The Princes of Ayodhya-The Ramayan Through Short Stories

The Prank War (Prompt Fulfillment Part 2)

Bharat sat down next to him, grabbing a ladoo from Lakshman's plate, and one bite of it and he shrieked, putting it down immediately and scooting his chair feet away from the table.

"What is this you're eating Laksh? This is spicier than Maa Kaikeyi's khichdi." The favorite queen had a terrible reputation of pouring bowls and bowls of crushed ghost peppers and red pepper seeds into her rice and lentils, something that the foreign adversaries had learned from experience.

Ram reached over curiously, grabbing a ladoo, and took a bite too, dropping the sweet immediately and gulping down two kegs of water. Lakshman took another bite of his ladoo confusedly, eyes darting.

"That's a high tolerance to spice you have Laksh," Ram gasped as Lakshman peered closely at the sweet, noticing the flecks of red, before glaring at Shatrughan, who smiled weakly. Shatrughan was quite afraid himself. His twin was becoming scarier by the day. Those were the spiciest peppers in India!

Lakshman crushed the entire ladoo in one hand, serving to scare Shatrughan even more. He had acquired the spice tolerance by Maa Sumitra feeding him extra spicy food due to the fact that he had a short temper.

"Here," she used to say, handing him a bowl of rice that was almost blood-red by being covered with red chillies. "something to match your temper, Laksh. If you don't cool it down, the spice of this food will never cool down." He had gulped down the entire table's worth of water the first day, finishing five extra bowls of plain rice, astonishing everyone with the eating capacity of a seven-year-old.Sumitra looked triumphant.

"King, I think I have finally solved Lakshman's temper problem. See, from now on, he will never shout again." However Lakshman, in all of his stubbornness, refused to become a calmer person, and Maa Sumitra refused to reduce the spice of the food. Eventually, Lakshman didn't even notice it, and devoured bowlfuls of red rice, no problem as guests of the king just stared, jaws dropped.

The next morning, Lakshman covered all of Shatrughan's bowstrings with slippery wax. It was hilarious to watch him continuously fail to release the arrow, his hands not being able to grip the string, causing the arrow to simply fall to the ground lamely. The ashram had quite a laugh at that.

Shatrughan was becoming more agitated by the day as his pranks went on failing on Lakshman, until, one day, when he decided to prank him with some harmless snakes who looked poisonous. The mischievous twin had bribed one of the helpers to release a snake into the middle of the ashram. Now, everyone could see Lakshman running away in fright.

"Look!" Shatrughan screamed, catching the attention of the entire ashram. "King Cobra!" The silence in between was the signifier of the time that stood between the peace and the disarray. A high shriek that came from Daura broke the beautiful moment. People ran every which way, some towards the scene, hoping to see a king cobra in real life, and others ran far, far away. A large circle formed around the snake, which reared up and hissed furiously. Its green hood was covered with diamond-shaped scales and its fangs looked lethal to the immediate eye.

However, Shatrughan knew that it was not quite the poisonous king cobra that everyone thought it was. Rather, it was a harmless subspecies, one who could cause barely any harm. He looked around, hoping to spot a frightened Lakshman. Bharat jumped six feet into the air and tensed up. Ram ran in front of the twins protectively. Shatrughan couldn't quite see Lakshman yet, however.

"Laksh, don't!" cried Ram, and Shatrughan turned around to see his target pacing slowly towards the snake, hand held out. Too afraid to watch, Shatrughan clapped his hands over his eyes. Laksh would get an injury, and it would all be his fault. Just like the willow tree. All over again. The hermitage just watched.

Lakshman, however, thought it most odd that a snake would not immediately try to escape him. Usually, that was exactly what serpents did when encountering him, they hightailed it the opposite direction. "Go away," he hissed, almost like the snake itself. The creature hadn't noticed Lakshman quite yet, and looked immediately awed and frightened, if that was even possible for a snake. In no time it slithered away , looking like it was racing towards the woods in fright.

"W-what?" Shatrughan stuttered. "Laksh, you speak serpent?" Lakshman scowled, rolling his shoulders.

"Sorry, I didn't understand that. I do not speak idiot." Shatrughan huffed, vowing to finally defeat his brother. At the end, it was finally the one water balloon thrown again that called off the most scary, and the only war the hermitage had ever hosted.

Flashback

Lakshman noticed Shatrughan aiming his water bomb again, and sighed. His twin had quite an ego alright, trying to win this prank war. He attempted to recall all of the times when Shatrughan had targeted him before the war itself, and came upon...nothing. Shatrughan had never targeted him, and the one time he did, Lakshman exploded.

He felt guilty, really, nothing else. How would you feel, if somebody showed more mastery in something you are good at? How would you feel if Shatrughan suddenly was great at combat fighting? And so, when the final water bomb was released, Lakshman watched it soar through the air, and didn't speak a word when it hit the back of his head, instead walking over to Shatrughan, shaking his hand, and strolling calmly away. The first, and last time he would willingly surrender in war.

A/N-The second part of my wish fulfillment prompt! I loved writing these, so thank you very much to @J13S10 and @ShraddhaKonde again for giving me this awesome idea. This is probably what you had in mind with "cute" and "pranks". It's what I had more in mind. I just randomly started writing the first part, and finished it, and figured that there was no point in not posting it. There's no harm in posting! I enjoyed this 2nd part more, and my guess is that you guys do as well.

The reason that the snake immediately escaped is because (well, you guys probably already know this, but) Lakshman is the reincarnation of Sheshnag, who is the king of all serpents. This snake escape thing also happens at some point later in the Ramayana, although I do not remember at what point.

Thank you for any support whatsoever! It brightens my day when I see your comments, votes, and notifications. If you'd like to see anything else, any particular prompt, please do let me know! I will try my best to accommodate it if possible.

Here's a fun little note for you. I looked at the amount of views that the 2nd Author's note has, and it has ⅓ of the views that everything else has, LOL. My stomach hurt from how much I laughed at that. Anyways, if you did skip the 2nd Author's Note, please read it. It is an important question that I really do want you to answer if you can.

I did post two chapters today. This is because instead of posting just a bonus scene (which I DID attempt) at the crossing of another milestone, I wrote an extra chapter for the amazing milestone that is 500 views!!!!!!! So...continue reading another chapter.

Shoutout to: n-i-t-h-y-a Thank you for voting, and commenting! Your notes really put a smile on my face, and I absolutely LOVE your story-Lakshman's Soul Urmila