The brambles were thick, however amazing the forest seemed to be at first. The two brothers had to wrestle aside the branches and sharp thrones that obstructed their way. They did so without complaint however, and Sita breathed a sigh of relief as the last branch was broken off and lunged into the distance. The three stepped into a clearing, where the golden sun shone on the dirt, surrounded by bushes bearing small berries and fruit.

Sita was enchanted by the clearing, and giggled as Ram stared agape at it. "It is a miracle." he hissed. "It is almost as if it were meant for us! Look, there are berries and fruit for Sita to collect, and plenty of firewood nearby, and a relative trail to walk down to hunt and I can hear the steady stream of water!" He set his bow down, and sighed as Lakshman procured a boulder out of nowhere for Sita to sit upon.

"Come on, let us look around for berries. Then we can build a cottage, Sita. A nice, cozy one where we can all stay. That sounds lovely." He took his wife's hand and they began to walk off, when he looked behind. "Lakshman, why don't you protect this place. Make sure some other exiled prince does not claim it for himself and his wife and brother to say!" he joked. Lakshman nodded, and the couple ventured away.

"The forest truly seems perfect, Dasharathnandan," Sita began as she wove a basket out of thick leaves and grass. "It has everything we need! Nothing has attacked us yet, here, and it is as tame as the one right outside the palace of Papa Janak. Look!" She reached down to pet a fawn as Ram smiled. "The animals here are so sweet! They flock right to me! This one must be a fawn, see? It has spots!"

Ram shook his head. "You are truly like a princess of the forest! How do you adapt so quickly! Even Bharat and I did not adapt as quickly as you did to the civilization of Gurukul." He shook his head in awe. "I do not understand how you do it. Well, that doesn't matter, does it? We shall make a happy home here, despite the sorrowful reason for which we came here." Sita nodded, and reached down to pick a flower, but her hands trembled, and she looked up at him.

"Ram, I must confess, I am a bit scared. You agreed to defend that sage against demons, but at what cost? The cost of being violent against others? The cost of using that bow to shed blood? We are peaceful folk, we should try to be peaceful folk! We might invoke some demon authority by accident, you know? We may attract the unwanted attention of rakshasas, with the violence that you promised. Unnecessary violence. "

Ram thought about her words, well meaning as they were, for a second, before he looked into her eyes. "It was not the right thing, Sitae, to allow him to be attacked. I have been trained in fighting. I couldn't just-leave him. It went against my dharma, my morality. It might bring us some unwanted attention, as you called it, yes. But not helping him would bring a cyclone of guilt upon me."

Sita picked up an armful of flowers in her basket. Flowers and berries to be washed. Ram stared at it amusedly. "Why do you have those?" he inquired with a hint of laughter in his voice. "Why are you collecting flowers and berries to adorn a cottage that has not even been built yet?' Sita shrugged, but she patted the basket.

"I do not know. Something tells me that we will have our little cottage soon."

-----O-----

She was right. Lakshman had barely seen them out of the clearing before he began to collect dried grass, mud, and wood. Breathing heavily, he stared at the collection of materials with his hands on his hips. "It is now when I value the helping hand of Shatrughan," he muttered to himself, feeling a small stab of pain when thinking about his brothers. How must they be doing, in Kekeya or Ayodhya?

Shaking his head, the third prince, newly turned architect, got to work. He collected handfuls of mud and turned then into bricks, putting them out in the beating hot sun to bake. Once the mud bricks had baked in the sun for an hour or so, he began to place them on top of each other to make walls. As he was about to finish the walls, the outlay of Ram and Sita's chambers in the palace came back to him in a stroke of genius.

Carefully and painstakingly, he recalled the luxurious rooms by memory and modeled the cottage after that. He placed bricks inside to make inner rooms and small halls and finally, stepped back outside and lifted up a log of wood. Planks, to keep the roof steady, climbing up the hut so as to not knock it down, it placed the pillars over the open roof, breathing a sigh of relief when they did not roll off.

Finally, he gathered all of the dried grass, and lay them across the steady branches to make a thatched roof. With a sigh, he stepped off of the roof and landed on the ground, where he stared at the cottage thoughtfully. Something was missing. He exhaled. Urmila would have known. She would have been thrilled that he finally took up an art, though she would have preferred him to paint.

Urmila...he took a deep breath and stepped back again. Urmila... she loved painting didn't she? She loved color and brightness and perhaps that was what was missing. Shaking his head, Lakshman snorted. As if he was going to paint and collect flowers like a girl! Blinking, he walked away, but something halted him. He turned right back around at the cottage, and winced, shaking his fist.

"ARGH!" he huffed. "I hate you and your stupid artistic emotional manipulation, Urmila! Even from across many miles you convince me to do your stupid flowers and paintings and art and-" Grudgingly, muttering things under his breath, he strung flowers everywhere, before dusting his hands off as if they were some sort of contagious germ before he stepped back again. He hadn't liked doing it, but it did make everything look more complete.

-----O----

It was sundown when Ram and Sita finally returned. The yellow orb settled into the distance of the mountains and the last of the birds disappeared into the dark horizon as Ram brushed apart the last of the branches and helped Sita through, before his eyes caught the most marvelous little house he could have ever imagined.

It was short, and only slightly stout, widespread and had colors and paints and flowers decorating the outer walls. Blinking, Ram took Sita's hand again, and they stepped inside. Right there, after a small hallway, were two pine mats, with needles neatly placed in geometrical shapes. Sita squealed in excitement when she saw the ceramic vases filled with flowers placed on the floors, and Ram breathed as his arrows and other weapons were placed in a basket at the opening of the cottage.

It was perfect! The last of the day's sun shined in through a large window opening at the side, and Ram reached out as if to capture the light. Suddenly, he heard some steps, and whirled around, breathing heavily. Sita too almost dropped her basket. Staring back at him sheepishly was Lakshman, who looked like he would have rather not returned from wherever he was off to. "I know you said to wait, but..."

Ram shook his head and bound forward to hug his brother, who immediately froze. "Are you kidding? Are you joking? This is much better! Imagine our surprise when we found this wonderful little place in the stead of the simple clearing and single boulder that we were expecting! The best sort of surprise! It's perfect! It's a cottage like our palace! Like the chambers Sita and I had in Ayodhya!"

Lakshman shrugged, but his face was completely red, and Sita laughed, placing her basket down and shaking her head, running her hands over the steady brick walls admiringly. "I did model it after the rooms. Figured it was more familiar, right? You liked it? I didn't expect you to. It was just a nice little project." Ram stepped back again, taking in the entire hut once more. His entire body had been a little tensed up, expecting that they would have to build something feeble out of leaves and sticks to sleep under that night after a year's worth of exhaustion stuffed into a day.

The relief that took over him instead was only visible by an exhalation, and he stepped back again."Tell me, how did you even figure out how to build this? It's lovely! You used to sometimes thatch the roofs back in Gurukul, remember? But how did you suddenly take up a project like this, hanh? I would have never expected it!"

Lakshman looked around again, not meeting his brother's eyes as Ram crossed his arms and made it very clear that he would have to respond. Finally, Lakshman pouted, holding his ears. "Fine, fine, fine! You have the skillful persuasion of Shatrughan! How I should have believed Bharat when he said that you were made of the same mould! Shatru and I would sneak out of classes. He would work on pranks, and I would study architecture instead!"

Laughter, laughter, laughter filled the cottage, where Sita lit a lantern in the center and began to cook. Lakshman stalked outside not angrily, he just stalked everywhere, and sat on his designated boulder, calmly sharpening his arrows as Ram continued to laugh. Then the laughter stopped, all sounds stopped except the steady chirping of the crickets.

The chirping of crickets welcomed the falling night. The oranges and yellows of the sun finally disappeared, leaving simply a blue and black night spotted with the silvery slivers of stars and the thin, crescent moon. There, in the cottage of a palace, happiness and rest was welcomed heartily by the couple, and out, in the emptiness of night, at the mercy of the laws of the jungle, Lakshman stared at the moon and swallowed his tears, as he had promised to his wife just days before.

A/N-Yayayayayayay! Well, not so much, but they're finally settled! I'm glad for that, that they are settled in that marvelously built cottage and ready to conquer anything and everything! Okay, one thing I am always scared about is the different forests they go to. That part always scares me a little bit because I am not very sure how that works. First Chitrakoot and then Dandakaranya? And what's Panchavati? Hmmm...got to figure that out. Worst comes worst, I'll just have them stay in Chitrakoot and go along as if nothing had happened.

Mmmkay, the next chapter is going to be a tough one. I wanted to write only about Ram and Sita and Lakshman, but obviously that's not happening because, you know, there are others in the epic as well who are not named Ram, Sita, or Lakshman. So yay! Also, I am not going through the pain of explaining the curse of Dasharath's because I hope we all know that one. If we don't, go ahead and send me a PM and I can explain it.