A Magical Spell ~ Ramayan | @TheLadyAesthetic

5. "You know you can cry, right?"

"It happened just yesterday.."

Shatrughna began, his voice a feeble whisper, trembling the slightest bit under the weight of responsibility that had suddenly been transferred to him.

The entire royal family (not so entire), except Rama, Lakshman, Bharat, Sita, Urmila, and Mandavi had assembled in Dasharath's private courtroom, due to the throne room's extended quarantine.

The chamber was enormous, its extravagant walls, ornamented with artistic portrayals of legends of Ikshvaku's lineage, stretching to a substantial height of over thirty feet. A massive chandelier, fashioned out of pure and extraordinary crystals, hung in all its glory from the magnificently designed false ceilings, casting a dim veil of gold over the assembly below. Floor-to-ceiling windows, draped in thick volumes of soft velvet, adorned the walls at systematic intervals, multiplying the grandeur of the majestic sabha.

Presently, the youngest prince cleared his throat, and inhaled deeply. "The attacker - Son of Lankesh Ravana, and the only living defeater of the king of the gods, Meghnad."

Dasharath stiffened at the mention of Ravana, his face contorting with disgust. The well-known demon was very much known for the limits he had crossed when it came to committing crime. The emperor himself held a personal grudge against the Rakshasa king, for having humiliated and killed his ancestor King Aranya, in an unfair battle.

Shaking his head slightly, the somber faced ruler turned to his youngest son again, anxiety crawling up his nerves. Ravana was a formidable enemy to be feared indeed, but his son was even more crooked, evil, cruel, duplicitous, and all the terrible adjectives the man held in his dictionary. And the very thought that the same Meghnad had done something so terrible to his third child, that he was forced into a state of slow-death, triggered a kind of miserable apprehension in the monarch's heart.

Sumitra's younger son took a deep breath again, his eyes tracing the aesthetically designed carpet, that rested in utmost peace on the floor, and Shatrughna wished for a moment to have that peace of mind, just like all the immovable objects in the room within which's confines he now stood.

Shaking himself out of his stupid lane of reflections, the prince continued, dragging himself back in time. "It all started early at daybreak yesterday, when most of us had barely even awakened. With the first rays of dawn hitting against our faces, we did not take a moment to guess that that would be our last peaceful morning until the lord knows when".

Flashback-

Shatrughna stirred in his sleep slightly as the golden aurora touched down gracefully on his handsome face, highlighting his perfect and sharp features that the creator had himself designed, instead of passing the job to the laborers.

As the young prince of Ayodhya gradually awakened, his ears were flooded with distant echoes of several morning time sounds. But something caught his attention, a certain sound, even amid that state of half-wakefulness. It was not the cuckoos, or the peacocks, or the doves, or the Indian robins, but a distant clamour, a far away rumbling that seemed to shake the very surface of the earth, a kind of din Rama's youngest brother had only heard of before in battles, ongoing or oncoming.

Even as the thought entered his mind, the prince's eyes shot open, his senses bolting to activity, though the very next second, he regretted the act, squinting hard at the sunlight filling his golden hued chamber. 

Raising his hand as a barrier between him and the god of the sun, Shatrughna grumbled inaudibly and turned in his position to show his back to the fiery planet, only to meet the adorable face of a soundly sleeping Shrutakirti. Shatrughna's shielding hand dropped, and he smiled brightly at his wife. But just as he was about to kiss her on the forehead, wishing her a good morning, the prince heard a guard running down the corridor outside, shouting something pretty much incomprehensible.