faderift | ( closed ) embrace like an avalanche

( Does that make it better or worse?

The mountain shudders, the rumble of the earth shifting, fire forcing its way to the surface. ) For— caring?

( Perhaps not delusion, then. Perhaps not something foul in her. She almost splutters incredulously - almost. )

That wasn't your decision to make alone. I'm not your subject. I'm not—

( Her words are failing her, and Magni is still for long moments. ) If that is your reason, your choice has been to deny my— my sense of my own mind, and my freedom. Autonomy. ( That's the word she wanted. ) To dismiss, insult and injure me, and then you claim it's for my own good?

( Magni shakes her head, and takes a step back, her expression one of realisation. ) You have no respect for me.

[ And to that - her eyes drop. Swallowing hard, furious, upset at something - terrible within herself. For this. For this much pain as she's caused it. Half damned in the woman she's become, she knows, and there are too many things she has given over to that to ever get it back so easily.

Either in this or in herself. ]

I understand, and I am sorry. You deserved that, and I denied it to you.

[ But at least, in this, she can now be sure that whatever it is, it is over and done with. At least Magni will no longer blame herself. It was one thing to end it, another - another entirely to think this was ever her fault. ] I have... lived a very long life. Alone. These things do not come easily to me, anymore. It is not an excuse, but it is the truth.

( Seeing Rani's gaze drop, her first instinct is to step forward and offer comfort. It's what she does, cupping Rani's jaw in her hands and bowing her head down to rest their foreheads together. Her chest feels as though it burns, as though the molten rock she saw in Orzammar might be bursting and bubbling in her, expanding upwards and outwards. Comforting her matters, even with the way Magni's can feel the lingering stings of the hurts. )

Here is my truth:

( Barely audible, hardly more than a breath. ) I hold you in my heart even now, but I can't trust you.

( Painful, cracked, before she starts to draw away. )

[ She catches those hands before they can go. Curling light around her wrists in a touch that barely one, only to direct her back. Turning them up, so that she can drop a kiss into her palms. One then the other, before she leans to press her face into one. Cupping it in the only scrape of affection she dares take.

Because even now, there is the truth. If she is not to go the way of the knights, if she ever not to fall victim to their cruelties, she must remember these moments. ]

And I, you. You have given me more than you even know. One day, I would seek to be worthy of you.

( Breathing feels uncomfortable, ragged, and she swallows painfully. Her hands are callused. One palm holds pearly discolouration from burn some years old, and though she wears gloves to work, there is still some soot caught in the cracks of her knuckles, smudges across the skin.

She wants to pull away, but cannot yet bring herself to. )

You say that now? ( After casting her aside. After taking comfort in another so easily and quickly. After dismissing her. How can she mean any of that, and how could Magni believe her? )

I must - or I might never. I am well equipped in convincing myself that my silence serves me better. [ She does not relinquish that hand, those dear warn hand she adores so. A curiousness all to themselves, an art all to themselves. Broad and strong, yet they could be so careful - if she were in the process of admitting such things, she might tell her how long she could watch her work just for the grace of these hands.

But this neither the time nor the place. ] There are things, things I did not tell them, that I must never share with anyone. Should I... should I ever be able to make amends for what I have done to you and you still wish to know me, if this is still something you want... then, ask me, that day. I will tell you and you can decide.

( A quiet huff of rueful laughter. Oh, Magni understands something of silence. How words can be uncomfortable and hard to shape, how desperately people wish to fill silence, how once things are spoken they can never be taken back. She should pull away from Rani, and her queenly mastery of words and their weaving. Silence serves her better, she says, when she can play her words in so heavenly a way as another might play a harp, weave elaborate tapestries of diplomacy. Was that not what being noble meant?

For a time, Magni stays silent. Big surprise, she’s sure. )

Prove to me that you’re sincere. Don’t make promises to me before then, please.

[ If it was, she might be better at it, when it had meant life or death.

But she hadn't. She had only herself, only the things she's done, good and bad - and for certain, there was much that was bad. The Inquisition could slay a battlefield through, and it would not match what he had done in one night to London's streets.

Her concern, however, is apparently. Not for that - but in the way, she looks back and around, in a half guise of running a hand against the back of her neck. Licking her lips as she thinks about not, if, but how.

With the horse's reins in her hand, she steps directly into Magni's space. Shifting Bansuri's body as a shield to be between them. What she does is - blatantly suggestive, rolling her body in, like a soft, mewling pliancy that was never how she approached anyone, even if they were her lover. Hopefully, something Magni well knows. Leaning up, whispering into her ear that outwardly looks - desperate, soft, puffs of air. ] Say that you hate me as a lover, I'm miserable to sleep with, something, make it sound like you are furious with me for looking at someone else. Just make it sound trivial like we are just squabbling over nothing, slap me if you need to. Like that is all we are talking about is that. Then storm upstairs. I'll follow.

( Magni freezes for two reasons.

First of all: hello, strange behaviour. Second of all: ACTING? She can feel her jaw slacken a little with horror that seems very misplaced, given everything else that they’re discussing. Stiffly she sets her hands at Rani’s shoulders and pushes her back. Awkwardly: ) Desist.

( Well that won’t do. ) Don’t— ( She definitely glances around a little self consciously, despite herself, ) I don’t want your— Warden grabbing hands on me.

( Get this woman an award. She tossed her leather apron down with what is meant to be fury and instead looks awkward, before she strides for the door. Yeah. No. Bye. )

[ She shouldn't be so utterly endeared when something so serious was otherwise at stake. To that end, the smile stays off her face even when something crinkles around her eyes as when Magni 'storms off', she ties her horse off ( hopefully no one would do anything particularly idiotic and get their hand bitten in the meantime ), before she goes to follow her taking the steps two at a time before she's opening the door. Stepping into the room and firmly shutting it behind her.

The rest is almost a paranoid prowl. She goes to the windows, the cupboards. Looking over everything, twice, before she finally turns back to her. Arms by her side, nothing else between them, but she doesn't step close, she doesn't sit and she doesn't bolt. This isn't there playing, this isn't the way she laughs, all of it hidden back away by hard eyes and a sharp set to her mouth. ]

Where do you want me to start?

( Magni flounders, slightly. Where does she want her to start? It'd be helpful if she knew where all of this began, if she could grasp the context. As it is she partway suspects Rani wanted to make her feel and look foolish, and she is leaning against the wall and having to make an effort to look cool.

it isn't working. She looks like an elk shoved into a human body and trying to figure out how to make sure no one discovers her true identity.

She breathes, steadies herself, and tries to remember what it is to have the upper hand. Not even because she wants the upper hand specifically, but because she wants answers for herself. )

Why do I matter to you?

( HAH YEAH no she really does care about all the other weird stuff but that's a lot. )

[ She didn't start small, did she?

Her mouth fixing against itself, a flare as she breathes in deeply to try and ease herself into something softer, into talking about how she feels. Nothing that... that came easily. Not for her. ]

At first... you were just a comfort. [ She hopes that isn't surprising, given, how they had met, how little conversation and the usual methods of getting to know each other. ] I have had no place, no peace to myself in this place. I wanted, for a while that I could, not to fight to be treated as something other than a demon. I told myself that would be end of it. A woman who is... what I am, cannot stay, and I know that. But...

[ She clears her throat, an absent twitch to look elsewhere. ] ... I guess it is not as easy as that. You made it very hard to do so, and each time, I found it... harder and harder to refuse. I want for your company more and more earnestly. You remind me... by way of nothing at all, that perhaps, once, this body had a purpose that was not carved on a blade's edge.

Edited 2018-11-23 08:56 (UTC)

( Her brow furrows very slightly. You made it very hard almost prompts a not intentionally from her, vague self-defence. She holds her tongue - granted, Magni holding her tongue is never a great stretch.

The response leaves her torn. On the one hand, it is very beautiful, poetic, to be told that someone who has given themselves to battle can remember that they once knew how to be soft because of you. On the other, she has her reservations. It all lies in how she makes Rani feel, in Rani's relief, her feelings, her self, and perhaps very little to do with Magni at all.

Her arms cross, head canting very slightly to the side. )

I make you feel decent.

( Boiling it down to excessively simple terms, perhaps. )

Have I ever seemed like I care very much for being decent? Do you think something as mild as decency is what I search for - I have done things, Magni, wretched, dreadful things - [ Her mouth closes, her breath coming out thin. She shakes her head, that - that was not it at all. ]

I have never been a decent woman, not for many years, and I do not think you, for all your many graces, could make me one again. Nor would I belittle you in such a fashion. You are not the saviour of this old wretch. [ A chuckle, shaking her head, laughter at her own expense. ] I was taught, that... being with another must be built on trust. Being with another must be in sharing, completely, in all manner of things. But... I built this off casual affection and seeking to remember my own humanity when I was allowed it. Then I let it be more. I let myself... express things around you I have never allowed any other to see and... I realised that we were both... becoming attached, and I realised, how much I had never told you. How... little I had shared, how little you had ever told yourself of me.

[ She might shake her head, make a sighing miserable sound, any matter of theatrics. They might even be truthful, none of them come, she stands herself alone and flat in front of Magni, an old woman, and more a fool for the time than wiser for the experience. ] You deserved better than... something half-made affection.

Edited 2018-11-23 10:24 (UTC)

( By the Mountain-Father, but Rani liked to talk. Was good at it, overwhelming with it. Rani brought words together as readily as a tree brought leaves, so that she could make a dense canopy of them. Sheltering and obscuring in equal measure, she suspects.

Magni leans against the wall. Slouched, just a little.

How little you had ever told me of yourself, that was something to think about. She looks to the window, head resting against the stone. )

I don't say much at all.

( Just, you know, a note of self-defence. ) But affection and knowledge can grow together. Do you think people must have each other memorised before they can consider attachment?

( Probably not, but she is a little curious. Then: ) Where do you want me to start?

( Echoing, offering. Cautiously. )

[ Now, she shakes her head - even though it makes her smile, earnestly. Her eyes closing with something like a laugh. This is all done out of sorts. Questions that ought to come first, that come later. ]

No, no it does not always need to be spoken. But... but things like I am an undying queen who jumped into the fade and holds a secret to immortality, tend to need to come up sooner over later.

[ Something, eases back, trying to muddle this out - and with it, her hand lifts, shifting her wait, rubbing at her forehead trying to think this way... through. ]

Why don't... why don't we sit, and I can... tell you about myself. Properly, this time. This is... this needs to be done, so you can have the choice as you should have.

Edited 2018-11-23 11:17 (UTC)

( Magni doesn't immediately move to comply. Watches Rani carefully, almost warily. Some part of her is endeared by the sight of Rani laughing; that part of her can't be trusted right now. )

We'll talk, ( she agrees, and yet she's still standing still, readying her words, wrangling them. )

Talking can't... talking is not what I meant by proving your sincerity. Anyone can talk. ( Except Magni, apparently, but shut up. ) Words can be lies. Proving by action, Manu that— takes time. Consistency. This is not a fast solution.

No, it can't.

[ To that she agrees.

But things need to be in order, and she needs to commit to this if it is true. She shifts to sit on the side of the bed, with ample space. Strange to be a foreigner in here when she had - spent her grief-stricken days in here. ] But what I have to tell you is... more than words. It's something you have to make a choice over, about me, if you will listen?

( "Something you have to make a choice over."

Isn't that really their experience of everything in this life? Always choices, and never the certainty of whether it is the right one. Choices that save and damn, never the former without the latter. Sometimes she wondered if she should have stayed in the Frostbacks.

Her gaze drops, and and she takes a seat on the dresser, hitching herself up onto it with a little hop. A tilt of her head, a silent go on, then. )

I... have never lied to you, about myself, nor anyone. But there is... a great deal about me you do not know. [ Lakshmi leans forward on her elbows, hooking them on the inside of her legs. Wishing she had something to hold, tap her fingers against, give her something to do that wasn't just sitting and talking about miserable things she did her best, to cut apart from herself, remove to fractions that were easily digestible.

If she does it now, it is because if she is to make this the whole way through in a sensible, useful manner, it still must be held at an arm's length. ]

I am Jhansi ki Rani, the Maharani, Queen of Jhansi, who was Manikarnika, or Manu to those that knew her as a young woman, born to a Brahmin family, whose father and mother were servants, that became Lakshmi Bai when she married the Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalker according to all proper costume. Who bore him a son, who lost that child and her husband and was made a widow and sole regent of the throne so that their adoptive heir might one day come to rule. [ She tenses, loosens, tenses again. A cut on the roof of her mouth, imagined or otherwise, that she presses her tongue against. It would heal, if only she would stop - ]

But... that was not to be, for me.

( That's a lot to think about. A woman who rose from servant to queen, who lost those dearest to her, who was left with a kingdom on her shoulders. Her gaze is caught on the way Rani moves. The twitch of her hands, or perhaps there is no movement at all. Some part of her knows that Rani needs to be moving, that she should be prowling and shifting like a wild cat, a mountain lion that even when it is still is poised and ready.

She reaches down to one of the draws, eases it open, and draws out something shining, barely visible. Holding onto it, Magni hesitates, looking at the ground for long moments before she slides from the dresser, keeping it cradled in her hand. Kneels in front of Rani where she sits, and presses it into her hands, guides her fingers onto it, so she can roll it between her fingers, map the braided threads of silver and bronze that make up the bangle, and the stone set into it. She can't— it's not the right way to offer it, but she doesn't have anything else that seems well suited to busying hands with, and she exhales unhappily because it doesn't seem appropriate, but she's here now already. )

Jhansi ki Rani. What name makes you happiest?

[ The gift is more than she expects. Because it harkens back, looks too familiar. Knows it for the understanding that Magni has of her and she drops her gaze too it. Taking it between both her hands, smoothing her thumbs along the outside band in opposing directions, like it revealed it's pattern fullest by touch and that touch alone.

Then she curls her fingers over it fully, holding it like she would test a blade the first time. But it has a weight to it, that isn't the metal, it constricts tightly in her chest. Her short nails bump against the pattern in the band as she traces over it, letting it bite into her skin. Soothing, calming, taking some indecipherable edge off it as she feels out the pattern like it is her own skin.

An implicit understanding. That when she lifts her gaze, the look is there but unspoken. Thank-you. ]

Happiness has little to do with it. Those that knew me, before my marriage, perished in what followed, and the only name that mattered afterwards, was my titles. Rani Lakshmi Bai. It was that name, that they deemed a crime. [ Her mouth opens, and she is not the kind to weep or shed much to her grief, but she cannot help: how it sticks in her throat, the blink of something so hopeless out of her eyes like dust clouding her vision, raw as gunpowder smoke on the exhale, searing in the back of her lungs. ] It was that name, that they said to be spoken was punishable by a life in prison. Or worse, for that name had acted in treason, and those who spoke, said it like a war cry, and so they killed them for daring. So it does not matter, what follows, what made me happy, how people demand me put it away, even here, when it does not matter for me to be Rani or Lakshmi or Manikarnika. If they have the courage to speak such a word, to raise me so high even to their own damnation, who am I to ever be known by anything else ever again? If I live, Magni, I live for them.

[ And - that is it, isn't it, the first thing Magni must understand. Must grasp that, whatever this was between them, that would always come first. She was Jhansi ki Rani, she would always be, Jhansi ki Rani, and she had made that choice a long time ago. ]

( Her throat constricts with the thought of it. A name denied, stripped away. Blood, family, love, and then name. Her hand rests at Rani's knee. )

Manikarnika. My name is Magni An Fjorleif O Talonhold. Magni, daughter of Fjorleif, of Talonhold. Talonhold is where I was born, what I fight to protect, and our hold must come before blood. Our hold beast is the great snow owl of the Frostbacks, big enough to carry off a man, a danger to bears and mountain lions. Korth the Mountain-Father grants us the earth beneath our feet, grants us shelter, brought the dwarves to life. It is through his blessing I ever gained the chance to learn to forge, and work with the metals that are mined from the sacred earth. The Sky Lady gives us the air and the sky, where we can watch and birds can soar, taking us in our death and delivering our souls to the Lady. No one has ever tried to take my name, but in these... lowlands they deny my gods, claim spirits to be evil, and decry magic. I'm here to serve Korth, and to fight for Talonhold.

( Offering, in turn, as she tries to sort through the information she has been given. ) You have had to fight for everything.

[ Another day, she might even smile. A twitch, I knew you played with me, it was never some sparrow.

But not now, rather - she tilts her head, and it is not to kiss her - not so simple as that - more than that. She leans her forehead to hers, she grips her shoulder, hard. Sinking in by the weight of all her fingers. Her eyes shut, her breath low, slow, taking a steadiness out of Magni that so often held by threads, wire-thin. But felt sure as she ever did in the sure comfort of Magni's hands, for once, of that stillness. ]

They fed on us. Not... not that they drained our resources, denied us, alone. Though they certainly did that most heartily. They fed on us. We did not know, we welcomed them as great traders, sailors. My husband had always maintained good trade with them, they supported us and us, them. We never thought they would bring with them such creatures. Men who, by night, would turn to monsters. Creep into villages. At first, it was just... a man walking alone snatched off the road. His body torn to pieces. A woman, home alone. Found mauled outside her house. We have many great beasts in my homeland. Tigers, lions, snakes. Finding someone in such a way... is never happy, but nor is it wholly strange.

It was not so long after my husband died. I would have been... twenty, not so long after I had been removed from power, if I remember it clearly. [ Her eyes stare through, that blank way she stares between here and there, a space within a space. She remembers it and she remembers it well. ] A girl, not even nine, had killed her whole family. Something had... bitten her, but not killed her. She came home and worried, her parents put her to bed. That night, she turned. Ripped her parents to pieces. Tore them, the blood - My God, I have never seen so much blood, not even when I went to battle.

[ She drops, and the bracelet serves its purpose. She begins to turn it between her fingers. A circle she makes moving it between her hands, to stare at it and look at nothing else. ] Her Uncle was all that left. He burst into my hall, begging me to come, even deposed as I was, my people turned to me before any other. We rode out. No one wanted to go in, you could smell it. That smell, when the guts sit too long in the heat. Jhansi sits on the edge of the desert. The nights do not even cool down. [ Revolting. ] I'd learn, in time, they do not even need to turn, they will still hold their bodies as men, and they would eat, just eat. Another woman, I knew, she was with child. During the siege... it did not care. The child, just... just out of her belly. Humans are cattle to Lycans. [ She swallows, remembers how she'd thrown up afterwards when the smell hit her. How she tells it, a disjointed bundle of horrors. That holds itself together at ends of a memory that at times, must put itself out of its own pain by cutting off before it went too far. ]

My men wouldn't go in, and how could I order them too? So I went. I found just... a little girl, who had no idea what she had done. I realised, what had happened, there was no undoing it, she had killed them, monsterously. How could I ask another to do such a thing? To end such a life? So I didn't. [ Shake, she notes far away, this many years, and still shaking, Manu? Surely you have done worse than that night. ] I rocked her, she sobbed even as she slept. Then I made sure at least her part of this nightmare they had brought to us was over for her.

( The legendary ducks of Talonhold should never be underestimated. Mighty ducks, them. Champions.

No shying away when Rani leans closer. Steady to the contact, leaning slightly into it, hands resting at the outside of Rani's thighs, thumbs rubbing back and forth in small, reassuring motions that she herself barely realises.

Magni has no idea what she could possibly say. There are no words that could be said, really, that could adequately do justice to the information Manu has laid out before her. Predators who outlawed her name in her own kingdom, who ripped her people asunder. It sounds like the ravages of darkspawn, save that she cannot think of a darkspawn that can change between its form and the body of a normal girl. She has heard rumours of the fates that might await those who fall into the hands of darkspawn in the Deep Roads and are not killed immediately, but she prays that those are only tales to urge caution.

She listens and she listens, and she has to remind herself not to grip Rani's legs harder with the tension of it. )

Who?

( Who came? Who did this to you? Who did this to your people? )

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