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]

[ She falls silent, then - and has quite simply, nothing to say to, because she can only comprehend so much at once. Maybe that was the payment of living so long. Hard to keep track of things so different. Maybe this was what it was like for Sir Bors, 900 hundred years long into a world of gunpowder and artillery and everything he knew, washed away. What of her then?

Because rightfully, she does not even know why it bothers her.

So she says nothing, because what was there to even say? And instead opts for the simplest option, the option she would always take when faced with things that seemed impossible to even come to terms with as easily as all that and gets them moving again. ]

[rathercommon]

Erm -

[ Kitty cranes around to look at her, though. Always poking her nose where it doesn't belong, never knowing how to leave well enough alone, she asks - ]

Are you all right?

[shri]

[ She doesn't confirm or deny to that. A lifetime of not talking about what she thought or felt in any depth come in handy to a keeping a straight face. Or at least, no more than a slight frown.

Rather an easier truth. ] It hardly matters. I am meant to be teaching you, that is all that is important, now.

[rathercommon]

You're not meant to do anything. And this isn't that important.

[shri]

Kitty.

[ Barked, removed. ] Enough.

[rathercommon]

[ Uncowed: ]

Enough what?

[shri]

Some matters are private and need not be discussed. So I tell you, enough. I have no want to discuss it.

[ Like her mounting dread, for one thing. ]

Besides, if you can't respect a horse enough to apologise to it, why should I tell you anything about what I am feeling otherwise?

[ SHE HASN'T FORGOTTEN KITTY. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Oh, not that again. ]

I mean it. You're not meant for anything.

[shri]

[ 'This girl-child will be a Queen, she will bring fame to her husband, his family, and her people. You will be Lakshmi to your people.'

If only it was that easy, easy as washing her hands from it. 'You gave me those things, I did not want them, this is not fair.' ]

You think I do not know that? [ She shakes her head. ] For God's sake, child, give me the benefit of my life.

[rathercommon]

[ With a bit of frustration: ]

Stop calling me child.

[shri]

[ She huffs a laugh. ]

Because you are so grown, are you?

[rathercommon]

[ Stubbornly: ]

I am, actually, yeah.

[shri]

[ rumbles, bemused. ] What is your age? I rather assumed you weren't married yet.

[rathercommon]

Seventeen. [ Well. ] Nearly. What's marriage got to do with anything?

[shri]

That's how most I know class adulthood. I was well onto having my first child at your age.

[a soft bemusement. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Ugh. How horrifying. ]

Well, I think that's ridiculous, 'cause there are plenty of married people with kids who are barely better than children. And magicians never get married, and it's not like they're all innocent babes. I'd say that if I was old enough to live on my own, and work for a living, and if I was old enough to be sent to the gallows, I'm old enough to be an adult.

[shri]

Times have certainly have changed then. By... 2003. [ She still sounds deeply, deeply unsure of that number. She shakes her head. ] It isn't the child, or the marriage, that makes the adult. It's the lesson of responsibility. You said about things that people aren't meant to do things. Being married, having a child, is how I know that to be true. When you have a child, and should you be worthy of them, you quickly realise that. Everything before that moment becomes utterly immaterial. They are your whole world, they are everything you see. Raising them, their dependency on you - becomes all that matters. In some way, whatever you might have meant to be that moment is now secondary to them.

[ She shakes her head, sighing deeply. ] Or at least it should, and it is how I was taught, though perhaps not in that strict order. My marriage was hardly a usual one to know how that passes for all others exactly the same.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty frowns disapprovingly at all those sentiments. ]

Well, I've heard plenty of that sort of sentiment before. Oh, Kitty, you'll calm down once you have a job and a household of your own. You'll give up all these silly notions once you understand real responsibility. As though I haven't been paying my own bills for the past two years. So, what, is that adulthood, then? Cutting out a piece of yourself? Crushing down your real dreams?

[shri]

[ She has no good answer to that when it comes. Only things that hurt, only memories that ache with regret of the things she had to give up. Of sons, of a daughter. Of fortress and the desert soaked in blood. Oh what was all this fighting for? Mandu spilling blood and apologies, Arnand hanging onto her leg, wailing his fear. The loudness of canons that beat against stone until the ground shook like Shiva himself had come down from the mountain. How her fingers ached from holding onto her swords. How her lungs had filled with dust. How many bodies had she not been able to tend too like a daughter, mother, queen, should?

Instead, she falls silent. Too old for this, too caught up in the facade to be able to speak freely as she wants. So she takes the easier option for the first moment. Not half so stubborn, just thoughtful, caught up in forcing her breath and hands steady where they grip. ] Turn to the left. Gentle. A little tug ought to do it, but make sure you hold steady with your knees -

[ Knows now that silence won't be a decent refuge, not as if Kitty had a respect for it. Not half so different to raising Devi, she supposed, young and furious and in utter refusal to ever step back. ] I do not know how that might go. My life was decided very young. I was married at thirteen. Queen in the same moment. Even in my personal happiness, learning swords, riding horses, having my own children, it was always through the lens of what was best for the thousands of lives that depended on my choices. Perhaps that makes me the least able to answer that question. But I know I have spent a great many moments of my life wondering on them, the hopes I had, that it would not have been better if I had thrown myself to flames when my husband died, rather than decide upon the course I have ended upon. For that single action caused so much suffering that I had only wanted to end. [ But for all she talks, she doesn't let it choke her, doesn't let them come up anything but steady, measured, even. Neither raising her voice in anger or letting it wallow. A lesson like how to steer the horse. ] Dreams cost your body, mind and soul wholly. But worse - is knowing what they will cost those around you. [ She wets her lips. Old, old, could Kitty hear her bones creak? Were they straining under the weight of the knowledge that it might be better a martyr than living this life? Doubt came with time, she knew, Sir Bors had warned her. If she was to be better than the Knights who had been corrupted in their purpose, it must be to always listen to the doubt. ]

I hope when you must make those choices, that they don't come with such blood.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty's quiet a long moment. Finally, rather than responding directly, she asks: ]

What was the course you ended on?

[shri]

[ Tired, inevitable. ] War.

[rathercommon]

Against what?

[shri]

The United India Corporation, the British Empire, Queen Victoria herself and every lycan and vampire that came to feast on my people like cattle, while their masters grew fat off the blood of our suffering.

[ The damn world she means, all of it. She'd tear it all to pieces. But what was the British Empire to most people here? Mattered as much as Jhansi ki Rani did. ]

[rathercommon]

[ The British Empire. It occurs to Kitty, suddenly, that she's quite far from everything else and everyone else. She's not unarmed, no, but up here on the horse, with the lady so close behind her, her knives aren't readily accessible. Which didn't seem like a problem until that phrase came from her mouth - the British Empire - because, guess what, in this whole world there's a single representative of the British Empire, and Kathleen Jones is it. And if Lakshmi's feeling a little frustrated, like she'd like a little bit of vengeance in miniature -

Kitty responds quickly. ]

I haven't got any love for the British government, either, believe me.

[ Please believe me. ]

Nor for vampires or werewolves.

[shri]

[and unbeknownst to all Kitty's worry Lakshmi just huffs a bit of laughter and carries on. ]

I did not think so. If I thought you were a half-breed, you'd already be dead. As for the rest - [ a shrug. ] What good is blaming the child for the parents' action? I would never hold you accountable for your rulers. As you say, we know quite different times, and I know you only a little, true enough, but I know my enemy for who they are. You are not it.