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Entry tags:
( closed ) embrace like an avalanche
WHO: Lakshmi & Magni
WHAT: working with an ex with awkward, sometimes
WHEN: mumbles vaguely
WHERE: smithy
NOTES:
WHAT: working with an ex with awkward, sometimes
WHEN: mumbles vaguely
WHERE: smithy
NOTES:
( The hours in the smithy are long, working iron into steel and steel to blades. She is hammering at something when the door opens, presently alone in her work, beating hammer to metal with a steady rhythm. Her skin seems almost to glow in the light from the forge, and her skin runs with sweat from the heat of it. Such a heat might be oppressive to a good many, and that she could hardly fault them for.
The door opening hardly means inherently that someone needs her attention, and so she pays it little mind, stepping to the bellows to make the fire burn more fiercely, so that the blade she is presently working on can be re-heated once more, as she continues to progress with it. It was not that she lacked for work generally speaking, but with a battle lurching closer, many more blades and weapons needed making.
It's when she is collecting up the blade that she looks towards the door, and stops.
Ah. )
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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.
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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. )
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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.
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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. )
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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.
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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.
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[ 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?
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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. )
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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.
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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?
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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. ]
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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.
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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.
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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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That for once, she needs not to do anything of the sort and she is simply been listened too. Reverently, she lifts a hand, to trace around the shape of her cheek. Soft and warm. She could nothing more than that, at times, she thinks. ]
Englishmen. But it is... not... as simple as that. The rest... the rest is what you must understand about me. I have been fighting a ... long time.
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The undying queen, she'd said. )
You cannot rest.
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[ What a wretched being Corypheus must be. Something she did not understand, what it meant to rule, who could ever want to do such a thing for eternity? How foul must his soul be? If she did not have proof already in the suffering of those around, just to hear that would be enough. ]
I came to realise, in time, that what was happening was a symptom of a greater sickness. An empire that was so corrupted by itself, it no longer cared. I begged you see before I went to war, I begged and begged and begged for help. I didn't care for my throne. My people... The English said I was not fit to rule, and I went away peacefully. But then when my people were dying, they would not defend us though they said they were so much greater than we were. Our sufferings did not move them. They were just there to make themselves rich off our work. So the Half-Breeds could do as they will. I began to look outside of just my own lot. To the Kingdoms near me, then further afield, and I realised. Everywhere that they reached, the same was happening. In every land that they traded with, they infected. It was then... then that I met a man, he was old. Dreadfully old. I did not know it. If you think I keep secrets, he - [ Her hand lifts, flicking her fingers away, rolling her eyes. ] He... passed it to me, when they came to besiege me. He gave me such a choice.
... There were many battles. I was... betrayed, many times, and lost each time after. But... when the dust settled, and I stood on the last of them, bleeding to death, [ she reaches for Magni's hand, then, reaching it to bring it over a scar she no doubt had seen. Impossible to miss. Above that steady heartbeat, marred and twisted and proof of something wretched. ] I had to make a choice. Dying, then, would have been easy. I had lost everything, and I could not deny that I was weary. Weary of this life, and all it had done to me, taken from me.
[ But, here she is, after it all, still here. For all that good it was. ] I decided, it wasn't enough, anymore. Not even to win back my throne, to drive the beasts from just my land. I must drive them from every land. I must make sure that men who suppose themselves those kinds of masters did not just pay for what they had done, that they were thrown down from their power, that the very systems that had caused them to rise and allow such suffering, were burned, replaced, by the very people they had sort to oppress. That this old world, of Kings, Lords, Nobles, all of it, was destroyed.
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The way of the Englishmen sounds like the ways of many lowlander kings. The Avvar are not without their brutality, that she knows: raiding parties, forays into Fereldan lands, bloody battles and feuds. This level of corruption, though this cruelty, it sounds the stuff of Tevinter. Of the enslavers, of the worst parts of Orlais, of the battles and efforts to control and damn that seemed to be the very core of this war they're fighting.
Her breath is rough, and angry thrum in her veins, and Magni closes her eyes for a moment. This was far more than she had anticipated. It does not resolve all between them, it doesn't erase the hurts, but certain things make far more sense, now. Her Manu was more than a force to be reckoned with. She was a cleansing fire, sweeping through rot and dead things.
Hands gripping harder, she opens her eyes and seeks out Rani's gaze. )
All things are temporary. New growth doesn't come without the old dying back.
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[ She grips back, hard, harder than she might on any other. That kept thing that holds just inside her mouth, just behind her teeth. That demands she bite as deeply as she is bitten. That she tears as she has been torn. Not to enact some half thought of justice, some petty revenge.
But to tear something back, like pulling a knife out of a wound to see what poured out of it. Find what was below all of this. Find some truth that demanded a light. ]
I see the same sufferings, but for different names, and I know. It will not be enough for me, and I cannot ignore it. Not just because when they are done with using those like me, they will place me in a tower for all they do not understand.
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No.
( The lowlanders do not respect those who could be shamans. They do not respect spirits, only fear them, and from there so many troubles infect and spread, like the cursed Blight. If they were not so preoccupied with fear and their claimed "god" that abandoned them, if they allowed their mages to be all they could be - wise, lorekeepers - and to learn from spirits rather than locking them away, perhaps the lowlands would be better for it.
She does not pretend the Avvar are perfect, but they are a damned sight better than these compassionless cowards.
It is more damning than she might normally be. There is much to appreciate in these places. Orlais is home to arts that are magnificent. The architecture and crafting she has seen in some of these cities are truly a sight to be beheld. They are a marvel in their permanence, and a tragedy in their ruination. Nothing is permanent, not even the dwarven thaigs. The Talonhold of today is not the same as the Talonhold of tomorrow. Memory and lore change in their transition from augur to augur, tradition evolves, and stone crumbles. Even spirits can be corrupted. )
You will go to no tower. If they try to shackle you, we'll use the chains to break their teeth and crush the air from their throats.
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Slowly, reverently. She kisses the back of her knuckles. One firm, warm kiss. Then lowers her head further, to press them against her brows. Something hurts, there, for the things she does not deserve. How good it feels to not...
... Not be alone, for once.
Which must be why she presses on, must, must, must. No more lies, no more half-truths. Things cut out of spun sugar to look like glass. Let it be truly what it is and let Magni make the choice, properly now. ]
Do not swear such things until you are sure, Ishq. That is what you must decide. I am not... someone you can build a life with. I am an old widow who cannot give you children, I am a wanted criminal, I am a queen without a kingdom. The things I have done... I have turned cities into battlefields. I have destroyed buildings the size of this keep. I have snuck into the houses of the rich and killed them in their sleep. I refuse to regret much of it. If the Queen of Orlais had a thought of what was in my heart, no doubt she would cut my head from my shoulders. There is no life, with me, the only future I can offer is one of battle, of misery. Of devotion to things that will place us, second. Then, you will grow old, time will touch you, but I will never outwardly change. Because of it, I cannot stay in one place long, here.
[ It's a miserable future, it is barely one. It was one without peace. This was not like the turn of the tide with the Half-Breed that had taken her forty years to do. She already was born to a world that no longer saw an inherent need of Kings and Nobles. Even in England, a place so wretched to her mind saw the evils of slavery for what they were.
Let alone, this. Her jaw set. ] Do not... answer it now. You must consider it, if you can forgive me, and then if this is the life you want. What you want with me.
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doesn't freeze, exactly. Just stays on one knee, tension limiting the motion in her shoulders so she moves a little awkwardly as Rani draws her hand closer, kisses it, presses it to her brow. It is so reverent, so sacred feeling that she doesn't know how to respond. Never has anyone done something like that to her, and she looks nothing short of baffled.
Granted on Magni bafflement looks more like faint surprise, but even so.
It takes long moments for her to speak. Again, nothing new, but the tension in the pause is different. It feels like something in their dynamic has shifted, and she's not wholly certain how to process that, what to do with it. And yes, Rani lays much before her, truths that are— scary, and strange to think of. Truths that she does not know if she wishes to wrestle with. Defiance, disgust with the ways of Orlais, that she could manage. Change is the way of her people. But to be dying, while her love watched? Which of them would that be most terrifying for?
She chews the inside of her cheek, mouth catching in a frown. )
Do you—
( A pause, considering. )
Do you want me? Or do you wish me to say that I do not want you, and relieve you of that burden?
( The words are careful, as she brings the hand that Rani had kissed to gently cradle her lady's cheek. )
I will think on it. But it does not sound like I am what you wish for, when you speak so.
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Burden, yes, perhaps, in the way living itself was a burden. A burden in the way keep these things was when time threatened to take so much. ]
I would never ask if I did not want, Magni. I say as I mean, and I do as I say. I make my choices and do not go back on them. That is not my way. It never has been. Even when they are foolish, I would rather accept, and do better.
[ Her head turns, briefly, to take a slow breath. Some understanding, that perhaps for a while, perhaps for a great long while, this may all she might have of her. Pressing her nose against her skin and breathing her in. That smell of metal, leather and skin. How Magni could be so coarse from her work, but there, just there, against her pulse, she was smooth, soft. ] But that is what I am, that is the life you will have with me. You asked me to respect what you wished instead of making the choice for you. You were right, I do respect you, and if I am going to begin to make amends then... this is what I was not telling you, or them, or anyone. This is what I am, and this is what I can offer you.
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Though, when she takes a moment to reflect more on Rani's words, what she seems to mean is that she holds herself accountable for her decisions, does not shrug away the reality and repercussions of them, rather than trying to evade responsibility. That she cannot fault her for.
And though some great romantic part of her that, that part which might lurk in the heart of even the most practiced stoic if they were caught off guard, wishes to cast all these truths aside and say they don't matter! Love will prevail! the reality is that they do matter. They will have their consequences, they will wear on each of them as surely as water wears on stone. Her chest feels lighter than it did two hours ago, and far heavier in the same moment. Hope that was bound.
She exhales, and her shoulders sink, before her other hand comes up to cup the other side of Rani's face, and she gently draws her into a kiss, leaning up to meet it. Because she does not know, and she has no certainty, but if her decision must be no, then she wants at least to ensure that they have something affectionate they can remember that is not muddied by the harsher memories. )
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Her hands lifting in return to brace against Magni's neck. She understands, or at least she thinks she does, what this means. Neither a denial nor an acceptance. Something better, something between. A for now. She takes it gladly. Glad especially that Magni bore no naivety over how serious this truly was.
When they break, she does not pull from her. Her head tilts, pressing their forehead together, turning, tracing the side of Magni's face with her nose in a brush of still too wanting affection for all she had pretended these past weeks to not want such things. She wants her, and that she hopes now at least, is plain.
Swallows, not exactly that her throat is dry, but that she hungers for something so dearly, so much, that she knows she must not touch. ]
Best we... do not talk much. Our... commanders are not best pleased with me, I recently... did something very foolish, and when I found that through so much means, I could not return home, I put it to them. About what I am, for them to decide my fate. They are still not letting me out of their sight because of it and... I do not wish their scrutiny to fall on you because of any attachments I have.
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pours one out for all my broken icons
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