"They're not charging!" Nal exclaimed. "They're not charging! Why aren't they charging! It's been at least thirty minutes since dawn!" Neel ran up and took his turn at the viewing scope as well, and shook his head when the Western gates did not open up with the newest legions of warriors and men. "You can see it too, right? It isn't me hallucinating?" Nal asked hopefully, and when Neel nodded, Nal turned to Ram. "Prabhu? Agya do."

Ram glanced for a moment through the viewing scope before shaking his head, his eyes drifting to where the sun warmed up the sky with its pink colors and orange and red splashes. "It's been at least an hour since the sun first rose out of the sky. Even Ravan knows to respect the boundaries of war, and timing. He would have come out by now. Something is not right." Ram turned hopefully towards Vibhishan, who stared back at him wearily.

"Prabhu, I think I know what this is. Ravan has just lost Prahast, who was one of his most loyal, if not his most loyal general, and certainly his best fighter. Ravan would always favor Prahast over the rest, and in turn, the legion leader would often be the one to kill the enemy leader. If I am not mistaken, Prabhu, Ravan is mourning the death of his army general and grandest legion leader. And he is allowing the widow time to grieve as well."

There was awed silence in the tents. Monkeys set down their maces and boulders, and Lakshman unhooked his sword for a second, his eyes lingering on Ram's shocked face. Neel stepped away from the viewing scope, staring at the spoil of war, the crown on the table at the end of the tent, and Nal grinned proudly at him, ruffling the top of his head. Sugriv grinned proudly, cuffing Hanuman on the shoulder. "This means..." Hanuman trailed off.

"It's a vacay day!" Angad shouted ecstatically, and jumping from foot to foot, his tail swinging this way and that. Hanuman rolled his eyes, but Sugriv dropped his mace and sat down on a bed with a sigh. "Come on! Neel, we got a vacay day!" Neel grinned, and took Angad's hands, and they began to dance around the tent, shaking their tails this way and that. Nal still occasionally peeked out of the viewing scope, before finally convincing himself that Ravan indeed had decided not to charge, and began to dance too.

"Wait!" Jal squeaked. "Does this means that the medics have more time to heal the injured?" Jambavan eagerly grabbed a cloth and began to bandage a moaning vanar who suffered from the battle yesterday. Lakshman looked around, his mouth still slightly parted as Ram laughed, slapping his arm. "This also means-" Jal added. "That Prabhu Shri Ram can tell us more stories to help the injured relax!"
Silence, before Nal ran over to Jal and hugged her tightly. "You've never been so genius before, I always thought that you were a big fat dumbo, completely ruining my intelligent image, but here you are coming up with master plans!" He paused thoughtfully. "You're so great, I'll marry you off to Neel!" Silence as Neel coughed up the water he was drinking. "I considered it before, didn't think you deserved him, but now that you brought this up, I think it'd be great!" Jal choked.

Jal and Neel stared at each other in horror, neither seeming very excited about the plans Nal had built up for them. "Congratulations?" Lakshman tried, the first to recover from the shock. "I-ship it? I guess?" Neel stared at him in a way that said 'NO! Don't agree to this'. "Oh-I-I meant that I rip it! I don't like it! I mean they're completely wrong for each other. Neel would benefit from someone who shared his interests, like healing-oh wait." Neel put his head in his hands.

"Don't listen to him." Ram laughed, patting Jal on the back. Nal practically fainted that the great Prabhu Shri Ram had paid attention to his incompetent sister. "Lakshman is terrible at giving relationship advice, just terrible at it. I'd sooner take advice from Shatrughan about love than him, and Shatrughan flirts with people with his wife, Shrutakirti right behind him, and in complete earshot. Not that he should flirt anyways, but-"

"Yes, I agree." Lakshman agreed. "I'm terrible at relationship management. I think the only time Ram bhaiyya took advice from me was when I told him to go to Sita bhabhi's swayamvar, and we all know that turned out bad-oh wait." Ram smacked his head again as Neel glared at him, crossing his arms as if only Lakshman could convince Nal that he did not want to get married. Which was probably true, considering that only he could override Ram's words, since Ram shipped it. "I mean, how dare you bhaiyya! I am great at giving relationship advice! I set you and Sita bhabhi up!"

Ram stopped laughing for a second, drawing a breath in as he remembered Sita on their wedding day, eyes large with kohl, and lips pouted and deep red. Everything stopped.

-----O-----

But it was decided that Jal and Neel would indeed get married after Ram declared that he himself would oversee the wedding. But Lakshman still managed to get something in, that the marriage should happen after the war, and then Ram could oversee all the weddings he wanted to. Now Ram stood at the helm of the tent like a general overseeing his men, speaking in hushed tones with Sugriv, who occasionally shuffled.

"Prabhu, I do not lie." he whispered as the Healers rushed about the tents, bandaging wounds and Jal continued sewing her cloth purposefully, seemingly having recovered from her sudden marriage declaration. "We are running out of herbs. The herbs near us are lowering as more and more of our sena gets injured. Soon, we'll run full out of herbs. Then how would we heal our sena, Prabhu? Half of our army is made up of monkeys who have already gotten injured, but whom we managed to heal."

Ram looked at him. "What is this you're saying, Sugriv? Once we run out of herbs, we cannot heal the injured, and then our army shall be weakened?" Sugriv nodded tensely, and waited for orders. "Do you have any qualified medics or Healer monkeys here who are innovative? Those who can maybe discover herbs which we have not used before, or use normal plants to heal instead?"

Sugriv shrugged, and Ram whirled around, stroking his chin for a moment. "Hey Lakshman I-" he glanced up where Lakshman would normally be, standing there, either helping Neel tie the cloth around vanar's arms, or checking vanar's temperatures. "Lakshman?" Ram asked again, turning around and scanning the tent for the tall, and rather noticeable man with the head of reddish brown hair. "Lakshman?"

Ram quickly caught Angad as he was passing bye. "Angad, have you seen Lakshman?" Angad shook his head thoughtfully, and Ram let go of his shoulder. "Do you know where he might be?" Angad shook his head again, and Ram paused for a second, his hands limply hanging at his side. Nal looked up and pulled Angad over, and Angad whispered something rapidly in his ear.

"Lakshman bhaiyya is missing?" Nal squeaked. "What!" Sugriv looked up from his conversation with Hanuman, who furrowed his brows concernedly. Neel picked up his mace, and Jal dropped her sewing in alarm. Jambavan stopped crushing up his herbs, and some of the injured monkeys sat up in shock. "But where could he have gone?" Angad shrugged helplessly, pointing towards where Lakshman's sword was, untouched.

"He left his sword behind?" Ram asked breathlessly. "But he always takes his sword along everywhere. I-" Ram turned around hopefully as the tent opened with a swish, only to swallow disbelievingly when Hanuman, who had left to search the surrounding area for Lakshman, shook his head. "Oh my God, he's in danger! He always gets into danger, I'm telling you. He's doing something rash. You know, I bet he's trying to sneak into Lanka. He said that he'd do that once if he felt that the war wasn't going well. Oh no, oh no! I always said he'd get himself killed, you know, I bet he's actually killed today. He's dead. He's de-"

Ram turned around, stumbling, as the tent swished again, and in walked Lakshman, looking completely innocent, as if he hadn't just disappeared without a word. "IDIOT!" Ram shouted, walking up to his brother and shaking his shoulders so hard that a normal person's teeth would have rattled. "IDIOT! YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT! Why would you do that? I don't care if I ever see your face again you good-for-nothing idiot of a human being! Don't you think about anyone, you stupid-" Ram dissolved into mumblings, before starting up again. "GET LOST! I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN!"

"Okay." Lakshman said, moving to walk out of the tent again, before he was pulled back again and smacked lightly on the cheek once more.

"IDIOT! I didn't mean literally! DUMBO! You know, Angad thought you were dead! He was worried, scampering all over the place like a mad monkey!" Angad nodded matter-of-factly. "NEVER EVER DO THAT AGAIN, OR-or-or," Ram paused. "YES! I'll banish you from this tent! YOU IDIOTIC DUMBO!" Neel winced as Ram smacked Lakshman's shoulder again, hard. 

"Idiotic human being. I don't understand how you could possibly be the progeny of Maa Sumitra. DISAPPEARING! JUST LIKE THAT! IN THE MIDDLE OF A DAMN WAR-See? You made me curse Lakshman! YOU STUPID MAN!" Ram paused again, before shaking Lakshman's shoulders once more for good measure, before finally letting go. "Where did you go anyways?"
Lakshman weakly held up a large bag of herbs.

-----O-----

The herbs had come to great use. Jambavan had excitedly declared that Lakshman had even found some new herbs which they had not known of before, and had not used, to which Lakshman simply replied that he picked up anything that looked green and relatively promising. After a unified shake-of-heads, Ram finally consented to more stories. "You all act like little children." he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

"But we don't fight like little children!" Angad piped up cheekily as they all sat cross legged, while Ram sat gratefully upon a chair which was brought by Hanuman, and Lakshman on a pillow behind him, carefully putting a bandage on his shoulder, his tongue stuck out, supervised by a fussing Jambavan. "And we certainly will annoy you like children if you don't start telling stories!" Angad exclaimed, and Ram's eyes widened.

"There will be no need for that, thank you!" With a reluctant sigh, Ram cleared his throat heavily and began to speak.

Flashback

"Bhaiyya, why are we walking up a cliff?" Shatrughan asked, wiping away a bead of sweat as his trembling walking stick landed on the next crevice in the steep mountain. "To me, this just looks like a death mission-" He looked around, where Bharat panted, being held up by a brow-furrowed Lakshman, or rather, dragged up. "Where only I'll survive." Ram seemed to have taken it upon himself to uplift the brothers three.

"Come on!" he cried. "Only a few more feet!" It looked like a few more miles to him, but Ram did not let that slip. Nor did he let it slip that Bharat, who had asked for them all to climb up the cliff in the first place, and had promised to lead them all on the journey, was technically at the end, being carried, and somehow still exhausted. "We can do this! We're doing this because..." Ram trailed off. "Hey, why are we doing this Bharat?"

"Look at the view!" Bharat exclaimed childishly, immediately getting up and scampering up the path of the mountain, and standing at the plateau on top, hands on his hips. Lakshman gaped disbelievingly at him as Ram winced. "And I'm first, aren't I? Look at the view! Hey, why didn't one of you bring my paints and canvas? I could paint this all day!" he paused. "But Mandavi wouldn't let me, of course."

The other three rolled their eyes, and walked up themselves. Everything was dilly dally, Bharat stared at the sunset, Ram handed out food packages, Shatrughan ate, and Lakshman slept, up until Lakshman got up from his nap and accidentally stumbled over the edge-"

Present

Ram's suddenly much more exciting story was cut off by a clearing of the throat. "I don't think this is going to heal any faster if you tell them tales of when I got hurt, bhaiyya!" Lakshman protested loudly. "And I need this to heal fast, because who knows what Ravan may do next. There's still a lot of trusted rakshasas in his court, and you never know which one may attack next, and we all need to be prepa-"

Flashback

Thankfully, Shatrughan leaned over, and caught his arm-

Present

"Hey, you can't just cut me off like that!" Lakshman interrupted angrily. "I never interrupt your loud speeches, even when you're weirdly optimistic like Bharat. Honestly-"

Flashback

Ram practically-

Present

"BHAIYYA!"

Flashback

-collapsed in relief, and even Bharat seemed to have given up his intent staring at the sun. Lakshman just dangled calmly. "You know, bhaiyya, I just saved your life!" Shatrughan cried proudly. "Now you're supposed to say thank you, aren't you?" Lakshman stayed stubbornly silent. "Bhaiyya! Come on! Say thank you, or else you'll continue to dangle!"
Silence, and Ram put his head in his hands and walked over. "Lakshman, come on!" Shatrughan continued. "Thank. You. Simple words. Remember when Maa Sumitra taught them to you? You have to apply your knowledge." Suddenly, a loud shout, and Shatrughan let go. Ram screamed, and Shatrughan sat there, frozen in shock. "I didn't mean to, bhaiyya!" he told a furious Ram. "I didn't mean to-"

"Yeah, you didn't mean to." a voice came from the ledge below gruffly. "But you did." Ram leaned over, smacking away Shatrughan's hand, and quickly pulled up Lakshman.

Present

"Bo-ring!" Angad booed as the rest of the vanars shook their heads. "Come on, Prabhu Shri Ram! Romance! Thrill! War! We all knew Lakshman bhaiyya was going to survive, he's sitting in front of us right now."

"With an emotional scar the size of a real battlefield one." Lakshman sniffed dramatically. "My own twin brother tried to kill me." Well, he didn't say that out loud. Because that sounded too much like Shatrughan.

A/N-We needed at least a single playful chapter in this YudhKand. I know it doesn't set the mood very well, but we all have to keep in mind nonetheless that this is the one break they get in the war. Either they will heal their men, or more likely, upon the insistence of the playful vanars, they will have one final bliss day before more of them are fated to pass.

Does anyone else always feel like changing their theme? I mean, like, I like this one, buuuuuuuuut-I've made too many others. 

For @lakshmila4ardi. A few days ago, you detailed on how you'd like Lakshman to look. I just gave him a ponytail instead of a man-bun. Sorry!