faderift | ( closed ) all you have is your fire

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( closed ) all you have is your fire

WHO: Magni & Lakshmi
WHAT: banter banter banter
WHEN: week or so after the return to Kirkwall
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: none for now

Inevitably, she imagined, Lakshmi would wish that she'd asked to meet her elsewhere. Somewhere inside, more private. Hidden, in a way, though her Rani insisted that it was a matter for Magni's own— not safety, necessarily. Credibility? To not be seen speaking to the radical rifter who was so strange and scandalous after seeming so comparatively normal. Magni, however, has decided she doesn't give much of a shit.

She wants to be outside. These months and months in Kirkwall have ground at her, she realises. Taking away parts of her, and she does not want to be reforged by a place like this. It is time to go home, at least for a while, to breathe in the air of the Frostbacks so she can better heal in the cradle of the Mountain-Father.

The gardens of the Gallows are a poor substitute, but that is where she sits, the crutches she is reliant on resting on the rough wood of the bench she's claimed, torso wrapped around and supported as best it can be to help the injury at her lower back. Even when sitting she seems almost to loom amongst the roses.

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The time since the battle has at least afforded Lakshmi some relief. The blackwater does its task where it should well enough. Where the lightning struck her in the head has healed up, leaving nothing but the fine white lines of lightning scars, branching out like a tree from below her left eye.

Her hand isn't faring so well. She does her best not to think about it. The creeping knowledge that she can put off while her hand is still bandaged: she has lost the fingers on that hand. No amount of pleading will change that. So in the way she handles all grief, she simply doesn't dwell on it. Looks for other things to do.

Easy enough, in present company. Her saree wrapped tightly about her body. At least it is warmer in the gallows, less inclined to be snowed on here. Especially here, the meager gardens that the gallows offered, a brighter spot than the stark reminder of miserable purpose. "Magni, are you well?"

She hovers, unsure, waiting in case she did need something. That way that - she couldn't stop fussing. Couldn't stop watching her, fearful of some unnamed something sitting inside her mouth.

Her eyes were closed - at the sound of that voice, so familiar and so welcome for all the complicated emotions that it summons, Magni looks towards her. "Manikarnika."

Said softly, a very faint smile, and a little shrug. "Well," for a given value, it would seem. Nothing calamitous has happened since last they spoke. Her knee is still wrapped up to steady it, and she tilts her head a little towards the bench, an invitation for Lakshmi to sit, if she wishes.

It is still so strange, to hear that name, spoken after all these years. She does not regret giving it to her, her above all else. But - how it calls to something simpler, something ease, buried below the middle of her chest.

It makes it easier to touch her when the world might see - for surely that woman who was Manikarnika never cared about such things. She loved as herself, and that was enough. Carefully, her hand reaches to touch Magni's cheek, turns her face up with a smile that is not -- full, but it creases the corners of her eyes earnestly.

"Truly?"

Lakshmi lets go to take her seat, beside her. Her hand smoothing the material under herself with a sweep down the back of her legs. Tucking them in neatly underneath her. Her ankles crossing, perching her weight on her toes. That half readiness, that press knifelike on its edge. Ready, ready, ready. The what for didn't matter so much as the suddenness that it might come.

The tilt of her head might be enough to betray that she is still sore, still recovering, but she leans into the offered contact, brings one of her hands up to rest over Lakshmi's and keep her hand against her cheek. Things were not resolved between them, not worked out, but they progressed step by step. Still she does not know where the outcome might lie, but she has her hopes. Some part of her might advocate that she hold Lakshmi at a greater distance, that they establish friendship and set aside the physical contact that had become natural to them.

All of her might advocate it, if she was not so weary, not so sore. It is not the strong thing to do, she knows, but sometimes there is wisdom in allowing oneself to draw some strength from others. She only hoped that they did not harm each other more, with the comfort.

Magni opens her eyes, then, and her brows raise in a silent question. And you?

She keeps it there, as long as she can, her thumb smoothing against her cheek in a half measure of comfort for both their sake, before she slips it free.

Her own response is - brief, a tightness in her mouth, an exhaustion that flickers like a candle flame, there and gone. The still wrapped bandages around her hand that - the fingers throb from. They're not there. They're not there. She must tell herself as her mind lies to her over and over again. They were not there, and she should be lucky for the blackwater that no infection spread further.

So the response is simple - "I have survived worse things." And that will be the only sort of pity she ever takes on the matter.

The flicker is enough. Very gently, glancing to Lakshmi for permission, she reaches for that bandaged hand. Carefully holds it between her own, and draws it closer. Moves closer to Lakshmi in turn, as well, so that she isn't at all likely to make her uncomfortable as she leans down and presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist. Slow, lingering, as her hand protectively cradles Lakshmi's own.

"You will do more than survive." Certain, steady. "You'll thrive." (Even if Magni has to see to it through her own stubborn, bloody-mindedness. She swears it, an oath.)

"You're far more than any injury could take from you."

She's here to wield love and support, but no pity.

Her good hand lifts to curl around Magni's own as it cradles her injured one. Taking comfort in a way - it meant so much. She has never needed it, not for years and years.

But that someone... took a moment. How easy it could be, just, quiet, calm. How easily Magni was such a thing when so often Lakshmi felt like a storm beating against the walls of a house. Too loud, too much.

"How could I do otherwise with such kind words?"

A very slight smile, a one shoulder shrug. Words could be very powerful things, and they could be empty. She tried to pick them carefully, but she lacked the art of them - for better and worse, she thought, but in this moment she hoped it gave them weight, and value. She is content to stay like this, really, just enjoy the quiet and her company, this room to be more careful with one another that they have carved out.

Even so, after some moments, she exhales weightily. "I... asked you here to tell you something. Good news, I think."

Though she falls silent again, frowning very slightly, as she tries to wrangle her words. "I decided to heed your advise." From before. It feels very long ago, now. "And return to Talonhold, for a time."

And it is, it is such good news, one that brings a smile so genuinely to her lips as she takes both her hands within her own, and bows her head to breath into Magni's hand, heating them with her breath in a soft kiss to her knuckles. Soft and smooth.

"It is good." Cradling them close, half turned up gaze under her brows, then drops them down, lashes against the curve of her cheek. "When do you leave?"

Magni lists closer, softly nudging Lakshmi's temple with her nose, breathes in the scent of her hair. So carefully washed and treated with warm oil and flowers, carrying memories of sketching blades and ridiculously teasing each other, of pulling Lakshmi back against her chest with nothing between them.

"When Varmas arrives." Today, or maybe tomorrow, but soon is in her tone, as she watches Lakshmi's eyelashes, how they rest against her skin. "He knows my faith. These mages are too scared to heal properly, they scatter like dandelion fuzz if they even think of a spirit. I must see the shamans." If I am to smith again, if I am to heal, if my body is to obey me as I wish it to.

Silence, though not so much as she might usually offer. "And I... when you are so close all I wish is to go to you. If I am to think of all you told me and decide what our path might hold, I need to— be the dandelion."

"You should. I know what your Hold means to you."

How she bathes in this comfort of it, selfishly. Their hands held together, settled between them, turning her head up to stretch into the soft brush, and give it in return. Taking long deep breathes to suck in the air.

"They do that," but isn't sure she trusts Magni's shamans anymore than she does the physicians here. Not for the first, and not for the last, she wished Tesla was here. "But promise me, before you put anything on your body, boil it in water first." That was what he had said was best, wasn't it? Something about some little things in the skin.

"As you must, walk as many paths as you need, for as long as you must. Of all things I have, time is the only one I can be sure of."

There are so many things needing saying, thoughts to be expressed, and no doubt questions each of them need to ask.

She sets aside seriousness for a moment, head canting very slightly at Lakshmi's advice. Slowly, with a seriousness that is entirely inappropriate:

"What good will my clothes be to wear if they're wet?"

(Remember that time, Lakshmi, that time you spoke about wise words?)

Lakshmi smiles, shakes her head. It would be too hard to explain, and in the end, the why was for clever men with microscopes. "Let them dry, but make sure the bandages especially get boiled. Think of it is as a superstition of mine, so I know you will be safe."

I hope you are bloody right about this Tesla. She didn't want to look half mad for no reason, unlike usual, looking mad for only sort of a reason.

A quiet laugh to herself, which her own joke certainly doesn't deserve because it was truly stupid. Ah, well. Lakshmi, it seems, is patient enough with her humour. Gently, she squeezes Lakshmi's hand. Silent reassurance, a promise to do as she asks in how Magni holds her gaze.

"You are a strange woman, Manikarnika, but for you?" For you, it will be done.

"That is all I ask." She bows her head to it, a deep relief of gratitude. Leaning in close to her, keeping them close, keep her near as she may, for as long as she could.

"How long do you think you will be?"

A very slight raising of her shoulders, a quiet murmur of uncertainty. "As long as wounds take to heal. As long as I might before the Thane orders me back."

Magni gently tips Lakshmi's chin up, to look at her. "I will return."

"Don't," the murmur is soft. Her hand lifts and sets on her chest above her heart. Palm flat and fingers gently curled in the way that any old swordsmen do, too hard to keep them straight, their starburst scars white against her brown skin. Feeling the beat against her weathered palm. Sure in her words as she is in it.

"Do not promise such a thing. It is your choice. I meant it. You owe me nothing, not even your return."

“It is not for owing you something that I would return,” she replied, voice soft. “No matter my decision, I will return. We shall still fight at one another’s side, even if some things are not to be.”

Because the world was so much bigger than both of them, and because she would see Lakshmi safe, no matter what happened between them.

"I will be honoured." She murmurs it back. Selfishly so, her head does not lift. At odds with the words for what they are. To speak of battle, distance and restraint. To place the lines that she will not cross should it come to it and insist that Magni remember them too.

But to not draw away, not even a little. To feel that soft puff of breath on her cheek. Warming her skin against the winter chill, even where the new scar is dulled from feeling much. To take that steadiness that Magni so simply was, and lean back into it like a crutch she could never admit to openly needing, but so gladly leans into. "Saawariya."

She cannot kiss her, for all that she longs to. To comfort Magni as much as to offer that comfort and affection to Lakshmi herself. Her exhale almost shakes with how that one word sounds on her tongue, and Magni leans forward (cautious, tender) to wrap her arms around Lakshmi and draw her into an embrace. The strength she would usually have is denied her, her mobility is sorely limited. Holding close, that— she hoped that would not be to violate the boundaries they are trying to observe.

Take great care of yourself, Manikarnika. Talonhold does not forgive those who allow harm to befall those precious to it. That is what she wishes she might say, the sentiment she might convey, but her words feel stolen from her, and her throat hoarse.

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( closed ) all you have is your fire

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