When he stared into the horizon where Lanka's skyline was visible ever so clearly to his eyes, it was only then that he even felt a pang of regret. Lanka was a splendorous city, as if the Gods themselves looked upon it with kindness, had touched it with their blessings. From the hands of the divine architect, the buildings had risen, their golden shells glinting in the dawn light like a city in heaven.

But Ram knew better than anyone else that it wasn't the Gods that made the dome of Lanka shine with such beauty. It was the riches and spoils of war that Ravan had gained from doing adharma. It was the product of the evil desires and vanity that Ravan possessed. That shining gold was the adornment that Ram had left behind in Ayodhya.

Lanka was a beautiful place from the outside, no doubt. But the beauty village was not solely made up of lifeless buildings and meaningless monuments. Lanka was a beautiful place from the outside, no doubt. But the beauty of a village was not solely made up of lifeless buildings and meaningless monuments. 

The people made up the place they lived in, and Lanka was the harborer of rakshasas, beings that wouldn't think twice about killing men, women, and children in cold blood. The devil always looked tempting, seductive to the eye, but the true evil was always visible when one came closer. Maybe that was the appeal of Lanka.

He felt cleansed. He, who had not a single adornment on his body. He, who had willingly left behind all of his birth titles. He, who dressed in the orange color of a sage. He, who carried nothing but the clothes on his back and the bow on his shoulder. He, the lord of sacrifice, the protector of dharma, would battle against Lankapati Ravan, the picture of wealth, and he would win.

The person who fought would not be the Yuvraj Ram from Ayodhya, but the Ram from Chitrakut, who had left behind his Earthly pleasures to complete his dharma, and was thus the exact opposite of Ravan.

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

The fire crackled comfortingly as Ram stared into it. The warmth touched his face with a gentleness he had not felt since he last saw Sita. Sita. What an arrangement of events that the event of Maa Kaikeyi saving his father so long ago would lead to this. 

But then, Ram thought. It really isn't that surprising. It must have been his duty in life to eliminate the likes of Ravan from this Earth. Everything had aligned ever so perfectly for him to be able to accomplish this task.

From getting the devotion of beings like Hanuman, who would never waver from his command, to the alliance he had with Sugriv, the faithful King of Monkeys. Having warriors whose dedication to his purpose seemingly came out of nowhere like Nal and Neel, and those as understanding and oriented towards dharma like Angad. 

Gaining a man on his side like the righteous Vibhishan. Maybe even having his brother, Lakshman, to kill Indrajit and allow them to isolate Ravan, was just another gift from heaven.

Now that he thought about it, his entire life had been leading up to this moment. The war had raged on that day with no sight of Ravan in his mighty chariot. But they had killed off the last of Ravan's courtiers, Veeru and Tridanta, and now only Lankapati himself remained. Ram wondered what it was like, sitting down in his court, alone, staring at all those empty chairs. It must have been how helpless he felt when Sita was abducted.

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

Ravan never really had that much trust in Veeru and Tridanta, but they were the last men he had left, and his last stand against Ram's army. Now they were dead too, and with them, the last of the men in his court. The silence left in their wake was louder than their shouts of rage on the battlefield, and fleetingly, Ravan almost felt an appreciation for the warriors he had sacrificed in his endless quest of greed.

But he was Ravan, a vessel of pure evil, to the very end, and so he sat back, prideful, staring at his court of invisible warriors and instead imagined their skeletons blessing him from heaven. He was a shell of greed and wrath and so instead of feeling immense terror of the fate that seemed now sealed for him, his hands crushed the golden goblet of wine.

He did not feel the shards of gold digging into the calloused skin of his palms, did not feel pain, like a mortal. Because Ravan wasn't a mortal. He never thought of himself as someone that could be vanquished, whose life could come to a sudden end like everyone else. He wasn't a mortal, and he wasn't a deva, he was a rakshas to the very core.

Ravan closed his sleep-deprived eyes and leaned back in his majestic throne, more red with the shadows of the blood he had on his ledger than gold. "It's no matter!" he laughed, for only a rakshas had it in them to laugh when fickle, delayed destiny finally caught up with them. "Every one of these courtiers, I, Ravan, King of Lanka, could have killed without a second look! Even if they came all at once at me!"

He stretched his shoulders in bliss, lifting his blood and wine streaked hand in front of his face, examining it with half-lidded eyes. "I wonder," he began, in his drunken haze of self-destruction. "Why is blood and wine the same color? It makes no sense! Must all good things be a dark red?" But then more guttural peals of laughter burst from his chest.

"I won't even have to tell the two apart!" he cackled, shaking his head. "Because when I kill Ram's entire army in front of him, I'll have enough blood at my disposal to bottle and sell like wine in our markets!" His hands shook with his guffaws, and he dropped it back down to the armrest. With a deep sigh, he exhaled, before yawning.

"I must get to sleep. The monkey horde and their ridiculous captain must be quivering in their beds in await for tomorrow, but I will get a good night's rest! And no good king can sleep on his throne." He took a long slurping sip of wine, this time, straight from the bottle. "Let me go to bed now," he mumbled, talking to himself with whatever sanity he had left. "And dream about Sita in my arms."

But when he did retire, he dreamt of absolutely nothing at all, for Sita would never be his, not even in the fantasies of his dreamland. The last of the lanterns dimmed in Lanka, the city which anticipated with bated breath the final battle of the two armies. Opulent Lanka had never witnessed their king, Maharaj Ravan, lose. But it had also never seen an army of monkeys and two men from the shadows of Chitrakut overcome Ravan's closest courtiers.

Lanka had never seen Ravan so bleakly alone. And alone was where his weaknesses lay bare for the world to gaze at.

From the other side of the wall, Ram watched the final candle disappear from the window of the palace, before turning around and walking into his tent.

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

Sita hadn't been watching the war. Her position near Ravan's favorite orange tree in the Ashok Vatika made it impossible for her to see what was taking place on the battlefield. But she knew this. Whatever court Ravan presided over, it was now empty. His best warriors, generals, army chief, and every last one of his sons were dead. Prahast? Head smashed against boulders. Kumbhakaran? Beheaded. Indrajit? Slain. Now, only the King remained on the chess board.

So yes, she hadn't been watching the war from under the orange tree. But she wasn't a fool. When all his pawns were extinguished, the King always emerged from the shadows. 

"But Sita Devi," one of Trijata's new recruits began, sitting down next to her feet. "What if Maharaj Ravan doesn't leave at all? What if he just stays cooped up in his palace forever?".

"Anyone wise would choose cowardice over facing my Ram on the battlefield!" Sita declared. "Anyone with a small portion of sane thought would cower at the thought, forget the imminence, of fighting Raghav at the next dawn. Any being in his right mind would return me in his chariot and beg for forgiveness before my husband on his knees." 

She gazed towards the direction of Ram's camps knowingly. "Anyone would stay in that palace."

"But Ravan! Ravan's uprising and his downfall both, were caused by his ego. His ego, which told him that everything he fancied was his to claim. That no one could question his judgment: not his men, his brother, not even God himself! Who had the pride to fear no mortal and to fear no God! His ego is his vice, whispering in his ear like the devil. That ego, which seems to wish nothing more than its host's death, will not allow him to stay in the protection of his precious Lanka."

"Then the battle will happen," realized the rakshasi. "And it will start the moment the sun becomes our overlooker again." She stared at Sita, whose hands didn't quiver and who seemed to have no time to shed tears. "Aren't you scared?" she asked, bewildered.

Sita tilted her head. "Scared?" she asked. "I would be lying if I said I wasn't. But fear cannot use me as a puppet like ego does to Ravan. If you love somebody, you fear for them, and I love Ram so much, fear could be the definition of my entire being. I fear for him every time he steps out of the cottage, every time he walks, everytime he sharpens his arrows or breathes at all. But love also leads to immense confidence."

She straightened her shoulders. "And above all, I am confident in my Ram! He, whose arms wield his great bow as if it were a feather! He, who shines like the moon at night with his excellence! My Rambhadra, who brings happiness and righteousness to every pace of Earth he walks! The likes of Ravan never stood a chance in front of him and I am proud to call him my husband."

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

Sita's husband was awake many hours before the night truly blended into day. He could not sleep, as Ravan had predicted, but not in fear. Ram always contemplated whatever he did long before he took action. And this was the biggest action of his life. He had to spend much time thinking about it.

So he sat, cross legged, on his cot, closing his eyes and placing his palms on his knees. He breathed in. He breathed out. He uttered the same prayers his father had when he slew asuras in his thousand years of life, and before him the pious Aja, and before him, all the men of the Ikshvaku clan, who had found their answers in their prayers.

With closed eyes simply, he left behind all of the doubts and fears he could have had as a mortal and simply inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled. There was only silence in his tent as the hours passed by and yet he never opened his eyes. Nobody interrupted his meditation, not to check on him, to wish him luck, to speak with him. It was just Ram and himself.

Surya ascended. Raghav opened his eyes.

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

Ram left his tent when the sky was still an infant, baby pink and slowly turning a saffron orange. Like every day before, his chest was covered with the color of sages and his long, curly hair curled around his shoulders and neck. The dawn breeze was cool as it brushed through his hair, but nothing else dared disturb his departure.

Wordlessly, Lakshman walked up and handed the bow to its rightful wielder. Ram gripped onto his weapon, his third companion for fourteen years, and exhaled a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Lakshman stepped aside and walked behind him, becoming invisible to the vanar crowd in front of Ram's brilliance.

An arc of vanars had assembled in front of Ram's tent. Tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of Ram's fated army stood in position, maces placed heavily on the Earth in front of them, hands on swords, spears clutched at the side. Their jaws were clenched and their eyes bored into Ram's figure as he walked into their view, coming to a halt right in the center of their circle, a few meters away from where he had been watching the war all these weeks.

But now was not the time to watch. It wasn't the time to observe his army eliminating adharma and beheading rakshasas. It didn't need to be spoken, but was obvious. Ravan would descend from Sigiriya, his golden palace, and terrorize the battlefield. It may have seemed to the rakshasas that the vanaras followed an invisible leader blindly.

But those who ever doubted the prabhu whom the monkey army bowed to without protest were to be stricken down on the battlefield by him.

He, whose lotus eyes shone with confidence and enlightenment and a knowledge that sages spent millenia of tapasvi trying to reach. He, who wielded a thousand pound bow with ease on his broad shoulder. He, the man whose form seemed to contain every perfection known to man. Scion of Ikshvaku, descendent of the Surya Raghuvanshi clan, he who struck down Tadaka, Subahu, Marich, Khar, Dushan, Jamadgani, ever evil upon whom he had ever laid gaze.

Ram cleared his throat. "Today, I am going onto the battlefield to fight against Ravan. Before I leave the safe abodes of our camp, I wish to thank each and every one of you." He glanced around at his army. 

"Armed with boulders and sticks and sometimes, even your own clothes-" Angad blushed in throwing-his-crown. "You have defeated the undefeated generals of Ravan each and every time. Why? Because we have something they cannot ever possess."

He raised his chin. "Dharma." The entire army broke into loud cheers, but Sugriv quickly shushed them with his hands as Hanuman stepped forward, bowing his head in front of Ram.

"We have something else they do not, prabhu!" he declared. "We have the blessings of Shri Ram!" This time, the cheers seemed to reverberate even louder. The Earth shook with the weight of the monkey army roaring, thumping their maces on the ground, life belonging to the duty of Ram.

With the wind now whipping his hair like a flag, Ram began to walk away. The army parted in front of his footsteps, but their voices weren't silent. "Jai Shri Ram!" came the shouts. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions. "JAI SHRI RAM!" Hanuman shouted, raising his fist, walking in step behind Ram. Lakshman followed silently, head not bowed at the back of his brother but raised similarly up high.

The entire army marched with chins turned towards heaven, for they had something Ravan's illustrious army would never have. Dharma. And where there was dharma, there would always be victory. Yato Dharmastato Jaya. 

A/N- I know, Mochi's really breaking out the Sanskrit terms for this one! Picking up Sanskrit instead of Spanish is really helping me, don't you think? Yes, I know it was in the Mahabharat, which happened after the Ramayan, but it just fit so well-

 It's an update after about one month, it must be, but I was rereading some of my old chapters, and it seemed like everyone was shouting update at me in the comments.

And it was then that I realized that Incorrect Quotes and Fleeting Moments and MttSK were all okay, really, but this book really will always be my favourite. I can't just abandon it, after all this work. Ravan still lives and thrives inside it, and I need to kill him off. Right now. 

This chapter focused on the differences between Ram and Ravan. Ram, who thought about his fortune to have good people surrounding him, versus Ravan, who thought of only himself. I guess this chapter glorified Ram a little before his final battle. But in a book that seemed to talk a little too much about Lakshman, I thought this was necessary. 

So I suppose this is it. I can't delay it any longer. Ravan has to die within the next few chapters. I plan to focus on this story more than my other ones now. I already published the 'Special' in Fleeting Moments, my Incorrect Quotes Book has been receiving a little too much attention, and MttSK has been unupdated for some time now, I think it can wait for Ravan to die.