"Rani," she replies, just barely cutting off her words, as her thumb rub back and forth over her wife's hands, soothing. "I know. I held no doubts— you are my heart. I trust you, and I know you." Magni smiles a little bit, a sort of excited brightness sneaking into it, though she tries to rein it in.

"I— I meant only—" A sigh. How to string this thought into spoken words? "I think we did not know, and the suddenness frightened you. Not you thinking that some affair was revealed."

If there was any person that she trusted, it was Lakshmi. Her queen, her lioness, her mischievous one - all these things, but above all, the protector of her heart, its keeper. She trusts her implicitly, and she could hardly say when it was began, or if it had been from the first moment of their meeting.