For @avani008 who asked, Draupadi ->💛 (someone she considers a friend)
Draupadi and Satyabhama.
~~~~~~~~
Draupadi clutched her stomach and doubled over, a hearty ring spilling off her until she almost forgot, she was once the Empress of Aryavarta.
She sighed, wiping a tear. Her eyes were now wide enough to see the glow succeeding their fit on Satyabhama’s face.
“What a mess he was!” Satya said, as she glided the back of her finger under her eye, staining her nail in the black of her kohl.
Draupadi nodded, her smile failing to reach her eyes. “I should’ve been there.”
Oh, what she’d give to see young Abhimanyu pull his uncle Balaram’s beard in a display of strength, stick out his tongue and run away, leaving the him a yelping mess, soothing his chin.
Satya narrowed her eyes. “I—I dont dont understand how,”
Draupadi looked up, attentive at her sudden change of tone.
“Does it not bother you?” A flicker of hesitance crossed Satya’s face for a second but she breathed in and continued, “Do you not smoulder a little, blaze a little everytime you’re reminded, everytime you see his face?”
Draupadi tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear and scoffed, eyebrows shooting up.
There was not a single day her stomach didn’t churn, thinking about what happened that day.
Satya inhaled, not letting Draupadi protest. “You cook, clean for, serve and host all these wise men he brings home in the name of blessings and then hear praises of Dharmaraja and his brilliant grasp, on dharma, of all things?” She said, in one breath.
She almost snorted at how Satya had spat out his title. Satya’s words had always amused her. An acquired taste, some would say. They were uncomplicated as truth was, true to her name.
It was refreshing to hear, after years of dousing themselves in pacifying stories, blaming their luck or the lack of it on the past deeds of their dead ancestors, while she watched him reap benefits, of spewing intellectual words of their own’s wisdom, as if him giving into a cathartic vice hadn’t happened at all.
Her heart warmed.
“Oh, Satya,” Draupadi said, as if scolding a child. “What do you think? I didn’t?” She leaned over and dragged her thumb under Satya’s eye, wiping smudged kohl clean.
“Sometimes you just...learn to let it seethe.” she said, running her fingers down her hair.
