Genre: Angst

Sometimes, they could feel his presence among them. A flicker of the candles near his empty chair. A ray of warm sunlight streaming down on his favorite path in the garden. A sudden, unexpected burst of laughter around the dinner table. Sometimes, it was as if he still lingered among them. 

Sometimes, they would forget the empty space his snarky remarks had left behind. His heavy footsteps were silent, so he must have been standing still. Surely, the familiar whistling of his arrows were carried away by the wind. His frustrated shouts must have been muffled by the loud chirping of the sparrows.

Rose petals would scatter from their neat piles and fly freely in the air; Urmila's gleeful laughter would follow.

The mind was a trickster. It would make up excuses, lies, for desolate grievers to cling onto. 

But no one could be fooled for too long. The imagination could only spin so many bluffs before reality crushed them. 

There would be a glaring reminder. 

The white sari. The dusty armory. The hollow throne. 

Only a single set of footprints when Ram went hunting. An expectant silence next to any quip of Shatrughan's. Bharat's words left unteased. 

Sumitra's lap empty.

They would be set free from the intricate trap their mind weaved. They would become wanderers again.

A/N: An AU where Lakshman did somehow die before he was meant to in Valmiki. Just to keep everyone sated until the What-Ifs book starts.