To the Death

"Scream louder" muttered Sita's handmaiden Priya in between her own ear-splitting shrieks. "You repeatedly said Ravana needs to buy this distraught princess act."

Sita rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air. "Oh woe is me! Ravana approaches and I have no means to defend myself!"

"Yes, that's much better. Now lose the attitude and we just might pull this off." Priya smirked back at her.

As Sita did her very best to scream in terror, she couldn't help but smile to herself at how well the plan was going so far. Ravana had fallen for their trap hook, line and sinker. All she had to do was not alert him to her calmness until after they were back at his palace. Ravana swooped down from the sky in his chariot and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into the chariot in one swift movement.

"Oh no!" Sita cried even as she signaled her handmaidens. Priya leapt on Sita's own horse and started the long, hard ride back to the capital to sound the alarm. In order to make this convincing, they had to let the events play out in real time. Rama had to wait until Priya's arrival to rally the troops, and Sita had to wait for Hanuman's signal to declare war.

...

Three weeks had passed in Ravana's court and Sita was the most bored she had ever been in her entire life. For some reason, everyone at the Lankan court thought it was perfectly reasonable for her to sit in a garden all day and be waited on hand and foot. By night, Sita would creep out of her bed and put herself through her drills, but by day she had to play the frightened damsel in distress. It was the worst form of torture imaginable.

Finally, after the longest three weeks of Sita's life, Hanuman slipped into her garden early one morning. He had brought her bow and her armor.

"My Queen, it's time."

"Finally!" Sita whispered furiously as she strapped the armor on. "It took long enough!'

Without waiting for a response, she started walking briskly towards the main palace. If Hanuman was here, Ravana's scouts would have spotted the army already. Sita strode into the great hall just as the war council was assembling.

"Ravana of Lanka," she called "I am Queen Sita of Mithila. You have committed crimes against my country by kidnapping me. Now my husband and our army have arrived to right those wrongs. You have two options: face us on the battlefield and risk the destruction of your beautiful city and all its people, or settle this conflict by single combat."

Ravana started laughing out loud. "Why would I risk my own skin, when my army outnumbers yours?"

"Because your people will think you value your own life more than theirs" replied Sita. "They will never trust you again."

At this moment, Ravana's brother Vibhishana piped up, "She has a point, my King. The people only accept your rule because you vowed to protect them."

After glaring at his brother for a minute, Ravana turned to Sita and spat, "Fine. You'll have your single combat. Which warrior of yours will I be fighting?"

"You'll be fighting me" Sita said, "In one hour's time." She turned and walked out of the room, even as the entire war council burst into laughter. She and Rama were banking on the fact that Ravana would never take a challenge from a woman seriously, and would drop his guard. It was time to put that theory to the test.

...

One hour later, Sita stood in the center of the fighting arena facing Ravana. Thousands of people had gathered to watch the duel, and the arena was humming with energy. Sita was armed with only her bow and her quiver. Ravana was wearing what appeared to be seventy pounds of armor and carrying the largest mace she had ever seen. The whistle was blown, and without even hesitating, Sita drew her bow and fired twenty arrows in rapid succession. Each arrow hissed through the morning air and found its target in one of Ravana's twenty eyes. Sita knew she had only moments, as Ravana dropped his mace to begin a mantra to restore his eyesight. She pulled the last arrow out of her quiver, the divine arrow that had been on the pedestal that day so many years ago when she had found Pinaka. Whispering a mantra she drew her arm back, and let the arrow fly. It whistled as it arced through the sky and then pierced through Ravana's armor and sank directly into his heart.

...

Sita sighed as she looked out the window towards the Lankan sea. The logistics of installing Vibhishana as ruler of Lanka were almost over, as was the signing of the peace treaty returning all of Ravana's conquered lands to their original rulers, and in a week's time she would be returning home.

Footsteps approaching from down the hall prompted her to turn around. She smiled when she saw it was Rama. He joined her at her spot near the window and reached for her hand.

"You did it," he said and squeezed her hand.

"Well I had a little help," Sita replied, and they both turned back to the sea.

The End.

Bibliography: Narayan's Ramayana

Author's Note: Obviously I was deviating a fair amount from the original story at this point. I wanted to keep some elements the same, so Sita is still kidnapped, she's stuck in Ravana's garden, Hanuman delivers her Rama's message, all that is in line with the original story. I wanted to keep those elements the same, while still making it clear that Rama and Sita have orchestrated this whole thing. I also would like to think that the Sita in this version of the Ramayana has never been in a situation where she couldn't take care of herself, so she has a very hard time playing the damsel in distress. Then, the single combat part is of course different, but Ravana is still ultimately defeated by a divine arrow to the heart, except Sita is the one who fires the arrow, not Rama. I didn't quite have it in me to describe several pages of battle scenes in this story, so I made the final duel pretty short by not giving Ravana time to actually do anything. I wouldn't be that opposed to expanding on the fight scene, but duels are not my area of expertise, so I thought it would be better to play it safe and not mess any terminology up. I also realized I had no idea how to wrap this story up, so the ending is a little cheesier than I meant it to be. I've decided to lean in to the cheesiness and give Sita the happy ending she earned.