Hegemony
Noun | Meaning :
Preponderent influence or authority over others.

Draupadi's eyes glimpsed the Crown Prince of Hastinapur maundering a person who was dressed in an amethyst dhoti and angavastram. Judging the heavy jewellery and the crown the man was decked in, she could perceive the latter was a sovereign of some kingdom. However, the fireborn wasn't able to reminisce where she had noticed him previously.

Nityayuvani deviated her concentration back to the Rajasuya Yagya she and her first husband were fulfilling under the counselling of Shri Krishna Dwaipayana Maharshi Veda Vyasa. The altar of the oblation was exquisitely illuminated in the maya sabha, the castle and the hall - a work of generosity and assistance from the Maya danava. The Pandavas were feeling parlously honoured as they gazed at the empire they had fabricated with arduous oeuvre.

The six royals of Indraprastha were subsequently acquiesced to rise and receive their ephemeras. Dharmaraja Yudhishthira promptly endeavoured Devi Kunti's and Pitamaha Bhishma's grace while Vrikodara Bhimasena, Savyasachi Arjuna, Ashwineya Nakula and Sahadeva ambled to their mother and unanimously, all five of them wounded their arms around her frame. The beloved common consort of the Panchendras was watching with a tender smile gracing her features at a distance, wanting to capture every sweet detail she could cherish of the loving family she was endowed with.

"They voraciously love their mother, don't they?" Drupada's daughter was startled by Gangaputra Bheeshma's voice so abruptly. She loosened her rigid posture and poised herself as she responded to the Mahamahima of Hastinapura.

"Vatse, you are the palm intertwining the five fingers. Treasure this holy union." Bheeshma Pitamaha caressed her head genially, in a fatherly consuetude to which she flashed a soft smile, bobbing her head.

"Putra Yudhishthira and Putri Draupadi, please mount your throne. The epoch has come for you both to arrogate your amenability and devoir." Maharishi circulated as they both adhered. Steps arose as the couple escalated the rostrum to where the cathedra was established. The couple glanced at each other with love glimmering in their eyes as a feeling of duty and virtuousness shrouded them. The both of them were ensconced on the throne as each person in attendance blessed the Emperor and Empress.

"It is time for the arghya, Samrat Yudhishthira. Postliminary, four Kings shall frame a canopy over your head. Only then will the yagna be fortuitous." Maharishi gave the following mandate.

"I persuade Vaasudeva Krishna for this intrinsic ritual," the eldest son of Kunti proclaimed, his sanguine eyes traversing to the son of Devaki who nodded subtly with a perpetual smile sticking to his bimba-tinted lips.

Meanwhile, Satyabhama had grasped the soft hands of Rukmini, whose frown marred her ethereal features. The Princess of Vidarbha turned to her younger co-wife, angst cloaking her beautiful irises. "I have not mastered the intricate art of clairvoyance, yet I know this day would be upsetting for many." The words had left the lips of Krishna's eldest wife just as a sharp tone ruptured through the fine surroundings, shattering the auspiciousness wafting through the air.

"HALT!"

Shishupala had risen from his throne embedded with gems, eyes gleaming with wickedness as he shouted those words, his stance speaking a lot of his intentions.

The blazing flames of the yagya altar hissed viciously, not with the offering of clarified butter but the blasphemy resounding in the spacing of Dharmarāja Yudhishthira's coronation as the emperor.

Unlike the cheeriness and elation that should have settled in the spectators, several royals wore a frustrated and salty look to their grand visages. A handful of them did share imperceptible smirks and scoffs, much to the amusement of the dark and pulchritudinous SudarshanaChakradhari who sat on an ornate throne embedded with priceless stones.

"Assembled sabhajano, why isn't the great Bhishma revered by Yudhishthira but this cowardly Ranchhod who did not hesitate to rob the milkmaids off their habiliments in Vrindavana?" Shishupala sneered, fury seething in him as he treaded to the centre of the hall to address everyone.

"Vaasudeva should be venerated as the one in whose guidance and company would Yudhishthira rule justly," The mighty offspring of Ganga interpolated with a phlegmatic look, clearly not liking where this was all going, "If I have posed no qualms in the ceremony then why are you putting yourself in pain, Chedi Naresha?"

Shishupala's features contorted into one of gibe as he let out a chuckle, "Why would you be problematic with this, Bhishma? After all, you are a man who ravished the three Kashi princesses for your incompetent brother."

"Chedi Mahārāja!" Phalguna and Vrikodara roared at once, clasping their signature armaments to launch an ambush then and there but were halted in their steps by the nonplussed Ajatshatru and ParthaSarathi.

"Bhrata Shishupala," Krishna called out, his perpetual smile melting nowhere but his lotus eyes held an exhorting gaze. The Chedi king gyrated on his heels, glaring daggers at his cousin as the former continued, "I assume you have been keeping count of your sins. A hundred, just a hundred sins of yours shall be forgiven as my promise to Pitrishvasa Shrutashrava says. You haven't committed less crimes before stepping in here either."

"Shut your gob, wretched man!" Shrutashrava's son pointed a finger, almost swaying in his footfalls as the drums of the naked dance of death were prominent to the wise augmenting the sabha, "You are a man who ensnares innocent women in your phantasm, a philanderer who bears no character."

He picked out another iridescent feather from his waistband, discarding it on the ground with sheer contempt and disgust. "Honorary men, this chhaliya made the wives of Narakasura his own and you resorted to a mum?!"

Rukmini shifted unperturbed in her seat, her sigh not inaudible to the chastiser of Chanoor who put an assuring hand on hers. Satrajiti gritted in her teeth, balling her alta-painted warrior fingers into a fist in a fit of such rage, her knuckles appeared ivory, "One stroke of my sword and I shall make sure this scoundrel fathers no more children."

"Calm, Bhame..." Jambavati sighed, noticing how her husband's face had miffed.

"Are you gifting the divine Arghya to such a person who has amassed a number of consorts? To a person who has abducted a princess from her own consortium rituals?" Shishupala's devilish features curled into a grotesque sneer.

Rukmini stiffened, the memories of how her marriage happened slamming into her mind, harsher than the waves of the untamed ocean crashing against ebony boulders. Shri's ignominy would certainly not be tolerated by Hari who now had Kaal written over his very demeanour, waiting for the manifestation of Jaya to pronounce the last words that would seal his fate.

"Maharaja!" The honeyed tone belonged to a woman who's hourglass-akin warrior anatomy was straight and lean, almost immediately igniting the interests of men. Satiny ebony tresses were twisted into a braid that rested sideways, a diadem of topaz and garnets sitting proudly on her bonce. With wine-hued lips barely pulled up in a slight smirk, she folded her palms before the royalties, paying homage. Krishna saw his figure materialising in those illecebrous olive orbs which held no sheen or mirth before her gaze fled elsewhere in a split second.

"I would cease the words that attempt to free my tongue, if I were you."

Shishupala coiled his lips in a serpentine smile, distaste tainting his scarred features. "Yet I am not you, now am I?"

"Respectfully, you can't be me and kindly do not pardon my language Chedi Mahārāja, for with full disrespect, I cannot fall to your notch. I assumed you were a man but it seems as though you did switch your gender without any of us knowing. Tsk!" With the onset of taunting and mocking guffaws and even chuckles that brushed up the tensed ambience, everyone found their gaze only boring into the damsel who had marched in out of nowhere and seemed to have secured a soft corner in Jyeshtha PanduPutra's heart from the past. Yudhishthira's eyes had softened at the sight of his Sakhi as he shared a look of trouble with Ashwatthama who settled nearby.

Draupadi nudged her first lord, raising her eyebrows in question while her other husbands too exchanged perplexed glances post the merry of the taunt died down.

"Apologies for the interruption, Aaryavarta Samrat and Samragyi. I couldn't really help that, had to step ahead," The woman asserted, trailing ahead with the gaits of a lioness and her head held high, though a humble tone laced her voice which could bewitch the most saintly men.

"You don't have to, Rajkumari," Yudhishthira replied, maintaining the formality before everyone but chose to break it the very next moment, "Sakhi..."

"When a crime is committed, either the culprit apologises or they should be penalised. I felt as though someone was intruding into the lines of code of conduct," came the prompt response as the former shook his head, his lips pulled up in a thin line. The lady passed a quick glance to a fuming Shishupala, quite disappointed with him as always.

"AAKARSHIKA!" One could practically see the king's ears and nose emitting smoke as he spat those words, "I gave you a house to stay, food to sustain, a royal title and this is how you pay me back?! I am your father, learn to respect me if no affection pours out of your cold heart!"

The revelation had posed a quietude that stilled everyone's hearts in their rib cages, eyes fleeting between the father-daughter duo who possessed no spark of warmth between them. Satyabhama's eyebrows were almost lost in her hairline as Vaidarbhi's eyes recognised the slightest ounces of familiarity their features possessed.

She was cognizant of Shishupala having a little daughter back when her nuptials were fixed with him, the incident which followed her wilful abduction at the hands of her Kanha, but didn't know much about her. How old was Shishupala to have a daughter in her early twenties? Indeed Aakarshika, her aura shouted an enigmatic magnetism that had become the cynosure of everyone's sight at the moment which seemed to stretch into eternity.

The scrutinising orbs of Satyabhama didn't leave the woman who rebelled against her father to defend the dignity of her consort when she herself was stopped. She didn't miss how Krishna's eyes bore a profound feeling for the girl either.

"Affection and deference almost come together, not with age and relations but with mutual understanding and caring. We, beloved father, have nothing like these terms in our relationship. It's all a farce." Aakarshika's eyes held a no-nonsense look as she stared at her father, the fine art of sarcasm rolling effortlessly out of her tongue as she forced a smile on her wheatish countenance, "I just want you to cease with your doltish ways and return to Chedi, Renu is worried for you. At least you didn't fail to be a father in her case. I don't really want my baby sister to be pushed into gratuitous antsy and I have no other reason to make a fool of myself by standing here, being introduced as your daughter out of every relation; much to my haplessness."

Her reply only contributed to the irk of her father who began, "You promisc-"

"Stop right there, both of you!"

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