#hidimbi

Genshin Impact | 2026 April Fool's Day Artwork

MASTERLIST

Poetry

1. Lamentations

2. Kiriti and Kalyani

Drabbles

1. Uloopi

2. Hidimbi

3. Dice

4. Grief

5. Rumination

6. Eudamonic

7. Sakhe

8. Brihannala

9. Soft

10. Vastraharan

11. Arjuni?

12. Father Divine

13. Madri

14. Balarama

15. Ashwathama

Meta

1. Virata War

2. The Epic Trend

3. Headcanons on Arjuna

4. Krishnarjun

1. Part one

2. Part two

Wattpad

1. Viraah

2. Kalacakra | At Destiny's Wake

3. Chandra Charitam

4. Agraja | Blood Brothers

5. Anuraga | The Quiescent Queen

1. Months pass before Draupadi thinks to ask how her husbands survived alone in the forest.”It was hardly the first time we’d lived there!” Arjuna says indignantly, but it is Yudhisthira who admits the bargains they had made to survive.

Even with those as disreputable as the demon-born! Draupadi thinks, horrified, but notices that Bhima alone says nothing. He does not need to: the grief in his eyes is enough.

Does he still think, she wonders, of the woman he’d married? Or the child he’d fathered at her behest and left behind?

Something nags at her, and it is not jealousy. Not entirely. 

2. But of course this Hidimbi must stay where she is, even were she not a demoness. 

There will be only one queen in Indraprastha, no matter how many other wives her husbands take; Draupadi has always been quite clear about that. In her few years of life, too often she has seen life in the harems of great kings, the jealousies and petty rivalries that proximity creates. She has neither time nor patience for such things. She will not sacrifice power to pretty faces and pretension. 

And yet: they are newly married yet, and none of her husbands have taken any other spouse–to please herself, perhaps, but it is just as likely that they have yet to find her equal and her fears are unfounded. In the years she is the wife of one, the other four simply wait, and that, to her, seems awkward and undesirable. Is that truly how she wants them to go on?

And yet: Bhima is kind, and does so much for her, and can she not allow him this one indulgence so that he might smile?

And most important of all: Hidimbi is only a demoness, after all, with neither family nor fortune nor influence. What threat could she possibly pose?

3. Draupadi wonders anew if she’s made a mistake as Hidimbi exits the palanquin, nails long and sharp, a baby with a curiously bulbous head in her arms. Her skin is unnaturally light– almost translucent beneath the sun’s rays–and leathery, and when she smiles, she reveals a set of neat fangs. 

She does not fit into the life Draupadi imagines for herself in Indraprastha, not at all. 

But it is too late to retract her invitation, and determinedly Draupadi steps forward to welcome her, thali in hand. 

No matter what she might have feared, however, Hidimbi’s hands are not burned by the diya’s flame,  no more than her lips bleed as she murmurs a prayer, and her hands on Draupadi’s shoulder in greeting are tender and thankful. 

4. “It is my time,” Draupadi says, years later. “You ought not to remain with me and render yourself every bit as unclean. You might pay your respects to Mother Gandhari instead, or our sisters-in-law.”

“I am a demoness, little sister–how much more unclean might I become?” Hidimbi laughs, full-throated. “And as to what you suggest instead, Mother Gandhari is far too old for me to frighten her with my presence, and our sisters too sheltered, I’m sure.” 

Familiarity has eroded the memory of Draupadi’s own wariness, such that she feels only contempt for those close-minded as to shun Hidimbi. But just the same, she cannot argue of the reaction her sister will find in the rest of the women’s quarters.

With that taken into account, it makes little sense that Hidimbi should have asked to accompany them. Why not stay behind, with Subhadra and the rest? But whenever Draupadi asks to point this out, Hidimbi only drawls, “For I could not bear to lose the pleasure of your company, even for so few days as these” and says nothing more.

5. Dushashana is strong, certainly, but nothing compared to an angry demoness with the powers of magic at her disposal. He collapses at Draupadi’s feet, senseless, before her fingers can so much as grasp at her hair; and Draupadi, still reeling from his threat to drag her before her elders in such a disgraceful state, can only protest: “You knew!”

Hidimbi does not deny it. She only says, steady and sure: “I saw how our cousins looked at you when they left, even if you did not. I thought they must mean you ill by insisting that you visit Hastinapur, but yet I prayed I might be wrong–”

She hadn’t been. Little time to dwell on that now. “What now?” Draupadi says. It hadn’t been enough to send the doorkeeper back with her reply; what if Duryodhana intruded next, or, shame of shames, they commanded one of her husbands to fetch her instead?