Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa walked a forest path that was more suggestion than road — thinner trees, lower roots, thorns growing somewhere else. Fourteen years of walking had settled into their bones. The bow on Rāma's shoulder had worn a groove in the rhythm of his stride.
In a clearing, an old woman sat outside a hut of branches. She did not stand; her legs had forgotten how. Her back was bent like a bow left strung too long. But her hands moved over a basket of berries — pick, bite, taste, set aside. A small pile of rejects lay at her feet, returning to the earth.
Mother, what are you doing? Rāma asked.
She did not look up. Checking, son. The sweet ones stay. The sour ones go back. You do not want a sour berry. Nobody does.
Lakṣmaṇa bristled. Every berry has been in your mouth. You are a hunter's daughter. Your touch makes them —
Rāma stopped him. Let her finish.
She held out the basket. Twenty berries, each with a tooth mark. Each sweet. For you, she said. I have waited. Every morning I swept the path. Every evening I picked the best. I did not know which day you would come. I only knew you would.
Rāma ate them all. The juice ran down his fingers, dark as jamun.
Lakṣmaṇa watched, and something in him shifted — not all at once, but the way a stone changes when water runs over it.
She was Śabarī, a hunter's daughter given to a sage. The sage taught her to wait, to serve, to know the difference between a rule and a heart. He died. The others left. She stayed, because he had said: Rāma will come. Give him the sweetest berries. So she did. For years. Every berry bitten. Every berry sweet.
Rāma licked his fingers. They were good. Thank you.
The path felt swept for the rest of the day — by something that was not a broom.