mahalakshmi | AU - MAGNI & LAKSHMI

The sharpness takes her by surprise, and draws a smile out of her. So quiet and demure had Rani seemed when first she arrived, so fragile. She likes more and more the signs of a wild cat that seems to come out, sharpened claws and quick wits.

The realisation strikes her perhaps only moments before Rani, when her abdomen tenses as Rani moves between her legs, and she almost damns herself for how her mouth goes dry and she bites her lip, how she could swear that her breath is shallower as the warmth of Rani’s hands slide upwards over her skin.

“Why is my fierce tiger looking away?” Hushed, as the clinging wet material falls free of her. She is too broad and too tall to be considered attractive, by some. Proud and admirable in the estimation of others, the strength demanded by her craft (her passion) defined under the milky paleness of her skin. The rise and fall of her chest with each breath feels like it must be horribly obvious, as she lists closer to Rani, wonders if kissing her now would be too much a presumption, taking too great a step in their careful courtship.

She doesn't look back, doesn't look at her, knelt in between her legs, peeling the wet shirt down her arms in such a way that she is forced closer to her. But still, her eyes do not meet her. Busies herself in the importance of those movements. Untangling them, that just as close as they could be, she is gone, taking the shirt away with her. Leaving Magni bare in front of her, and all the will she possesses keeps her moving onto the next task. "Because if I do, I will forget myself."

She will forget that she must see to her, first, to make sure she is warm and looked after. That she has a duty. She will kiss her, she will press their skin together, cold and warm, and she doesn't really quite understand what is supposed to follow after, save in the crudest sense. But she wants so desperately wants to find out how close she and Magni could be, by breath to breath, bone to bone. To weave them like a tapestry.

With the shirt free, she rises, holding her hands for Magni to and help her stand.

Even as Rani refuses to look at her, Magni cannot year her gaze from her wife. She almost leans to rest their foreheads together but— Rani stands, and she follows, compliant. There is a moment of silence, where she just stands in this shared space, which suddenly feels strangely sacred. “What if I wish you to?”

The words are so quiet and her voice so rough, tentative, that Rani could be forgiven for not hearing them or making them out. She has been so determined not to make demands, not take first steps, but she has kissed Rani and now this next step surely cannot be hers as well. Then she will be too demanding, make too many presumptions, and she wants most of all to protect Rani and ensure her happiness after months of missing her uncertainty and suffering.

A bead of water curls down her abdomen, and she swallows thickly, nervously.

"Not... not yet."

Touching her seems like a sin, for anything made of wanting so much surely had to be. But despite that - she does not simply because she wants to, but because she is still dressed. But this - takes more, takes all of herself to keep still. She could feel how her breath was coming faster in her chest, thin between her lips as she tried to steady herself as she went to the heavy belt around Magni's hips.

Meticulously taking her time. Her thumbs hooking against the waistband once it comes free. Her soft, well cared for hands are light on her body. Compared to Magni's callouses, she seems not to have anything but the lightest scratches on her.

The only thing that stops is as the water pools on her stomach, how it stills her utterly to watch it trail on her skin. Her eyes lowered, and with it, so too, does her head lower. Dropping half way down that she can kiss the droplet of water away with the heat of her breath. Let it settle on her lips, her tongue. The cool taste of lake water and the sweat of skin. Before she rises back up, looking up at her - all of it written there, as the tip of her tongue licks where the water leaves a sheen on her lips. Wiping it away.

"Your skin is still too cold, you need to warm up first."

Her eyes slip shut, breath catching with the kiss, and she fights the urge to rest her hands in Rani’s hair. Looking down at her as she stands, Magni finds it hard to grasp language at all. It seems an entirely unnecessary thing. Her fingers trace Rani’s jaw, thumbs brushing over her cheekbones, and for all this talk that she is too cold she feels as surely as anything that her bones are glowing embers.

She wants so badly to kiss her, and yet—

No. This control belongs to Rani. She’ll not cast aside her wants. Nodding slowly, Magni draws her hands away, and sets to doing away with her brassiere, letting it fall away a little self-consciously before her hands drop to push her trousers away, as well.

“I hope I was not too forward.”

She takes her time, looking her over, every last piece of her as it is revealed in front of her. She has felt hunger many times in her life, as any living being does.

But it has never felt like this. Never a drive that feels so powerful like she wants to set both her hands into her, to take her in that sort of grip and see every bit of her, want to kiss every section of her. To see what other places she might find that would cause her wife to look at her like that.

To it, she does not respond, she does not risk her voice and bellying that hunger so obviously when she does not even rightly know what to do with it. That terrible beast that wants to crawl its way from her lips. Instead, she swallows, shakes her head, and takes Magni's hand. Slowly leading her as once Magni had led her so often since she arrived. Bringing her to the hot bath that gives off steam to the cool air that permeated this place so wholly.

Letting herself be lead, Magni doesn’t feel wholly in her own body. The bite of heat as she steps in with one foot and then the other earns a quiet sound from her, before she sinks in fully, hands bracing against two sides of the bath, until ah is submerged up to her neck. The bath itself is massive - excessive by some standards, but she’s tall and excessive in her own right.

As she sinks in, she exhales a sigh of relief, and looks for Rani, reaching for her. Not to pull her in, just for contact.

“You care for me so well.” Better than she had cared for Rani, she fears.

Best she has the space she needs, because Magni sits in it well, where Lakshmi most certainly would drown in the depths of the thing alone. With Magni settled, she doesn't stop to linger. There are things she needs to do while Magni steams herself back to a normal temperature. Gathering up Magni's sodden clothes, to pile them all together. Moving back and forth around the room as she goes to place them by the door. The finds the towels and things for the bath that had been set aside for her.

It's after that's done that she comes back to the call of Magni's voice. The space at least gives her some time, to put her head together then falling to pieces.

"Of course." She comes to side of the bath, taking her hand. Sitting at the stool that had been placed there. By who, she can't quite tell, ( but she would bet, her mother in law ).

She watched Rani as she moves - less hunger, though she can still feel the weight of it. It’s more longing and wondering, the marvelling at someone so steady and so kind being at her side. Constant, even with her flares of passion and intensity. If anything, the more she saw of that wildness and that emotion the more she adores her, but she cannot deny that to be cared for is—

She cannot pretend she doesn’t have those in her life who care for her. Family, those dear to her. There is something different and wonderful in this caring.

She brings Rani’s hand to her lips, and slowly kisses each knuckle, the heel of her hand. Her wrist. Quiet appreciation, determined to date herself with this, when Rani appears to have set her own lust aside.

If she has put it aside, it is not far - because now that her perceived duty is done, to put Magni's immediate well being very much first, she can't help how easy it is to lean when she is beckoned close too. The betrayal in her gaze as it drops to Magni's body below the water before she quickly darts it back up.

But this time, she doesn't pull away. Firmly, now that she can see the colour coming back up to Magni's cheeks and lips, no longer starkly turning blue, but finally possessing that flush of colour she related so keenly to her. Of when her cheeks would turn pink when the wind whipped too hard against her face, her hair dampened and clinging to her body. Yellow washed in the candlelight that flickered in the corners of the room, the fire that had been banked to make it warm.

She basks in her, where no one can tell them not too, gladly. Her hand extending as Magni turns to kiss her wrist, turning to brush against Magni's cheek, tracing around the shape of her jaw with slow fingers.

She misses the wandering of her gaze, too caught on mapping out her wrists and the bones of her hand with slow, swirling motions, fingertips and lips travelling carefully.

Rani's fingers tracing her cheek are too tempting. She leans into the contact, tilting her head to it as a flower reaching for sunlight, and then— hesitates. Tentatively catches Rani's fingertip with her teeth, and then flickers her gaze up to her, as she kisses the tips of her fingers. Almost takes them into her mouth, but catches herself— halting, a guilty tension rising up her shoulders and her neck.

She jumps in surprise. After all - they had, kissed very selectively, of late. Little moments when they found themselves standing close. Standing with hands held together, faces tilting near, little furtive glances to make sure no one was watching and the startling apart like rabbits the moment there was. It hadn't been much more than that. Or the time before they had even begun kissing, when Lakshmi tried her best to be singularly bold in how she approached Magni before one night before bed in only her nightgown.

None of it had been biting, and she makes a terribly nervous noise ( not a squeak ), and stills. Letting herself being kissed as she decides she didn't... wholly dislike that.

Which leads to the question of how to find out where else she might like to be bitten. Pressing her fingers to Magni's lips and takes the daring to tilts Magni's face up to look at her, as she for once gets to peer down at her through lowered lashes. "May I join you in the bath?"

The Definitely-Not-Squeak is charming. With that said, though, probably she shouldn't have done anything to illicit a Definitely-Not-Squeak at all. Berating herself internally, Magni is trying to ready an apology in between fretting that Rani might draw away and depart. Overready fool, she tells herself, and she's strung a few different options together (all terrible) when Rani tilts her head upwards.

The comparative position of vulnerability isn't lost on her. Truthfully she leans into it, is glad to, because she trusts Rani. (Has she told her that? She has the terrible feeling she hasn't, because when does she tell most people anything?)

Trust or not, though, her mouth is dry, and she gulps visibly. Any trace of that wanting and hunger that had mercifully abated pushes forward again, and she just nods (absurdly, probably.) Eventually she manages a "yes," though her throat feels parched and dusty. "Please."

She nods, and she's - nervous. Of course, she's nervous. Nervous like she had been from the first but... this was different. Worse than the rejection on a first night, worse than the whispering words in her ear.

This was all herself.

She rises, turning her back to Magni as she goes to the front of her dress. At least, in the effort of making the room warm, her now layers of cloak, dress and undergarments becomes too hot. Something that makes it somewhat of a relief as she undoes the clasp of the cloak from the middle and drops it onto the floor. Then she starts pulling at the laces, tugging at the loops and ties that held her together in her dress, until shapeless, it too falls away.

Down to her shift, she can feel her hands shaking almost as much as she had in undressing Magni. The sturdy bow that kept it done up in the middle of her chest suddenly felt like a wisp of air. Her whole body felt feverish, the belly clenching with low heat. Tensing below her skin. Would she think her beautiful? Would she still look at her like that? Would she place her hands all over her body, kiss her skin? Like books described it, warmly, trailing, finding secret corners of her?

She wouldn't know if she didn't move. Shivering in a way that had nothing to do with cold, she pulled the ribbon loose and lifts her arms up to push the material off her shoulders. Pooling around her feet so that she was naked as the day she was born.

Lakshmi doesn't raise her eyes to look at Magni, couldn't handle it right then, as she turns back around. Her rope of hair hanging over her shoulder to her waist, swinging like a pendulum. But she does lift her hand, tentatively reaching for Magni so she can balance herself to get into the bath. One long leg rising up with her toes pointed as she steps into the water. Then the other as...

Deep, deep breath, Lakshmi, she brings her other leg over. The giddiness, madness, feverishness works its way up her body, if she is to be daring, it must be now or never or they might never be in this moment again.

Bracing herself, she sinks down, but not far from her. In the water, eyes still low, she positions herself to slide around. Bracing her knees either side of Magni's hips and slowly sinks down to sit in her lap, straddling her. Finally, finally, near to her, she looks up at Magni, and she wants her so badly it fills her gaze wholly, that as she finally settles and she feels how they touch the noise is almost helpless as it slips from her lips, her face flushed in the steam or the wanting, they could be told apart. Just that her whole body feels so overwhelming hot.

"I want like to wash your body." I want to touch every bit of you, but her face might burn off if she said it.

She doesn't know if she can watch. Well— obviously she can, is capable. She can look. She doesn't know if she should look, if Rani wants her to, and so she glances to her as she turns her back, and forces her gaze away. Then she realises that the mirror still affords her a reflection of Rani undressing and she swallows a cough, and brings her gaze to the water. It feels like she can't quite exhale, like her lungs are locked, made of the steel that she works into being.

There is a flush rising up her neck from her chest, her ears burning pink, her cheeks dusted as well, and that is just as Rani walks to the bath and takes her hand. She still doesn't know if she should look, and its partly because she knows that if she does she will just stare and not be able to look away. As she steps into the bath, Magni gulps in a breath, and feels her shoulder jerk with the threat of a hiccup.

If there is any god at all, I can't get hiccups in this moment.

A moment of unrelenting panic, before she realises that it was a false alarm. It's just in time for her to realise that Rani has kneeled on either side of her, and her eyes slip shut for a moment as her weight settles against her, a soft sound escaping her without her even realising. One of Magni's hands going automatically to rest at Rani's waist and she looks to her, the rise and fall of her chest quickening.

"I would— um." She is tripping over her words. "That— yes." Reaching for the bar of soap, Magni doesn't hand it over immediately. "If I can— if you would like me to—" wash you, touch you, also.

Lakshmi nods, forcing to keep her eyes up. Below the water, her hands move, that faint splashing, trickling noise of movement, the water lapping at their bodies as they both shift, adjust.

But if she thought that settling would make her burn less, she was a fool, she felt hotter than the water still and growing more so as she could feel Magni press between her legs. At least she wasn't the only one overwhelmed by this, and there is a comfort in knowing that. In...

In figuring this out with someone else, together.

She presses her lips to each other, swallowing on a dry throat and nods, shy, still, in her way. "Yes, I would... I would like that." She pulls her hands up out of the water, the water trailing down her arms as they move, this time, to perch them on Magni's shoulders. Gently and carefully there.

Drawing up, Magni inhales and lists closer to Rani, slides her hand up over her ribs, and hesitating before drawing it away so she can roll the soap between her hands to produce a creamy lather, and setting the soap on a dish on the side, and—

just keeps rolling the lather in her hands, before bringing her hands to settling on Rani's back, smoothing up over her shoulderblades, inadvertently drawing her closer. Inhales shakily, and leans into it, resting their foreheads together. Just breathing, tracing patterns into the suds on Rani's back.

"When I was in the water," she says, very softly, "the cold dragged at me. My arms felt heavy and breathing was—"

A little shake of her head. "I thought of you, and I could keep moving."

It's soothing as much as it's not. That terrible ache that says it should be enough to be touched at all, and the hunger which bellies it not nearly sated.

She leans as prompted, pressing together as gravity tilts her down into Magni. Sliding further into her lap, rolling her weight on her knees as she tucks in neater. Stretching, simmering below the surface, her body heating into each little touch and wanting more of it in a way that feels almost rapturously good.

Dissolved into it, until Magni speaks, and her eyes slowly lift up to watch her face. "I am glad, or else, I would have come down to the water every day." She tries to keep a straight face, but in the way that became more obvious the longer she stayed here, she was ever quick to smile. "And shouted at it, at you."

It surprises a bright smile out of her, Magni laughing quietly as she shakes her head. "My wife is very cruel. Prowling along the shore like an angry cat."

Her shoulders sway a little for emphasis, a feline prowl, before she brings one hand up and goes to gently boop Rani on the nose with the suds, in revenge for that terrible teasing.

But not all jokes. Her other hand is still at Rani's back, steady at the small of it, and she rolls her hips up slowly, experimentally, as she watches her.

She blows up her face to dislodge the soap bubble that is frothed on her nose. Watching it float away in a brief moment, laughingly distracted by it as Magni teased her. Idle as she wriggled, pressing back into her hand. Mistaking it for a bracing gesture and somewhere comfortable to lean.

The roll startles her. Her mouth slipping open in a gasp. Oh God, it feels better than she thinks it should. Squirming almost instantly in her lap, her fingers squeezing her shoulder as she tries to settle afterwards. Not to any avail. Her lips together, humming, and looking down between them, their bodies swimming in distortion between the water. She rolls back in turn - as if - as if it would not be so strong this time. That it only caught her so deeply because it was off guard.

It isn't, it isn't, and she pants a sharp breath. Looking up with it dazing in her eyes. Unable to ask for more, but wanting it so.

Magni's breath escape her in a quiet rasp, and she nods very slightly before she leans closer, pulling her wife flush against her, so she can murmur in her ear. The warmth of their skin pressed together, the smooth softness of her skin, the shapes and contours of her dear heart.

Low, almost soft enough that the quiet splash of the water around them could drown it out, if not for how very close they were. "You are Jarl, here. When we were like this. You rule here, because I— I am as I am, and I am afraid of wounding you heart or your body. I could not forgive myself if I did that. When we are together, you rule, always. I am yours to command, and I won't— I won't do anything without your approval." So hushed, her lips grazing the shell of Rani's ear as she speaks, before she eases back very slightly. "I— would like to move against you more, with your permission."

She's nervous, yes, but this is important. They both want this, that much is obvious, but she doesn't want to be the ruler, here, and Rani to feel she must comply as her wife. Rani is too important, for that.

She winds herself in near. Taking quick, shallow breathes, her fingers holding fast still. Pressed chest to chest, gripping hard with her knees. Magni was hard in a way she didn't quite understand until here, this, now, near and close. Strong in a way that, a nudging around the word so particularly she hardly dared breath: hers.

This time, she is the silent one, barely daring to speak as she. Nods, slowly, and the once. But firmly. Unmistakably. "I know you would never hurt me. I," she licks her lips, tasting water on them, trying not to fix on Magni's mouth like a starved thing.

Just that is terribly difficult this close, not too. The half dozen times they've kissed before, sitting at the forefront of her mind. "I trust you with my life." Then, she croaks hoarsely, rocking again, needing so, "Please, touch me."

I trust you with my life. And what she done, she wonders, to have earned such a gift as that?

Resting her forehead against Rani's, Magni exhales a shuddering breath, as she raises her hand. Slowly traces the line of collarbone outwards, slowly trailing down to follow the curve of breast. Hesitant and cautiously spiralling inwards so that her thumb first grazes over Rani's nipple, and then a little firmer. Her other stand is still steadying against Rani's back, as she traces lower, the planes of her abdomen, circling her navel before dropping downwards.

She watches Rani carefully, biting her lip as her hand delays there. Nervous, a little worried, before she more deliberately drags her fingers lower. What experience she has in this is limited only to her imagination, to her own hands wandering in the dark to seek out her own pleasure. At least, she supposes, its gives her some hope of knowing what it is that can bring a woman satisfaction, and she dips down to seek out that point of sensitivity, eyes shutting for a moment as she press against Rani and the ease upward again, so she can roll against it.

If Magni - had. Lakshmi certainly hadn't. Not out of pious chastity, or a lack of curiosity, but never - time, place. Being completely alone enough as first a daughter, or then as a wife, who had maids about her. Some part of her would be too mortified at ever being caught, to risk it even when she spent her days feverishly thinking about it.

Because she doesn't think she could handle it, if someone stopped this, now. Her hands hang on like grim death. Her nails biting into Magni's shoulders, over the lines of those slopping tattoos that cover her back. Realising what is happening and trying not to squirm, to make it difficult for those wondering hands. But it isn't completely possible. Her chest arches, pressing into her palm and fingers. That stroke down, down, down, curving around her hips, where her legs are curled under her.

Lakshmi gasps, jolting sharply into her, one hand slipping off her shoulder as she nearly rolls the rest of the way up her knees. Before she rolls back. Looking for the touch again. A jumble of nerves and words, jitting, desperately trying to contain herself by sliding a hand onto the edge of the bath. Gripping the tub with a hard line of her shoulders tensing. It wasn't just her feverish mind playing tricks her, she did feel warm, felt warm there - more than bath water.

Tentatively, her eyes lowered to watch Magni as she moved. Breathing hard still, she began to move. Mimicking the gesture. Rolling her body back against her hand, working how to shift her weight in a way that makes it smooth. Forces her knees that little bit apart so Magni can touch more.

As Rani jolts, Magni's hand stills. A glance to her, earnest and concerned, in case she'd done something wrong, pressed too hard. Aware of Rani gripping the bath tub and uncertain if that was simply a matter of surprise, or—

But as she settles again, leans into the contact, Magni relaxes. Kisses the line of jaw, and dips her head lower to kiss Rani's neck, as her fingers quicken their circling, and she murmurs against ear. "Hold onto me. You won't hurt me."

It's a little halting, more suggestion than instruction. Her fingers press lower, thumb taking over the pressure, as she very slowly, very carefully, presses one finger against Rani. Does not push inside her immediately, but slowly, slowly starts to press in, and her heart is hammering so hard inside her chest that she feels like she is beyond herself.

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