Do you have any thoughts on Karenumati and Vijaya?
PS: I love your writing!!!
SO many thoughts!
Karenumati:
Baby.
No, seriously, she's the baby of the PandavaParivaara.
Pampered daughter, definitely. I like to think Shishupala loved his daughter very much, it adds complexities (TM) to their relationship.
She's also pampered by her sisters-in-law/brothers-in-law and Mata Kunti ALL THE TIME. (She feels a bit suffocated at times.)
She fell madly in love with Nakula when she was pretty young, and Shishupala was loathe to deny his daughter anything so he proposed a marriage alliance when she was old enough.
I headcanon her as a curious person. She wants to know the why and the how of everything and anything under the sun. Combine this with the indulgence of literally everyone around her: she asks WAY too many questions (and not always the most tactful ones).
She feels like a replacement many times. When she was younger it stemmed from Shishupala's side glances when he was in a sullen mood (she wondered if he ever thought of his imagined children with Rukmini and judged her wanting); sometimes in Indraprastha she feels like a side-piece, a little ornament that is handled with too much care and only put on display for people to fawn over.
Other than Sahadeva, she gets along with Yudhishthira the most out of all her brothers-in-law. Surprising? Maybe. Despite the wide age gap, Yudhishthira's kindness does not feel indulging; no matter how many questions she asks, he always answers patiently.
Nakula takes her on the best outings and always treats her devastatingly romantically. She loves it, but sometimes she provokes arguments with him just to feel a little bit older.
She desperately wants to understand Rukmini better, but after seeing her father for so many years, she cannot help the distance that is between them every time they meet. But ater Shishupala's death, she breaks down in Rukmini's arms.
She is the stricter parent when it comes to raising Niramitra, having experienced how too much indulgence can spoil you.
She enjoys spending the most time with the kids in Indraprastha (or anywhere else, really) because they only know her as someone older than them and they will treat her with respect because of it.
Krishnaa and Vijayaa are also two of the few people who give her due accord and treat her like an equal. While everyone else do try their best and pull it off most of the time, Renu does feel like they still think of her as a child/younger so they are less likely to treat her as older.
Vijayaa:
I like to call her the Tinkerer.
Hehe. But yes, to me, Vijayaa rarely has need for words because she is always busy tinkering with something, taking it apart or fixing it.
Her hands are never still; they're always busy with some object or the other. If there's nothing in her hands, she cannot keep them still and it's a tic of hers to constantly fidget.
Even while she's in court, she'll be poking at something or the other, and everyone smiles fondly at her.
So. She rarely speaks, much like Sahadeva. She has a soft, lilting voice that can carry across an audience, however, and the kids will often run to her with requests for bedtime stories.
She and Sahadeva loved each other since they were young teenagers, and they would steal time together on his visits to Madra. It wasn't even a question of who she would choose in her svayamvara ceremony.
Her family would tease her about not needing to hold a svayamvara and skip directly to the marriage directly, but she held her ground firmly on wanting a svayamvara for the kingdom's sake.
Their love is quiet but no less passionate than their siblings' more fiery, whirlwind romances. Vijayaa knows she'll always have someone to speak all her unspoken thoughts to in Sahadeva; and Sahadeva knows Vijayaa will always sit in him with silence for hours or days if need be.
She takes Karenumati under her wing when she arrives at Indraprastha, recognizing her need to prove herself and a person to express herself freely with.
Her love language is gifting others; she makes the most beautiful things with her own hands and gifts them to all her family members. She's always working on passion projects; Sahadeva brings back interesting knick-knacks from the corners of the country when he's out travelling because he knows what she likes.
She didn't have many friends in her childhood despite being one of Madra's princesses, because she was too quiet and too absorbed in the works of her hands. The other noble daughters would frequently tease her for this, but she never paid them much heed.
One of her works that she's most proud of is the intricate gold bangles she crafted from scratch for Krishnaa when she gave birth to Shrutasena. Krishnaa never takes them off. (Not even during the Dyuta, I would like to say.)
She tries her best to see Lakshmanaa at least once a year, which is no hardship considering how often the Yadavas visit Indraprastha or the other way around, and frequently writes long letters to her cousin.
That's about it for now, I think? That was long. But I do love the PandavaPatnis.