The Princes of Ayodhya-The Ramayan Through Short Stories

Palace-like Cottages OR Lakshman being an artist

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.