01 | OPEN

[shri]

WHO: Lakshmi & You!
WHAT: Out and about events, catch all for the month, etc.
WHEN: Today to the end of the month??
WHERE: Kirkwall and the surrounds
NOTES: N/A at present.

i. ( training )
Each morning, Lakshmi's pattern is incredibly similar: she rises, goes about getting ready for the morning with quiet prayers and as little sound possible to disturb anyone she might be sharing her quarters with, and goes down to the training grounds. It has been years and years since the only weapons she relied upon were sword and shield - if ever. Disliking a pistol in her youth wasn't the same as not having it. Even so.

There is some secret thrill, to having nothing but the joy of Shivaji's weapons, to be like the stories of her grandfather's time. Fighting by Bajirao's side.

But stories they were, and the years since she had been taught the weapons, there had been rifles, thermite and Tesla's electricity to fill the space where those skills had once been sharp. Time to start at the beginning again. First with a spear, dressed to turn the long material of her sari to wrap her legs like pants and tuck the rest in tightly to a waist belt. The Inquisition light armour over the top.

Enough to train in. Taking up the spear first - and beginning to move with it - a series of long movements as she begins to turn it like a pinwheel between both hands, over her head, another full circle. Then again, and speeding up as she goes. Stepping in turns as she passes it between hands, one at a time, puncturing it with long thrusts, the practised strike of a spear into flesh mimed and pulled back from. Feet turning in the dirt in precise movements, turning on her heel the lessons of her father, sharp in her ears, it is speed, more than strength, a fast lion's swipe than its bite is how Shivaji triumphed, and it is - big, flashy, more dance than strict combat. But as much concentration as either. Fixing in the middle distance with the effort of keeping it up. Until the spear in her hand is spinning as fast as she can manage it, from behind her back to in front of her, holding it for moments it above her then, then across from one side of her body to the other as she turns into each step. Breathing hard, the sting of sweat on her brow. Then faster again, until her arms felt the ache of it.

Until when it's over, far more suddenly then how she built up to it, the spear is thrown down, tip to the ground and she bobs down. Arching on her toes, balancing there as she touches the ground, the reaches up to mime the touch near her face. I've gotten slow, father. Rolling up to standing after that, she goes to pull the spear out of the ground. Absent gestures - leaning her face down and pushing her shoulder up to wipe her brow clear.

Nothing for it, she returns the spear to the stock of weapons, then reaches for the sword and shield closest to her own preference - a long eye cast on the other pieces she sees. No, no, not worth it. Not yet, not until she knew her pieces perfectly. Shaking out all her limbs. The long sword was no talwar. This was not the lightness that she was used to exactly. Didn't curve against her palm right. But if this was what was most commonly available - then it was what she was to get used too.

Better than sitting around stewing over other matters she could not change - like still being here, or what Kitty had said to her. And to that - she gladly takes the offer of anyone who might want to the spar. Whether it was overeager Inquisition soldiers ( some she beats, some she does not ). Or other Rifters and her grin is quick and easy -

"And you? Fancy a match?" Her laughter with it, she likes being this - more than she likes just about anything else. It's simple, and easy, and knows quite plainly what and who she is.

ii. ( bathing )
Not a single time after training for however long she does so - that it isn't immediately followed by gladly throwing herself to be clean. Nothing more utterly blissful as that, especially after the recent years. ( Scrubbing in cold water on the worst of winter days left little to be desired. ) So glad that at least here, for all she might not want to stay here, had something decent.

Took the same sort of discipline to it, even if it was a sight more eagerly done than perhaps was necessary. Unravelling all four feet of hair from where it was pinned to the top of her head ( - ought to cut it, like she had before this place sore fit to give her reminders she did not want and with it the memory of why she had not until need demanded it. ) Taking the only truly selfish item she had purchased so far with the gold from trading some of her bangles, the bottle of perfumed oil. Tipping it onto her palm to coat her hands before she cards fingers through all that hair. Kashi would shudder for the rough care. But it was better than nothing. Scrunching it with rough hands at the ends. Whatever is left on her fingers is rubbed into old wounds, the bullet hole above her heart, the lycan bite on her middle, the claw marks on her legs.

Then gladly sunk in down until the water went over her head. Half intent on drowning herself, it seemed. Scarred skin softening with the moisture and all that hair wafting like an ink spill in the water. Only until she can't hold her breath anymore that she sticks her head back up and takes to resting against the side of the bath with both eyes shut. Not intent on moving for a good long minute. Her strange radio firmly discarded. If anyone wanted her, they could come to find her if it really mattered.

At least until someone else does arrive - and she cracks an eye, seeing who it is and whatever they might so, she hums and does her best to move over to give space if they need it. Still early, the sun ought to rise soon but - not busy in the day yet. "I'll be out soon - " in case they needed the place to themselves.

iii. ( lowtown )
A merchant here was as decent as anyone she could find in Hightown, she reasoned, and at least here - there was a great deal less fussing involved. Even if she did dress and behave differently, her veils drawn as ever. If they were going to insult her for the mark glowing in her hand, they would do it to her face.

Which is how things end with this merchant - as it turned out. Most people seemed a little less guarded, the benefit of the tournament. At least meant no one went out of their way to avoid them. But she could feel the taste of being ripped off for the prices she was being offered on the plain bolt of cotton she had her eye on. Something of Myira perhaps, or Bronach, when she felt the urge to sit and sew again.

"That much? That was twice what you offered the man before me. Is my coin not as good as his?" Her voice is pitched, brittly angry. Deliberately loud enough for anyone else walking by. Never suffered anything quietly when it was like this, and it ripples an anger through her. Did they think she was an idiot? The response the same: that was the price.

Her teeth grit, pulling up to her full height. Ready, absolutely ready to pick a fight in the middle of the street. She could be quite decent at holding her tongue, walking away, at least until her temper got the better of her. Her fingers flexed cooly at her side, ready, ready, ready. That flickering dull green light on her palm that apparently what deserved this when she had never asked for it and once more punished for that which was never her fault.

Might be a good time to stop it.

iv. ( wildcard )

Got something else you want to do that we talked about? Want to do something, drop me a pm or a message over at aeneia.

Comments

SCREAMS I LOST THIS TAG SOMEHOW

[shri]

"I will make note of her, should she cross my path. It already sounds an intriguing place to know of."

A time and place for all such things. She splashes water over herself in soft movements. Up over her shoulders, feeling it bead on her exposed skin, trickly over collar bones and between her breasts, down the back of her neck.

"Just the same, the monsoon is what brings us life. You can feel it building, even in the desert. Like you are taking a deep, deep breath." A hazy, soft smile of memory. "Then - the sky opens, and the rains come." Months and months, like that. "Of course. Ask what fancies you. I am proud of my home, my people and would be glad to speak of them."

Fiercely proud, she always would be.

we've all been there no worries

[foxsays]

"None of my missions there have ever been boring." It skirts amused. With hindsight. With time.

Not that many of her missions have had that distinction but Antiva have rescues from assassinations and freeing slaves. Dramatic and daring things where you have a story to tell afterwards. The Crows, mercifully, gone. (Getting Zevran back from them weighs against anything else she hears, those first days when he was a shadow of the brother she had found.)

Cupping water over her head in both hands to help work some of the oil out, Araceli nods with a smile. Funny, some of the things that can stretch across different worlds and that this should be one of them. "I never thought to ask if they have rains out in the Western Approach, they must, surely." Although the place is more one of misery so maybe it doesn't, maybe it can sustain itself in some way. "You say you are queen to them but I've been in Thedas long enough to have seen rulers who know so little of their own people, how they live under their rule at all. Your...greatest industry or trade?"

[shri]

"Then those are the mornings worth waking for." It's mirthful, perhaps more than she should be, considering what she is - and Kitty had reminded her surely, that she was a what. More than she'd be a who.

"If they do not, I would suggest it is underground rivers that fuel them." Experience more than arrogance to the words. "But often, to replenish them, there will be rain. For us, it comes in the winter. Long, and damp." As for the rest, it's a challenge she can rise to easily. Because that was true, and to that end, it had been her husband's wish, and then her own, to be kept abreast of every detail of her city. All her trade, trends and purposes. "What to sell in a desert?" She wets her lips, tasting the water on them. There is a hesitancy, of an older sort. One that has no place here, and she is old enough now to see that but, even so - "You will find no carpets, or perfumes, greater than those in Jhansi. The finest weavers as well. To that end, my husband was a great patron. Not just of them, but of poets, artists, actors, all came to Jhansi. With them, their trades, and people to supply them."

To live in the desert required above all things, vision. Of how and what to supply. A vision that Gangadhar had when his mother and brother and father had not. Built a rich, beautiful city out of a fortress, that glittered as a worthy enough destination all to itself.

feel free to move on from this my brain got stuck

[foxsays]

"Corundus, where my friend Argyris is from, it has those. Hidden deep in the caves, it's what allows them to mine as they do." Which is about as much as Araceli can speak on the subject being as she's never been there and it's long enough in Thedas that things are slipping. Some memories aren't as fresh as they were and she can't ask. (She can't ask, but now she doesn't think she might turn when the details slip her mind, she knows better. It doesn't cut the same.)

Argyris had learnt how to swim in them, but she'd been afraid of the currents, of the waves. That, Araceli remembers.

"Do you import the materials then? I know that deserts aren't wholly barren but to support weavers and perfumes you need reliable crops, no? Some flowers for perfumes only bloom at certain times under certain stars to hear the traders speak of them when you're trying to haggle the prices down." Or if a whaler is justifying why he or she wishes to hunt whales in the first place for the ambergris, which maybe she doesn't want to get into if they're speaking of perfumes as she pulls herself a little more upright with her elbows, interested. "My home was where the traders came to, but our nations different enough that we might have some who had their skills or arts no matter where they went but some things? They only ever could belong to that one place. Nowhere else could allow for them."

gently massages brain

[shri]

Her head tilts, smiling, impish almost as if - you have it. "Exactly. The more they knew there was a home for them, the more artisans came, the more traders, the more food they supply, the more people knowing that it is the place to come for something beautiful, they too brought beautiful things to sell. It is just as you say, an arid place. So made it somewhere worth coming to, to ply their business."

Her hair long oiled enough, she reached for her comb. Holding it as she gathered up the long rope of her hair, floating out like spiderwebs. Slowly, in little strokes, she begins to brush it all out. "My people are Maharashtrian. Which is quite different to the people around us, who are Rajput. We value quite different styles, and the major cities like Lucknow and Mumbai that we intersect, are very different again. Especially as the Mughal Empire began to... decline, many of their poets, artists and designers left, looking for new homes. Something which rulers like my husband, supplied."

She laughs, a little, "A far cry from this place, I suppose, but - it seems the Inquisition attracts as many varied people as my husband ever did."

[foxsays]

"Summer was best for it. When all the crops had come in and there was citrus fruit, and then the perfume sellers finally had time to perfect their newest creations or resupply, make the voyage. Our markets were floating - we didn't have land, not enough to grow much on so off the ships onto the barges, the skiffs, the floating platforms if it wasn't something you wanted flogged on the dockside." Which was for the fish, mostly, or for the offloading, and an entirely cutthroat sort of industry with all the taverns unless you happened to own your own private dock or had a deal cut. Araceli imagines that a woman like this would understand those sort of practices without her having to detail them anyway. "Corundus brought the gemstones or the metals, Zimevur the gold and sandstone, Albas the furs and things I don't think they have here, Estene and Ebeos shared the crops and meat but Estene brough their lumber, Ebeos the flowers. And all the other little things a place has."

Castileos sailed off with everything else. Castileos had artists, built the ships, had the best salt and were the only ones who knew how to fish or build the navigational tools. Again she doesn't know what people have, and she knows better than to talk of weapons.

Her head tips to the side, hands coming up to start working her hair into a braid she'll wrap about her head so it won't drip everywhere. "Kirkwall has traders from many places, it's why I didn't choose to stay in the Gallows even if it would make my day a little easier; I lead Naval Presence, I feel I should be where the ships are." Truthfully, she sleeps better by the ships, by the water, able to hear the sails and the hulls rocked in the harbour, smell the brine in the air when the windows are cracked an inch open before bed. "It's been a port since it began, coming here benefits us far better than being all the way up a frozen mountain back in the Skyhold days did, I'm glad we moved. We get to be part of the world here, not hidden away from it."

and then also my brain just packed up and left for a week

[shri]

"I can think of nowhere else you should be then with your men, as it were."

Because she more than understands, understands what life means in shipping yards, whether they were the transport stops for caravans passing through, or ships pulling into places as big as London or Culcutta, to one simple commanding principal: the place of anyone who was leading, had to be amongst those that they led.

And for that alone, she could not help but like this woman. Smiling briefly as she fishes "I must admit a preference. I've heard the place is covered in snow... I must admit my dislike of the stuff." Figures it's obvious as to why as well. She could and would put up with it, and not that Jhansi never got cold, deserts did just as often and completely as anywhere else.

But snow? Perish the thought.

"Though... if you do trade through here... do you know if they sell..." A pause, a bite on the tip of her tongue. Her fingers stilling in their work. "Sindoor? No, no that is not - shabd kya hai? Ah - Vermillion?"