Song: The King and His Sword from Baahubali: The Beginning

Where she had once seen beauty, now she saw emptiness. Where she had once seen superiority, she felt looted. A sight in which she once took pride, she now shied away from. Her hair was astray, a nest of black. Her large eyes were pearly with tears and her dark liner was smudged across her face. Large red lips quivered, before forming into a thin line, and she buried herself in her arms again.

The thick drapes were drawn across the window, but ever sly, the sunlight drew in from the gaps on the side. Large, plush divans, stitched from frime silk and embroidered with thread spun from gold, stood near the window. Large paintings hung from the high ceilings. A single chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling. But in her eyes, the room was empty. The bed? Useless with no one to keep her company.

No one dared enter, no one dared reach her presence. They were all scared of her, this woman whose single gaze could obliterate any mortal, mourning within herself. Her attendants stood outside the door, but they kept no secret. Through the large, hollow hallways of the palace, they could all hear her loud, screeching sobs. Like nails scratching across the chalkboard, shrill screams ripped from her throat.

Like a reflection in a pretty pool, she saw her. Her only company. Herself, on the other side. She looked like a witch. A woman gone mad from having heard her own screams too long. A widow still dressed for husband's return. Sindoor smeared across her forehead like blood. Distraught, Sulochana stared at herself in the mirror.

In her eyes, she could see the beckoning flames dancing like a devil's vice. But their warmth invited like an angel's embrace.

-----O-----

"Stop hugging me!" Lakshman barked, crossing his arms across his chest protectively as he was ambushed from all sides by an endless assault of hugs. "No physical affection!" Angad, Nal, and Neel, deciding that Lakshman was a big, sweet golden retriever of a giant, and could barely even kill a fly, had wrapped their arms around him, sobbing about the possibility of having lost their dear potential murderer.

"That's right!" Ram said. "Stop hugging him! That's my job around here!" Indignant that he had to settle for bandaging his brother's feet instead of day-long hugs, Ram huffed and looked away. Lakshman stared at his back, confused, before throwing all three monkeys off and reaching his arms out to hug Ram. Ram turned around, excitedly, before winding around the bed to hug him properly.

A few seconds passed by as the rest of the vanar sena contemplated if they wanted to join the Raghuvanshi hug pile. Hesitantly, Lakshman brought his own heavily lacerated arms up to pat his elder brother, as Ram sniffled quietly into his hair. "This is so ridiculous," Ram chuckled through the little tears lining his eyes. "You're the one literally on bedrest because you barely survived a battle, and yet I'm the one being comforted."

Lakshman pulled back slightly, blinking. "Well, bhaiyya, I'd say that you barely survived that battle, not me." Ram smacked his shoulder slightly as Lakshman simply cracked a Shatrughan-esque smile. He turned around to see Neel staring at him with arms out and puppy dog eyes. Seconds passed as they stared at each other. Reluctantly, he sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "Fine, I guess you can hug me for four to five seconds."

"FORTY FIVE SECONDS?!"

"No! NO!"

"Well it's too late now to tell us! Nal, Angad! We can hug him for forty five seconds!"

-----O-----

Kaikeyi sobbed, hands muffling the sound as Kaushalya wrapped her arms around her. "My-my son," she wailed, almost curling into herself. "My son's okay. My Lakshman's okay. Oh thank the gods! Oh thank you! My sins have been forgiven! He was not punished for them! Oh Lakshman. He's okay. He's okay. My little kshatriya is okay!" It was all Kaushalya could do not to cry herself and to continue patting Kaikeyi's back.

Sumitra immediately turned around, assuming Kaushalya's role for a second. "We should hold a puja, thanking the Gods. It's by their utmost blessings that Lakshman was able to survive." She smiled to herself. "But of course, he could never forget his duty to his brother and mother, could he? My Laksh went and defied death, didn't he?" Then, she busied herself setting the flowers with a relieved and bright red Shrutakirti.

Urmila sagged against the wall in relief, both hands over her mouth. It had haunted her every thought those few days. Lakshman laying on the ground, slowly bleeding out, all alone. Or worse, with only Ram next to him, utterly destroyed. That image, of the Earth stained with the blood of her husband, of his dark eyes letting go of the life which they always had. Now she could once again sleep in peace.

Shatrughan dropped into his throne, rubbing his eyes slowly. He would cry, if he could, maybe even louder than Kaikeyi. But now that his brother was okay, now that Lakshman bhaiyya was ok, he was once again reminded that he was the King. He supposed that they all had a dharma. And, in truth, they all only had a single obstacle between them and that dharma. Death. Fear of it. The threat of it. The idea of it.

Lakshman bhaiyya had beaten death and achieved his dharma. It was Shatrughan's dharma to be king while Ram was gone, and he had to overcome the death all around him to reach for the crown and have it in the palm of his hand. He couldn't allow it to be tarnished, had to keep it just as Ram had left it. He had to find his dharma before death found him. Everything seemed so much easier, all of a sudden.

Bharat stood there, mouth slightly open, holding the parchment within his trembling hands so tightly, his knuckles were streaked with white. He watched as those dearest to him hugged, cried, shook each other with happiness. Told him to reread the letter. Some part of him sighed. So this was how it felt to be the breaker of good news.

-----O------

"But, I don't get it," Hanuman began, confused. He placed his feet in front of him and rested his chin on his knee inquisitively. Sitting around him were the rest of the generals, each clutching a glass of fruit punch from the afterparty."What you mean to say is that Meghnad wasn't prideful in his final moments? I expected him to be all 'You can kill me, but you will never kill my father' type thing. But he was fearful?"

"That's what I'm telling you!" Lakshman said, exasperated. "I don't think it's that surprising, actually. Any demon that cowardly would beg for his final moments. And he was a particular evil breed, wasn't he? I bet that he, up in his high floating throne of a chariot, never expected to be brought down. But he experienced his downfall in the end, didn't he? Literally," he snorted, rubbing his eyes to scrape the image of Meghnad falling into the deep canyon out of his mind.

"I wouldn't be so sure," said Jambavan. Older, wiser, his words were more measured, and he was more cautious than before. "Meghnad was a prideful rakshas. In his last moments, he would want to go out with a bang, not wide eyes and cowering state. And not that I'm trying to say that you're lying, Lakshman," he eyed an increasingly furious looking Lakshman warily. "But that his final fright might have other meanings."

"Well there's only a single fight left," Vibhishan said hoarsely. They all looked towards Ram, who listened intently from his place on the cot. "And that is the ultimate one. Prabhu Shri Ram and Ravan. Perhaps Indrajit wished to see this final battle. Perhaps he wasn't sure that Ravan's army would be able to withstand ours. Maybe he was afraid of what he would meet in the Underworld. In all truth, I do not know."

------O------

Ram was sitting on the shores of the Indian Ocean. His dark silhouette cut angles against the pillow like oranges which wisped with the pinks like lovers. Pretty birds with their v-shaped wings flapping lazily crossed the ocean to meet their families. Ram wondered what it was like to cross oceans so leisurely, to be at such liberty to meet your family. He hadn't known it for fourteen years.

He was, by no means, ungrateful for Lakshman and Sita. They had performed their duties. So much so, they were like his sisters, brothers, mothers, mentors, friends, villagers and Ram even saw his father in them. They were his only family. But Ram tried to remember what it was like to have each person have a single meaning in his life. To be able to call for his brother, and all three showing up.

To lay down in the lap of his mother, and know that he would be looked after. To not have to pick up his bow and startle the moment the leaves rustled or the sky darkened. But Ram was always adaptable. Shri Ram, Yuvraj of Ayodhya and rightful heir to the throne, always could figure his way out in a place. His bare feet were never meant to touch the rough forest floor, but sometimes, fate didn't quite care about your birth titles.

Still he had moments. When he truly realized the scope of Ravan's crimes. His rapes, the treatment of his concubines, the women whose lives he had destroyed, all Ram wanted to do was retrieve Sita from that island and blow it up. But that wasn't justice. Because that wasn't the right thing to do. If he had blown the island up, Vibhishan would perish. Sushen would perish. All the rakshasas who never believed in Ravan would perish.

And didn't Ram know better than anyone to not believe in the way people looked? Didn't his brothers all look so different, but weren't they all of the same blood? So he gave Ravan tries. Ten thousand tries. Over and over again, each hour of each day of each week he waited.

Lakshman raged. He pulled out his sword without another thought, ready to kill any perpetrators. Ram supposed he had a little bit of Lakshman stored inside of him. That raging instinct to bring people to justice. But justice didn't work like that, did it? Justice was slow, long, withering like the death of a flower or watching a clock tick. And as Yuvraj and soon to be King, Ram had to remember that. But Justice was never solely about time, was it? Justice was also about pain.

So he suffered. Because justice was never quick and easy and painless. Justice was sharp, painful, like a long splinter being pulled out of his foot. Ram suffered through all the long nights waiting for Sita, only to never have her in his arms. He suffered as he watched his own soldiers die in the clutches of rakshasas. He suffered when he saw the only family he had left bleeding out on the battlefield, but still then he persevered.

Time. He gave all of it. Pain. He pushed through it. People never found righteousness by waiting around, suffering, though. Ram had to give it everything he had. Ram had to put in effort.

So Ram held an arrow to Varun, Ram saw to it that a bridge was built. Ram helped train the armies and come up with battle plans and kept trying to smile despite knowing that every minute of every hour of every day he waited, Sita sat there, prone to Ravan's vicious mind and cruel ways. But how could he do anything different? His armies looked up to him, and he had to smile. On and on.

Effort. That he put in. Effort to forget his titles and his lordship and his lawful position as prince, and realize that he was amongst equals, in this game. They were all brave, and they were all righteous, and they were all loyal. The place where titles mattered, they had left that behind a long time ago, hadn't they?

This. This was the place. This was the place where he would find justice, after giving it all of his pain and suffering. After giving it all of his time, time upon time all of the patience that he could possibly muster. After putting in every single last drop of his effort to keep going, keep the smiles up and the gazes steady and the pace efficient. This was the place where he had to find justice. This was the place where he would find dharma. Or death would find him. 

A/N-Sooo. Some Ram stuff for everyone! I just read Amita's Maryada Purshottam, so I felt inspired to write some Ram related stuff. Because it's the Ramayan, not the Lakshmanayan. Heh. Someone should write the Lakshmanayan.

Okay, here's the rundown. I wanted to make this the final chapter before Ram vs. Ravan. Buuut, I actually really came up with a good title idea for the next chapter that has nothing to do with Ram vs. Ravan, so you guys get one more filler before we get to RAM V RAVANNNNN.

Also, that won't be split up. I promise you, it won't. You may have to wait for, like, five months, and you may have to read 4000 words, but you won't have to read two parts! So. Yay!