STATION 72 ; mental link

[shri]

KALI She Who is the Great Destroyer ; She Who wears a Garland of Skulls	LAKSHMI She Who Believes in Truth ; She Who is the Mother
DRAUPADI She who was Born of Fire Sacrafice;	DURGA She Who is perpetually endeavouring to protect the weak and the poor and remove their misery.

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

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[wille]

[ As she says, not in looking at each other but in looking out.

Misato grasps these fragments greedily, eyes and ears wide open, but she maintains distance still. She holds to the edges of these photographs, listens to the voices from the room next door, reminds herself that it isn't her skin but Lakshmi's and those hands belong to another man's, so take care. These boundaries are important. Her self would be too porous otherwise.

Even so, she returns the favor. It is summer, the sky velvet black, the relentless clack clack clack of the fan doing nothing for the heat or the humidity, but it punctuates her whispered words against his neck, her rage against their enemies and her hopes for the future turning into vapor to form the slick layer of sweat on his and her skins. And he doesn't stop her, and he listens, and he says, You have everything you need. Go forward, don't hesitate. He is the one to witness her first flight, the one to fold away her wings for the next morning. It should've been enough. ]

( What was his name? ) [ And on the heels of that. ] ( What happened to him? )

[shri]

( The Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newelker. )

[ That part - that part is easy. He is a man proud, strong. Too proud perhaps, sometimes, arrogant as a King always wound be. But one that had given her leave to her own strength.

If only that had been enough. ]

( Our son... he did not... ) [ Stiff, harsh, the stick of something in her throat. ] ( A ruler only has a future in our children, and when he did not... it broke his heart. He did not last a year more. )

[wille]

[ She readily fills in the blanks. Survive, that is, he did not survive. A part of her rebels against this, wants to tell Lakshmi that it is not brave and honorable and manly of her husband to have lost hope so easily. There could be other children, right? There would be other sons. Giving up isn't an option and one carries on even with a broken heart. It is the only possible way.

When she swallows back all these words, it is for Lakshmi's sake. ]

( You lost a son and a husband in just one year. )

[ She can't resent her for this. ]

( Were you angry at him for leaving you too? )

[shri]

( Be angry?

Perhaps, for a day - I suppose I was at angry at it all. But being angry over a broken heart is like being angry for the rain falling or the seas rising. It changes nothing and the waters keeping coming.

We are royalty, our people look to us - he knew that too. So we adopted our second son and a few hours later, it was only then he allowed himself to pass. We knew our roles. We only know the end of our duty when we die. So he saw to the end of his. )

[ She shakes her head - and then - realises, in a half step between the memories and herself and this all caught up in her skin - she cannot separate it out of herself. Remember the past or the present or that her own failure - her son, so small in her arms gone in a moment and - with him - everything.

She asked her ladies why they wept, with her, when she sat staring at the crib now a empty basket, in a grief that poured out and out and out. She had stopped being conscious of her tears. Or of anything else in those haze of days laughter. 'He is but one boy, why do you share my grief?' 'He is your son, Maharani, but he is our future. Now we will fall.' ]

( But - I know who my anger belonged too. Three months later, despite everything he had done in those last hours, the vampires and the lycans wearing British Laws and British diplomacy, took it all. My Jhansi was taken from me - and I was forced to watch as they stripped her down like jackals feasting on a corpse.

So, truly, what time did I have to be angry? )