shri | FADE RIFT [INBOX]

[ Probably, there is a servant somewhere, laughing. But for the moment - ]

It could speak the language of the Gods, for all it matters. [ It's gritted, leaning back that little to look at her directly. ] Respect to those that work hard for you, whether you think it is ridiculous or not, must always be given. What would you think, if I, when a servant who went out of their way to fulfil my request, threw it back in their face to say they were stupid just because they were doing what they were asked?

Frankly, they are stupid.

[ Kitty shakes her head, her expression turning fierce. ]

Anyone who lets themselves be forced to serve, anyone who lets themselves get ground under someone's heel and thanks them for it, loves them for it, is a complete blithering idiot.

For the love of - [ Right, they weren't getting out of here fast enough for the rest of that conversation. ] A canter, you say? Well, if you insist.

[ It's pitched, a little higher and louder than what they had just said. Probably too paranoid by far, but it had never been wrong to be too careful. She snags her arm around her waist. Locking it hard, to keep the reigns balled in her fist. The goal was at least a straight line. Out of the main keep, down and around the many winding paths. Until there were marginally fewer people around before she slows the horse, down from the canter, to a walk. Then onwards a little further until she's quite sure they're out of sight, and can be excused as having done nothing more than having had an impromptu lesson. Relenting a little. A little out of breath when it's over but even so - ]

Watch your tongue.

[ Kitty's temper is flaring - she goes tense at the grip, and doesn't fight it only because she's still scared of the horse and what it can do. Not scared of Lakshmi, though: soon as they stop, and Lakshmi scolds her, she cranes around to look the woman in the face. Her eyes flash, and her voice is a low snarl, as she says - ]

I'll watch what I want to watch, thank you. Just 'cause you're used to wearing silks and finery doesn't mean you can give me orders.

[ She flushes immediately afterwards, embarrassed and righteous by equal measure. She doesn't want to snap at Lakshmi, she likes Lakshmi, but that anger of hers is always there, and sometimes she can't rein it in. ]

Shall I beg then? I will hit my knees if that's what you want in all my gold, with my son's baby blanket in my hands, if that will make you listen. For that's the price I paid for my rebellion. I lost a son, my kingdom and my father, and worse to come - it was my people who would be butchered without end for the day I dared raised my voice and armies against ones not so different.

[ It's snapped back. Her own foul temper that got the better of her just the same - but age enough to let her swallow down a little, it hurts, maybe, if she was in the mind to let herself be hurt by much of anything ( always ) how fiercely she used to rage, was not so different to Kitty now. Declaring to her father all that she might have, declaring to the priest that she would never be parted from her husband. Swallowing all her pain to think that she at least, could never be parted from her Jhansi.

How Devi, young and all of her heart, would snap about how her Queen-Mother could be so fussy, so worrisome, so determined to protect her. ]

Do not let them hear you say those things.

[ Rebellion registers, but Kitty is still to taken with her own fury and hurt and history to tend to another person's. For the moment, at least. ]

If they're the sorts of people who'll kill me just for saying that, then they ought to go ahead and do it, 'cause then they don't deserve my help.

[ Better that she doesn't. She has no want for pity, only to have been listened too. ] It's not the Inquisition I am worried about. They have more to worry about their petty nobles, I am told this Corypheus is a matter above such concerns.

[ She sighs heavy, carrying on. ]

But it is why I brought you out to ride. So I need you to listen to me very carefully, do you understand?

[ Rebellion still bubbling: ]

Depends on what you've got to say.

You are British, aren't you?

[ Not much of a question, she knows it from what the girl has said, her accent. ] And you know about the new world? The American colonies and their war for independence?

[ A small shrug. ]

I know there are worlds where the colonies won their independence. Never happened where I'm from.

It will.

[ Firm. ]

And it spreads. From America, to France.

And how does it spread? How do they win that independence of theirs?

How else do you think? Stories, from soldier to soldier. Then from tavern where they drank to the mouths of common people, and as far as that could carry them. But knowing what they have done to me, I don't doubt they tried to keep that knowledge to themselves. They hardly could.

[ It shouldn't be laughed at - but there is a humour, she'd found, after all that blood. That stings ugly perhaps in her mouth. Dark and mean. ]

As for the particulars. America had aid, for they turned into an all-out war. Armies of the Republic of the United States of America - or as they called themselves. I do not quite remember it now. But cavalry charges and artillery fire. France hated Britain after all and was all too glad to deprive the other Empire of her grandest colony. [ How the words sneer, how the anger bubbles, kept stiff as her hands on the reign. Her back is straight, her chin lifted, and she keeps herself composed to the point. But the creak might as well be heard for how it is a matter of must, she must keep herself contained. ] So America won. Once they had won, and not only won but did not even bother to put a King in place to replace them? It spread after that.

Edited 2018-07-15 12:30 (UTC)

[ Kitty, though, shakes her head. ]

But - sorry - what about it? Why are you telling me this?

You asked me. Before I changed the topic, do you not recall?

[ Eyebrow raise at you Kitty. ]

Particularly, you asked about France.

[ Oh. A little embarrassed: ]

But then you started talking about horses.

Yes. Because it occurred to me what we were talking about and who we are near. I was trying to get us to a place where we could talk, at length, and no one could overhear us.

[ She sighs, losing her ire that she kept so easily like a shield. ]

[ She lifts her chin, saying - ]

Well - that's not the sort of revolution that's worth anything, I think. If it's just perpetuating the same cycles of violence and hatred, does it matter who's in charge?

I'm of a similar mind. But believe me, if that were the worst of what might come, I would hardly be concerned for either of our lives.

[ She frowns a little, nervous almost, concerned, as she said, most especially. ]

Have you truly not heard what happened in France?

Either it never happened or they kept it secret from us. Can't be sure which one it is.

[ The latter is her guess, but that was hardly fair - it sounded as if America had not achieved separation yet, and that seemed a stepping stone for some, it turned out. ]

It wasn't an organised, armed uprising. Not exactly. Just thousands of ordinary men and women, as I was told it. The difference being - America had no access to their King or Queen, and even when they were at their bloodiest... it was done in fields, battles with artillery and soldiers.

France was... the pain of starvation, given form. I did not see it, but I have seen things like it, and have been unable to stop it. Something happens to people when they are pushed too far. They do not care any more, they do not care if they believed in something better. Better does not soothe the pain in their hearts, it does not give their loved ones back to them. They do not care who they killed, whether it was children or their parents. Mobs will butcher like they expect the blood to give them some relief, but it never does. They forced the King and Queen to look at the heads of their loved ones. Other nobles were ripped out of their houses, stripped in the streets, beaten. They brought out a tool, the guillotine, to behead others, including the King and Queen. They dragged out their rulers, and anyone who ever might have benefitted from them, and anyone else that they had felt had wronged them and cut their heads clean off. When that was not enough, they stuck it on pikes and paraded them about. You could have been completely innocent, so I am told, it didn't matter, a perceived wrongness was enough for your head to be separated from your body.

They call it the Terror now. For that was apparently what it was.

[ Heavily: ]

So it was just more of the same.

Just the same. But a mob ruled, instead of a King, and they took all their fear and misery out on those around them, as Kings did before them.

[ She shakes her head. She does not, cannot, condone it. ]

Kitty, I saw their houses. Their streets. The way they behave. This... place... The Orlesian's might be called something different than French, and it may be the Palaces of Halamshiral, instead of Versailles... but it is coming for them. They do not know it yet. They do not yet fathom a world where they do not rule. But it will come. Just as it did for the French.

And I am not naive or foolish enough to believe that anyone who bears this mark on their hand will be spared their anger.

[ Shaking her head, she disagrees - ]

Violence isn't ever inevitable.

Violence might not be but look at this place, these people. Truly look at them. Look at the violence that has already happened.

[ The direction is sharp, down to the statues of the broken slaves, the twisted bodies in chains. That such a place was now turned into a military compound. ] They still keep slaves. The Tevinter uphold mages as oligarchs, while in others are bound up in houses and have their emotions ripped from them under the guise of religion. They at war with a man who wants to consume the world as a new divinity and people willingly signed up to fight for him.

[ She might not be very good at politics, and she could admit that comfortably. She had not seen the spies in her midst. Nor predicting the weaknesses in others. She had paid for it too dearly to pretend she was a great hand at it. ] You and I might not want violence, for God knows I never did, but I don't think that matters very much.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject