Storytelling for Week 2: Sita the Warrior Princess

Meg from Hercules from Bustle

One bright and sunny morning, Sita, Rama, and Lak took a stroll through the Forest of Sandalla. Rama, being the hopeless romantic that he is, stopped often to point out different flowers to Sita  and in no time picked her a beautiful bouquet. Meanwhile, Lak was trying to explore the forest. He liked to tell the couple everything he would find. Occasionally he would yell things like "O look a nest!" or "Watch out for that cliff!" He soon found a tree as tall as a mountain and decided to climb it. "Lak! If you are going to climb so high could you try to grab me a cloud? I would love one as a souvenir," Rama said jokingly.  Lak, playing along, climbed even higher into the tree and then pretended like he was going to grab a cloud and reached as much as his arm would let him and then he fell. "LAK!" screamed Sita and Rama as they rushed to his aid. Lak sat up startled but otherwise unharmed. By some miracle he had managed to land in a large pile of leaves, it was like landing on a crunchy marshmallow. Sita embraced Lak with relief and then punched him in the arm, "Do not scare me like that Laksmana!" "Wow," Lak said with a chuckle, "you know I am in trouble when you use my full name." Rama started laughing with him until they were interrupted by a low growl. "Rama, please tell me that you are just really hungry." said Lak. "Definitely not me." replied Rama. They both look at Sita and she shakes her head no. Realizing they were no longer alone, they slowly turn around.

Not even ten feet away from them was a man-eating rakshasa. Standing at fifteen feet tall, with two huge fangs protuding from his mouth, the ugly beast roared "I am the great Viradha! How dare you awaken me!" Seeing the beautiful Sita adorned with flowers, he grabbed her as she screamed and said "I will take her and drink her blood, for it will surely be a great compliment to your flesh." "Ewww!" said Lak. "I really don't feel like being your "Lak burger with a side of Rama fries with a Sita pop to drink". Try the veggie burger! It is way better on the heart!" Viradha growled with impatience for the upcoming battle as Rama stringed his bow. "You have a death wish Viradha! You will not have my Sita today!" Rama yelled as he and Lak sent arrow after arrow into the rakshasa's flesh. When they were out of arrows, the rakshasa yawned and the arrows popped out of his flesh. It was as if they were never there. As he stretched, he dropped Sita and she ran to the side of the battle. "You will have to do better than that" said Viradha. The two warriors then charge the beast with their swords and battle for their lives. As Sita was sitting there on the side, she could not help but notice that no matter what the boys did they could not seem to injure the rakshasa. She then remembered that in their forest explorations this morning they had come by a cliff so deep that any creature would perish after a fall so great. Realizing this may be their only chance to defeat the monster, Sita ran off towards the cliff.

Sita grabbed some vines and pulled them off a tree and quickly tied them together and then wrapped them around two trees close to the edge of the cliff. Sita ran all the way back to the battle to a gruesome scene. The boys had somehow ripped off the arms of Viradha. This didn't slow him down a bit. The rakshasa was still kicking and biting at Rama and Lak and it looked like he was winning the fight. Rama and Lak were exhausted from fighting and were starting to slow down. Sita knew they weren't going to be able to hold out for much longer. She grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it at Viradha with all of her strength and yelled "Hey! You with the bad  breath!" The stone hit the beast in the head and he quickly turned all of his attention towards Sita. Sita stood tall and strong before the beast. "You said you would take care me first and I haven't got one scratch from you! What kind of mighty rakshasa are you? You can't even control a girl!!" "Fine," said Viradha, "I will kill you first woman!" and charges toward Sita with a ferocious roar! Sita runs toward the cliff and goes over her rope and runs to the side as Viradha trips over her rope and falls to his death. The boys ran to Sita and made sure she was okay. When she told them how she tricked Viradha, they were very impressed. Rama embraced Sita and said "I am so proud of you my warrior princess." Sita blushed with pride as the three of them continued on their journey through the forest. 

Author's note: I chose to keep the storyline but twist it to make Sita the hero. As much as I love the damsel in distress stories, I thought it was time to switch things over and have the princess save the prince. I also wanted to make Lakshmana more of a focus and to see more of a personality from him. I saw him as an animated and funny sidekick to Rama. He would have to have a sense of humor and a great personality to be stranded in the forest for years as a permanent third wheel. In the original story, Lak does not fall off of a tree or awaken the beast. I did that to make the story more exciting. There is also no Forest of Sandalla. I just wanted to have a name for the place. Sita is also hiding in a cave while Rama and Lakshmana battle the monster and then push it off of the cliff. I just adjusted the story to make Sita the hero and to trick the rakshasa into tripping and falling off of the cliff. Also, I had to choose my gif of Meg for this story because I love Meg and I feel that in my story Sita is the type of person who could definitely save herself from monsters. 

Bibliography: Viradha from The Ramayana translated by Manmatha Nath Dutt (1891 and following).