Draupadi - The Impregnable Queen

8

"This is not your place, your highness! This is our matter, we will handle it." came a voice from somewhere near the party of six. They all stood alert. It was decided Arjuna and Nakul would go and check out the commotion. With their grown beards and hermit clothes, they were practically unrecognizable.

A man in his twenties stood, by his clothes he looked like he was from the nobility. He had a jagged sword in his hand. Behind him, were supposedly his men, reluctantly surrounding with lathis an old man whose forehead had a vicious cut, blood gushing out of it. Two women and a small boy were crying in some distance, probably the old man's family. 

The noble-born looked straight ahead, the brothers weren't able to see the person he was looking at, as they were hidden behind foliage. 

"Not my place!" a feminine voice said as if amused, "Is this your place, Prayag? When will you understand the land does not belong to us, we belong to the land." Arjun smiled.

"We only serve the land, and like any other citizen, I am trying to do my part. Now, get out of the way, I want to do this without any bloodshed." Nakul raised an eyebrow, turning to look at his elder brother, but Arjuna was listening intently, a little smile playing on his lips.

"Step aside, woman. I have no intention of hurting you, but you should not interfere with my work."

"You had to call upon the woman, huh?" Nakul blinked his eyes once and the man named Prayag was stuck to the tree behind him by a dagger stuck in his angavastram. He looked angrily over to the woman.

"If you behave I will buy you a better one, anyway who wears black angavastram these days, who are you Raavan?" Arjun and Nakul both held back a laugh.

Arjun's grin was wiped off his face, his mouth gaping open. Nakul looked where his brother was looking at. A woman taller than an average Aryavartan woman came into view. Her choli a pale yellow, her dhoti brick red. Her sky blue angavastram hanging from her right shoulder which was threaded with dark green and yellow thread to resemble leaves and flowers along one border. Her black locks like fire were open, parted in the middle. Her forehead was adorned with a gold maang teeka with yellow beads, three thin gold chains protruded out from the headpiece, covering her forehead and hiding in her hair. It looked like someone had done a poor job at trying to hide her vigour. Her face, her posture and her eyes betrayed her whole princess look. Her subtle clothes could not hide her fierceness. Her graceful jewellery failed in hiding her magnanimity. Nakul looked back to his brother, the women's body was sculpted, but his brother looked like he had turned into a statue. Nakul tried to get him out of the trance by poking him but to no avail. Arjuna was in another world, his eyes fixated on hers. His eyes were that of an archer, there was no way that the brown colour of her eyes would go unseen by him. He trailed down to her shoulders, taut, they looked like they had experience in archery. Her long fingers wore some minor scars. Her stomach toned, he returned to her face. Her cheekbones not so prominent, but her jawline could be used as a weapon. Her lips neither full nor thin. Her nose long and thin, her thick eyelashes failed to curtain the fire in her eyes. She looked like a warrior in the army of Goddess Shakti herself.

 She moved past the man which caused Arjuna to come back to reality. Blood flooded to his cheeks as he looked at his smaller brother, his right eyebrow cocked up, his mouth in a grin. As Nakul started to open his mouth to say something, Arjuna cut him off.

"Don't you dare speak!" his voice meant to threaten, but it came out shyer then he expected. He turned his attention back to her, smiling.

The men of Prayag now stood far from the man, the woman walking towards the victim. She knelt, examining his wound.