting, rageful at the storm that was arrested by force.

Now the same man wept. Wept with arms around Yudhishthir like he was his long lost son that he wanted to hold. There was a flaccidity in his eyes that he bore effortlessly. It was not an artifice. A floating warmth that he conveyed through his eyes at Arjun, and he was left with nothing but a tug of confused half-smile. 

This Drupad was not he had seen at the battlefield, nor he had imagined him to be so. 

He was so happy to hug those who had brought disaster to the Paanchaal, once upon a time? 

"Yudhishthir. . . my son. You are a learned youth," Drupad had a calm demeanour, much in contrary to his baffled ministers, "But never have I heard that a woman can marry multiple men. And moreover, it's against the practices of the Vedas!"