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]

[ Oh, no, no, no.

No. She wets her lips, straightens her back, and stiffens her spine. As sure as a lesson she'd forced with her son when he had squalled over being grown and being able to do what he wanted. There was no place for that sort of selfishness, not in her mind. ]

Very well.

[ Detangled from her, she pushes up with a hand and dismounts. Just as suddenly as she had mounted in the first place. The horse only paused in the change of weight mildly. She lets the mare get a few steps in front of her, waits - ]

Let us see how you manage with the stupid animal who you are too grown to respect.

[ - and then smacks a hand flat to her flank. It's not hard. Not even enough to send her off in a canter as before. But it is a trot, a jarring, bouncing trot. She'd picked the mare for her good nature purposefully. Knows that when Kitty pulled too hard even slightly, the animal would stop without much fuss. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty lets out a squeak of alarm. To be fair, she actually does manage quite well: she's trained on the gables of London, balanced on slipping roof-shingles, learned to climb walls straight up, fought werewolves one-handed while climbing with the other. Her balance and dexterity is excellent. So, too, is her level head: in times of stress and fear, she keeps a clear mind. But she certainly doesn't look dignified before she manages to get the horse to a stop.

And so she's half angry and half embarrassed. And that drives her to dismount - swinging her way nimbly off the horse, jumping to the ground, and advancing on Lakshmi where she stands. Her voice is high and furious as she says - ]

I've had about enough of this. I don't know who you think you are, that you've got the right to treat me like some idiot child, but you're very wrong about that. I've fought in wars just like you, and I've risked death just like you, and all of it so that I wouldn't have strangers acting like they can control me and acting like I'm lower than an animal just 'cause I'm a commoner. I'm not going to put up with it now.

[shri]

[ She'll make an excellent rider one day, of that Lakshmi is absolutely sure. That control took a lifetime to perfect, and Kitty was so well on her way. Able to deal with the sudden change in the animal.

But it was a rather secondary concern, watching her dismount, come storming back. Feet squaring on the ground, shoulders rolling back. Hot as Kitty's temper is, and as hot as hers was in return. She's had at least the years to learn to angle hers into harsh lines and direct words with nothing else between them. ]

In my homeland, animals are next to God. To disrespect them is to disrespect those closest to you. Most do not even eat meat they are so precious to us. As for you, I do not care if you were the Akbar, the Queen of England or my husband himself. I would throw them off the saddle if I thought they did not care for their animals as they should be. The only thing that matters is respect. For the horse, for yourself, and those that would give their lives for you.

[ Mild as anything, sharp as rain. ] Putting another down does not raise you any higher. If you cannot conceive of that, then you are no different to a squalling coward of a Lordling wanting his toys.

[ And she has no more to say after that, firmly, she walks past Kitty, and mercifully - the horse just waited, stopped after the ride, patiently looking for it's master. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty feels dizzy with rage. She snaps after her, voice a snarl, her accent inflected with the commoners' mode of speech that her mum and her teachers had tried to beat out of her - ]

There's no one that'd give their lives for me. Sorry we're not all your-bloody-majesty who can pretend to be humble. Some of us actually are humble, and the moment we start kissing the feet of animals is the moment it's all over for us. We haven't got fine silks and pretty manners to put back on afterwards. We're stuck in he mud.

[shri]

[ She reaches the horse as Kitty finishes. Snagging the reigns, in a hand that grips so hard it turns white. ]

Enough.

[ Just the flat word, empty of anything else, holding still and still and still, easing the deep breath that never quite drew in all the way anymore. Old bullets and old bones kept in a young face. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty, though, just laughs, her voice high and contemptuous. ]

Enough? Enough? Sorry about this, ever so sorry, but you aren't my queen. You can't tell me what to do. You know that doing away with monarchies means that you don't get to order other people around like they're your servants, right?

[shri]

[ And the contempt is met with something far, far, far uglier. That cold, and that flat, and that angry. They kind of woman that burned London at its heart. All the woman that is kept for moments away from this, unforgiving on battlefields, where it surely knows its place. It's not shouting and snarling, it's the same, deep, perfectly toned voice. Neither rising nor falling. Because it is too much, it is too much to listen to an English Child tell her after so much, about losing all. ]

Yes. Enough. You will take these reigns and you will get on this horse and you will leave.

[ In through her nose, out in a hard line. A simple equation. ] Or would you like me to remember what the commoners from your homeland did in the streets of my home. I will remember being Queen, and I will remember the screams as English voices that talk like you do now that did not care whether they killed rich or poor and burned everything - everything - I love to the ground. I can be that if that is what you wish. Because it seems whatever respect between us hinges upon who we were before we came here. So I can, of course, oblige.

[ And she lifts the reigns up, directly up to her. ] Or would you like to say enough, and take the reigns, and leave?

[rathercommon]

[ With hot, ferocious anger, she leans forward, and snaps in return - ]

Yes, ever so sorry for the way my people were victimized and forced to go to war. So sorry for the way they were used and exploited.

[ And then she leans back, and says with a queenly hauteur of her own - ]

I'll walk.