faderift | ( closed ) embrace like an avalanche

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( closed ) embrace like an avalanche

WHO: Lakshmi & Magni
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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[ Used to Magni's silences, well enough, that she does nothing but wait patiently.

And - for once, there is something she can latch onto, understand. A brightness to it as she looks up to Magni with... it wasn't that she expected Magni to be sharp, or cruel, or turn her away.

But to hear it repeated? Her gaze softens, warms. ] Yes, when I go into battle I know Goddess Kali guides my way forward, when I bath in rivers I feel the chant of my homeland, and I feel washed a knew, and they ask only that I pursue truth. [ And without looking away - the one thing is apparent.

She has been here but a few months, and yes, she knew the disrespect the half-breed's had for anything that was sacred when they were hungry. But - ] It... must be difficult, to be here, in the Inquisition, in a thing founded to serve this... Chantries cause.

( Her smile warms with that. To know the guidance of Kali and the closeness Lakshmi feels to the land, to grasp onto this precious glimpse of who she was, what stars she guides herself by.

And then that question comes, and her gaze drops, shuttered. For a brief moment, something fragile lingers in the line of her mouth.

I serve the fight against Corypheus, she should say. Instead she shrugs, a bit uselessly. )

I know they won't - so thank you, for being better than their pettiness.

[ She means it - more than just to pat her on the hand. How much people could take for granted that they were right and they deserved, and never bothered to look at how they got there. At the people that must work beside them in tandem. ]

To lend your skills to their smithies and your strength to their fight. That is a mighty thing, even if they would only gloat over it.

( Her expression twists a little, with that, looking up but not quite looking at Lakshmi. )

Don't.

( She shakes her head. Don't, don't praise her. )

I was ordered to them by the Thane of Talonhold. To serve the Inquisition is to serve my Hold. ( Eyes of the Avvar, ears of the Avvar, watching what the heretics do and say. Her voice is rough, rasping. She is not above their pettiness. )

[ That was - her eyebrows raise. Hovering.

She is of her people, as you would be of yours. The gold band curves between her fingers where it is still clasped in her palm, where it's flat on the bed. ]

What is a ... Thane? A Lord?

( A face at "lord," looking up at Lakshmi with very mild reproach. Lord, indeed. )

The leader of our Hold. They understands our oaths and challenges.

( There's like...... so much to explain. She'd prefer to not. Instead she pushes herself up to stand and moves to the foot of the bed, flopping backwards onto it so she's lying behind where Lakshmi is sitting. )

Please don't tell people I was ordered here.

[ Oh, no, no that is not sliding. Her eyebrows might just disappear into her hair. ]

.... Magni, are you a princess?

[ She turns to watch Magni intently, follows after her intently to make sure she understands this correctly. The rest, the rest would certainly wait until she understands this particular thing properly. ]

( exCUSE you )

The Avvar don't have princesses. Eskil is the Thane, and he is my father. These do not give me— lowlander titles.

Is it that titles do not pass hereditarily that keeps such a thing from being true?

[ Her face is very set, very careful, she is doing her best not to laugh. ]

( her very
dignified
response

is to latch onto Lakshmi for a tickle fight

fucking BRING IT )

You are - !

[ Is what that reaction ultimately confirms. But that isn't something she can crow over for much longer. As Magni immediately finds the soft bits she knows are too sensitive for that nonsense.

Squirming fitfully as she yelps, croaks out a bit of laughter as it escapes her before she can stop it. But - refusing to be undone, she squirms back, struggling with her, pushing at her hands. ] All this time, crowing over my titles, your grace.

[ She reaches back, getting her knees under her. Snatching one of her wrists and pushing with it. ] Princess Magni.

Am not.

( Because she isn't. Because the Avvar don't have princesses, and even if they did, she wouldn't be one just because her father is thane. She'd overrule it.

One of her wrists is pushed back, and she retaliates as Lakshmi gets to her knees by hooking her legs around Lakshmi's waist, making that squirming more difficult so she can hold her in place as she redoubles her tickling tactics. ) Majesty.

Edited 2018-12-12 13:01 (UTC)

[ She can't breathe, she's laughing too much. Hadn't had a reason too since she'd well and truly dug herself into a mess. This isn't something she deserves, presently, least of all from Magni. ]

Ah, but to a lowlander, you would be.

[ She drops heavily because pulling back wasn't going to get her far, when Magni locks her in tightly. Catching one hand by Magni's head, even if it means she must let go for her.

Because the thought is sharp: she always is distracted when I bite her throat. Makes her fingers curl up in the blanket, ignoring and failing where they're all bound together.

She had to stick to her word this time and finally retaliates properly, digging her fingers in against her side. Up against her belts where she can get her fingers in properly. ]

No!

( It could be a yelp of protest about the tickling (although she'd never admit it) or it could just be a very indignant denial that even lowlanders could be so moronic as to call any Avvar a princess.

Should you kneel before a princess, she might say, and part of her instinctually wishes to surge up, throw her off balance and sabotage this mockery, Lakshmi's general relentlessness. (She likes her relentlessness, in truth.) Instead she tries to squirm away from the tickling hand (very dignified, very proud Avvar) )

Are you a fool lowlander, then?

I'm sure you would like me to be, telling me your hold beast is a duck. [ She's breathless, sharply, brightly, breathless. The smile beaming on her face, unrestrained by the expectations about herself. Her hand braces as she tries to squirm, wriggle, shove back.

It doesn't quite work - and this is cheating. But there is a comfort to knowing, to being able to do something she has had to forcibly keep back more than once in Magni's presence. To being herself and nothing less than that. As when Magni arches up to dodge her fingers, she snaps her hand in the rest of the way, to wrap both her arms around her back.

To pull Magni up, the whole way, so that she was sitting up, and Lakshmi was half in her lap, half underneath it. Their legs tangled and laughing, still. ]

Perhaps there is one other thing I neglected to mention about the boons of the blackwater.

[ she is far stronger than she looks. ]

( A whumph of air escapes her as she's hauled up, surprised, looking at Lakshmi with mouth slightly open. She is not a light person, dense and muscular, and Lakshmi just lifted her as though it were nothing.

One brow arches very slightly. )

Of course you only mention it now.

( Think of the fun that could have been had, Rani. )

[ Right, she chuckles, a little more stiffly at just what Magni is implying. Any other time, she might counter back as easily, why don't we make up for lost time? the pointed raise of her eyebrow.

But right now? ]

Anyone else, I might have been able to keep it secret, but with you?

[ Lakshmi certainly trains, and she trains harder than most. Every bit of her a warrior. A great many things she could do that most people could not, even without the blackwater. Whether it was hauling her whole body up by only her arms and balancing on just their strength. Or because able to move faster without error.

But being able to haul Magni about was a feat that never could go unnoticed. ] That might have given the game away.

( Magni hums, thoughtful, enjoying that quiet laughter but detecting— something else in it. The loss of some of the flirtatious ease they'd had before. And perhaps that is for the best, that Lakshmi is trying to maintain that distance instead of being so lighthearted that Magni gives up on her determination that Lakshmi prove her sincerity. Well enough that they care for one another, hold each other in such affection, but it was all too easy for people to care for each other and still do each other injury or inflict betrayals without realising.

This was better, now. She had a choice. She needed to think carefully on it. Steady, child of the mountains as she was.

She leans lets her breathing settle, leans forward just enough to rest her forehead to Lakshmi's. ) I hope the future holds less secrecy for us.

( Resists the urge to kiss her forehead, and leans back some more. Calmer, now. Although: ) The Avvar don't have princesses. I have no claim to becoming the next Thane.

( Or interest, but perhaps that goes without saying. ) When Eskil is Thane, he is not my father. ( Not in the sense of using that position for his daughter's gain, specifically, not in the sense of softening decisions made concerning her because she is his child. Hold before blood, as it must be, and as she is glad for. ) Then he acts for Talonhold, as do we all.

[ Lakshmi eases away, her hands settling to Magni's shoulders and takes her perch there. Close, comfortingly close, direct in the way she ever is but... not too much, too forward, too inclined to overstep despite their proximity. ] I hope so as well.

[ All teasing aside, she does listen, fingers drawing an idle pattern on Magni's arm. ] I see. Do they in time, let another become Thane, do they step down willingly? Or is death required?

( She tilts her head. That's a question and a half, and there are drawn out moments of silence before Magni starts to form her reply. It is... strange, almost, to speak of the Avvar, her home, their ways. No one really asks. No one takes interest. Sometimes she prefers it so, other times she appreciates that they are in a war and people have much to think of, and other times it grates at her, that so much interest is made of some, but the Avvar could be gladly forgotten.

Slowly, navigating the words as she speaks them and needing to take her time to pick out what to say next, thinking how to explain this and lamenting the wordiness of it even as she appreciates the need to share understanding. Lakshmi's fingers following invisible patterns is soothing, though. )

The Thane is counselled by our Augur, and acts for the good of the Hold. If they are not longer... quick of the mind, they cannot lead. A good Thane knows to recognise their time is past, but... they are proud. They embrace death in combat rather than growing old and soft. If there is a successor to it deemed worthy in strength and cleverness, then their final trial by will be a battle to the death. If they are not a good Thane? Then they will be challenged soon enough.

( Phew. That was a lot of words. )

[ She nods, as Magni finishes. Her fingers stop their pattern - tap, once, twice. Then smooth again. For once, it's her that falls into a long silence as she thinks on it, contemplates what that might mean for Magni herself, what it might mean to even be an Avvar living under such a life.

It is different, and is not so, again. ]

To value use, then. [ She appreciates it, in its way, she was no Rajput after all to speak endlessly long upon honour. Rather, she was a daughter of a Maratha and once just a member of their court, and her own leanings had ever been for hard work. The shame she had found, was in the inability to work earnestly. ] It must be... difficult to be without his guidance then, here, in the Inquisition.

( Her jaw clenches - unusual, telling. )

I serve my Hold by being here and by fighting to stop Corypheus.

( A look down, then. It is hard, frankly. It sucks. )

[ That... That will not do. Her hand drops below Magni's chin, curving around her jaw to gently push her face up so Lakshmi may look at her, properly, flicking between her eyes. A fixed little mark in her brow from concentrating. ]

You're homesick.

[ Like a doctor pronouncing a verdict - like she knows - or perhaps more correctly. Understands, better than most, what it is to be cut off from something that is so much of yourself. ]

( She makes a monosyllabic response that sounds like a denial. What means, though, is very much yes. Lakshmi may have tilted her chin up, but her gaze remains stubbornly lowered.

Months ago she had told Lakshmi that she did miss her home, but it was in the context of assuring Lakshmi she knew that she must miss her home, when Magni had the option of returning, and Lakshmi was cut off entirely. Returning home from travelling with Varmas as muscle and to train was different from returning home when she had not received the order to return home felt —

it was impossible. )

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