mahalakshmi | AU - MAGNI & LAKSHMI

The water is slowly cooling around them, and maybe that serves to calm them both as well, heat siphoned from their blood. Her fingers map the contours of Rani's back, feather light, and Magni leans down to kiss her shoulder, smiling against the skin.

"I have never— before." Quietly, predictably, voice a little rough. "But I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing you like that." A kiss to her hair, so she can murmur against her ear, "hearing you like that."

Say it isn't so, but she giggles into her shoulder, fitfully embarrassed, certainly, but beyond concern. Too late to take it back. Hardly like she can pretend she hadn't enjoyed it thoroughly.

But she withdraws, perched still. Not really to go far as she looks over her, warmly, appreciatively. Something here, something she has done her level best to reserve since she had come. Just now - now she is unsure, certainly, not quite certain if it would be entirely permitted, but she settles herself like she has perched on a throne, regally tossing her hair. Playful, a mocking seriousness, "You've been a dreadful patient, I must tell you, as your Jarl."

Perhaps she is just a little bit too pleased with that laughter, entirely too endeared, heart feeling like it swells just for looking at the wonder of her. Entirely too charmed, too delighted, by the woman resting on her lap. It hardly seems possible sometimes, that she's found someone so very dear to her.

But, well. Magni leans back against the side of the bath, one brow quirked with amusement as she observes her Jarl.

She doesn't say it, but her mouth opens very slightly, a silent oh? Although she is doing her utmost to play into this moment of reprimand, she can't fully contain the smile that is playing around the corners of her mouth.

"Am I?" Impertinent, apparently, as she squeezes Rani's waist.

"Very," is the warmth infused word as she pushes at Magni's shoulder with a press of her fingertips.

"I am afraid it must be seen too, or I worry how it might affect you." Her eyes flicking up as the smile plays on her lips, threatening to break her committed performance. "It is a Jarl's duty to attend her subjects properly."

Magni gulps a little bit at that warmth, the intention in Rani's voice. Wanting and nervous in equal measure as she watches her wife, pupils blown, biting her lip without even realising it.

"And if I insist I am well?" There is a faint unsteadiness to her voice.

She realises, that she doesn't have to not touch when for a moment, she is utterly transfixed with how Magni looks. That little flash of white teeth that sink into her lip. A want - to reach for her. To replace those teeth with her own. Which is a giddy, marvellous thing - if like the act she is putting on, a tentative one - lifting her hand slowly to lay them on Magni's body. Not quite her own imaginings, still learning. Wrapping them around Magni's ribs and slowly beginning to slide them up to cup her breasts. Firm as she could be even if her giggles threaten to spill over.

"Are you saying you'd disobey your Jarl? I will be forced to act."

Her eyes slip shut with a quietly rasp of breath as hands settle at her ribs, press upwards, and she arches into them. Gaze heavy-lidded as she looks back to Rani, breathing a little shallow.

"You're all talk," she teases, head tilting, unconcerned.

Her eyes narrow, mockingly. Am I? And catching with it suddenly, she surges up against her. Her hands still on her breasts, firm, gripping her hands into her.

Seizing her suddenly and with no warning into a kiss. Pushing up on her knees so she can stay atop Magni and tilt her head back with the angle of the kiss. Pressing her teeth to do just what she had wanted to do - to replace her teeth with Lakshmi's own, sinking, scraping, sucking on her bottom lip between her own with a thready little eager noise. Groaning softly against her mouth before she pulls back. Looking down at her, nervous, worried she'd pushed too far.

"Is that - ?" permissiable. Broken in her act, but had to make sure, just as Magni had for her. It was one thing for her to play, another to lean into them, even if they playing. ( At what, she hardly knew but - )

God. When she is pulled into that kiss, when her teeth claim Magni's lip, she moans loudly into the kiss, and makes a tragic sound that she is a little embarrassed by when Rani draws back.

A nod, breathless, as she slides her hands to cup Rani's jaw, smiling up at her with such affection that she could barely grasp how to put it into words. Adoration and longing and warmth as she looks up at her. "I'm yours. Don't be afraid to touch me."

Echoing what Rani told her before, before she nudges the tip of her nose with her own. "I trust you."

She doesn't waste time, not with that. Not a second. That wholeness exchanged between them as she leans in, kissing her again, just as forcefully demanding, but she doesn't stay there this time, either. Not because she stops. Some deep need to claim every bit of her that she could not place, that was not fitting in any way for either of positions. Magni is the Jarl, her duties lie elsewhere, and beyond each other, here and now, Lakshmi always understood and respected that.

But right now? Right now she was hers, and they had as much time as they could be given for her to - to make sure Magni knew it. Knew how much she meant to her. A want that for all the grief her wife had known before Lakshmi had arrived, she would wash it away under this.

Her head turns, beginning to tilt down her neck, running her hands raggedly over Magni's body. "I have wanted to kiss you everywhere." She admits, somewhere near her ear, then further, by her collarbone, she bites, breathes into her skin. "I look at you, so often, wanting too. There are always others and I must not." She feels as feverish as when she had been touched if demanding in a different way.

She does not fully anticipate it - the rush, the eagerness with which Rani claims her. She hardly feels as though she can drink in the kisses fast enough, doesn't know where to settle her own hands because she is so aware of the warm touches running over her body, exploring. A whimper, as Rani bites her collarbone, and finally she grasps at her hair, encouraging her to carry on. More, harder, whatever she wants to do.

And those words. They are almost more than the touches.

"If I'd known I'd—" her breath hitches, "I'd have ordered them all away." Almost lost to breathlessness, as those hands keep moving over her body. It's intoxicating, and part of her doesn't want it to stop, just this part.

Her mouth doesn't leave her, not for a second, leaving her kisses like prayers, scattered holy words about Magni's body. Reverent in the way of devouring, tasting the water on her skin like a holy drink. The salt of the skin below it.

She goes, wandering, - stops only when she has to push back in the water a little to shift her angle. To replace her hands with her mouth on her breasts. Closing around her nipple, sucking harshly on a skin with her eyes - flicking up. Watching her tentatively to know if it is ... alright, certainly, but - enough, too little, too much, most especially.

Watching her, as gently, she scrapes her teeth over such sensitive skin.

A low moan rolls past her lips, and her head tilts back with the blissful torment of teeth, one hand bracing at the side of her bath so she doesn't grip at Rani too hard. Don't squirm, she tells herself, a useless lecture on conduct playing in her mind, as though either of them were concerned about conduct now.

She can't help a little retaliation, bringing one of Rani's hands to her lips so she can kiss the knuckles, and then sucks her index finger into her mouth, tongue dragging against the underside of it as she slowly draws it back.

Wordless approval, suffice to say.

Her head tilts, stopping in her meandering bath with a sudden stillness. Shivering in a way that had nothing to do with cool, for certain no part of either them was anything less than warm. Rather, with a panting soft breath, watching Magni with that sharpened warmth in her gaze.too pointed with an idea to be simply a dazed enjoyment.

Lakshmi swallow visibly. Trying to get her bearings, remember what she had intended before got carried away.

"I want you..." that much obvious, trailing off to drag her fingertip lightly against her lip. "... I want you to... To sit." her head nods to the stool that Lakshmi had been sat at just before. "I said I would wash you."

Her face was so warm with the daring of it, but she determinedly carries on.

A look to the stool, just faintly confused, but not one to deny the request made by her Rani, her Jarl. It means that she needs to move, which means moving Lakshmi from her lap, and that doesn't appeal at all. Her hand resting on Lakshmi's back tightens its hold, and she surges upwards and forwards, so she's crouching and holding Lakshmi in her arms, looking up to her and grinning. Mischievous ideas are promised in her gaze, in the way she's looking at her, but for now she has sworn herself to obey. Grinding against her would not be obeying. Continuing forward so she was on top of Lakshmi in the bath would certainly not be obeying.

Magni kisses her throat, gently bites at it, before she very carefully goes to set Lakshmi down to sit in the bath. "I thought being in the bath was more traditional for washing."

Lakshmi grips on with both arms as they lurch through the water. Sending a small wave over the lip of the tub from the suddenness of the gesture. Looking up at her in surprise and - enjoying how that feels in a way she did not expect. Being moved about like this, so intimately close - and maybe, she might even let her, follow it the rest of the way down.

But it passes, and she moves away, her body dropping lower so that it comes up to her neck, comfortably, the rest of her hidden below the suds. Her braid well and truly soaked down that there isn't much use keeping it like this. So she moves her hands to find it below the water and undoes the band that held it. Dropping it over the side before beginning to comb her mass of black hair loose. "There is so much of you, how can I reach you all?"

Her eyebrow quirks slightly as she stands in the tub, before slowly stepping over the side and standing on the bathmat. Suds roll down her body slowly, and the geometric triangular patterns (mountains, feathers, both) that work down her shoulders and her spine shine from the water. Her normally pale skin is flushed from the hot water, and she turns to look at Lakshmi in the bath, biting her lip very slightly. Her gaze betrays her, as she leans over the bath, hands braced on the sides as she leans closer to almost claim a kiss from Lakshmi, but keeping just out of reach.

"Are you saying there's too much of me?"

"Not at all -" Only that everyone in Talonhold is giants. " - Just enough for me."

Bold words, Lakshmi, as she moves through the water, so too does she stay out of reach of that kiss. Though, her head tilts back, expectant if Magni did move closer. Eyes flicking down and back up to her face, watching how the soap trailed over her, the water trickled and pooled on her skin. The dip of her ribs, her collarbone, glistening in the candlelight, firelight, not the soft pink when they were flushed with the wind, but bathed warm colour of fire, glittering in her hair, her eyes.

Lakshmi's own hands move in front of her, wafting her nose lose black hair about her in tendrils. Inky dark in how they stick, hang over her body, curving over her breasts and body, hiding her partially. Reaching across to the few items she had given for the rather more exact purpose of the bath. Cleaning, refreshing themselves. From the bottles, she reaches for one from her home. An oil that when she uncorks the bottle, fills the room with the scent of flowers, rich, the perfume she always adorned herself with.

Gently, she tips it out into one hand and then sets it aside. Once away, she presses her hands together, rubbing the oil between them slowly, before moving closer and - not watching Magni's face, she lays her hands on her knees, one of each hand and - smooths them up her legs. But the texture isn't exactly smooth. There is a faint, grainy, texture to it. That spread as she runs her hands up Magni's legs in a symmetrical movement, then back down either leg until they reach the water. The oil spread she moves both her hands to one of Magni's legs, placing both her palms on her skin. Gently, in little circles with her fingers, she begins to massage her leg, working at the hard muscles there with - adoration, a want to touch, most certainly - but a care, to let Magni enjoy herself for a little while.

Lakshmi rubs her hands over her skin, and Magni sighs contently, her head tilting back, and on her next exhale a quiet moan drifts past her lips. Her muscles are still aching from the strain of earlier. “Your hands are magic.”

Which probably isn’t an appropriate thing to say, but this isn’t exactly a situation where— she should worry about propriety. Needs to. Because they... yes. She gulps a little.

“I— want to touch you more.” A little sheepish, a blush crawling up her neck.

"After," comes the decidedly unhelpful murmur. Her hands moving over Magni's body, pushing against her skin with the heel of her palm. Later, if they had a bed, she could take her fingers and dig them into Magni's shoulders the way her ladies did for her - but for now, she contents herself with this.

For right now - Magni was going to receive as she so readily, so easily gave. As she moves up, the stroke is more - pointed. Her palms sliding up the inside of Magni's legs, brushing up her thighs, up, up, up: and stops. Part teasing, part working herself up to being so bold. Teasingly close, sliding near, and then moving back again, moving back to her knees.

Hard, hard to keep her eyes in one, modest, place, when there was so much of Magni in front of her, and she certainly - knew she could look at her. But... well, not the only one sheepish.

Instinctive, rather than deliberately, she shifts her legs just factionally further apart. Licks her lips as Lakshmi's hands press upwards, and exhales (relaxes, eases) as they drop lower. Somehow this feels more vulnerable for not being underwater, and part of it feels selfish, or— or she doesn't know what, really, but she presses her thighs together again. Her hands grip the left and right sides of the seat, and her toes are curled.

She feels— exhilarated and vulnerable at the same time.

"After, um. What?"

Biting her lip again as she looks down at Lakshmi, reaching down to trail her fingers over her wife's knuckles.

She feels her face heat up, as she tried to put it to words. Utterly unable to meet her eyes as she tries to venture how to say it. Almost overwhelming how she wants to start fiddling.

But Magni had touched her so surely, and did what she had asked with rebuking her. So tongue tied as she is, heart hammering in her throat, she does her best to keep going. "After I've finished touching you."

There, she swallows, and then keeps going. "After I've finished making you feel like you made me feel."

Her heart is hammering so hard in her chest that she honestly wouldn't be surprised if it deafened her, as well. Gently catching one of Lakshmi's hands she leans down, carefully tilts the palm upwards so she can kiss the palm and then the inside of her wrist. "You already make me feel— much. I— I— um."

Talking is so fucking hard. Magni pauses, has to lick her lips to carry on. "I want you t-to uh— but I— I don't want you to think that you have to."

Just, just wants to say that. Wants to be clear, wants to make sure Lakshmi isn't acting out of obligation.

She dares to look up at her, then determined as much as she can. The brovado is well and truly gone. Just a earnest and a desire that glints mirror like behind her eyes. Determinedly peering up at her.

"I want you to be like I was when you touched me."

That breathlessness that left her whining, gasping, writhing, twisting in Magni's lap. Not just being touched then, being touch in just such a way, and she punctures words with sentence as she slides her fingers slowly up again. Lighter, less about working sore tense muscles and more just about touching her skin, in how she positions herself to kneel that little inside Magni's legs. Stopping her from closing them. "Let me look at you?"

Such catching words, that, making her skin flush pinker.

Glancing towards her Rani, then. Gaze concerned, cautious, and has Lakshmi's hands slide up her breath feels a little shallow. Her kneeling nudging forward, Magni parts her legs to let her closer, and honestly feels excessively large with Lakshmi kneeling and her seated like a looming thing.

Her smile is sheepish. "I think I really am too tall," she says, conspiratorial, and she offers her wife an apologetic smile.

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