PRIDE BEFORE A FALL | Closed.

[limier]

WHO: Lakshmi + Coupe, Kitty, Gwenaelle, Helena, Iorveth, Marcoulf, Merrill, Solas.
WHAT: Fade cannonball
WHEN: You can't make me date you
WHERE: The Free Marches
NOTES: OOC Post, Discussion plurk.

This is routine.

A rift, high above the ruins of the Hammer’s Edge Bridge. It cuts into the sky, green and pulsing as a wound to spit out spirits like misery. This is routine — but the position is precarious, so near to a cliff ledge. Watch your footing, a fall promises only sharp rocks and water below.

The task is straightforward: Close the tear, or provide a diversion for the Rifters doing so. Keep yourself alive, and keep your hand to the task, no matter how it aches. When respite comes, it’s a matter of seconds: The Rift stabilizes, and,

And Lakshmi breaks from the group. Moving fast (too considered for the pace, every demon dodged, never a misstep on the odd root or rock) as she sprints for the edge. Maybe you tried to grab her, stop her, stop someone else from grabbing her.

She launches herself legs out, flatly determined in her aim —

Maybe it’s only that like it or not, she’s going through that rift. Maybe it’s that there’s no good reason not to join her. Maybe it’s that everyone else is jumping too.

Routine, right?

 

Comments

[shri]

They spring apart like startled deer. Blinking wildly, Lakshmi cradles the child into her chest, and Gangadhar steps in front of her immediately. His hand resting on the sword on his hip because - it's one thing for Helena to have interrupted anyone at all in such a moment. It is quite another for -

"You step into my Rani's quarters without my permission, stranger?" Is the declaring, proud voice. It is not deep, or harsh, or even cruel. But it demands respect, it refuses anything less.

Behind him, Lakshmi blinks, off-center, confused, what is a European woman doing here in her private space? But - that is not a stranger, that is - Her mouth opening, and as she goes to speak, ( "-My Raji?" ). But he lifts a hand hovering cutting the words off, and perhaps the only person in the world that could make Lakshmi still in anything she meant to say.

"She will speak for herself." And with his hand hovering up, he waits for whatever Helena had to say.

[strangel]

In Helena's ears, the words have a strange twang. She will speak for herself and explain herself in the eyes of God. That isn't what is said, but somehow Tomas rings in this man's voice, and for a moment she looks terrified.

"She is my friend." Uncomfortably and uncertainly, gaze dropping as she starts to press herself back against the wall, hitting a heavy curtain of opaque plastic. Is Lakshmi her friend? Or is she queen who will smite her? Will Tomas allow her to have a friend, a distraction from their mission?

He does not look like Tomas, but his jowls seem a little softer than a moment ago, hair slightly curlier, and Helena is waiting to be struck.

[shri]

There is a heavy moment. As she looks between them. Because the memory is clear there, as well. That not so long ago, Helena had shot her. Not killed her.

"Am I?"

She lets it sit heavily, her face flatly removed. Cold. Here she is not the woman that laughs readily as she teases. She has no play in her. There is the face of a ruler. It measures, and it measures hard, even with the infinite care it rocks the girl in her arms. A want to say more. Did you not decide that a moment ago? Should I not take that to your intentions towards me? But Helena doesn't look... right.

No, she looks downright terrified, and as much as she wants to say good and how dare you to presume something like that after pulling a weapon on me. She does not, her hand touches her husband's knuckles. The words not English but translated. "She is new to my durgavasi. No one shoots a bow as well as her. I know her honour to be great."

And with that same hard, flat-eyed look, she jerks her head. Her eyes pointed where Helena was to come and stand with a flick of her gaze. Nearer to the window at the corner of the room. Within reach but blocked by Lakshmi's own body.

[strangel]

Helena's gaze is watchful, flickering between the two. Queen Lady's gaze is cold, flat. It is a gaze she has seen many times. It is worse, in some ways, than disgust and fear. Both of those could feed into each other, and then Helena gained the upper hand. Coldness, that was an absence. It was the Mother, the stench of bleach. It was Tomas, after he offered kindness.

She moves to where she is ordered with her back facing the wall, and her body at uncomfortable angles, gaze moving between the rulers. Rulers were cruel. Women were cruel and fickle. Men were monsters.

"Honour?" He replies, and there is something different in his voice. "She is just like the others." He spits. "Demon."

The words are rich with disgust, and Helena freezes.

[shri]

It makes her freeze as well. The utter surety that something was wrong. Gangadhar would never speak to her this way. He would never speak of others this way. Cradling the child to her breast, she gently takes the reproach into her tone. "No, my love. I know her heart to be good. Even if she seems strange to us."

She moves slowly, carefully, between them. Her steps light, the anklets chiming with each movement. Subtle, slow movements and nothing in her face falters. No flicker of change, still proud and strong.

[strangel]

His expression has twisted. Here stands not the kind, gentle man of Queen Lady's memories. His clothes, now, are all black. A button down shirt done up to the collar. His skin is looser, softer, falling in creases that seem all the more severe with the shifting light of the room.

"Step away from that monster. She'll corrupt the child you hold." Gangadhar is changing. His face warps, his hair seems curlier and more run through with grey, and the words come out in English. "Don't believe her lies."

Tomas shoves Lakshmi aside, reaching to grasp Helena by her hair and drag her forward.

[shri]

He never liked black. The thought is clear in the wrongness of what was in front of her. Her husband never dressed starkly. Only beautifully, elegantly. She blinks, shocked, unable to tell what it was that was happening to her husband.

"Stop!" The cry is worth as much as that, clutching the baby in her hands. Her son wakes up, with a startled noise at her shout, crying with it almost immediately. The sound beats loud on her head. Caught between the woman she is to protect, and the child in her arms. "That is my lady! Do not dare touch her, beast!"

She snaps forward, balancing the boy in her arm, to snatch him by the arm and wrench him with her impossible strength, throwing him backwards. "Helena! Run!"

[strangel]

Tomas is flung back, crashing against the wall. It cracks from the impact, and the room seems to shudder. The man pushes himself up to stand, and he looks to Helena. Helena, who is not running, who is standing still, watches him.

"My child," he says to Helena, appealing to her. "She is an enemy of our faith. She advocates for the corruption of mankind. We must save the child from her."

Tomas has spoken poison to her before, for many years. He tried to turn her against Sarah. He had been teacher and saviour and prisoner and punisher. She feels frozen, trapped, and even now her fear is flooding back to her, a chill up her back.

There is a knife in his hand, that flickers to be a razor blade, and back to the knife. "Redeem yourself, Helena. Come back to us."

Helena casts a desperate to Queen Lady, lost, uncertain, before she looks back to Tomas. Her expression is still fearful, but she sprints to him, leaping to tackle him to the ground, and grasping a heavy metal wrench from the ground to strike him across the face.