The Side Character

Author's Note: I drew inspiration for this piece from the "Shurpanakha and Rama" and "Lakshmana and Shurpanakha" chapters of the Public Domain Ramayana wherein Shurpanakha, a rakshasha, attempts to gain love from two of the main characters and fails due to her ugliness and her role as the villain. Rama and Lakshmana's callous reactions to her displays of affection were heartbreaking to me despite her role as the villain. Thus, I wanted to invert her role in this story, to display the sad life of a side character and grant her the sympathy that is denied to her in the actual story because of the role she is meant to play. Shurpanakha, or Sunny in this story, is meant to have your sympathy. The other characters - Ramsey, Cece, and Lux - are stand-ins for Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana and, as you'll read in the story, they are not the most likable. Also, in this story, Sunny is not a rakshasa. Sunny is also an extremely intelligent being meaning that, although she's never been around anyone, she picks up immediately on the mechanics of speech in a kind of mimicry. Make sure you watch out for some of the mystical elements I included! I hope you enjoy!

The Side Character

Sunny has been alone for centuries. She wanders the Forest aimlessly and, really, she doesn't mind the solitude, mostly. In fact, it's all she's ever known. Sunny was born from the waterfall that roars in the middle of The Forest where she resides. One day, she wasn't and the next, she was. In fact, the waterfall's voice is the only one she's ever heard and she has only heard it once. As she rose to break the surface moments after birth, she heard her name murmured through the water that was pressing its thousands of fingertips against her skull. She remembers the vibration against her ear drums as if her head was pressed to someone's chest, "Sunny."

She sometimes looks into the crystal clear waters of her birthplace and ponders at the face therein. It isn't an ugly face, she doesn't think. Peculiar, maybe. The peculiarity of her face lies in her eyes, pupil-less and blood red as they are. It is a stark contrast to the powdery white of her face and the metallic sheen of her silver hair. None of these things contribute to any sort of beauty, however. Instead, they work together to make Sunny look reptilian in nature, akin to the lizards and snakes that slither along the Forest floor.

Her eyes glow like smoldering embers as she creeps across the Forest floor. Her ivory feet and hands sweep across the leaves and twigs, sounding like wind rustling through the trees. She slides on her fingertips and heels noiselessly, performing a modern Sattriya when a noise disturbs the silence. She freezes.

The Sattriya (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

"Where are we now, Ramsey?" A voice breaks the silence that Sunny has known all her life. Her ears understand the words immediately like she has just been waiting for someone to unlock the voice ingrained within her from birth. The high-pitched and grating voice that fills her with an anxiousness she has never felt before. She recoils swiftly behind a tree, blending in smoothly to the place that she has always known. She grips the tree tightly with her long nails and uses her newfound ability to listen.

"I'm not entirely sure, Cece, but we can trust this path, I think," the one Sunny assumes is Ramsey replies.

"I think this is the way too," another voice responds as they move closer to where Sunny hides.

"My feet hurt! Lux, Ramsey, please slow down." Sunny hears the group's footsteps slow. Her heartbeat is racing as she begins to creep away and, for the first time in her life, she makes noise: a twig snaps under the ball of her foot.

"Who's there?" Cece calls in her squeaky voice that cuts through the peaceful Forest.

"Ramsey, I heard something!" she squeals and Sunny's ears are so in tune that she can hear the scratch of the girl's fingers fisting into the rough fabric of his clothes.

"Cece, be calm, please," he whispers.

"Who is there?" His voice booms out.

Sunny considers sprinting away, but the loneliness that has surrounded her ever since birth suddenly feels suffocating. She decides to use the ability that hearing their voices has somehow granted her. She expands her chest and for the first time, she speaks.

"My name is Sunny. Named by the waterfall that is my mother and surrounded by the Forest that is my family." She steps out from behind the tree and straightens her shoulders to the intruders. Her eyes alight on the three who have disrupted her home and she exhales, her lungs deflating. The man, the one called Ramsey, is beautiful. Expressions of his appearance would not do him justice, but he reminds her of her namesake, The Sun. His companions, the man and woman called Cece and Lux, are similarly blessed. They are no comparison to Ramsey though, perhaps because they were not the first ones Sunny laid her eyes on.

She is not accustomed to this sort of feeling. Out from her pale, bloodless lips burst the words, "Be my companion in this Forest forever." She leaps forward to grasp his hand without thought. Ramsey's face reveals no emotion, except for his golden eyes which laugh at her. He slides his fingers from her grasp and motions to Lux.

"I am taken, fair lady of the Forest, but my friend is sure to accept you, being single as he is." Ramsey motions behind Cece to Lux, who at first appears dumbfounded. His muddy eyes then alight at the recognition of Ramsey's game.

Sunny glances in confusion between the two, gliding with hesitation towards Lux. "Fair lady, I am also taken. Taken by laughter at the pallid color of your skin in contrast to the hellish fire of your eyes." Lux grips her chill hand in his and squeezes it to numbness. Sunny slips her hand away, looking between the two with her snakelike eyes.

"From where do you come, you blinding eyesore? Have the depths of hell created you to tempt royalty such as we three?" Ramsey inquires, rocking from his heels to his tiptoes over her. Sunny cowers into herself, twisting and shrinking slowly away from the intruders who she never should have approached.

Cece cackles, "Don't let her shrink away. Let's keep the pale thing for a pet." Sunny, accustomed to the Forest floor, however, is faster and dissolves away into mist before they can react.

Sunny's Forest (Source: Needpix.com)

She returns to her waterfall, to her crystal pool and leans her face over its shimmering surface. It reveals no demon, no slithering reptile to her pupil-less eye. Instead, the reflection of her face is dispersed and replaced by the amusement of the three barbarians who mocked her in her own Forest. She dashes at the water with a papery fist and curls up on the bank, slithering into a coil like a snake. "What have I done to deserve this loneliness?" she whispers to her porcelain knees.

The water, for the first time in her life, responds, "Nothing, my child. You are simply a small part of someone else's story. Come and rest with me now that you have served your purpose." Sunny, without hesitation, slips into the cool water of her birthplace and disappears with a swish of her newfound tail.