A/N-Warning! This chapter is a bit sad, angsty, and has some self-blame. Do not read if you need a pick-me-up. My next chapter will be happier!
"Ah bhaiyya." Shatrughan caught up to Ram, breathing heavily. "The ceremony is starting in minutes. You must come quickly." Ram inhaled, and exhaled, sitting in a criss-cross under the willow tree in the garden. He was in the middle of meditating, he should be done in a few minutes. "Bhaiyya, are you alright?" Shatrughan asked, tapping his shoulder. Now if only Shatrughan would move away. "Bhaiyya?" he hissed, poking his shoulder. Enough.
"Shatrughan, I am meditating!" Ram cried, turning around. Shatrughan slumped a bit, but then shrugged it off, waved, and ran away. Ram sighed. That probably came out harsher than he intended. The ceremony was going to start, and if he did not hurry up, he might miss it! His meditation had been disturbed already, and Ram picked himself up.
Ram walked into the hall with a weird feeling in his stomach. As if something bad were about to happen. He felt a bit dizzy, and the twins were blurred out a little bit. He managed the walk towards his brothers, but the feeling only grew stronger. He didn't even notice the cheers, or the queer man in the black rags. Black rags were not a good sign.
Ram walked up on the prince's podium slowly. "Bhaiyya, are you alright?" asked Lakshman worriedly, sensing his brother's uneasiness like he usually detected Ram's feelings, holding a hand to his forehead, but Ram waved him off quickly, annoyedly. What would the court officials think, if he was sick? That too, his brother checking his temperature so obviously? He missed Lakshman's confused look, and Shatrughan whispering in his ear.
"Welcome, my friends, my subjects! We are honored to have you here for our annual court ceremony!" declared Dasharath, as his queens sat on the three thrones next to him, waving as they were introduced by the chief minister, Sumant on one slightly below. "As you know, here are my sons, Crown Prince Ram," Ram waved uneasily as a loud cheer erupted from the crowd. Dasharath looked taken aback by the sound, but continued.
"Prince Bharat." Slightly less, but Bharat did not mind; his brother was the favorite, and definitely should be. At least he got cheers, since he painted everything he could see from the window, and Dasharath often boasted about his son's artistic prowess and gave away the paintings happily.
"And the youngest twins, Princes Lakshman and Shatrughan!" They both also waved, although Shatrughan, Ram noticed, looked frustrated. As always, Ram thought. Because they were not introduced individually. Lakshman, for that matter, looked unusually angry as well. Normally, he masked his feelings very well, but this time, the elder twin seemed agitated, teetering from foot to foot.
"Let the festivities begin!" cried Dasharath. Bharat awoke from his trance. Something did not seem right, and at times like this, he always had to look to Lakshman. His younger brother's observant eyes were directed towards a man. Wearing coal black clothes. Bharat froze, and employed his artistic eye carefully.
Black eye, so he got into fights. Beard, and mustache, Bharat couldn't really get anything for that as his father had a beard and mustache as well, and was a most respectable man indeed, being the king and all. He walked with a slight limp, which was fake, most definitely fake, as limping people did not change feet upon which to use randomly.
"Crown Prince Ram!" came a cry from the audience. It was not heard by anyone except Ram, who turned towards the woman curiously. "My fields are experiencing great drought, what do I do?" Dasharath looked over interestedly, wanting to see how the next king interacted with the people.
"Well, if you do not have much access towards water, if you live in the Southern District of Ayodhya, there is a well near the center of the district. You might also have a problem with locusts, and to stop that, just place some mint leaves near your farm, that stops the pests." Ram said calmly, and the lady just stared as he smiled and walked away.
"Hail prince Ram!" she shrieked, turning away from the viewing area happily. The crowd answered loudly, and Ram waved cheerfully. The feeling was still bubbling in his stomach, but he unwisely pushed it away, overtaking it with a feeling of joy at the trust his future subjects put in him.
"Ram bhaiyya," began Lakshman, walking slowly towards him. "There's a man in black over there who doesn't strike me as-'' Ram cut in quickly, as people were flooding to get an audience with him. It was probably just Bharatanuja's paranoia anyways.
"Look, Laksh. I am a bit busy right now, please move over, you see? These people are trying to speak with me, I need to make an impression. I will talk to you later, just Father considers this a great big procession and I want to appease him. " Thankfully, good as the third prince was, he nodded understandingly, and walked away.
The bubbling uneasiness continued in Ram's stomach as they fed Ayodhya's people dinner as well. Especially when he looked towards his brothers, it was as if he would never see them again. But that was impossible; his family was well-liked, and nobody would think to raise a finger against them, not only because they were kind and compassionate, but also because they had the best security anyone could imagine.
It all happened in seconds. The grand gold chandelier fully unscrewed, right above Shatrughan, whose smile vanished in moments. Ram heard a shriek, "No!". It sounded like Maa Kaushalya. Bharat ran to save the youngest prince, his beloved brother, almost in slow motion. Right as he grasped onto Shatrughan, covering him with his body, another person took the chandelier on his back as they all fell flat onto the floor.
Ram did not worry at first, only remember. He had shouted, accidentally but nonetheless, shouted at Shatrughan when he disturbed his meditation. Ram was about to run, when Dasharath caught his shoulders, tightly. Ram struggled, but couldn't escape the grasp. A light grunt, and then slowly, the chandelier began to lift. Someone was holding it up, but that was impossible, it weighed about five hundred pounds.
Shatrughan crawled out, mostly unharmed. He grasped onto another person's body, Bharat's. Broken, unconscious, bloody and bruised. Ram never thought he would see his brother like this. Ram screamed, as the queens rushed forward, but soldiers held them back, to make sure that they were safe. A few more seconds later, the person who was holding up the chandelier from underneath collapsed, crushed under the weight.
"I was planning to get only the youngest, pity that Kaikeyinandan got caught too." a gravelly voice broke the silence. "I got both Saumitranandans however, guess that's my great luck acting in. That should teach you, king, to marry a civilian." Ram turned towards the voice angrily. The man in the black rags. When had his instinctive second brother ever been wrong about things like this?
Both Saumitranandans? "No!" Ram cried. "Lakshman!" And suddenly, he was free from his father's grasp as he ran towards the chandelier. Nothing else mattered except that body under that chandelier. Not body, not corpse, person. A very alive person, whom he shouldn't have ignored, brushed off. But, he would get a chance to apologize, to a very alive brother! He, and other subjects he did not care about lifted up the chandelier, and Ram stumbled.
His face was not visible, and his back was cut into with glass shards. Ram didn't notice the medic, rushing towards Bharat, did not notice the soldiers grabbing the man with the black rags. Did not notice Maa Sumitra's consistent sobs.
"Lakshman," he gasped, before falling black, the world becoming black.
Ram woke up to a smiling medic. He sat up quickly, the memories flooding in his brain like cold water, and jumped off the bed. The medic did not stop him as he headed towards the twin's rooms, pacing loudly.
Opening the door, he walked into Lakshman sitting next to a lying down Shatrughan and Bharat. He looked up almost dangerously quickly from the window, but smiled when he recognized Ram, and started speaking hopefully, as if it would cure everything.
"Bharat-he, took the majority of the injuries. The medic thought that I would, and still says that I did, but all I got from it was two dislocated shoulder bones, a small infection because that chandelier was old, and some deep lacerations, nothing compared to Bharat." Ram hated, hated, how calm he sounded, how he wasn't even worried about his own injuries. Ram hated how he didn't shout at him for ignoring his warnings. Ram hated how he didn't even seem mad at him.
"Shatrughan is just asleep, he got a few bad scratches. He'll be alright, the medic said." The third prince finished, not breaking. Ram just stared as Lakshman swallowed, glancing at him guiltily, although Ram did not know why he should feel guilty. Why, Laksh was the reason that they were alive! A tear slipped traitorously from Lakshman's eye, breaking his calm mask. For the first time in his life, Ram thought, he saw the third prince burst into tears.
"Maybe if I ran faster, or was stronger, or just paid more attention-" he sobbed, trying to deny the comfort, but Ram wrapped his arms around him, allowing the vulnerable half-brother of his to cry into his shoulder as he stared at the two other princes. They were all broken. Shaken. Torn into pieces that could be mended, but the lines upon which you sew reminded you, every single time.
Later that evening, as Ram walked through the corridors, he heard tense voices coming from the queen's chambers. Although he knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, maybe it had something to do with the attack? He was correct.
"I am not a royal, I am a civilian, my father rose up from a poor, common villager. It is my fault that Bharat was injured, I must leave." Ram was shocked to hear Maa Sumitra's voice, stricken with grief and guilt, but forceful in a way she had not ever used upon them, not even Shatru.
"No, no Sumitra! You are the daughter of a government official, so what? You are the wife of Dasharath, the sister of the queens. You are a royal, and this was not your fault! It is mine, I should have kept Shatru closer to myself. Then Bharat would not have run to grab him, and-and Laksh would not have had to catch it." Kaikeyi's furious voice rang throughout the room, and as Ram peeked in through the door, they hugged tightly, close in their grief, although far apart in their birth titles.
Swallowing, Ram walked away. They were all blaming themselves, but it was his fault after all, now wasn't it? He should have paid attention. Maybe if he had arrived earlier, not having meditated, he would have noticed the man in the black rags. He would have warned someone. The chandelier would not have fallen. No one would have been hurt. No one would be blaming themselves.
The palace was not the same without Bharat. Shatrughan had woken up, no injuries, Lakshman had nothing but a few scars and Ram was alright in everything but the inside. Bharat had woken up, and was healing, but was not allowed to get up from the bed. He was not allowed to go anywhere, do anything, and the three brothers found themselves missing him.
However, it was not the three brothers who missed them the most. It was the snarky new palace guards.
"There goes the temper tantrum," one of them snickered, used to Bharat's protection, as Lakshman walked past. He stopped, and paced a few back, turning directly to glare at them.
"There goes your pretty little face." he snarled, punching him so hard that he had a black eye for the next few weeks. He wouldn't usually, even with Bharat to calm everything down, but he knew that it was because of these stupid lackadaisal soldiers that the man in rags had gotten into the palace in the first place. And if he did not teach them a lesson, his name was not Lakshman!
Shatrughan was sullen for the next few weeks. He was without his constant companion, without his brother, without his friend. It just felt wrong without Bharat's paintings, his constant begging for new brushes, his calm meditation, his chiding of the twins, his obvious escape from a doting Manthara. Everything was, not right.
And Ram, Ram slowly stopped blaming himself as he had to comfort everyone else. He wiped away the tears of his parents, and cradled the little kids in the villages, was a beacon of strength for those who were weak, and laughed along with everyone else as they hailed Lakshman the greatest weightlifter of all time, claiming he broke a record for a seventeen-year-old.
Needless to say, most everyone was relieved that Bharat was back a few weeks later. Shatrughan hugged him gratefully; Bharat was the reason that he was alive. Alive, without a scratch, the reason that guilt could flood him every time he remembered his elder brother's broken body. Bharat did the same; Shatru was alive. No one, not even that man in those black rags could snatch away his brother.
He walked up to Lakshman who was smiling at the scene. "You're the best weightlifter ever, the reason I'm alive, and the cause of that black eye on the new trainee soldier, and no one can convince me otherwise." he rasped, and laughing, Ram beckoned them in for a group hug. Everyone was alive. Everyone was well. That was how it should be. That was how it would be.
Bonus Scene
"Urmi, Sita! Where are you?" shrieked Mandavi. A pitter pattering of footsteps echoed down the corridor, and then two princesses showed up at their door.
"What is it?" asked Urmila haughtily, hands on her hips. "We're busy talking!" Mandavi scowled, standing up, and speaking mainly to Urmila.
"What about? Boys? I think you all are thinking too much about boys. Remember, when we marry, we'll all be separated." said Mandavi angrily, just sad about being left out from their discussion. Shrutakirti looken stricken, and grasped onto Mandavi's arm tightly. Urmila just smirked, however.
"Not if we marry brothers!" she sang. Then, she walked away, leaving all her other sisters thinking.
A/N-We have our first almost-fatal attack. We people need to appreciate Bharat, so I didn't make Lakshman have serious injuries. Sumitra is the daughter of a government official, not a raja, and some people were bitter against her sons for that. Do not fear, though, the twins are beloved among all of Ayodhya's non-bigots.
This is a relatively dark chapter. Many people read my stories to be lifted up (I think?). This is probably NOT what you wanted. I did give a warning, and rest assured that the next chapter will be overall much happier and lighter!
I think that there will be maybe two more chapters in this era, and then we will go on to two transitional chapters, and then we will be in the Sita Swayamvar Era. Am I excited? Yes. Will I continue gushing about it and adding small parts of romance to keep you waiting? Yes. Is that mean, cruel, and horrible of me? Yes.
Shoutout to: avni_historylover OMGOMGOMG love your stories.