Finally, here's the chapter! Enjoy my dear readers and please tell me how it was. Also, added those memes at the end.

Don't forget to vote and please comment.

***

And 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..."

"Excuse m-me?" Aarohi questioned, her voice a bit shaky from the sudden encounter, she was obviously tired from long the night. Even with her ankle hurting awfully, she got up from her chair and turned to face the scumbag. It was Vrikasura, of course!

'Like father, like son. Creeps.'

"Come on my beauty, it looks like you're in desperate need of someone who can take care of you." He came closer gesturing towards her ankle as Aarohi's footing faltered, she couldn't stand for much longer because of the sprain. From the way he was slurring all his words, it was clear that he was intoxicated.

Aarohi swallowed hard, trying to gulp down her fear. She glanced around for an escape, suddenly aware of how alone she was, how isolated from others.

"Let me take care of you and carry you back to your room... just command me princess... I can do anything you need..." He grazes a finger along her jaw.

And yet, even when paralysed with fear, she couldn't stop herself from acting unfazed and responding back almost mechanically, "Have all the other girls already rejected you? That's probably why you made the mistake of coming to me, right? And no offence, but you're simply useless when it comes to my list of needs and demands." She hurriedly turned back and moved away.

"Wow, you're quite uptight... but don't worry, I'll help loosen you up- -" Vrikasura rests a hand against her back.

And suddenly, something snaps inside Aarohi. She spins around swiftly, elbowing him hard in the stomach.

He stumbles backwards, obviously shocked.

In a flash, she wrenches his hand away and slams it hard on the table. There was a loud crack.

"AARGH! You broke my hand you little- -"

He shoves her back in anger and poor Aarohi falls back hard on the ground, a few ceramic vessels shattering around her.

"Nhh~" The sharp shards gash her already injured leg as she topples.

"AAROHI!" Shouted Arjun noticing what was happening, rushing towards her. All the commotion had attracted his attention, since he was already looking for Aarohi because Dushala had requested him to help her back to her room, as she wouldn't be free of her duties anytime soon.

As Vrikasura advances on the fallen girl, Arjun grabs him and throws him back.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"This witch broke my damn hand! Do you how much it hurts?!"

"Good that it hurts! And enough of your antics Vrikasura! You still have one good hand don't you? Get lost before I break this one too!" Arjun warns, furious. Vrikasura glares at him but eventually steps back and leaves, clearly at a loss, clutching his broken hand.

As he leaves Arjun turns back to the Aarohi. "Aarohi, are you alright- -"

...but she's gone.

The only thing left behind was a trail of crimson blood that dripped down her leg as she'd walked away. But Arjun couldn't just let her go and face this on her own, even when he was mad at her for supporting Karna yesterday, she needed help. And there was no way the stubborn girl would ask for it herself.

He quickly went after Aarohi, who was now trying but failing to make her way back to her room as her leg did not comply.

"I'm stronger than this, I'll be fine! Come on you stupid leg!" Aarohi sneered at herself as she walked forward, with every step she took her leg made a squelching sound and gushed out even more blood. She needed to treat it, and fast.

But would she ask for help?

Nah.

It's not like she was going to die from it.

She tortured herself forcing her brain to ignore the pain until she finally stumbled, her vision growing blurry, accepting the fact that she would fall on the floor again, but was gently caught in someone's strong arms as his worried voice rang out through the hallway.

"Princess! What happened to you?"

However, Aarohi couldn't reply, instead a confused frown made its way onto her face as she blearily looked up to find Karna's gravely concerned eyes looking back at her as he held her tight.

'Why's he so concerned? Well- I guess one look at my bleeding leg and- -'

"Ouch!" Aarohi wasn't able to complete the thought as the pain became unbearable, she unintentionally clutched Karna's large hand with her delicate fingers as she slowly sank to her knees against a wall, all the adrenaline disappeared at once, like a tide rushing out to sea, leaving her weak and wobbly.

Fear, anger and shame washed over her in turn.

How could she let this happen to herself? That Vrikasura was surely going to pay hell!

"Rajkumari...!" Karna helped her sit well, comforting her as she sat on the floor breathing heavily. Her hand was still holding his, but he didn't pull away, instead sat there, gently rubbing it for several minutes as she started breathing a bit more normally.

Karna then noticed her injured leg, which still proceeded to drip blood. His eyes widened as Aarohi's grew unfocused, barely even open anymore. But he could still feel the anger seething from underneath her skin.

Something had happened, very something bad.

"Rajkumari Aarohi- - look at me- - oh god!" He quickly tears away a piece of fabric from his clothing to wrap around the deep cut. Karna's hands shook as he gently tried to lift her clothes off her leg, and looked up at the girl for consent. She made no move to resist, at this point she couldn't.

But he hadn't even lifted the fabric an inch, as a voice filled with rage thundered through the dimly lit corridor.

"What are you doing to her? Step away from her Karna! NOW!"

It was Arjun, who had just reached there finally finding Aarohi following the trail of blood she unknowingly left behind. He was coming to help her, yet upon seeing Karna with her, all thoughts about that disappeared from his mind, left only with pure outrage.

Why?

That he couldn't quite explain himself.

In his defence, it was a pretty inappropriate situation he had witnessed. So, without another thought, he strides forward, grabbing Karna and pushing him away from the injured girl. Not even one thing in his mind indicated that he might be trying to help her, the same thing that he came to do.

"What are you doing Arjun?! I was trying to help her, she almost fainted!" Karna was outraged at the young prince's move.

"Help her? Help her?! By what, trying to take advantage of her?!" Arjun hissed back, everything had stopped making sense to him.

"You're disgusting Arjun, I would never do such a thing!" Karna pushed him off of him.

"Oh don't act so innocent- - I saw the way you were looking at her!" Arjun's every breath came in hard, chest heaving up and down.

"Looking like what? Concerned? I don't need to explain my actions, especially to you, but your state right now is just simply pitiful, so let me clarify- I was doing that to try and stop the blood from the wound! I was no less worried than you when I saw her!" Karna explained.

"And yet you- -"Arjun wanted to argue further but as he noticed the piece of torn fabric in Karna's hand he halted. It seemed like he was in fact trying to help. He ran a hand through his hair and straitened his clothes, stepping back.

They still continued to glared at each other.

"Ah~" A soft hiss from behind distracted the two men from glowering at each other.

"Aarohi-" Both men gasped collectively as they saw Aarohi trying to get up again, taking shuddering breath's, not relenting even when her body clearly didn't agree.

"Stubborn. So stubborn and careless! Can't you just learn to relax Aarohi? You'll make the injury worse!" Arjun uttered, moving past Karna and gripping Aarohi's shoulders, softly pushing her back down to make her sit again.

"I'm absolutely fine- - in fact, I've never been better. I don't need your pity, Arjun." She pushed Arjun's arms away.

"I'm not pitying you- - I'm trying to help! Can't you just stop arguing for one second? Why didn't you ask for help?"

"Clearly you were busy in other important things." She looked at the men in turn, referring to their fight, while both gazed away, embarrassed that she had witnessed everything. They wished it was just a menial argument but clearly, other other feelings were involved.

Aarohi held a frightened look in those deep black orbs, a look they had never seen before and it made the two men absolutely lose it. They were worried out of their minds.

"Let me see the cut." Arjun bent down in front of her, lifting her dress a bit to look at the injury when Karn suddenly felt the urge to leave, seeing the two clearly knew each other better than he knew Aarohi, even though he would love to help and stay with her to ask her what happened and if she was going to be okay.

But clearly Arjun wasn't going to let him do that anyways as he looked around every other moment just to pass him a look that said, 'why the heck are you still here?' so he turned around.

"Angraj wait, uhh... thank you- - for-" Aarohi stammered, not knowing how to properly get the words out without starting another fight between the two men.

"No problem princess, I only repaid the favour from when you took my side yesterday. In fact I should be thankful to you for that. Please take care, I will pray that you get well soon. And if you consider me your friend like I do, then you can talk to me anytime, just say the word and I'll be there for you." He smiled, gently squeezing her hand before he sighed looking at Arjun scowling at him and left, giving Aarohi last a comforting glance. Why did it feel like he'd met her before every single time?

Meanwhile, Arjun had failed to understand why Aarohi attempted to thank him so sweetly.

'She never shows a chunk of decency when she talks to me- - even when I treated her ankle. Meanwhile, she hasn't even talked to Karn more than a few minutes and she's thanking him?'

"Don't give me that look Arjun, I know what you're thinking."

"Thinking what huh? About your double standards?" Arjun blurted out before he could think twice and mentally face palmed himself.

"Well he never insulted me or taunted me about my height so..."

"Okay, okay. You win, little miss attitude, now move your hand, let me take a look at your leg. Oh- - it's definitely bad, you need the raj vaidya quick."

"Wow, thanks for pointing it out genius, I never would have known." Aarohi sassed with a roll of her eyes.

"You know what? It seems like all that blood loss has made you delirious. You need a mental councillor more than a physician right now. What made you think you could walk with your broken ankle?" Arjun replied back with the same tone, but the distress in his voice wasn't concealed. As he called for a dasi, Aarohi grumbled accepting defeat. He had won this round and she knew it.

Why did she force herself to walk anyway?

Aarohi couldn't believe she was a doctor right now! She of all people should have known not to walk with glass shards in her leg!

'I swear, this era... the people, especially this stupid Arjun- - made me go crazy!'

"Forgive me, kumar Arjun but the raj vaidya is attending to kumar Vrikasura, he broke his hand somehow. I will send him to kumari's room when he's free." The dasi answered, bowing her head and went away, while Arjun turned to his side, trying not to smile. That 'somehow' was sitting right next to him.

"I messed that guy up pretty bad didn't I?" Aarohi let out a hollow laugh.

"Well, I think he deserved it." Arjun playfully ruffled her hair and Aarohi smacked his hand away.

"Oh so you love your hair too! Just like Nakul! He throws a tantrum every time bhrata Bheem touches his hair." He had to laugh at his own joke as Aarohi just frowned and rolled her eyes.

"Okay then, let's get you back to your room." He said, sighing and moving forward to lift Aarohi.

"Uh- what do you think you're doing right now?" Aarohi raised her eyebrow at him.

"Helping you? You're welcome...?" He snaked an arm around her waist and another one beneath her legs in an attempt to lift her up, but of course Aarohi did not comply, desperately grabbing onto a nearby curtain, hoping he would get tired of her antics and leave her to suffer alone.

"You are not going to pick me up! This is so not happening!" Aarohi whined despite knowing she wouldn't be able to walk anymore, because if she wasn't going to get her way, she sure as hell wasn't going to make it easy for him.

"Oh really? How will you go back to your room then Aarohi? Or have you decided to spend the night sitting in this corner full of mosquitoes?" Arjun shook his head, this girl was crazy.

"Oh my god Aarohi! Leave it!" He said as he pulled the curtain away from her with a force, abruptly making her loose her grip but in turn the long cloth fell onto his head, covering his body as he stood there like a statue. Aarohi burst out giggling.

"You look like those little ghosts from that Instagram trend." She laughed, but in no way was that man in front of her little.

"Huh? Now what in the world is this Instagram?" Arjun questioned as he tossed the fabric away.

"Nothing- - forget it." She almost scoffed, as if irritated and disappointed that no one here got the joke references.

As she was busy thinking what joke references people in this era would get, Arjun swiftly but carefully lifted her up before she could try anything else.

"Are you kidding me- -"

"No, my dear angry bird, I'm always looking for excuses just to carry random princess to their rooms! It's my favourite hobby you know."

"Ugh! You're insufferable Arjun!" Aarohi scoffed yet she knew he was right, it hurt too much.

"Not more than you though." He winked and carried the stubborn princess back to her room.

***

An hour later, Aarohi was laying on the bed in her chambers, feeling exhausted but better. The raj vaidya had attended to her and told her to rest, the cut on her leg was treated, thankfully, it wasn't too bad and would heal in a few days with the special ointment applied to it.

"Feeling better now? Here, drink this." Arjun offered Aarohi a glass of warm kesar milk to help her fall asleep better. The girl had had one hell of a night, it was the least he could do and while it wasn't coffee or hot chocolate, she gladly took it as she gave Arjun a sidelong look. She'd never imagined them like this, tolerating each other's presence. Almost... comfortable.

"Arjun..."

"Yes?"

"Whatever happened tonight... I don't want you to tell anyone about it." She unexpectedly announced.

"What? Aarohi but he-"

"Deserves to be punished? Yes he does. But what's going to happen when we tell Maharaj Dhritarashtra? Have you thought about that? Since Vrikasura is Shakuni's son, most likely he will command him to simply apologise to me. And what good will that do? Only you and me know the whole truth, Karna saw me hurt but he wouldn't tell anyone without knowing everything, I'm sure of that. So let's just keep it between us."

Arjun went silent for a minute, thinking. Aarohi's reasoning was absolutely correct, nothing much would be done about this even if they tell Maharaj, and the worst part would be that the whole matter could attract unnecessary attention towards her, which wasn't going to be anything positive.

"Alright. I won't. But are you just going to let this go?"

"I never said that." She narrowed her eyes and Arjun didn't inquire further.

"Alright, enough chitchat. Go to sleep now, you need the rest. Especially if you're deciding to go to Anga for Karna's coronation in a couple of days."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." She nodded taking another sip of the milk.

"Not whatever. Take care Aarohi, I mean it. And if that Vrikasura tries anything again..." Arjun trailed off... there was an intensity in that tone which made Aarohi's breath catch in her throat, he wasn't joking around.

And with one fleeting touch on her shoulder, Arjun left... leaving Aarohi alone with her thoughts as she looked at her bracelet quizzically, that hadn't even turned halfway black yet...

"Hmm... that's unusual."

***

Who's excited for Karna's coronation in Anga? I know I am! But will Aarohi be well enough to attend?

Please vote and leave a comment, I'll update soon!

Here are the memes:-









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