Sita: The Fiery Flame

|| Stranded ||

Sita stood by the window, decorated with glass mosaics that looked out to a well groomed garden, the only place that gave her the illusion of waiting... waiting for him. Her husband... Sri Ram. It has been two weeks since she was abducted by Ravan, the monster that dared to separate them and not a second went by that Sita didn't spend watching the skies for doom.

Not in her direst nightmares had she ever imagined being curled up in a monster's chariot, flying across the forest to a foreign land, her hands and legs painfully tied behind her, her mouth gagged with the foulest smelling cloth in the entire cosmos as she desperately yelled for her husband, her beloved to somehow magically appear and save her. For the first time in her life, Sita had found herself wondering what she'd done to deserve such a fate... but what she hadn't realised was that she'd have plenty of time to wonder that, rotting away in a glittering cage.

She'd heard him, her Ram's cry of anguish when she was half unconscious in Ravan's flying chariot. She'd felt the forest shake in terror at the mere sound of him, she didn't let herself imagine what ends he'd go to if it meant rescuing her. She knew her husband as a man of virtue and composure, a man who'd make level headed decisions, the very reason for him to be a great leader... but not a single soul would draw such conclusions if they'd heard him that day. That man, stood for nothing that adorned the qualities of her husband... which made her wonder, if this was all just an elaborate nightmare, something she'd wake up from and find herself in the comforting warmth of Ram's embrace. 

But she hardly thought of these things lately, she hardly let herself think... Everything felt so exhausting. She found herself laughing as she recollected the first week in Lanka, in Ravan's glittering golden castle, as she hoped to see Ram with the mighty Ayodhyan army, banging against the castle door threatening to burn Lanka down... or how she'd had felt so many things as she tried to sleep, the soul gripping fear, the heart crushing grief of separation, the insurmountable yearning and longing to be by Ram's side, the sky shattering anger that she wanted to crush Ravan with, the shameful guilt she'd felt about the words she'd hurtled at Lakshman... the nights she'd spent in Lanka's silk adorned mattresses feeling like she was lying on burning coal...

Now, she felt nothing. She felt like an all consuming void had opened up inside her and it seemed to suck every sign of life into it... she'd had stopped feeling, eating, sleeping... somedays she thought she might even stop breathing. But something inside her refused to let go, the very something that had kept her chances of survival from dipping too low, the something that she'd never be able to let go... she just had to find a way to keep that something from being snuffed out in the golden cage she was now in. She had to hold on to the trust she had in her husband... he'd come for her. No matter the consequences or the insurmountable ocean between them, he'd come. She just had to hold on until then, but Sita was about to find out just about how difficult it was going to be.

She was startled out of her thoughts as a maid servant knocked the door, curtly. Sita slowly made herself face the door, readying herself to deny whatever plate the maid had brought her for the hundredth time now. But the door opened to reveal the same girl, barely in her twenties, too young to be serving in the royal palace willingly... but this time the girl hadn't carried a platter in her arms, she simply stood at the door and watched Sita for a weary moment, her nervousness apparent in her eyes. 

"Lord Lankesh wishes to speak with you, he will be here shortly." she said and before Sita could even voice her incredulity, the maid bowed and shut the door behind her, leaving Sita furiously grinding her teeth.

'He wishes to speak with me? Wishes?? What in the name of Rudra made him think I'd ever agree to breathe the same air as he did after what he'd done?! That filthy bas-'