Rama And Sita Never Overhear The Dhobi Before Her Pregnancy Comes To Term

Rama and Sita never overhear the dhobi before her pregnancy comes to term

1. Most of Kaikeyi’s power died with Dasharatha and his love with her, but still she has enough influence to overhear the rumors that spread through the city–and, more importantly, to ensure that the wells and taverns that Rama visits in disguise do not mention them.

Let him confront those ugly truths once his wife delivers Ayodhya its heirs and if he should object, then let him consider: she has done him so many offenses already; what is one more?

2. The child – no, children, and fine sons, too!–are born, and Kaikeyi lets it be known that to challenge their legitimacy would be to deprive Rama of the heirs he loves so well. For a time, it works: Ayodhya loves Rama enough to allow him his happiness.

But all too well she knows it will not last. Did she love him, too, and still prove the cause of fourteen years’ unhappiness? So too will they turn on him, and his blameless queen; unless Kaikeyi can seek to do otherwise.

3. Crowds always need a scapegoat, and too well Kaikeyi knows one that will suffice. Public opinion has forgiven only because of Rama’s request; and so it is all to easy to sow a word here, a suggestion there, that all the rage and mistrust they feel towards Sita ought to be directed towards the real instigator of mischief, who lives in the palace still, having escaped any punishment for her crimes.

It works; of course it does. Kaikeyi has lived in Ayodhya for almost forty years, and knows it like the palm of her hand; and just as in the palm of her hand, she can read the signs of her downfall in the crowds’ angry faces.

4. Before Rama must answer that he allows the criminal responsible for his father’s death to live simply because she is his stepmother, Kaikeyi volunteers herself to return to Kekaya. Too long she has lived apart from her mountains, she says wistfully; and her brother longs for her company.

She will listen to no protests, not from Rama, nor her fellow wives–and Ayodhya, pleased with itself, forgets its complaints against its queen entirely.

5. The night before she is to leave, Bharat comes to her for the first time in fifteen years. He knows, of course; any son of hers must. She managed to teach him at least that much.

“If you expect me to forgive you, simply for what you did for bhabhi-”

“I did nothing but act according to my own nature,” Kaikeyi interrupts coldly. As much as she longs for Bharat’s return, she does not want it to be under such terms. “Manipulation is my only skill; surely I must use it to relieve my own boredom.”

“You’ll never change,” he declares, and still his voice is thick with anger. But he touches her feet before he goes, and in the morning, stands on the stairs and watches Kaikeyi’s departing palanquin until it fades out of view.

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Bonus gif:

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Tags

micheal sheen

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Dad yelling from the back: SURPRISEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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Aziraphale: Of course you are.

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concept

a beaded curtain, but instead of beads they’re worms on strings

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*thor hands peter a mug of beer*

Thor: Exellent work in the mission man of spiders!

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Tony: Thor no.

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when you go back to daydreaming after having been interrupted and your brain does a previously on of your fantasy

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tropes i will never get tired of

fake dating

omniscient narrator who immediately contradicts the characters (“This is fine,” she said. It was, in no way, shape, or form, fine.)

deadpan jokes while swordfighting

the “I FUCKING LOVE MY WIFE” guy

oblivious pining that slowly escalates until A is going on page rants about how pretty B’s eyes are but still doesn’t seem to recognize they’re in love

Strong Leader Type having to physically fall down in order for the other characters to see how exhausted they are

funny villains who talk and make jokes with their heroes while they’re fighting them

the villains presented as the protagonists

*increasingly pulls out bigger and bigger weapons from more unlikely places*

“I said all of your weapons” *pulls out more*

“ALL OF THEM” *pulls out one last tiny dagger*

traumatized character using humor to cover up ptsd

characters going out for a break at a restaurant/movie/whatever and something bad happening

using the “*gasp* what’s that over there???” trick to avert the enemy’s attention and it working

a villain’s weakness being something totally random and nonsensical

a hero duo arguing over who’s the sidekick while fighting a villain

“don’t be silly, we don’t need [important thing]” “you lost it, didn’t you?” “yeah”

“what’s the one thing I told you not to do tonight?” “raise the dead” “and what did you do?” “raised the dead”

“I think that went pretty well” *explosion in the distance*

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‘am I really about to start watching this show solely because of repeated exposure to gifs of two lovestruck assholes looking at each other’ is the core drive of my fandom experience

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