04 | CLOSED

[shri]

WHO: Lakshmi Bai & Wren, Herian, Thranduil, Araceli, Ioverth, Kitty, Solas and Teren - ( Also: Flint & Vane )
WHAT: Telling Some Whole Truths.
WHEN: Post-Fade Adventures, some time after her house arrest.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Probably really extra.

She sends them just the one note:

I require your presence, together this evening, for a matter of serious urgency in regards to the Inquisition.

महारानी,
Lakshmi Bai

Comments

VANE

[shri]

She sits perched on the rail of Vane's ship, sometime near dawn. Arrived too early for when she sent the runner to him ( for when he'd both gotten back in from their hither and thither - sailors ), but what else was there to do? She never did like to stew alone. Been stuck in the Gallows far too long to not baulk at the first reason to leave the walls of the fortress. Leave looking at the mess she'd made of too many things that even when they shouldn't, mattered to her.

Her eyes sliding backwards and forwards over crew as they moved around their shift. One foot pressed toes down, heel up, bobbing in an absent twitch of movement up and down. Still and moving, all at once. As she waits for morning to crawl to a respectable time that she doesn't feel she might be bothering most some dreadful hangover.

Bangs the once with the side of her fist, a call to follow it - "It's Lakshmi."

slinks in, hi there

[sclavus]

The hangover isn't quite dreadful, and Vane's at least learned some tricks to see himself through them, so the bang at the door is only slightly irritating, rather than murderous to his aching skull. Even still, he's still laid out in the thin bed set into the smaller ship's captains' quarters, and he has no interest in moving from it. Sorry, Lakshmi, this is what happens when you arrive earlier than Charles Vane feels like functioning.

"Come in." He calls the mattress, half muffled by the pillow.

At least he's dressed, though, as he apparently just spent last night drinking without the extra activities that often come along with it. No other bodies sharing the space either. Just Vane, with his rumbled shirt, and his boots kicked off, and his hair in a slight mess. And, he makes a mild effort to lift his head up when she walks in. Give him a minute to work up to actual sitting.

"There a reason you're coming around this early?"

Bats eyelashes at

[shri]

"We need to talk, and it needs to be done before the rest of your crew are in and out for the day."

She walks into the room, not like she owns the place, but with that flat direction that sees certain things about her through.

But at least, she likes Vane, genuinely enjoys his company for what it is. Straight forward. Reminds her of the boys down the back end of the Muses', drinking, laugh, prone to fight each other, certainly, over a bad set of cards or a suspicious dice roll. But not, unsure of themselves either. Comfortable with themselves as they were a gun in their hand, and never a need to be more than that.

So she looks around the room briefly, looking for a cup - something, wine from last night maybe, and from her own flask she tips water into it.

Not just water sweet. Honey. Roses. Then thrusts it at him. "It will help with the head."

With that, she goes about doing a check haphazard of the cabin. Making sure the door was locked, no one was peaking in through the corners of windows.

uguuuu

[sclavus]

Lakshmi’s a bright, fierce soul, the kind you see leaders made of, and enchanting just as well. An interest to be around, a lively conversation partner, and with much of a world far different from his own to share in stories and rhetoric. Vane’s never been one to be overly fond of many people, but he does like her. Enjoys her company, maybe even considers her trustworthy.

But now she’s scraping around his cabin like looking for spies, and he watches her over the rim of the goblet he brings to his lips, hesitating to drink.

“Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t be drinking this, you looking around for witnesses like that.”

The comment’s more just for letting her know she’s acting fucking weird than anything else, as he takes his sip right after - first something small, then a larger gulp to toss the rest of it back.

“Skip the pleasantries. What is it my crew can’t hear or see?”

[shri]

It draws her back, heels grinding hard, flat, into the wooden boards, braced shoulder width apart, arms tense, crooked, a snapped sharp line in her shoulders that offset against to how she rolls forward towards him, in one long stride that smooths itself out.

On another creature, she might be moving after something she means to eat, to hunt and stalk and bring down. On her, it is just that same way she approaches everything. Direct, mean in the mouth and hard in the eyes. Not so much a threat as who she is when the pretence is stripped, gloriously, back, and she doesn't have to sit on ceremony in his company.

What relief he was.

"I'm immortal. In a matter quite different to your Corypheus. I can still die. But mortal wounds will not kill me. I can heal... in seconds. Nor, do I age."

[sclavus]

Charles Vane never stands on pretenses, partly because he doesn't really understand what they are, never was within the station of society to be allotted those, can't see the point of them from where he is, and would probably look weird as hell trying to fake it.

So it's nothing that feels particularly threatening to him when she approaches, just looks like Lakshmi being Lakshmi. When she says what she came for, his head does tilt, and his eyes do narrow, more because he's trying to wrap his head around the thought of it, as well as... wondering why the fuck she's telling him.

"Sounds like it's nice to be you."

He wouldn't mind having those powers. He doubts any man would. But then again, all Thedas outside of Nascere likes to pretend they dislike power, while secretly craving and crawling for it at every opportunity.

"Why tell me now?"

[shri]

"I'm sure many would think so. They're wrong. Until death takes me, I am doomed to watch everyone, and everything, die."

She will have that clear - she will not have some fool go chasing her and her life for hopes of something grand, some promise, no doubt to the same vein of Corypheus and his delusions.

"Because I'm stuck here, despite my best attempts, I cannot leave to go back to where I am needed. I had to... make choices. Our... commanders here had to know lest it be used by Corypheus against us. But I do not trust them, or the Chantry, beyond the purpose of the Inquisition. I will not go into their Tower. I will not be bound by their fear to helplessness."

[sclavus]

Vane's brows lift, and he's sure some people might be completely fine with that - the world dying around them and deciding how long you feel like watching it. At least, he's assuming she retains the ability to commit suicide when she's had enough.

That point of the discussions's neither here nor there, and Vane assumes, hardly part of what she came here to talk to him about, so he gives her a vague shrug, agreeing to disagree on immorality for the time being, and listens to the rest aptly. Not going back to where you're needed, yeah, he could sympathize with that. Half the time Vane spends sleeping on this ship, he's thinking of just sailing it out in the night, going back to hunt for Jack and Anne. But he'd given his word, so here he is.

"Good. Make them fight you for it." Their stupid ass towers. What complete bullshit. "And you, what, want help should it come to that?"

Still on the 'why are you telling me this' part.

[shri]

She nods. Stiff, back straight. It hurts to need to ask for it, but she is not oblivious to her position, at how that leaves her if others decided it.

"I want to be smuggled out if it comes to that. I'd work for your crew, most happily. You already know I am a good fighter, and I am not prone to complaining about decent work at least." Her smile twitches, never mind anything else that she would probably complain about. "And I can work harder than most, I can do things none of you can."

[sclavus]

He can understand the difficulty in this, for her. Vane would have a difficult time himself, if he'd even let himself take the blow to his pride to ask for help.

Lakshmi's been forthright with him, and she makes fair points. She learned the specifics of the ships quickly, she'd never complained about the work, she's a damn good fighter, and from what she's telling him now, one that won't fall easily.

People like her are few and far between, not because of the abilities. These are the types of people he and Flint came looking for, hoping they'd find some good men and women between the sailors just looking for some easy coin.

"Nascere will have a place for you." He tells her, with sincerity, after a time of quiet.

"Until she's free, we can find you safehouses you can disappear to. I'll see it done."

You have a deal.

[shri]

It eases her, her shoulders rolling back and - to it, there is maybe. Surprise. He took her as she was, he always had. Good and bad and everything in between. She looks over him. It is perhaps not a good companionship. Founded in lofty ideals. It's mud and dirt and salt.

But it isn't pretending otherwise.

She steps forward, that moment, taking him in the early morning light that turns his hair lighter. The places that sea had worn into his skin. Not pretty like those pretty Orlais masks. Rougher, handsome like an old blade. The mark of it upon him like rust patterns blades. To be cleaned and more striking for it.

Lakshmi takes his hand, not directly or harshly, enough space to let him stop her. Her fingers, in many ways, no better than his, if different. A swordsman since childhood, every bit of her chipped that way. Taking it up, she presses her lips to the back of his knuckles, then presses it against her heart. Meeting his eyes level. How she never, never turns her gaze down from anything.

"As long as you fight for a life of freedom, my blade and my blood are yours to call upon when you need them."