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***

For a moment, everything went quiet. All the applause had stopped. The air around felt awfully heavy, almost suffocating. Quiet whispers started breaking out both among the common folk and the royals in attendance. Aarohi witnessed it all.

People looked around for the voice that had dared to challenge a Kuru prince.

And there he was... the mighty warrior Karna, walking confidently right up to the middle of the arena.

"Who are you? You are challenging prince Arjun, lad! Don't you know that the Kalapradarshan is only for the the Kuru Princes'?" Guru Dron thundered, questioning the man who had the audacity to challenge his student's valour.

"It sure was, and until then... I was silent. But upon seeing a few stunts by Arjun your excitement soared so high, that you challenged the entire world?! You declared Arjun the best archer in the world?! I'm a part of that world too, Guru Dron! So the dignity of millions of archers of the world and the responsibility of preserving it rests on my shoulders. Now, either you must state that Arjuna is the best only among Kuru princes' or order your student to accept my challenge!" Karna reasoned.

To say that Aarohi was amused would be an understatement. In fact she was so invested that she carefully began to study the reactions of the people around her. Some people, much like her, found it very intriguing, but others like the royals, questioned the nerve of the man while the ministers and gurus looked completely restless, thinking that if Arjun lost the challenge to a common man, it would make Hastinapur look weak in front of everyone.

Duryodhan, Dushasan and Shakuni along with his son Vrikasura, who had made eyes at Aarohi throughout the whole event, wore matching smirks on their faces while the Pandavas were seething with anger and confusion towards the man who had challenged their brother. Aarohi couldn't help but roll her eyes, so typical.

After moments of silence that felt like years, one of the ministers declared that it was crucial to know the caste of the challenger since according to the norms of religion and traditions a royal could only fight another royal in a challenge.

Karna after pausing for a bit introduced himself. As expected, demeaning insults were thrown at him, for being a sutaputra, from people just like him! Aarohi scoffed at the irony of the situation, these people had that heard mentality, just following along with what others did.

'Do they not have a brain of their own with the ability to comprehend what they're doing? They're insulting Karna as if they're superior to him, but half of these people belong to the same caste! Ridiculous!'

Aarohi's logical mind just could not understand the mentally of the people here. They were accepting discrimination against their own caste! All this nonsense enraged her. She was absolutely against all this caste bullshit and believed one could only be superior for the skills they possessed. But it was good too see that all the comments still didn't seem to deter the self-assured Karna, who was a proud son of his parents. He wasn't ashamed of who he was.

"Listen to the audience, go back, no one wants you to fight. They all know a suta has no capabilities!" Bheem said out loud.

"You are not welcome here Karna! You don't possess the skills." Arjun spoke.

"It's really awful to assume about someone's skills before you've seen them, isn't that what you said to me prince Arjun?" Aarohi's loud voice echoed through the arena as she boldly questioned him. She'd had enough of the constant insults and the hypocrisy of the situation. It was just so wrong, especially since she knew the whole truth.

She could feel every eye in the arena trained on her but she couldn't care less. If anyone thought she was brash or rude, well, then that was their problem. Dushala was a bit startled but, no one near her dared to stop her. Not even the Maharani or mata Kunti. Even with her short height, Aarohi knew exactly how intimidating she could be at times and she loved taking advantage of it.

She had managed to catch everyone's attention, even Duryodhan who gave her a sly grin and Shakuni's, which could be bad news. She was heading into a dangerous territory as the women in this era weren't supposed to act like that. But there was no way she would back down now.

"And now you're the one judging Karna without knowing what he has to offer? I must say, it's very presumptuous and hypocritical of you. Are you afraid that he might defeat you?" Aarohi taunted, raising an eyebrow, casually leaning forward from the balcony they were seated at.

Karna looked at the princess, astonished but thankful for the unexpected gesture, he didn't think anyone would stand up for him. He couldn't let her down by losing now! For just a flicker of an instant, he felt as if he'd seen those mysterious black eyes before. He gave her a slight smile which she didn't quite notice, she was busy glaring daggers at Arjun, but nonetheless her fearless aura had taken his breath away.

Meanwhile, Arjun looked at Aarohi, as if she'd broken his favourite bow. An irritated frown made it's way onto his face. Just minutes ago she'd given him a rose that he was still holding in his hand and now it seemed like the very purpose of that was to pierce him with it's thorns. He didn't feel the pain on his skin before, but now the thorns stung.

'Everything was perfect before this Karna showed up!' Arjun thought.

Before anything else could be said, Shakuni limped forward, which only meant more trouble. "Rajkumari Aarohi, we should thank the gods, this lad is fortunate enough that his thumb wasn't cut off just to make Arjun the best." He remarked, with that signature evil smirk as he stroked his beard, indicating what had happened to Eklavya. Guru Dron was left speechless.

"A warrior engages in battle while a murderer poisons people. Is that what you mean to say Mama Shri?" Arjun jeered back, clearly referring to the time when Bheem was poisoned in their childhood, which made Shakuni quiet down as his smirk disappeared.

"I accept your challenge Karna!" Arjun declared, clearly affected, not by Shakuni, but only by that one cold princess, who was back to being unbothered and uninterested, waiting patiently for what would come next. He would have to show her he's the best by winning!

But the ministers still wouldn't approve of the situation.

After what seemed like an endless battle of heated words thrown at each other, Duryodhan stepped forward, declaring Karna the king of Anga, and offering him friendship so he could fight. Aarohi's could clearly see he did it because of his selfishness and greed while his dear Shakuni mama gave him a smile dripping with the sickening venom of ulterior motives.

But still, it takes a lot of courage to accept someone when everyone else has rejected them, for that she respected him.

So the fight began, both Arjun and Karna fired arrows at each other, but the end result was the same every time, the arrows crumbled into dust and nothing remained. Both fought neck to neck with each other.

But suddenly Arjun enveloped Karna in a dark fog and an arrow was shot towards him, immediately his golden kavach appeared on his body, shielding him from the unnoticed blow but unfortunately, catching the attention of mata Kunti, who started to hyperventilate and eventually fainted. She was taken back to her quarters.

Aarohi's little black heart couldn't understand why she felt sorry for the woman who had abandoned her son when he was just a baby, especially since she knew it was horrible to grow up without a mother. Maybe it was just her instinct as a doctor towards a patient but she went after to see if she was alright, leaving the two men in the arena to their battle, by whom her absence didn't go unnoticed. She knew the fight wouldn't be completed and anyway she had seen enough of that macho standoff contest.

"M-My- - that's my son- I can't-" Kunti stammered trying to get up from her bed while her maid Priyamvadha tried calming her down. Aarohi stood in the doorway, watching.

"No- Priyamvadha- - Karna is my son!" Kunti screamed, finally standing and turning towards the door. It was a little too late when both women noticed Aarohi standing there.

"Aarohi- - putri, you- heard about- -"

"About how Karna is your son that you had abandoned? Leaving his fate in the hands of river Ganga?"

"I- - oh my- you-"

"You don't have to justify anything." Aarohi murmured and simply, although a bit awkwardly hugged the old woman who immediately melted in her embrace and cried her heart out. "It's alright." Even though Aarohi's never liked hugs or touches, it wasn't time to act entitled, she had to calm her down especially since she knew personally how scary it felt to have an anxiety attack. It was like being pulled down into a deep abyss, not knowing if you'd even come out alive.

The fight between Arjun and Karna wasn't completed, a messenger had told them, which made the mother feel better. Kunti had cried the entire evening but somehow Aarohi had been successful in distracting her, calming her down before her five sons came rushing to their mother to meet her after the end of the event.

As the Pandavas came into the room, before Kunti could stop her, Aarohi quietly left, she'd introduce herself at tomorrow's dinner party, she thought, leaving them to have their family moment, while Arjun spared her a fleeting glance, as she almost stumbled because of her injury. He wanted to help her, but she just quickly hurried out of the room.

***

The next evening came and Aarohi found herself standing with Dushala who was introducing her to the Pandavas, they greeted her warmly. It looked like they had forgotten all about yesterday, the cheerful expressions on their faces gave that away. It was good that they didn't take her taunting Arjun seriously, who seemed pretty relaxed himself. Yudhishthir and Sahadev stood smiling and nodding while listening to the conversation between Nakul and Aarohi.

"Wow, rajkumari Aarohi, your hair is really soft! What do you use on it?" Nakul asked, clearly a bit jealous of her shiny hair as he ran a hand through his own, comparing the texture.

"Oh, just a bunch of chemicals, you know?" Aarohi revealed, while it was true for all kaliyugis, all of them took it as a joke and doubled over with laughter.

"Ahh, not revealing your hair secrets? I respect that!" Nakul said but it seemed like he was trying to convince himself to not pester her further.

"Hah! Respects that, my foot. I can swear he's dying inside right now. In fact he whines like a kid every time I ruffle his hair." Bheem clapped her on the back, laughing loudly while a startled Aarohi tripped forward letting out an 'ouch', because that hurt, not to mention her ankle injury, which made it worse. Bheem was too strong even with his friendly gestures.

Dushala caught her friend, still giggling.

"Bhrata Bheem, don't do that to her!" Arjun objected, with such seriousness that it made everyone quiet. Aarohi looked at him confused.

'Why is he- - maybe because of my injury? But why does he care- -'

"She's already so short and by doing that you'll reduce her height even more! Aarohi might just disappear into the ground!" He snickered loudly, making the others join in on the fun while Aarohi glared at him, but Arjun chortled even more.

'Of course! He doesn't care! He was only setting me up for a joke!'

She couldn't wear heels because of her sprained ankle and standing right next to Bheem make her look even shorter than she actually was. Aarohi sneered at the man again, quickly going around to stand next to Dushala and Sahadev, which only made them all clutch their sides at her reaction.

"Okay okay- that's enough, no one will tease Aarohi anymore." Even Yudhishthir chuckled as he pretended to warn his brothers seriously.

"Ha. Ha. Ha.Very funny guys." She tried to keep a neutral expression but she was exasperated! They were all laughing at her.

'Well Pandavas, you better sleep with one eye open today, because there's no telling what I'll do to you all.'

"Looks like you all are having fun over here. Dushala, won't you introduce your real brothers to rajkumari Aarohi?"

As soon as that voice was heard, the atmosphere quickly changed for the worse. They all looked around to find no other than Duryodhan and Dushasan along with Karna, Ashwatthama and Vrikasura. Dushala visually looked tense but began to stiffly introduce them to Aarohi.

Arjun glared at Karna as he looked at Aarohi's face for a long moment, once again thinking he'd seen her before while the others were introduced. Aarohi too, looked at him but unlike Karna, she quickly realised he was the same man she'd bumped into that evening. She didn't acknowledge it as Karna obviously couldn't recall her, also why would she bring that up in front of everyone anyways? She just wanted to leave now since the mood was already ruined. If that wasn't enough reason to leave, Vrikasura was looking at her like the creep he was, again.

"I-I'll take my leave now, enjoy the celebration everyone." Aarohi said, not waiting for a response as Dushala left with her, insisting on holding her arm as she needed some support to walk because of the painful sprain.

The girls took their seats next to Mata Kunti and Maharani Gandhari. Aarohi's eyes immediately looked questioningly at Kunti, checking in if she was alright to which the older woman gave a slight smile, but it didn't dull the pain in her eyes.

The night winded down to an end as all the entertainers wrapped up their performances. Dushala was busy wishing all the guests goodbye as it was her duty as the princess, so Aarohi simply told her she was sleepy and would like to return to her room now.

Nonetheless, Dushala requested her to wait by the food table because she knew her ankle felt worse than before after Bheem had unknowingly pushed her, and yet Aarohi of course was too stubborn to admit that she needed help to walk. She grumbled at the Kuru princess but Dushala didn't relent this time and made her comply, making her sit on a chair near the table. Aarohi held her head in her hands, absolutely exhausted from the long night.

But suddenly...

Aarohi found herself in the terrible clutches of dread as she felt a large hand slowly creep up her back, resting onto her shoulder.

And she heard a man's haggard voice, "What's a pretty little thing like you doing all on your lonesome? Mmm... Let me fix that..."

***

Will Aarohi be in trouble? Or will someone come to her rescue?

Who do you want it to be? 👀

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I'll update soon. And leave a comment please.