Bhanumati was expecting her husband to be in a bad mood when he returned from the Rajsuya Yagna at Indraprastha. She had however underestimated just how bad it would be.

"Yuvrani!" A whole host of maids burst into her chambers in a manner very unfitting for the well trained servants of the castle.

She looked at them in shock. They all looked scared.

"Yuvrani, Yuvraj Duryodhan is destroying everything in his path! He is talking about immolating himself!"

Bhanumati ran .

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Panic clawed at her heart as she felt the heat and saw the smoke gather outside a door. Part of the wall over the doorway had fallen and was blocking the entrance as a fiery barricade.

The soldiers lay unconscious outside the chamber, thankfully out of range of the fire, but they had clearly been knocked out by Duryodhan in his rage.

It seemed that the news of Duryodhan's disastrous return had been brought to her before anyone else because no one from the rest of the Royal family was present.

She tried to get closer to the burning entrance, trying to see if there was a way to get in, but she was restrained by the maids.

Heart hammering and threatening to burst out of her chest, she screamed bloody murder at them, growled at them to let her go, gods be damned, her husband was trying to kill himself, but they would not let go of her arms.

Just then there was a thundering of footsteps as the rest of the family hurried there with Dussashan and Bhrata Karna in the lead.

Karna jumped through the fire without hesitation, his divya kavach appearing to shield him from the flames.

Mata Gandhari let out a pained whimper and some of the brothers rushed forward to hold up their parents as they watched in horror.

Finally, after what seemed to Bhanumati like ages of having her heart clutched in an ice cold fist, Bhrata Karna stepped out, his arms wrapped around Duryodhan.

They were swarmed at once.

Bhanumati gasped at her husband's red and blistering skin, but he could not seem to care less and was heard telling Karna that the latter should have just let him die because God only knew what he might do now.

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Apparently Duryodhan had been insulted in the Rajsuya Yagna. He had slipped and fallen into a pool looking like a carpet in the Pandavas' Mayasabha.

The Pandavas had burst out laughing at their cousin's state and the guests had followed suit.

Bhanumati felt disdain for the Pandavas. What kind of people laughed if a guest of theirs, a family member no less, had an accident in their palace due to no fault of his own but due to the magical structure of their palace?! Instead of helping him, they mocked him?!

She could understand Duryodhan's rage. Such a terrible insult in front of everyone important in all of Aryavarta! Her husband had always hated his cousins but he had never really let it show much in front of her. Now however, he seemed to be frothing with rage.

But here was the thing. If it was only rage, it would have been fine. He might have eventually calmed down. But now.... now he seemed to be edging towards madness.

Once he recovered from his burns, he would spend more time than ever in the fighting pits and at this point everybody except Bhrata Karna was afraid to have a go with him lest he actually end up breaking their body parts.

(When she coyly asked him if he would not have a turn with her, for the first time he turned her down, saying that he was afraid he would break her in half. She wanted to scoff, protest that he would never hurt her, not even unintentionally, but the strange glint in his eyes made her stop.)

He would spend hours locked in a chamber with Mama Shakuni doing god knows what.

He very suddenly had both Lakshman and Lakshmana sent away to Gurukul and Kanyakul respectively.

(Bhanumati had been stumped.

"They are eight !" She had protested, enraged at being separated from her children a good two or three years before she needed to be.

"They are old enough to learn to take care of themselves." He had said.

"They can learn closer to home at first!" She had said desperately. "They can learn from you and Bhrata Karna at first! And Pitamaha Bhishma!"

"They need to get used to the environment of the Gurukul."

"But----"

"They are old enough!" The words had been final and there had been nothing else she could do.)

Then he tried to get her to leave to visit her parents. She became suspicious. Why was he trying to get them all away from Hastinapur? She refused to leave, much to his displeasure.

Then he crossed all limits by asking Bhrata Karna to not bring Vrushali di or their children to Hastinapur for a while. Thankfully Karna, while usually a roaring lion, was a housecat when faced with his wife's wrath so he immediately shut his friend down on that front.

And then the Pandavas were invited to Hastinapur for a grand Game of Chausar.

She was very surprised and also a little worried. Had her husband decided to suddenly forgive the Pandavas? That would be very out of character for him. She had been married for little over twelve years now and all this time her husband had hated his cousins. And now, after he had been so terribly insulted by them, he invited them for a Game of Chausar?!

Something was wrong, she could feel it.

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She sat with Vrushali Di, Chandramukhi and some of her other sisters-in -law, all of them getting more and more distressed as the maids kept bringing them news of whatever the hell was going on in the Dyut Sabha.

"What is my husband doing?" She whispered and Vrushali di clutched her hand tightly. Chandramukhi had her face buried in her hands.

And what was that Yudhishtir doing?! Wasn't he supposed to be a Dharmaraj? The one who always did the right thing?

And then another maid came into the chamber, practically running.

"My ladies," She gasped. "The Samrangi! "

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She had always prided herself in her long, thick hair. Her sister would praise it and her brothers would run their hands through it. Her husbands were so cautious with it even during fits of passion. Her children had begged to learn how to style it, despite being boys.

Today, her hair, her pride, became her leash. She screamed as a large hand grabbed onto it and pulled hard. The more she resisted, the tighter the hold became.

She was thrown to the ground and then the clawing hand came again to grab her hair and drag her from the chambers she was resting in and down the hallways.

She choked out that she was on her monthly blood, but there was no respite.

She implored that she not be taken to the courtroom clad in a single piece of clothing, but her words fell on deaf ears.

She begged, she pleaded, she cried. She threatened, she spat, she scratched. The hand did not let go.

That day she realised just how very fragile she truly was. No matter that she was born of the fire, no matter the strength of her soul, her body was very weak and very breakable.

She was dragged down the stairs and she screamed herself hoarse as she felt her knees scrape, her back bruise.

Then finally the grasp on her hair loosened and she was thrown onto the courtroom floor.

She saw her husbands stay quiet at her insult, tears in their eyes but their heads bowed.

She saw His Grand Excellency, the great Dharma upholder Bheeshma stay silent at her treatment. She beseeched him but he did not answer. She saw her father's friend, the Great Guru Drona remain silent.

Her husbands did not say a word in her defense and she was told that they were all slaves now, that they had all been gambled away by the once Emperor, now slave Yudhishtir. She had been gambled away by him too, as if she were a mere thing .

'Veshya' she was called.

She was invited to sit on the Kuru Scion's lap.

And when she refused, when she refused the offer, when she refused to be made a slave, they spoke of disrobing her.

Only one man, a brother of the Kuru Scion spoke in her favour, but he was silenced.

It did not make a difference whether a 'vaibhicharini' wore clothes or not, it was said.

She screamed, she said that her husband had no right to gamble her if he had lost himself first, but no one listened.

From behind the curtains on the balcony of the Kuru Sabha came the voices of the Kaurava wives, rising in protest for her but as always the voices of the women got drowned in this dominion of men.

The blind King remained blind, the greybeards looked away and her husbands would not meet her eyes.

The end of her sari was grasped and pulled.

As she twisted, she closed her eyes and joined her hands in prayer.

There was only one who could save her now. Her lord and her friend. Govind.

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Bhanumati sat numbly in her chambers. Her chambers, given that she had asked her maids to remove all her belongings from her and her husband's shared one.

She wasn't sure she could bear to be so close to his presence at the moment.

The horror of what had happened had still not settled in. She knew, she had always known that Duryodhan hated the Pandavas. She had always known that her husband had a vindictive streak within him, a mile wide. She had heard the rumours about him but had dismissed them because she had seen him be kind and loving but...... today she could not deny the kernel of truth in them.

How could he have ever asked a woman, a married one--his sister in law no less, to come and sit on his lap? (Did he not even think of how she , his wife might feel about that?)

How could he ask for her--for any woman-- to be disrobed in full court?!

How could Dussashan drag her down the halls like that? His own sister in law? Bhanumati knew he would never touch her, but.... the way he dragged Draupadi down and the way he pulled at her sari had left her chilled. She did not even want to think of what Chandramukhi might be feeling.

And--and Bhrata Karna! He was supposed to be the sensible one, the one who attempted to curb her husband's tendencies to do nonsense. But instead... instead he encouraged it, called Draupadi a 'veshya', said that it would make no difference if she was disrobed and fully supported the appalling, heinous insanity going on!

And none of the other men gathered --except Vikarna-- said a word in protest.

And when they, the Kuru women, had screamed from the balcony to stop, stop the madness, nobody listened to them. Their voices were drowned out, just as they would be when history spoke of this shameful moment.

Draupadi had been saved by the lord himself, but that meant that Duryodhan had incurred the lord's wrath as well. Who knew what her husband had condemned them all to?

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When Duryodhan returned to his and Bhanumati's shared quarters that night, he found her side of the bedchamber empty of its belongings and on the floor near the bed lay the shattered pieces of Bhanumati's beloved ivory Chausar set that he had gifted her.

Okay so this was definitely the toughest chapter so far. I hope I was able to do justice to Draupadi's pain. This is of course as we all know and as the title suggests, the beginning of the end. Now the part from Draupadi's POV, if some parts sound familiar, it might be because I remember reading some fic with this scene from her POV a few months back and certain turns of phases might have stuck with me.

I know that the whole point of this fic is that its supposed to be entirely from Bhanumati's POV and many people have written Draupadi's POV, especially that scene, but I felt like nothing else could do justice to the pain she must have been feeling then.

Also the Draupadi portion that I wrote was kinda inspired by the author called Sairandhri on AO3, from the fic "Maun: When all sat silent".