( 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

[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."

[shri]

Her mouth shuts with a snap, a muscle standing out hard against her skin as her jaw clenches briefly. Working out something tense in herself, in this scenario, in what she deserves for not being more careful in her choices.

"No." And she looks at her, plain and digging and as open as she had been. "You are to me, as you were then."

[villieldr]

She turns, then. Looks to Lakshmi intently, eagle-sharp. The geometric tattoos, black lines and shapes that are feathers and talons and extend across her skin, shine with the lingering water on her skin. Faint dapples of purple and red where blood vessels had blossomed over her skin under mouth and teeth stand out against the paleness of her, the scar across her throat stark and gnarled.

Convenient? part of her wants to ask, before immediately dismissing it as unfair. Now a convenient smith, instead of a convenient source of pleasure. Truth was that they had enjoyed each other and the parting of ways was neither a surprise, nor unusual. That it had faintly stung to wake alone was strange to Magni herself, and a matter she could perhaps put down to pride.

For long moments, she just looks, studies.

"And you, saawariya."

[shri]

She knows better than this, she knows that there is no place for the admittance of herself. Her hands stilling in their movements on her leg, her knee lifted to her chin in the only shield she had against things that had no substance yet struck as sure as arrows. Holding her gaze until she cannot stand it. Until it will surely pull something out of her mouth, the curve of brittle, broken limbs. But she has never looked away from anything, not even when it would have been kinder to do so.

They could have dignity over this. Or rather, she would not give in to what she wanted, how one so slight a word, said just so, could claw at herself. She would not be a contradictory lover falling over herself for the softness of affection she wanted at times so deeply ( had, is the vivid memory, warm, pressing her down, soft at her mouth, sure at her fingers ). When she lets her edge fade, her eyes lowering, at last, in a nod of her head that is acknowledgement for that which has no words. Or perhaps, that she had said the only honest name she had given to the moment, and the least she can do for leaving as she had, was acknowledge it. A reminder that stung like swallowing fire.

"I will see you soon, I am sure."

[villieldr]

A little raising of the notebook might be communication enough - when I have news, when I have questions. A prototype would be necessary, and the testing of it to make sure that the metal was just right for the use. It would be a lie to say that she did not look forward to seeing such an unusual weapon in action.

Standing here will do little good, and she has other matters to see to, which do not involve looking at someone so intently as she knows she looks at Lakshmi. Fascination with queens had not lead anyone to good ends, she was sure. And if it had lead to them, they probably weren't rifter queens. The line of jaw and neck, the sweep of thigh and the curve of back; these were memories only, not invitations.

Without a further word, Magni nods, and leaves.