Relief seemed to wash over her as she watched his features morph, hatred leaving his face. She would have choked up had she not been blessed with the ability to remain composed in most stressful situations. Finally, after all these years, she could tell him. Tell him anything and everything she wished to tell him. Her voice could finally be heard by him. Words no longer evaded her in his presence, most of the time at least. At least she could form sentences before him.
Her features swiftly change, like his. Hers, however, seem to soften. Her shoulder and brows relax, her eyes soften. In many eyes, she was a stern, perhaps cold, woman. While yes she was disciplined and sometimes strict, she had her moments of warmth. She could be tender and kind when she willed it, it was merely a rare occurrence.
“You needn’t worry about me desiring to fight you or ‘bring you down’. I only wish to say what I never did…” She replied before going on to tell him everything he needed to know. She apologised to him, never making an excuse for herself, citing that she, like many, made faults in her life.
She told him of her hidden feelings for him. How after she saw him in Duryodhana’s portrait, she could never get him out of her mind. How even when she was married to the Pandavas, she craved Karna’s affection. How being in his presence makes her heart ache in regret and sorrow at times.
“…Now,” She gazes up to look at the altered Servant, “Is there anything you wish to say to me?”
Those are words nobody would ever imagine they would be directed at Karna of all people. He has long ago ceased at being righteous, kind, selfless. Those are traits of a faraway past, of a past before Duryodhana, before he had witnessed first thing how disgusting humanity could be. And yet even still, the world doesn’t stop surprising him, spitting at him words that he would have thought to be mockery if her tone and honesty weren’t so serious, if his own skill didn’t told him she was being truthful. Throughout all of her words and confessions, of sorrows and of secrets, all the man does is raise a brow and keep in his face a perfectly neutral expression.
What would Karna have to say about this, at all? There is nothing. There is only the wish to laugh and to mock her, to feel superior to those he has fought against all his life once more. Because even when they had so much, Karna once again proved himself to be worthy of taking it all away.
How ironic could life be. It is neither righteous nor unfair, neither kind nor cruel. It is only mocking of those who depend on it, who are filled with it until death took them away, until they were taken to either Heaven or Hell for all the wrong reasons.
❝ Anything I wish to say to you? ❞ Words easily spat at the woman before him, at a face until then Karna assumed he knew but doesn’t at all. Draupadi is unpredictable - has always been, always will be. But that’s easily what has always made her such an interesting woman. Clawed fingers graze against such beautiful dark skin ( completely opposed to his own ), so gently that is much against him. ❝ What do you wish for me to say? Forgive you? Reciprocate your feelings? Neither of those interest me. You have fallen low. ❞
Then and there, the softness of his touch is quickly replaced by a full hand grasping at her jaw, holding such perfectly pretty face in place as claws sank into her skin and if he put any more strength into it, surely they would pain his fingers with her divine blood. ❝ Is this what you enjoy, Draupadi? All I have said and done to you, is this how you like to be treated? It surprises me little five men weren’t able to make you happy. Even now I stand above them. ❞
