faderift | 006

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006 | CLOSED

WHO: Lakshmibai & Byerly Rutyer
WHAT: Lakshmi has a plan, and is roping in some help.
WHEN: An Evening Dreary.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Lakshmi and Byerly are probably the warnings required, on top of ruthless nobles and honour code politics.

She's waiting leant against the barrel of wine in the back corner of dark cellar when he comes down here. Half-blended in the dark with her clothes like she's cut herself out of her own shadow. Her hip lent against it, balancing a cup left here in one hand to sip from the keg. One foot kicked up to balance on her toes, waiting. The hood over her face to obscure her, mottling her to shadows.

Holding very still, there, in a way that is against her usual motions, that even when she hears him shifting and talking to himself from the front of the room, and she whistles. Quick, a birds trill, to call him deeper and out of the light, she does not move much. God knows how long she's been there, as the time ticked over a little after midnight. Enough time to have thought this plan through over and over again to a point of ridiculousness.

Just that the longer she stayed here, Gwen's words in the back of her mind, the more it became true.

But when he steps into view, she pushes the hood back, revealing nothing untoward, but simply her. "Hello, Rutyer. Fancy meeting you here." It's dry, fully aware of who else would she be meeting down here?

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He's doesn't approach the source of that noise with his blade drawn - Maker forfend and strike him dead if he ever becomes so unsubtle - but there's a certain tension in the set of his shoulders. That tension melts away when she speaks, replaced with a rather long-suffering look. (Which is rather rich, all things considered; he's certainly no right to judge anyone for their excessive dramatics.)

"My dear Lakshmi Bai," he replies, and turns his back on her to stoop for a promising-looking bottle. The trouble with this place is that the good stuff is long since consumed; most of what remains is swill. Like hunting for summer berries late in the season, you have to look in unlikely places to see the good stuff that others have overlooked. "Having trouble making a selection?"

"I am in fact, Rutyer." She doesn't bother yanking her hood up, as he knew too well who she was. Just leaves her smile exposed just there. Taking another sip as he potters about like there was nothing particularly strange about this meeting.

"So troubled in fact, I thought to ask the man that knows these bottles best of all."

"Well, you've made the right choice, then," he says. Another moment of rummaging around; then he asks, "What's your taste, good lady? Do you like your drinks dry, or do you seek a bit of sweetness? I suspect, in spite of the image you portray, that it's the latter."

"On any other night, with you, it would always be sweet." How dry that sense of humour could be when she is being herself and nothing else. The flat piece of gold studded on the side of her nose glimmering when she smiles.

"But I am afraid the choice concerns that image, so dry will serve best this evening."

"Is that so?" He grabs a bottle, then, and pulls the cork - sniffs, and then wrinkles his nose. Hm. He turns and offers it to her, asking -

"Will vinegary do?"

"You must be wretched if you're already at such slim pickings." Don't laugh at his misery, Lakshmi, that is mean.

"... If you've juice and some spices upstairs, I am sure we can save the bottle."

He upends it, then, and lets it all pour out on the stone floor. In public, he would of course start drinking it at once; here, in private, he's less committed to the image of a worthless and desperate drunk.

"I think it is, perhaps, not worth saving."

Her eyebrows lift, head tilting as she watches the rest of the wine splash away. "Well, if that's the mood. I have some other things I wish to know about, that aren't worth saving."

"What an introduction." He arches one eyebrow, and spreads a hand in invitation for her to continue. "Go on."

She scrapes her teeth against the side of her lip a moment, letting her body slip slippery cool into the over bright, over dark of the blackwater, where things went cold,cold,cold inside of herself and lets herself feel out the surroundings for all the things he couldn't see, couldn't feel. Navigating the space too well, too clean as she bops down on bended knees, rolling her weight onto the balls of her feet as she begins digging in a back corner for him for a bottle she could see hidden away in the dust.

"I am looking to prove a point on the laws Provost Thranduil put forward." She touches bottles in turn, counting them, briefly looking over the labels. "And I need to find a man to make that point exactly. Something I intend to make by the tip of my blade so it cannot be mistaken."

A brow arches, somewhere between skeptical and intrigued. "Is that so," he responds. "In what way, dear lady? Seeing if someone would get pursued for the murder of a Rifter? Seems an unpleasant experiment to conduct."

Aha - there it was. She reaches to the back, digging around a moment, before pulling out the bottle. Using the scarf knotted around her waist, dusting it off. "Oh, I am sure there have been plenty of rifters murdered, we disappear often enough, and no one even bothers to look too hard about it. Even with the new laws." She chuckles, dry and just as sour as what he poured out onto the floor.

"No, I want to show us as a group that are more than demons lumped together and dismissed as such. That we value our honour, our pride and our abilities as well as any other group in Thedas. We will be held accounted too." A hum, a more selfishly, since there was never hiding much from Byerly at the best of times. "That - and I intend to cast my die into this place, once and for all."

But to it all, she holds the bottle of wine up to him. A slow breath: "Both as an enemy, and as a friend."

The eyebrow rises a little further yet. He takes the bottle from her and works the cork, lifting it to his nose to sniff. Satisfactory, he decides. A tilt of his head, and he drinks deeply of it; then he passes the bottle to Lakshmi.

He doesn't speak; he simply waits for her to continue.

She puts it to her lip, taking a deep mouthful. Ready her words before she says them, giving them both a moment to take what her intended plan was. Swallows one mouthful, then another, and another - takes a breath with a gasp. Bracing the back of her hand against her mouth when she's done. It could be worse, she supposed.

"I intend to duel a conservative Lord for my honour as a Rifter, beat him, and establish myself after that as a Knight in all but title thereafter."

Good heavens.

He gestures for the bottle back again. Only once he's done drinking does he say, "And do you have the unfortunate victim of your wrath picked out?"

"No - not yet."

She passes it back. Coughing briefly as she shakes her head to clear her head a moment. "That is where you come in. You know that filth far better than I do, most especially who can spare the humiliation without damaging the Inquisition."

He frowns, uncertain if she's suggesting - "If you're thinking that you could duel me...I am devoid of honor, you know. I'd cheerfully playact with you, but defeating me would bring you no honor of your own."

"No, I was not thinking of you. For one thing - " she looks him up and down, bemused, fond, and as always a little bit teasing. "It wouldn't be a fair fight to the public mind. And we bicker in public far too often, it'll look too much like an old grudge, rather than a fight over honour."

Ah. Light begins to dawn. A bit slowly, perhaps, but in his defense, this is a bizarre idea. Her - a Rifter who seems half-mad at the best of times - engaging in a contest of honor with someone here of gentle birth? And in earnest, not as a joke or a mockery?

"And so you want me to pick out the unlucky victim." He frowns, stroking his mustache. "Well - as charming as it would be to see you spank an Orlesian, they're a bit too rigid with their rules of engagement to allow someone like yourself to even take up a sword against them. And the Free Marchers are likely too disparate. You'll want to fight a Fereldan, I think."

Quite, utterly mad, but they should never quite how mad she is. What she truly wants. Not until she's well and truly started on them. By then - well it will much too late.

"I thought the French- Orlesian's wouldn't have a bar of it, more's the pity." She sighs, she'd maybe hoped so badly of that one. "Not even if I insulted them badly enough into it?" How mournful and utterly put out she sounds.

No, no, he knows it better. She shakes her head, dismissing it then. As he said. "But at your recommendation, then."

"If you insulted them badly enough," he responds dryly, "they would have their bodyguards beat you and deposit you outside. And likely face no consequences for it. Quite the opposite, I think, of the message you want to send." And, with a lift of his eyebrow - "Actually, that is true generally. There is a point at which the insults you deliver will not be considered slights against honor, but low-class disruption. You will have to stay disciplined if you want this to be effective, my dear. So I would caution you not to get too excited."

He lets out a breath - and then an idea sparks in the back of his head. "I do have a potential candidate, though."

Her distaste is palatable, as her mouth curls sourly with. Lord spare her, but she loathes them. It shows on her face, for once, plain and true. Flickering in a rage of it all, tenous as a light on a blade. But she lets it slide over - covering it as quickly with the bite of mirth. "Give me some credit, Rutyer, it might have been years ago, but I was a Queen."

Still, her hand lifts, holding to the point he makes. He's right, even if it goes against some point in her being to ever accept that from anyone. "But I take your meaning. It will need to be a dance if I want to look respectable and more the slighted party upholding my self-respect, not just a fish-wife hurling insults at my social betters."

Well - that was fast. "Already? Who?"

"And therein lies the problem," he says, even as he presses his hands together and touches his fingers to his lips in a gesture of mock-veneration. "When a queen walks into a room, she must be heeded. When a demonspawn walks into a room..."

But she's gotten the point, it seems; no use stressing it. Instead, he shrugs, a rolling gesture of release, before answering, "A cousin of the current Bann of Dragonmount. A terribly disagreeable fellow named Richars. Dreadful sort."

It's hard not to feel that same woman she was years ago, as she faces down the task. His mock veneration so dearly nails it home. How petty and small the English were, how they refused to give her any credit as Queen or Warrior, in any regard. Demon was no different to how they deliberately would not even call her more than a deranged widower.

Easy, easy, easy. Later. This is the plan. This is how it must be. She would show them then, as now, what she was made of. Until the earth was carved in it.

"Richars. How disagreeable is he, in truth?" She doesn't suppose Byerly would offer him up lightly.

Perhaps this is dreadfully petty. In a way, it's his boyhood self making this offer - the child who cried and sweated over the injuries Richars did him, swearing internally, I'll make him pay, I'll make him pay. But the offer does suit Lakshmi quite nicely, in truth - Richars has status enough that provoking him into a duel would legitimize her, and temper enough that he can be provoked. And no one would be angry to see his dear cousin get spanked. Many people would, in truth, celebrate. So it's a good idea, as well as a self-serving one.

"Horribly so," By responds with a wry smile. "Do you wish a full accounting of his offenses? Or will you trust my word?"

"Your word is enough for me," how great that is, how she says it like nothing as she tucks her hands back into herself, as she crosses them loosely over herself.

Unfortunately, "but I will need to tell our Commanders why he especially is the person to do this too." Oh, she lamented greatly how it had all came to be, but she greatly missed not having anyone question her about things like this.

There's just a small flicker in his face - half incredulity, half discomfort - in response to your word is enough for me. It's subtle, a twitch about the eyes and lips, but there. It passes quickly in favor of a cheerily casual shrug.

"I suppose so," he answers. "Well. The man is an arch-conservative in most matters, and as such would be most opposed to the incursion of the Inquisition, when we're seeking support there. Indeed, he's already indicated strong opposition to us. So destroying him would likely be to our advantage when we're seeking support. Beyond that...Let us say that his personal failings are numerous."

He doesn't have to go further, really, she knows the sort. She knows the sort from her own court when they protested her recruiting bandits into her army, she knew them in the British when they smirked over a woman ruling and being a warrior. Every land seemed to have one of their kind.

Which leaves her with one, very particular question.

"... How bad?"

How bad. He smiles thinly, then takes a drink from the bottle. He has, he fancies, earned it.

"An anecdote from his early career," he says once he's swallowed the wine. "When I was only a child, he attempted to rape my cousin, who was at the time only thirteen years old. She fought him off, warrior that she was even then. Richars' response was to drown her puppy. And then to convince everyone around him that she'd made up the story in a fit of hysteria after she'd killed the puppy herself."

He feels the old pulse of anger even now, recounting the story. He remembers his impotent fury, watching the adults start to nod as Richars spoke. He remember wanting to scream and rage and tell them they were all idiots and dupes. He remembers Donna's tears. And he remembers telling her, I believe you, and the look on her face - a look he supposes must have been mirrored on his own, those years later, when she said to him, I believe you.

Donna was amongst the best of the Rutyers. For her sake, and perhaps for his own, he would see this Rifter humiliate Richars.

He has, and the second he's finished, finished talking, finished, drinking she takes it off him to down another mouthful her self. Because it's that or festering in the anger that boils over in her blood, hot and deep. Wretch. Ugly and mean.

Dropping the bottle away.

"I'll make sure he cannot hold his head high, ever again. That they know him for the coward he is."

"Coward isn't quite the right word," he answers, his manner cool and detached. "He would not be suited to this if he were a coward, after all. Cowards dodge duels; they don't embrace them. Indeed, Richars fancies himself quite the man of action. Don't assume that just because he aims to inflict pain on those smaller and weaker than him, that he won't also go after those that far outclass him."

It is a source of constant frustration for Byerly, honestly. While he was hiding during the Siege of Denerim, avoiding tangling with any darkspawn, Richars was out there, fighting like a hero. Dreadfully obnoxious, to have the villain also be the hero.

"He is formidable with a sword. Be warned."

It is clear, that she disagrees on it whole-heartedly. Anyone who took advantage of their position over another was always a coward to her. Snivelling, pathetic as they come. Her teeth grit, hard, against her jaw. She loathes them, to some fibre of her being, she loathes them. Men like that, they may as well be vampires or lycans. Monsters deceiving those around them with false skins.

But the only thing that matters, whatever their definitions were when she nods her head in slow acknowledgement, was the only thing that ever mattered:

"I'm better."

He responds in a murmur, "Such arrogance."

Then a sigh, and a shrug. "Well, he's gotten fat in the past decade or so. That'll slow him down. And I suppose your heathen swordplay will be a surprise to him."

"Would you have me any other way?" It ticks a smile at the corner of her mouth. Oh, she knows, this probably wouldn't work if she wasn't. About to laugh something -

"My heathen swordplay," she chokes on the words. "How is it heathen? I am not even using my urumi."

"Dear lady," he says, pressing a hand to his chest, mock-scandalized, "I'll beg you not to speak of your urumi in polite company. I'm an innocent young maid; you'll make me blush."

"I will give you a reason to blush." She bites back, barely keeping her laughter to herself. "But I take it he uses those slow long swords?"

"Not in duels." A shrug. "But - in battle, yes."

A hum. Well, pistols were out of the question. "What does he use?"

"A longsword. He detests all things Orlesian, so his fighting style is altogether unlike that of the chevaliers you might induce to train with you - It's quite Fereldan." A dry quirk of his eyebrow. "The Rutyers are, if nothing else, loyal."

"As it happens, so do I." A hum, whether that means the swords she prefers, or disliking Orlais.

Probably both. "You are, aren't you? You are fine with this? It will serve the rest of your family well to knock him down?" She trusted Byerly, in ways she didn't quite do others, a brutal honesty given backwards and forwards. That he knew what he was doing when he gave her a name, he had considered it carefully.

But she didn't want to see him hurt when the blood was up.

"Not in the least," he says, cheerily. He firmly prevents his mind from going to what their reactions will be, focusing instead in on the pleasure he'll derive from all this. Which will be considerable.

"They'll be utterly bereft over it. A disgrace to our noble warrior clan. Which is precisely why I will take enormous pleasure from the incident. I shall like to see my noble clan humiliated."

He smiles at her beatifically.

That makes her surprised. It shows, strike her down, but for once Byerly surprises her. How they had fought, over Fereldon, where he felt she might even inadvertently hurt his homeland through simple ignorance, how vehement he'd been about it. As passionate as she was over her own. Granted, he spoke foul of his mother. But that happened between parents and children, especially amongst nobles. She'd avoided it, but she would be blind to not have known had things were between Gangadhar and his brothers and mother and step-mother.

But... this?

"You despise your family, so much?"

He, in turn, is surprised by her surprise. Perhaps he's been too long amongst the bohemian crowd, where hating your relations is very much in vogue, but it seems so odd that she doesn't expect this. His forehead wrinkles just a bit as he responds -

"Well, in my defense, they despised me first." A pause, and then a tilt of his head - "Or at the very least, despised me simultaneously. I know this is going to be somewhat shocking to hear, but there are actually people out there who wouldn't be well pleased to have a louche, rakish libertine as part of their family."

It confuses her utterly, obviously so. She had loved her family, it was true. They had loved her in turn. But then, when everything was taken off people, love was what they had left. She had been her father's pride and joy, her husband's strength.

"I regret to inform you, as much as you might wish it so, no child is born that way, and it would take parents more monstrous than I can imagine looking at their child, their own, that way."

Because it is not as a sister or daughter, she thinks as in that moment. She thinks of her own little boy. Small, so slight in her hands, the first time he held onto her fingers. The agony she went through, to have him, how worth it was, how she saw a whole sunrise and with it, hope, in his eyes when they first opened.

"Then expand your imagination, my dear Lakshmi Bai, because it is clearly too limited." His smile is casual and confident and droll - a smile that has been much practiced. "Don't get me wrong, of course - their hatred grew when they got to know me better. But it started from the very first breath I drew."

A roll of his shoulders, an indifferent shrug. He doesn't feel anything about this. He hasn't felt anything about this for years. "We're all mad, we Rutyers. Every birth in our family is simply the continuation of the stain of our existence. Why wouldn't they detest their spawn?"

But it remains, and always would be - something she would never accept. Perhaps at odds with how she loathes lycans and thought so very little of them, but by contrast, there would be no forgiveness for those that could not love their children.

"No, yours is. If you cannot imagine a life, within your own family, where love is what it should be: boundless. Love is a prayer that God hears in the body of mankind, every act of it worship. It is strong enough to stop the sun rising and the moon setting, and in a child, to the eyes of their mother, it is love itself given physical form. No less than that." She might like not much of their faith, but that - that love was the same. And if he cannot see it in himself, I will do it for him.

Edited 2019-05-27 04:41 (UTC)

His smile turns harder and harder with every word. When he speaks, his voice is dry and clipped. "And yet the sun rises, dear lady, and the moon sets. Your words are quite pretty, but pretty words cannot change the fact of what is. And what is, is this: sometimes people hate other people, even when those people happen to have been squirted out of their cocks or squeezed out of their cunts once upon a time."

He shakes his head. "If I may be plain, I am genuinely shocked to hear a queen underestimate the human capacity for hatred. That is what is strong enough to stop the sun in its tracks. Not love, but hatred. Love cannot be forced, love is rare, but hatred can grow anywhere. It is as vibrant and vital as wildflowers, pushing out from the cracks in cliff-sides, springing up in dry deserts. Hatred can find its soil in any heart."

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006 | CLOSED

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