Bhanumati's first night as a married woman went rather differently than she had expected. It was unfortunately a fact that on the night you got married, you had to consummate your marriage.

Unfortunate, because in case of them royals, most of the times, the two people did not know each other at all. There was no love or care involved, it was just a formality. A chore. But she of course, like everyone else, had accepted it.

Except, Duryodhan stepped into his-their chambers, took off his jewellery and then... just flopped on to their bed. Upside down.

.....What.

"I'm very tired." He said. "I bet you're tired too after all the rites and rituals today. Go to sleep."

"Seriously?" She asked, baffled. "You're just going to..... sleep?"

He cracked one eye open. "I'm sure you're not that eager to be intimate with someone you barely know?"

She stared at him. "When has wanting ever had anything to do with it? Isn't it something we have to do?"

He shrugged. It looked really weird when he was laying down.

"How is anyone ever going to know?"

She blinked. She had never considered somehow, that the other sex may also feel such reservations. She lied down as well.

"So we're really just going to ...sleep?"

"Unless you want to talk?" Duryodhan asked. "I normally wouldn't mind, but can we please do that tomorrow? All the useless rituals tired me out more than a hard day's training ever does."

"Uh....alright."

There was a lengthy silence. Bhanumati honestly wondered whether her new husband had already fallen asleep.

But then he spoke again.

"Don't worry about any of... that. We'll wait till you've forgiven me about the whole.... kidnapping thing."

Bhanumati raised an eyebrow, even though he probably couldn't see her.

"You might be waiting a very long time then."

She imagined him shrugging again as he replied, "That's fine. It'll be far easier than the waiting I had to do till I was crowned Yuvraj."

She snorted. Despite herself, she couldn't help softening towards the Yuvraj.

Just a little bit.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A little over a week after their wedding, Duryodhan had solemnly departed towards Anga from where he would join his friend going to Magadha. He had a slightly worried frown on his face but when Bhanumati enquired, he said he had faith that no one could ever kill his friend.

That seemed like a bit much to her but.... who was she to speak against her husband's faith in his friend, especially given that he was a great warrior.

But he was an archer. Was he a great enough wrestler to defeat Jarasandh in wrestling? Was he strong enough?

As it turned out.... apparently, yes.

They both returned with enormous grins on their faces.

The King of Anga's grin was exceedingly smug, while Duryodhan's grin was amazed and also a little contrite.

"You thought he might defeat me --" The King of Anga was saying.

"I knew he couldn't kill you." Duryodhan tried to defend himself but the Angaraj shot him an extremely scorching glare.

"That is faith in my Kavach and Kundals, not in my strength."

Duryodhan raised his hands in surrender. "Fine. I was wrong. I made a mistake. My judgement of your strength was incorrect."

Somehow, Bhanumati did not think that was something he said very often.

The King of Anga looked satisfied now. "You thought I couldn't defeat him, but I wiped the floor with him. And he gifted me a city and the promise to not terrorise the borders of Hastinapur and Anga in return for me sparing his life."

Wow, Bhanumati had not expected that. Clearly the King of Anga was even more powerful than she had been led to believe. And Jarasandh promising to stop terrorising the borders of its long time enemy Hastinapur? That was... truly something else. How had the King of Anga even almost killed him? Wasn't Jarasandh supposed to be impossible to kill?

"I genuinely did not know you were this strong, physically." Duryodhan said. "Now you cannot get out of practicing wrestling and mace fighting with me."

The King of Anga groaned. "Just because I'm strong doesn't mean I like wrestling. And why mace fighting? Why do I need to do that? Archery is far superior."

Duryodhan got all puffed up and clearly this would be the beginning of an argument so Bhanumati interrupted.

"Congratulations Angaraj! How did you defeat Jarasandha?"

The two of them turned to her, once again only just realising she was there. She however, now found it hilarious instead of offensive, especially since she had been told by Dussashan earlier that whenever Duryodhan and The King of Anga were in each other's orbit, they seemed to forget that anyone else existed half the time.

"Oh hello Princess!" The King of Anga greeted. "Well. He is called Jarasandh- 'joined by Jara'. We all know that he was born in two halves to his two mothers and then brought to life by the Rakshasi Jara, who joined him. So I supposed that the only way to kill him would be tearing him apart. Might as well have thrown his pieces in the opposite directions for extra precaution." He added the last part jokingly, as if tearing someone in two was remotely funny. For some reason, it did seem kind of funny. So she smiled.

"But, you said that he gifted you a city so he can't be dead, right?"

"No, no I didn't kill him. I told him exactly what I was going to do and then I was about to tear him apart and then he surrendered and begged me to spare his life. So I suppose I must have hit the nail on the head about how to kill him."

"Or maybe," Duryodhan said, "He simply did not want to be torn apart, like any normal person."

Karna stared at him. "That's what I said."

"No you didn't, you-- You know what. I don't even know anymore. Who is saying what." Her husband shook his head. "In any case its not important."

"What are you going to name the city?" Bhanumati asked the King of Anga.

"Hmmm." Angaraj frowned. "It's called Malinipuri. I could just keep it that."

"No." Duryodhan immediately protested. "It was Malinipuri when it was part of Magadh. Now it's your city. A city of Anga. You must rename it."

"Ah, I'm not good with names...." The King of Anga said. Duryodhan snorted for some reason.

"That's true." He agreed and the King of Anga grumbled under his breath.

"Why don't you give us a name, my dear?" Duryodhan asked her.

She raised her hands. "I'm not good with names either."

"You can't be any worse than him." Duryodhan scoffed. "All his sons so far are named 'something-sena'. Like. We know you love fighting. But who names all their sons as 'something-army'. Vrishasena literally means 'strong army'. Your eldest son won't be happy with you once he's grown up a bit. None of them will."

"Oh shut up." The King of Anga groaned. "That one was Vrushali's idea not mine. We panicked about the name and she decided to combine two of mine- 'Vrisha' as some people have decided to call me for some reason, and 'Vasusena'. It's not my fault."

Duryodhan chortled and Bhanumati smirked. "He will be even more upset if he hears that. Tell him the Strong army thing instead."

Angaraj looked at her helplessly. "Don't you start now as well." He threw up his hands. "Fine. Fine. The river Champa flows through the city. So I rename Malinipuri as Champa."

"You can't name the city after the river! It will cause confusion."

"I don't care." The King of Anga declared. "I will also make it my Capital."

"You will make the city Jarasandh gifted you, your capital?" Bhanumati asked, surprised.

"Yes." Angaraj smirked. "It will be a reminder of his defeat and will keep him from ever going back on his promise."

Alright she had not thought of that. She could admit to being somewhat impressed. Speaking of which...

"Shouldn't you go inform Pitashree and Pitamaha of these developments? That Hastinapur won't have to fend off any more attacks from Magadh?"

Duryodhan smacked his forehead. "Look at us, completely forgetting the thing we had come to do, like absolute idiots . Come on Karna. Thank you darling." He threw the last part at her and dragged Karna away after dropping a sudden kiss on her forehead.

She blinked in surprise.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It was about a month after their marriage that Bhanumati first met the Queen of Anga.

The King of Anga visited with his four children and his wife who was pregnant.

"I was not well." She told Bhanumati. "Or I would have visited earlier."

"I thought you had three sons." was the first thing she blurted out.

Then she turned red. Really, she could see the four boys, who said nonsense like this? They were all giving her strange looks, did they think she was stupid? No, all that was nonsense. She internally shook her head to clear it of such ridiculous thoughts.

She did have a valid reason for her thoughts after all.

"On our ride to Hastinapur, the King of Anga mentioned having three sons who could talk..." she trailed off, realising her mistake.

Three sons who could talk. The second youngest one looked about a little older than three, while the youngest boy was only a bit over one.

"Sorry." she whispered, mortified.

But her companions merely laughed sportingly.

Trying to change the topic of conversation, she asked, "So what are you going to name him? Not something 'sena' surely."

Duryodhan went into peals of laughter while The King of Anga buried his face in his hands. The Queen of Anga looked amused.

"Well, if it's a girl we're safe but if it's a boy again, no we will not name him anything 'sena' this time." She replied, grinning.

"I will give the name." Duryodhan announced. "I don't trust either of you."

"You don't trust us to name our child." The King of Anga deadpanned.

"No. You clearly should not be trusted. I hereby declare that if it's a boy, he shall be called 'Shatrunjaya- the one who achieves victory over enemies'."

The King of Anga hummed thoughtfully. "That's actually pretty good."

"See." Her husband said proudly. Bhanumati really had to stop finding the bickering between these two friends adorable. But it was hard.

She caught the Queen of Anga staring at her, smiling.

"They're always like that." She said, rubbing a hand over her swelling belly. "You get used to it."

"They're terrible. But also sort of... cute?"

The older woman gave a startled laugh. "I suppose." she admitted. "Don't let them hear you say that though. They will be very offended."

"Aren't all men?" She asked dryly. "So how did you two meet?"

"Oh, we are childhood friends. He hated it when I made him play with dolls."

Bhanumati snorted. "I cannot imagine him playing with dolls."

"Oh he was a little boy once too. One who would much rather go practice archery on the poor trees rather than play with his friends."

"Now that I can imagine."

"He didn't get along very well with the other children you see," she said, smiling sadly. "He would much rather study and try to train himself in weaponry rather than learn the trades of charioteering boys his age were supposed to."

Right. Bhanumati had absolutely forgotten that the King of Anga was a charioteer's son.

The other woman had a wistful look on her face. "Then he left for twelve years to go train."

Bhanumati grinned and nudged her companion. "Stop looking like that. You're literally married to him now."

The Queen of Anga laughed and grasped her hand. "You and I will be good friends." She told Bhanumati.

"I do hope so, Angarani." She agreed, smiling.

The Queen scoffed. "Oh stop with that 'Angarani' nonsense."

"What should I call you then?"

"Hmmm, I'm a little older, so 'Di' or 'Jiji' would do I suppose." She smiled warmly and Bhanumati felt her heart swell.

"Alright." she said.

The King of Anga seemed to suddenly hear them. "If you are calling her 'Di', there is no way you are going to keep addressing me by my title." He told her.

"So what should I call you?"

He looked at her like she was an idiot. "Don't be ridiculous. If Vrushali is your sister, then I must be your brother."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As the months passed, slowly but surely Bhanumati settled in.

She would spend afternoons with her Mother in law, helping her sort through all the details of household and palace staff and once Mata Gandhari trusted her to be competent enough, she was given the responsibility of the Kitchen Staff and the North Wing of the castle.

She wrote to her mother immediately to inform her of this so that she would stop worrying about her 'position in the family and household' already.

Eventually Dussashan got married to a sweet girl called Chandramukhi and then it seemed, there were weddings after weddings as one by one the Kaurava brothers started to get married.

Vrushali Jiji gave birth to a healthy baby boy who was according to her husband's wishes, named Shatrunjaya.

Life in Hastinapur was never boring, just like Mata Gandhari had said.

In fact, she found herself quite happy and soon enough she did not even care that she had been kidnapped. She had been married to someone she didn't know as she had known she would be all her life. So what if it had been unorthodox? She had found a family after all.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I forgive you." She told Duryodhan one night, after almost a year of their wedding.

His face lit up like a candle. And Bhanumati.... found that seeing him smile made her happy too.

I don't know how to write romance. Hence the lack of romance. Also if any of you received an update yesterday, it was because I accidentally published the incomplete chapter.

Do vote and comment if you liked it.

I'm really excited about the next chapter. It's where this fic gets its name from after all.