FADE RIFT [INBOX]

[shri]

ＬＡＤＹ ＬＡＫＳＨＭＩ
( Lady Lakshmi, Bai Saheba, Rani Lakshmibai )

ＶＯＩＣＥ | ＡＣＴＩＯＮ | ＮＯＴＥＳ

Unavaliable To All:

• 30mins around dawn
  
  Only to Voice:
  
• Hour training morning and evening
  
• Any time she's gone riding.
  
• When she's in the field.
  
  Only to Book:
  
• When she's otherwise in a meeting, leave a message.
  
• Very late at night or early in the morning.
  
  Other:
  
• She usually takes her morning meals in the mess hall with everyone else.
  
• Her days are usually spent in Kirkwall seeing to either her personal business or Inquisition tasks.
  
• She has a bath twice a day, every day.
  

Comments

[shri]

It will.

[ Firm. ]

And it spreads. From America, to France.

[rathercommon]

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

[shri]

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.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty, though, shakes her head. ]

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

[shri]

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

[ Eyebrow raise at you Kitty. ]

Particularly, you asked about France.

[rathercommon]

[ Oh. A little embarrassed: ]

But then you started talking about horses.

[shri]

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. ]

[rathercommon]

[ 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?

[shri]

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?

[rathercommon]

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

[shri]

[ 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.

[rathercommon]

[ Heavily: ]

So it was just more of the same.

[shri]

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.

[rathercommon]

[ Shaking her head, she disagrees - ]

Violence isn't ever inevitable.

[shri]

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.

[rathercommon]

[ A hesitation, then a shrug. ]

Well, honestly - better that the people rule. Even if they have to shed blood to get there, that's better than continued oppression.

[shri]

[ She kicks the horse then, and gently, passes the reigns back for Kitty to take. Settling her arms looser. Her point is made. ]

It is. However it comes about, they deserve to have their liberty. [ A click of her tongue, making sure the horse was paying attention after being brought still. ] But to that, I want you to learn how to ride. [ Because Kitty would so gladly go along with that, it seemed, after everything she just watched. But at least she orders less and basis it more in pragmatism. ] It is the only mode of transport there is to have here. You will need to know it if you mean to survive. I can help you pick out light armour as well, and I think a crossbow you ought to train with.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty hesitates a moment, then contradicts that last part. ]

Throwing discs. And throwing knives. That's what I've learned to use.

[shri]

A chakram? [ Then a firm nod, behind her head but it's in her tone - she's thoroughly impressed with the thought. ] Throwing knives. Very well. I still insist on the crossbow. It'll puncture full plate quite easily when it comes to it.

[rathercommon]

I don't expect to - you know - go into battle or anything.

[shri]

Does anyone? [ There's an unhappy little grunt. ] Besides, brutes like to dress big and step into all sorts of places where they are least expected. Best to be prepared.

[rathercommon]

I guess it would be handy.

[ A little shrug. ]

No fun going up against werewolves with just my knives. Suppose that someone in full armour wouldn't be much better.

[shri]

[ She goes tense, where she's braced. The stiff hard line of muscles that snap like she could feel the damn thing. Wet, hot ugly breath. The spittle and blood on their teeth. Deep breath, calmer, there were no blackcoats, nor even red ones, here, and no Half-Breeds that she had been told of.

Paranoia when she talked half through memories, all the same, did not die easy. How palatable silence could be, how little even Galahad was attuned to such a thing.

She forces herself to relax again before she speaks, as easy as the water beating against the Gallow's edge. Rushing and retreating to rush again. ]

No, no there is no fun in it, and men in armour are just as much the trouble. It is very handy when it seems magic has taken the place of gunpowder, here.

[rathercommon]

Mm. We haven't got guns where I'm from, either. Not in England, at least.

[shri]

[ RECORD SCRATCH. ]

What?