shri | FADE RIFT [INBOX]

She takes breathe - how hard it is, to hear reason at this point. Because Magni is right, but there is a truth there. They won't believe her, and the fear is so palatable and this pattern so familiar, that she aches so deeply with it.

"They won't listen, they never listen," it's croaked, dry, unsure.

Because she isn't very good, at being afraid, even when she is. Isn't good at the stillness, the waiting, the not break apart with her bare hands. Not like Magni was, but with the knowledge that Magni was - she croaks. "I do not want to lose them all again."

"We wait and we get proof." Quiet, a little reassured that Lakshmi hasn't kicked her off, hasn't fought against her. "We ensure she is the same as the monsters you have fought before." Because there are so many rifters who have crossed the land of dreams from so many places, and what other wonders and horrors might there be?

"I won't lose you to recklessness. Understand?" Her voice doesn't crack, but there is a real danger of it.

She swallows, going quiet, staying still, for much and as little as that was. It isn't being told now, it isn't being shouted down like so many others had done, here, home, or otherwise. Doesn't have to fight tooth and nail for it, because Magni is with her, and she is not -

Not alone in this fight.

Lakshmi breaths, and at long last, she nods in agreement. "Recklessness has not got me yet." That is a poor joke, Lakshmi.

"It only needs to get you once," she replies, very quietly. A faint rasp in it, tripping over the edge of the pain she had tried hard not to let betray her. They had only just found one another, realised what it was that they shared. She would not let that be squandered.

Her fingers loosen on Lakshmi's wrists. "Promise me."

She could promise her - but it would be a hard thing to say, easily. Rather - the truth is there, in the simplest of actions.

The one where she does nothing at all, even when the pressure on her wrists lessons, she stays put. The long breath she takes eases her back into the pillows, the blankets, hair tangled up underneath her. Pointedly, obviously, that could not be mistaken.

Such a strange thing, to be cared for, like this, like this body was worth more than a burning city.

"I will... need to talk to Commander Coupe. She should know."

Magni relaxes, bringing her hands away from Lakshmi’s wrists and settling them either side of her. She remains looming over her, though now she just watches intently, looks for shifts in her mood, her manner. Telltale signs of anything brewing.

At the suggestion, she nods. “I will accompany, if you wish. The Commander likes me.”

To that, she shakes her head. Little as that is when she is laying back like this. A brief thing, barely a twitch as she closes her eyes briefly in thought.

"No. Best not compromise that with me. Her mood is poor when I am involved."

To say the least of it, there was no love lost there, and enough badly traded words on Lakshmi's behalf no less. She didn't fault the Commander for disliking her, exactly, but she wasn't rushing to amend that bridge.

Leaning down, Magni gently nudges Lakshmi's cheek with her nose. As you wish. She is not wholly satisfied with it, imagines she could offer some softening, some aid, but Lakshmi knows diplomacy and negotiation far better than she. She has entirely no idea what she might say.

Just a kiss to Lakshmi's cheek, and she lingers to offer whatever reassurance she might be able.

Her hand lifts, moving to cup her hand to the back of Magni's head, smoothing through her hair with a soft tangle of fingers. Because - it is more comfort than she has had in moments like this for years. It lets her eyes close to taking a deep, long, ragged breath. Letting herself settle smaller under Magni's weight and the contact.

Not that she is trapped. But she lets herself feel her own edges inside of the limits of Magni against her. Knees, elbows, her shoulders and ankles where they curl up so slightly to press in close. "When will I be free of such things?" She ventures in a sigh, hiding her face against the curve of Magni's cheek and neck.

It is more steadying than it has a right to be, feeling Lakshmi lean into her, feel herself standing as some kind of shield that could try to protect Lakshmi from all the world.

"That I don't know." She wishes she did, that she might make some assurance, but it would be false. Misleading hope, even. No; Magni brings her hand to lightly cup Lakshmi's neck, thumb running slowly along the line of her jaw. "But I will be here to face it with you."

Then I am truly blessed, she thinks, does not say, too busy feeling it instead. That warmth and steadiness that realigns her back to this body, this place, not some sick twisted over fear and purpose, all rolled into one. Gently, she cards through her hair, feeling it soft, slip through her fingers. Soaking in the affection like it was one of her long hot baths.

"It would be very tiresome," she says at long last. "To have to burn the whole Gallows down."

"It should burn regardless," she replies, voice slightly muffled, "once the war is done."

Because as much as it was granted better purpose, now, this stone and mortar was the home to a great deal that was fucked up.

"We'll burn it down and go back to Talonhold." What a fairytale ending.

She falls silent, with it. That was true, she could not deny it. She felt it like some old echo bearing down on them all. A reminder to Lakshmi at least, of all she must fight for. All she must never forget.

"Sometimes it feels like the walls ache. All the pain in them." But then - laughs, and burrows against her, turning her face into her hair and huffing into it. "Up into the cold, you're cruel to me, Saawariya."

A quiet sound of agreement. This place should never have been made to be permanent.

Tilting her head, she retaliates - leans into the playfulness, that she might lighten Lakshmi's mood, and nips Lakshmi's jaw with her teeth. "I didn't know you were so fearful."

It's hard, not to want more. To stick by the arbitrary rules of going slow of making sure to embed this in more than just skin on skin and the sharp inhale of breath that is the unending effort of drinking each other deeply. Because she values Magni for so much more than the clumsy touching in the dark.

But it's harder to refuse when there are teeth on her jaw, a hot breath on her neck. Her heel digs in against the bed. "Of snow? Always." She chuckles. "You love a daughter of the desert, I am afraid. I detest the cold."

"I do."

Lets that be all she says, because it seems plain enough. They have spoken plainly of their feelings, though perhaps without stating them so directly. On Magni's part, at least. Words were words. They be false, but she was... learning to trust them to be more, from Lakshmi.

With that, she pushes herself up, holding above Lakshmi so she can look own at her, though not trying to keep herself out of reach.

Edited 2019-03-04 09:11 (UTC)

And suddenly, she realises she does too. Lying underneath her, at ease with her her mountain, her silence between hammer blows. The heat against skin from something terrifying strong enough to mold her, shape her, direct her. But not by breaking her. But by words, touches, who no matter how close she came to shattering her teeth on the bite, Magni never flinched from. Magni never tried to file down those points, she only gave them an edge.

That was - that was -

Her hands reach up as she rolls squarely onto her back, her shoulders falling open, that knot of tension she only ever called duty sunk away for the time being out of them. It's in wonder, fear and happiness that she traces Magni's cheek, touches Magni's hair. Drawing her, mapping her, knowing her own shape within this space. Knowing Magni in herself.

A soul cut apart, pieced back together with the parts of another. That was what it felt like, at times, and she reasons, she is no poet, no orator worth noting, but ever how it felt. Melded together at tail ends. How fitting that she felt so often burning, to love a smith.

"Magni," her hands stop, so light they tremble like a wisp, hold so adoringly they shy on breaking that which she touches. Looking over every bit of her like she intended to remember it, with her old woman's eyes out of her young woman's face, which is to say - vulnerable, and no more than herself. "I never wanted for much," only too much of everything. "And I lost what was mine to protect."

I will lose her too, she must remind herself, but can't stomach it in this moment. I will lose her and she will fade and I will be left behind, that is what I chose. "Whatever good, still a person, left in me, is yours."

Human, we are not human, Galahad bitterly said in the dark. How hard a thing it was to hang onto. "I love you with all of me that is left."

Why does she add all those qualifiers? It seemed a constant in Lakshmi's existence, in her being, that she add limitations to all things. Not in such a way that it makes Magni doubt the depth of affection, not a wound to her, but as though Lakshmi carves away pieces of herself each time she speaks so.

Dismisses her own humanity, goodness, heart, as though struggle and knowing the darker sides of yourself and seeing them might the good parts less good than someone who has never had to realise the shadows existed at all. It was like the movement of the sun; if you live eternally in midday, there might be fewer shadows to encounter. For most, though, the sun travelled almost relentlessly, but knowing the long shadows could come and go did not make the midday light any less bright. Perhaps simplistic - she is no poet or politician, and she was hardly one of the great rangers of the Avvar to know all there was to know about the movement of the sun and what it could tell you. Sometimes, though, grasping things more simply seemed to spare her being caught in the traps that snared her tiger so viciously.

"You love me," she replies, a gentle correction, tilting her head to kiss the heel of Lakshmi's palm. "You are mine. All of you."

Whatever parts Lakshmi holds in shame, berates herself for, thinks herself apart from others. I love you with all of me that is left, she says, as though she is lesser, fractured, for all she has endured.

It's too much to put to words, to ask Ti hear it again, where it digs in between like a knife slotted through ribs. Her chest hurts, her lung hurts, her heart hurts. Her arms slide around Magni's neck, and draw her down, meeting her in it half way.

To kiss her, curling up with her belly tense with her holding herself still, her fingers scratching and bunching in her shirt. Coarse little breathes that take the place in even daring to part.

To finally, finally, after all this distance and cautiousness, give all herself over again. Maybe she meant to make this desperation longer, but she was greedy and gutted like a burned out room. She takes and takes and takes, wants to fill up that space with the things Magni could make there. Slanting her mouth against hers, lips parting, tongue against her teeth. It isn't to seduce, or even to demand.

It is to need, to affirm that need for only this. To for once not cut her own hands off from those things that keep her whole. Magni was so precious, fine as gold. "I want your hands on my body," she says at last. Which is useless sort of articulating what she really means.

All. All. She said all parts. These destructive brutal hands, these twisted limbs and burning things. All gunpowder and good for perhaps something beautiful but on in the ability to tear apart air. She said - she said all. She did not look away and she wanted, all. "Every part of me. Every part of you." she barely pulls her mouth away for the utterance, only punctures it with the forward movement. Those fisted hands in material that tug up, looking to find the flesh underneath. Real whole things, not half made dreams to keep her warm at night.

Slower, slower. Her hands that were braced against the bed shift, so she is propping herself up with one elbow, bringing herself closer to Lakshmi and resting her weight against her, as her other hand rests at her hip and eases gently up to her ribs. Slow, careful, savouring this as she re-discovers the warmth of Lakshmi under her hands.

"Every part," she agrees, softly, fingers lightly tracing across abdomen and slowly circling her navel. "But— we can keep waiting, if you want."

Part of her hopes to every god that Lakshmi doesn't say she wants to keep waiting, yet even so, they had spoken of waiting and of trying to draw this out, and she won't let them both give way if Lakshmi wishes to hold to that.

The words are mumbles against Lakshmi's mouth, all the less effective for being spoken between kisses, and she fights the urge to lean down and suck at her neck and roll her hips tauntingly, no matter how she wants to.

"Not a chance," she breathes, and it's so little a thought in her mind she doesnt even sound like she usually teases. Just goes back to kissing her, like she might find a cure to all suffering inside the rhythm of it.

Taking those handfuls of her shirt she pulls it up Magni's body. Sure she gets the idea of what Lakshmi wants, (hard she thinks otherwise), she runs her hands over her bare back, her skin, feeling her rough and smooth, tracing the familiar scars like old lines on a well travelled map.

Because she will have none of that patience now, she will have Magni and she will have all of her. Her legs uncurling, parting either side of Magni's hips, letting her settle between them as a firm weight she has ever found intoxicatingly solid. Curling one leg around her, to keep her just there, just right there, close and real. "Get me out of these clothes."

A quiet, warm laugh against Lakshmi's mouth, kissing her as long as she might she might before the material is pulled over her head, balling it up and letting it fall to the floor on the side of the bed. And then with that done she slides her hands behind her back and hauls Lakshmi up into her lap - Magni sitting back on her heels and holding Lakshmi flush against her, eyebrow raising just a little, taunting.

"I remember you saying you didn't need help to undress," she replies softly, voice rasping, small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

There are new scars they both bear since the last time they saw one another like this, amongst them a gnarled mass of tissue where the arrow had struck Magni's lower back. Leaning back enough to look at Lakshmi, though, she does not seem to take stock of or carry concern for such things. "If you are afraid of the cold, isn't it better to stay dressed?"

So helpful.

Edited 2019-03-05 07:19 (UTC)

It makes her toes curl, she does not think she will ever be sick of the times when Magni uses all that strength like that with her. Makes her all shakey, eagerly so, how she wriggles in closer with her hips, perching that little so they pull of even.

"Blame -" her head tilts, wanders, works against her neck as she continues the wandering of her hands. "These lowlander uniforms. They are not so easy to get out of."

Something Magni no doubt would happily find fault in. When she pulls back, lips full, pupils wide and her teeth scrape as she looks Magni up and down, raking over her bare upper body eagerly in an appreciation she doesn't have a reason to hide. It's still so hungry, though like even this close, this near, this much, it is still not enough.

But that little smug reply, that deserves only one response. One grand thing to Magni being so much taller, but still a woman, her head lowers, nearer to her chest. "Cold is it? Well let us see if you can stand heat." a merciless application when she closes her mouth around her nipple, teeth just, just enough to sting as she let's her hot breath curl around skin far too sensitive for this kind of wanton abuse.

Edited 2019-03-05 07:24 (UTC)

Her breath catches, Magni gripping Lakshmi tighter as that heat closes on her nipple and the sharp reprimand of teeth comes. Fingers tangle roughly into Lakshmi's hair and drag her head back to expose the line of her throat. A moment of hesitation where she leans down, fingers still holding tight, lingers just shy of Lakshmi's mouth. Gaze holds hers, and drops to the temptation that was those lips, the promise of kisses that had been all she wanted for so long that it seemed almost funny how they'd only clumsily stumbled into this.

And, without indulging either of them, she veers away to kiss Lakshmi's throat and suck hard at the skin. Neither following Lakshmi's instructions or answering her questions, it would seem.

Hunger, yes, a demand in her that feels as necessary to her survival as the breath in her lungs, as open-mouthed kisses traverse her throat and neck, and then she bites hard at the exposed point where neck and shoulder meet.

She pulls against it - of course she does. But less to do with fighting Magni, for it seems she has a way of talking her out of the worst of her moods, but to feel that stinging sensation of her hair being pulled just the way she likes.

Caught and has no choice but to accept something that feels far too good. Teeth that make her cry out, arching into her. Hands bracing on her shoulders, nails scraping and digging into skin as she rises and falls with deep breaths.

"Ishq," hissed low in the back of her throat, turning heat over in her belly. "More, again."

Even if - that wasn't what she was saying just a moment ago, giving orders, this has barely that ring to it, less demand and instruction, more desperate push forward and upturned greediness for having as much as she can as soon as possible.

FADE RIFT [INBOX]

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gently labels this NSFW

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