( closed ) don't go chasing waterfalls

[villieldr]

WHO: Lakshmi and Magni
WHAT: fancy meeting you here
WHEN: i have commitment issues
WHERE: the Gallows
NOTES: nudity, idk

( A long day at the forge, and her skin feels leathery with sweat and grime. It will be better after bathing, softened and human instead of its current state, which leading her to suspect that she could be reasonably mistaken as some sort of oddly shaped wyvern. Soot is smeared across her neck, jaw and cheek from thoughtlessly touching her face, or pushing her hair out of her eyes when her braid was in need of re-doing. In the Gallows, with these baths present, this is an indulgence she allows herself daily, soaking away the battering done to her muscles as much as the dirt clinging to her skin.

She has been in the bath only a short while, and slowly sinks below the surface, savouring the feeling of hot water rising over her skin until she is completely covered.

Holding her breath, Magni stays submerged for long moments. An old habit from childhood, disappearing into mountain rivers and competing to see how long she could hold her breath. Thirty seconds, a minute, and she is comfortable. A pleasant mental exercise, simply being in the space and enjoying it. Two minutes, three. This is something she does often, still, and eases the tension from her. Four minutes, pushing into five and then six—

before she feels the searing burn in her lungs. She will need to keep practicing to get to long, bursting back above the surface. )

Comments

[villieldr]

Magni makes a quiet sound of approval, and turns back to her notes, adding notes about steel, ideas on how to work it. Making it sufficiently flexible but keeping it strong and effective will be the challenge, and she anticipates a few test rounds.

"No warrior can ask for equal care to my hair and my work," she replies, barely audible. Not really mutinous, so much as priorities, tho. It's not like she's protesting the attention, but it is sort of funny.

And the closeness, that isn't funny, it's just invoking certain temptations that need to be set aside. She has not problem with being the one-time secret indulgence of a Queen who does not wish to acknowledge the event, she doesn't have the delicate ego demanding validation. She does mind having thought of renewing those affections (if you will) surfacing in her mind and supplying enticing imagery, when it is neither appropriate, nor a matter of interest to the other party.

[shri]

"This one does." It's laughed. Because of she laughs, if she keeps the rest, that shared heat, at an arm's length. Then it will be easier for both of them, surely.

She gets closer only to pull at this section. Letting them both work in relative peace for a few moments more. Her breath slow, distracted only with soft tsks and clicks when she snags on a particular curl of hair. Through her fingers are still light, still careful, even when they reach to her scalp. Running blunt nails against her skin, her back, as she cards through it alternate to the brush. Bit by bit.

"At least once I am done, if you put a brush through it once a day, it should not snare, and the oil should soften it to not be so brittle." Europeans always had such fine light hair. By contrast her own was thick, waved only at the ends from the sheer weight of how much of it there was. She ought to cut it.

A sigh, a warm puff of breath against her shoulder. "I can find you something less sweet, to put in it when you bath. It will stop it becoming so unmanageable." By less sweet, she means less floral.

[villieldr]

"Perhaps that is the opinion of the queen, and not the warrior." Teasing, very quietly teasing, and spoken barely over her breath as she keeps working.

That said, once the attention changes from the disentangling to the massage of nails against scalp, Magni can't quite help leaning back into the touch, making a quiet, content sound at the sensation.

"If that pleases you, then I will see it done."

[shri]

"I ought to skin you for that." She's still laughing, but her work brushing out the knots, at long last, is done. Lakshmi leans back - pleased with her work. Enough that selfishly, she just enjoys running through it.

At least until Magni speaks, and it flushes through her skin. No, no, no business in thinking that way. Detangles herself, her work done. Indulgence she knew better over as she pushes away again. Letting her body slip back into the water. Down over her shoulders again. "When you are done, I will show you how to rinse it."

[villieldr]

Lakshmi disappears back to the water, and for a moment she misses the contact, the warmth lingering at her back, though she continues making notes.

"I know how to rinse," she replies, a little dry. How to rinse, please. Dunking herself under the water can't be that challenging. Turning the notebook around, she shows the pages she has been sketching on, a silent request to see which of the sketches she has done look the most correct.

[shri]

She wades forward when the images are presented to her. The looping drawings that she scans over with a frank gaze - all business. Then after a moment's consideration - she reaches for the pencil from her - not wanting to touch the paper with her wet hands after all - to circle the one most similar to the blade she knows. "That one."

Giving the pencil back, she sinks back down into the water, waving her arms in the water to buoy her in the water. This perhaps was not quite like swimming in the rivers that were so sacred to her life, central to her childhood - but it was nearer than anything she could have in England. "And the state of your hair says you do not. Come. It will not hurt, I promise."

[villieldr]

If she were the ridiculous type, and if Lakshmi were still on the edge of the bath, Magni would pick her up, toss her over her shoulder, and leap into the middle of the bath as retaliation.

If the bath were deep enough for that not to endanger them both. There are too many ifs, however, and thus the consideration has to be set aside.

Instead, she moves to set the notebook safely out of danger of the water, and scoots forward to move back into the warm of the bath. "Do you think me afraid?"

[shri]

And in sureness, Lakshmi looks sharp, teasing, moving a step back further in. Luring her closer, closer, closer. "Most would warn you to be, after all, am I not called a spirit and a demon by so many here?"

It's laughing, head tossed back, proudly vibrant. If she can't laugh at least sometimes, what good was it all anyway.

[villieldr]

Is that how it will be?

Magni stops, does not pursue another step, but looks at Lakshmi with her head canted to the side, stays still for a long moment, and then dives under the water. Deep, not very easy to see in the light, and it is with alarming speed that she grabs Lakshmi's ankles and pulls her under the water.

[shri]

She was asking for it, wasn't she?

Which isn't much of a consolation as she realises what's about to happen, and promptly does. Yanked under the water with a shocked noise that is drowned in the splash of water. Immediately trying to work her way free - oh no you don't.

[villieldr]

Lakshmi is quick, strong and controlled from what Magni remembers. The thing is, Magni is also very strong, and her arms catch around Lakshmi's waist and scoop her into a somewhat absurd bridal carry, as she bursts over the surface of the water, and braces.

"Rinsing?" She offers, helpfully, her hair clinging to her neck and her shoulders.

[shri]

This was not - what she expected. ( But that isn't not unenjoyed, is an utterly different problem ). Her hands reach up to grip tightly to her shoulder, coughing up the water she'd briefly swallowed. They'd been something like this, before, hadn't they?

But they were both grown, and things done in the dark didn't have any sway right now, they couldn't. Magni deserved better than a liar and a wanted criminal and a vicious mouthed Queen.

( It will have to do, to privately enjoy the way she holds her, even now. )

Rather she fixes with a solid challenge and uses where her hands grip to push her body up, firmly pressing down on Magni's shoulders. "Rinsing." She responds. Snatching for one of the buckets floating nearby - sweeping it through the water to fill it, and lifting it to dump it over Magni's head.

[villieldr]

She doesn't have quite enough time to say "hm?" before she is spluttering under the rush of water, and compliantly, helpfully, drops Lakshmi like a sack of potatoes.

"Rinsing," she echoes, with a shrug, as she starts to take some steps towards the edge of the bath, and wrings her hair between her hands to dry it.

[shri]

She splashes back down into the water like a lead weight. Catching herself as quickly as she could. Pushing her feet against the floor of the bath to balance again. Laughing richly for it, "I wasn't done. The oil is richer than that. Scratch your nails against your scalp and shake it about."

It was frankly a dangerous thing to invite her closer again - so she refrains from that for the moment.

[villieldr]

Looking over her shoulder, Magni has one eyebrow raised, before she takes a couple of steps back and cooperatively sinks below the water. Her hair billows out, and she rubs her fingers through her hair, gently scrubbing her scalp. She's down there easily for a minute, just easing her fingers through, before she emerges again.

She casts Lakshmi a questioning look - enough?

[shri]

No, not quite, and there is nothing for it, then and she steps forward, crooking her finger. Come here. She'll show, then. That ought to not be too much, and there is a comfort even to it. Sharing something practical to herself. To who she might be, when she is not lying through her teeth to the other woman.

"Down. You are far too tall."

[villieldr]

The gesture if somewhat familiar, vaguely enticing, and Magni considers for a few drawn out moments before nodding and complying.

Although—

"Short people often think so."

[shri]

Her eyebrows lift, head quirking - oh really?

"Mm, but it certainly makes us skilled in putting those taller on their knees." It's dry, slipped out more teasing than she probably has the right to be after ... well, everything. But she leans in, threading her fingers against into Magni's hair. Different, she makes sure, not intimate. Merely firm, sure. Soldiers fingers, that she begins working in tight circles from the front of her hair backwards. Not scraping harshly, but working in a particular pattern that is something just the pads of her fingers, sometimes her short cut nails on skin. Stopping only around her ears, following the curve of them.

[villieldr]

That gets a look. Not just a look, no, that specifically justifies the italics.

Magni doesn't need to bite her tongue, because her brows raise as well, and her mouth quirks with a smile, and they say quite enough on their own. Euphemisms and references are implied.

But, she behaves, complies, and tilts her head back to make it easier.

[shri]

It's a look she does a wonderful job of ignoring, italics and all. And especially not meeting her eye as she works the whole around her head. Front to the nape of her neck, occasionally stopping to scratch in a spot on her scalp, or working her fingers gently, carefully, where the water caused the hair to knot so she could smooth it the rest of the way through.

When she's done, she pulls back, dropping her hands away back under the water. "There. It ought to be somewhat easier to manage now. Less prone to tangling as well."

[villieldr]

She enjoys the contact, though no more than she might enjoy any contact. This is not a time for longing looks and misplaced hopefulness, and at the end of the day, contact is inevitable. At least they can get along, and she does not have to be concerned for what might have become of Manu. Looking back is foolish, especially when it was nothing but a lone night of mutual enjoyment. There was no need to dramatise.

"Thank you," Magni eventually replies, voice a quiet rasp. She can't quite help thinking that they are less prone to tangling, also, but spares them both the discomfort of saying it aloud.

"I didn't mind it before," is what she says instead, with a shrug.

[shri]

She flicks her fingers at the surface, that sends a spray water free. Eyes roll. "No, it did not seem so. I take it piling it all on your head and out of your way was enough?" Snorted, teasing, as she moves back to where she had been before. For her own items, her far too determined habits where by contrast to Magni, she is utterly meticulous in her presentation, her care for herself. Pushing herself up onto the edge of the pool of water, fishing through what was next.

All that long hair is brush through, from end to top in little strokes. Then carefully, carefully, she begins again in rubbing a different oil into the skin of her body, where her skin was scarred, old, relieving some of the old aches. Moving down her body, from her shoulder to her hip, to her leg.

[villieldr]

Stepping out of the water, Magni scoops up the notebook to make sure its safe, and twists her hair between her hands to drain away some of the properties. "Those of us who aren't queens don't need to preen to do our jobs."

She doesn't mean it cruelly, only pragmatically, logically. Sometimes, though, intention cannot stop words from carrying the potential to inflict wounds.

[shri]

Her eyes narrow, briefly and sharp before, a deep, thinly taken breath. You certainly did not mind, when I was a glittering and soft sitting in your lap. Is the first words that come to mind, but mercifully does not come out of her mouth the rest of the way.

"If I like others to be clean, the least I can do is make sure I am just as much so." Bites on her tongue, alright, maybe she still wasn't the best at holding her tongue.

[villieldr]

A thoughtful sound, as she begins to head for the door to the benches where clothes and further belongings are kept, water still rolling off her skin.

"You weren't concerned with the state of my hair last we met," Magni replies. "Perhaps better light makes me more wanting of improvements."