( closed ) all you have is your fire

[villieldr]

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.

Comments

[shri]

"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?"

[villieldr]

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."

[shri]

"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."

[villieldr]

“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.

[shri]

"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."

[villieldr]

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.