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

[rathercommon]

[ Uh - ]

Kitty. I'm not -

[ Anyway. A little sigh. ]

I wanted to know how you're dealing with all of this. This world. How you've been spending your time.

[shri]

[ There's a little silence, enough of a pause to mean something but - no more than that. ]

Well enough. As yet, learning for the moment. I have been hired on by a woman to serve as a guard.

[rathercommon]

Oh, that really foul-tempered one?

[shri]

[ she chucks low to that at least. ]

Yes, her.

[rathercommon]

Good luck not having your ears blistered. Why'd you agree to help her? For the money?

[shri]

Money - and experience. Of the people here and of the roads. If I am be caught in this place, I would prefer to learn as much as I can as quickly as possible.

[ Still. ] And she might talk like a dockside wife, but she means to say exactly as she does and I've had quite enough of slippery tongue nobles for one life.

[rathercommon]

Mm. I suppose. She seems like someone who's really... [ Kitty struggles for a word, then settles on: ] Damaged. You know? I don't entirely know if she can really be trusted. She seems like she's just blinded by her rage and her grief.

[shri]

Perhaps, but she is young. Age will temper it - or it usually does. The bloodthirstiest man might become a devout monk when the time comes.

[ That and - she is in no position to tell anyone about their hurt blinding their judgement, affecting the choices they make. ]

I suppose I might know some of myself in that too.

[rathercommon]

I don't know. I've known my fair share of cruel and angry old men. I wonder if age doesn't just mean that you're better able to hide your anger and pain.

[ And she can say that, because it's not like she's talking to an eighty-year-old or anything, right? ]

But she's afraid, too. I think that's the most dangerous thing. She's terrified that rifters are going to make it so they make a fill - flacktery - for her too.

[shri]

[Getting roasted by a teenager. RIP. ]

Particular to me, seems like there is a great deal of politics to this place that I would rather do without. She was rather vehement I not seem crazed by giving my titles. Not because of rank being a concern. But that people make such claims to cause some kind of... Issues?

[rathercommon]

She wants us to hide ourselves. To blend in and not offend anyone. She thinks that's the path to saving ourselves.

[ She puffs out her cheeks. ]

Which - I don't know. I grew up in the Czech neighborhood. And the Czechs weren't exactly invisible, but they did what they were supposed to and followed all the rules, and they still were under constant surveillance and got raided by the Night Police. I don't think that simply being quiet and respectable will necessarily win us any love.

[shri]

Mm. I know of such things, and I know them well.

[Dry, mild as she can manage. ]

I think she simply wants for no one to ask what they have not deserved, at least where position is concerned. but you are right. I have seen the way many of them look at us, for that which I certainly have no control over. I will work and work hard for what I get, and I have never expected to receive anything simply for my fine clothes. But pretend I am otherwise than what I am? Never. I do not care if they think I am mad.

[rathercommon]

Mm. [ She's nodding as Lakshmi speaks, and adds: ] And honestly, I think this world needs people who've got outsiders' perspectives. There's so much that's wrong here.

[shri]

[ a pause, hanging on the tip of a tongue. Because kitty is a smart girl, sharp as a knife. ]

I fear they do not understand their need for change. Their houses, the way they live. I know the last place I saw such things.

[rathercommon]

The last place...? Where did you see it before?

[shri]

[she catches herself before she says the wrong thing, in the wrong order. This girl at least, knows Europe. ] Heard tales of it perhaps, it was well and truly done that when I was a a child, but: France. In the palaces of Louie and his fool of a wife. At least what remained of them.

[ she bites her tongue, careful around her words. She knew what was coming, felt it gut deep. Careful around their meaning.]

Before their people took their heads and paraded them through the streets on pikes.

[rathercommon]

Sorry - Louie and...?

[ Kitty has been kept thoroughly ignorant of history - especially of stories about how the lower classes can sometimes throw off the chains of their oppressors. ]

I suppose we must not have had them in my world. What's the whole story? What happened?

[shri]

[ What?

The silence stretches a moment. That made not a lick of sense. The girl was English, most certainly, and talked like any child on the streets. Chanting and singing about Louie losing his head, the call of her rebels, declaring down with Queen, down with Empire. The stories were too infectious to be suppressed, not even by the English and all their declarations.

But - she realises. This isn't a story she's telling. No doubt, if these Lords were even a quarter of what they were in the Europe of her own place and time, the weight spreading such tales would carry much of the same weight.

Treason was a charge that could be laid, just for stories alone. Especially with the consideration that Gwen had given her. ]

Kitty, you are... not very familiar with horses, are you? [ A best guess. ]

[rathercommon]

[ That's - an odd change in topic. Enough that she laughs. ]

Horses? No, not really. Why?

[shri]

Meet me in the stables. It is time you gained familiarity.

[ Like she was one to dictate this girl's lessons, like a mother declaring such things. The tone is certainly of one. Brooks no arguments at least, like a tug on the ear to
a firm lesson. They are going for a ride.

Somewhere, that no one could overhear them, not even accidentally to mistake them. ]

[rathercommon]

That -

[ Is quite a bossy tone. But, well, she does need to learn. ]

Right now?

[shri]

[ Hum. ] Right now.

[rathercommon]

Well - all right. I suppose. I'll meet you there.

[shri]

[ and there she is, just the same. Dressed for a ride. No more than what is provided by the Inquisition, save for a decent pair of riding boots she'd gone out of her way to pay for. They would be worth every coin she paid for them.

Picked out the horse she'd taken on the journey with her. Used to the mares nature now. A decent one she could not be more fond of as she's well on the way to saddling her up again. Carting the hardtack about, checking the straps as she went. At least there was no extra weight to carry this time. A ride for ride's sake, so far as that went. ]

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty shows up dressed in her normal style - practical, unremarkable. A bit better suited to walking than riding, but it'll do. She gives the horses pretty wide berth as she walks, side-eyeing them rather warily. When she gets to Lakshmi, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, gives a little shrug of greeting, and says: ]

Hullo.