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[mahalakshmi]

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[mahalakshmi]

[ His hair looks so soft, it is hardly fair. She wants so very much to brush against it. See if that is some kind of illusion that her drink fogged gaze has put together out of the moment and the warm words she feels said so close. As much as she hears them.

A temptation too easily given into, as she lifts her hand up, and brushes against it,
lightly with the curl of her knuckles to keep it as unpresuming as possible. ]

Do you see me as an eternity, then? [ Laughed, because she is full of it. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ Foolish, perhaps. This is his fiancée, not a potential conquest. But he reaches out in return, lifts his fingers to stroke hers, and replies in a warm murmur: ]

I am not usually a believer in eternity. But I must have faith, with you - because every moment away from you is an enernity of agony, and every moment with you makes me pray it will go on forever.

[mahalakshmi]

[ He's playing with her, he must surely be. It is not fair, that she must share him. He has made that much plain. He belongs to no one and nothing and - fine. Fine, she thinks she can manage this. She knows she will. It will not be so childish a dream as she might have otherwise imagined but - regardless of what he said, she would find her own ways to be happy.

And she thinks he would approve, even if he does not know, of the indulgence she has in looking at him and wanting otherwise. ]

To you, that must make me something worth loathing? [ He is such a good liar, and the drink, the drink is enough to make her want to believe it for at least a little while. ]

[vorrutyer]

Loathing...

[ His thumb skims against her knuckle, and then - with a strange sort of shyness, a nervous hesitancy - moves forward to touch her wrist. It's fine, he thinks to himself. She's drunk. He can play around like this without real consequences...Even though he knows that, in truth, that's not true; he has an eye that's trained well to recognize when someone is drunk enough to forget and when someone isn't, and she isn't. ]

Perhaps. Or perhaps it's adoration. I scarcely know how to tell the difference. The only thing I know I cannot feel is indifferent.

[mahalakshmi]

[ The veins run blue - there, run like river lines, up the soft corner of skin. She is still what she is, covered for the most part. Drinking in his company is one thing, to be shamefully indecent is another. But for it, that half inch of skin seems at once - her whole body, soft as lightning, loud as droplets.

Don't look at it, don't look at it, it will disappear. Opts to wets her lips, the sharp press of her teeth over it. Feeling that shaken warmth unfurled like a seed into each of her limbs. Taken up root. ]

Is that to be my wickedness? Making you feel indifferent?

[vorrutyer]

I should hope not.

[ He traces that vein, moving upriver like a merchant-barge, traveling to where the skin is covered by sleeve, pushing up against that border. ]

The one thing I never want to be is cold. Kill me with fire, lady, but never with chill.

[mahalakshmi]

You are safe with me, my lord, I do not think that's a crime I will ever be accused of.

[ It spreads, that heat from so little a source. It makes - no sense. None at all. No more than how drinking should make her warm either. Prickling as it goes, it is barely a touch barely thing at all when she had kissed him, sealing that they were both be part of this, both meet each other in this - different kind of business venture.

Less than that, nothing at all, not to be thought of even as she doesn't move an inch from it. He could be cutting her apart and she would not think to move away from him. ]

[vorrutyer]

I suppose not, no. Of the two of us, I am the cold one.

[ His other thumb comes up, joining the first in the stroking of her wrist. Tentative but sincere, his hands, even as his mouth speaks oblique half-truths. ]

But there is nothing for which you have no passion, is there?

[mahalakshmi]

[ It's such a trial, to keep each breath steady. Moving and out slowly from her. The effort in keeping herself from doing nothing, when she has to swallow down on something prickling in her own throat, in the corners of her elbows and knees, that tickle. Can't go back or forward either, even if she knew what she was to do.

He is only playing, she says again, he is Byerly Vorrutyer and he has kissed more men and women than she will ever know and done more so. She can be as firm in this as he can. ]

To a fault, I am told.

[vorrutyer]

Ah, to a fault.

[ He lifts her hand a bit, placing her fingertip against his lips. It's not quite a kiss, but when he speaks, his lips flutter against her sensitive skin. ]

Tell me about what drove someone to accuse you of such excess. Won't you?

[mahalakshmi]

[ Stop it, stop it, stop it. He doesn't care, he doesn't care, he doesn't care. Her free hand goes to her glass again - almost empty - was this not what they called courage? Never needed it before, but the further it suggests and the further she goes along with its suggestions, the more she needs it.

Wetting her lips against the sweet taste on the bottom of her lip, a quick swipe as she finds the word. That answer is easy - with her eyes are wide blown in alcohol and that trickle of heat that says his name alone down her spine. ]

I slapped you and kissed you.

[vorrutyer]

A most fond memory.

[ His eyes crinkle in amusement. ]

Did you get in trouble for that, dear lady?

[mahalakshmi]

[ She ducks her head, takes her breath, and she finally gets the courage to pull her hand back. Shoves it into her lap, like she could put the thought out of her way. her head tilting away, letting her hair do the work of covering her expression as she finishes off the rest of her drink in a gulp. There - still, keeping up with him. As she slides it empty back. ]

I received quite the lecture. I think the only thing worse I could have done than one, was the other. But I promised that you would not let me down, nor discard me.

[vorrutyer]

[ He laughs, taking up her glass and pressing it to his lips. An indirect kiss. ]

And what made you so sure I wouldn't?

[mahalakshmi]

[ He's a menace, dreadful, terrible menace, who has no mercy to her at all, as she watches that elegant curve to the glass of his mouth that is singularly distracting. ]

Because we promised to each other our agreement. And I think - and perhaps it is only presumption speaking - that you do not find me as awful as you thought you might.

[vorrutyer]

[ A slight lift of his eyebrow. ]

I never expected to find you awful.

[mahalakshmi]

[ Her eyebrows lift for that, surprised maybe. ]

What did you expect then?

[vorrutyer]

That you'd be lovely and appealing in every way.

[ A small shrug. ]

Your family is made up of competent merchants, after all. They only offer their finest goods for sale, no?

[mahalakshmi]

[ She smoothes her skirt, settling her self - pretty. Poised. A lady that sits against the wall, her fan in front of her face and waits only for the beck and call of suitors. How she had attempted to be so briefly when they had met until they had stopped - pretending so much, she suspects.

For that, it is only a pretense, how she lowers her eyes, - takes that deep, deep breath of sweetness that makes her chest swell. Demure and presented to be tempting. Like she doesn't know how she looks. Granted, she didn't completely, her own appearance, to be alluring, but - she tries regardless. ]

And? Was I too your liking?

[ Silly little maid, is the tone, or her closest thing she can manage without laughing. Oh, please Byerly, take pity on her. ]

[vorrutyer]

I dare not say anything but yes.

[ He cups a hand against his cheek. ]

I'm afraid of getting slapped again.

[mahalakshmi]

[ and just like that her carefully pretty picture is ruined when she snatches up and flicks him, a scandalized word for that. Still messy, still too open. ]

You are still a wretch.

[vorrutyer]

Ah, I am spared the worst of a physical attack, but she wounds me with her words...

[ He makes a grand show of wincing. ]

How rotten it is to live in fear like this.

[mahalakshmi]

I do not think you are the least bit afraid of me.

[ He plays her too well, for that. She's sure. Half way through being seduced by his teasing as much as his sharpness. Little defense against either, and quickly moved over. She doesn't want him to realise it, not yet, it would not be fair to her. ]

Aren't you supposed to be giving me another drink?

[vorrutyer]

It would be my greatest pleasure to serve you, my terrifying, demanding, intoxicated lady.

[ He tosses back the last of his own drink, stands. ]

Back in a moment. Don't fight anyone while I'm gone.

[mahalakshmi]

I am not - [ But the fit of laughter she bursts into says otherwise when he says don't fight anyone.

Which is fine, until he is gone, and she is a Vor woman sitting at a bar. Quite happily drunk to herself, fiddling with the necklace at her throat in contemplation of her surroundings. Or, not so much to herself, as it turns out when there ends up a drink in front of her, from some other gentleman across the bar and - she mistakes it, as she sips it - Byerly must have sent it, as she goes about sipping it, waiting for him to return. ]