mahalakshmi | AU - MAGNI & LAKSHMI

She looks to Krogstad, with the others that stand with him, that travelled so far with her, and he offers her a smile. Fjorleif is speaking to Baghirathi in earnest, and then moves towards Krogstad to greet him. A member of the household, yes, but an old friend as well, and she embraces him warmly. Between the two matriarchs, Krogstad, Nørgaard and Benedicte, she was certain that the people who helped them on their challenging journey would be rewarded, and those of Talonhold still recovering elsewhere would have aid sent to them. Nørgaard, a man only a few years older than herself, with a wife of his own he is eager to get back to, catches her eye and nods. It will be done, his expression says, and she nods back in turn, relieved. Good people were so much at her side, she barely knew what she had ever done to deserve them.

Everything feels a bit hazy after that. Making it back through the hall, seeing some faces that she had known her entire life (nobility, members of the household, each so valued) and felt that she was home, but it was Lakshmi's hand holding hers that made her feel steady, safe, that she could keep moving one foot in front of the other and stand upright long enough to make it to some sanctuary.

She follows, follows, until they are alone in a place where they were truly alone (at least, as alone as they ever could be,) and she tugs Lakshmi's hand. Stop walking, and just pleads her wife to come closer to her, now they have this moment. Where they are hardly matters. She's barely registered their actual location.

Their quarters are too far, and too many stairs, away. So they do not make it so far. Rather, Lakshmi had pooled all the house guards to the hall when she knew the trouble would start from less important places.

But it means now, the library is empty. Small and intimate. The great walls of books like a buffer of sound. She locks the door behind them, occupied with that before she feels the tug.

And with it, everything else falls away, the fear and relief and longing on her face that had been kept hidden bubble over, desperately reach back for Magni. Properly this time. "They said I had lost you," how she whispers it, like she didn't even want to say it. "but I knew I hadn't. I knew you would not go and not come back to me, first."

Like such simple promises could be want changed fate. Maybe they were. Maybe right now, they were the only thing that mattered. Her face twists up in the pain of it and arms wrap around her.

Her hands clasp her Lakshmi, feeling over her waist, her hips, grasp her shoulders. Her fingers map along her collarbones, gently rest against her neck, thumbs brushing her jaw. She leans down, resting their foreheads together only briefly, kisses her brow, her cheekbones, the corner of her mouth, mumbling against her lips. "Nothing could keep me from you."

She was her guiding star, her compass. She felt a draw back to her that was as certain as the force of magnets, of the pull back to the earth, as the tides of the sea. Just as when the cold had shocked her and threatened to force all the air from her and the thought of Lakshmi kept her able to move, so too had she ensured that she did not, could not give up. And now there was not only her beloved, but their little one.

"My heart beats for you."

"As mine does for you."

She doesn't let go of her, only, she pulls back, that scared, longing filled look on her face that marrs her brow, pinches her mouth together as her hand lifts from Magni's shoulder. Not to travel far, just one linger lifting to brush the outside of her cheek in what could only be deemed reverence.

"Every Jarl in these lands could try to part us, every Raj with a thousand elephants. But they could no more take my heart from my chest, without it, I would surely perish, and for it, I would never stop fighting to protect it." her eyes down, a moment, distracted very momentarily, as she takes Magni's hand with a faint smile. Guiding it to brush against her baby bump. "nothing but little turns, all month without you. Then this morning, I was woken with a strong kick. I think they knew." she had taken it as a sign. No doubt a child born in such a union would have known better than anyone. Wasn't that the superstition anyway?

Because as she lays the hand there, the response was there. The press of feet against her palm, where - Lakshmi winces certainly for the force of the kick - the baby seemed at once more lively.

The Mountain-Father himself might be cautioned by how intensely she adores her. She watches her with a quiet wonder, cannot imagine that there is any way she can respond that will do justice to how those words have moved her, how her Lakshmi moves her. Her breath is shallow in her chest, and she is about to draw her into an embrace, when—

a kick. Magni's mouth is caught in a surprised, thrilled smile. Kisses Lakshmi's cheek, and murmurs against her ear, "Min løveinne, your words—" Maybe trying to speak was a poor choice. Never her strength, and she is already so tired, so exhausted. "I wish I could explain." How Lakshmi makes her feel, how she feels about Lakshmi, let her know beyond any doubt how much Magni adores her. There could never be words for that. It seems madness to try.

Another kiss to her Rani's cheek, before she kneels down before Lakshmi, kisses the swell of her belly, and rests her forehead against it. "Be kind to your mother, little cub." I missed you, too. I love you.

Lakshmi shakes her head, mirthful now in a way that wants to lead into hysterical sobbing, even now. Her hands cupping the back of Magni's head. Smoothing through her hair, combing where it is loose, tracing where it is braided. Reverently touching over her in a way that is almost unconscious in how she can't part from her. Touching every bit of her.

"That task is yours I'm afraid, there is none from the little one."

Another kiss to her belly, nuzzling against it for a moment, as she enjoys the sensation of Lakshmi's fingers in her hair, savours that simple contact after near a month without that closeness, that simple intimacy which has to be as essential to her as breathing. Looking up from where she kneels, Magni tilts her head to kiss her Rani's wrist, leaning into the contact.

"That is no task. You inspire kindness in others."

She curls around her face with her hand, as she leans in, cupping her head, wanting so badly to sink down with her like this. Comfortably close and alone. Drape about her like she so often did, feel their skin as close as possible, know at long last the only comfort she has imagined these long days: hearing Magni's heart beat steady below her ear.

( There isn't much stopping her, truth be told, just that this belly has made it a sure thing that if she falls over it takes a good deal of effort to get back up again. )

Rather she looks down at her, it might just be the next best thing. "My Ishq, so do you." More than once, for all they might be understood beyond their own quarters, Magni was ever the more even tempered one of them.

A smile, at that. A smile that doubtless betrays her exhaustion, how much of a toll these weeks of uncertainty and separation have been. Her lips are chapped, she is thinner, and there are dark circles under her eyes, but she braces herself and pushes up to stand. She feels the need to bathe and eat and rest and all of those things seem like nigh-impossible hurdles at the moment, now that they are just the two of them. In truth she would sooner just lean against Lakshmi and stay there for hours.

"I must smell terrible," she says quietly, not self conscious so much as faintly apologetic, with a breath of laughter in it.

She looks so terribly warn, so terribly exhausted. How it pulls, tight inside her chest. It was better - better than being tormented nightly by images of her face, pallid with death, her blue eyes drowned away. Despite the weight of her belly, how hard it is to bend and twist, she leans down, to kiss her soundly. Pressing her lips against hers to chase the sound of her laughter.

"You smell like you, and I am glad for it." But not pleasant, some faint tang of sea on still mattered in her hair, mingled with the sweat and salt of her own body, grief like in how it seemed to hang close. "Come, they will have sorted our quarters by now. You can bathe. Have clean clothes. Our bed again." Have me to hold, and I you, and we need not part from one another for many hours.

The bed she had refused to leave but had let no one else come into until she knew her Magni had lived.

"I hope someone saw to calling the doctor," she says by way of quiet agreement. They are all of them bruised and battered and stiff, and would benefit from medical inspection, just to know that no damage will be lingering. Krogstad was strong, but he was still an older man, and though he was already a dark grey, now his hair was more run through with silver. And then—

"I need to see to sending help to our people. There's work to do." A reminder to herself. She can't rest, not yet. Bathing and resting would have to wait, though her body feels like it might come apart at the prospect of needing to do more. She just wants to hold her Rani close, inhale the scent of her, feel the kicks of their baby under her palm.

"There is, and right now, you share it with us. No doubt your mother has already sent word for them, and sent them to your men." She takes Magni's hands in her own and beckons her up by way of a little tug. "You can give the rest of your orders in the bath."

A coaxing compromise, she hopes, as she beckons her closer, nearer. "You made it, you are here now, let us look after the rest." Her mountain was going to crumble if she pushed herself too much further, harder, could feel that rumbling earthquake below the surface.

Standing is harder than it has any right to be, and where she would normally stand with no difficulty, now Magni has to pause and ease herself up as her muscles protest the work. Her Rani hardly needs to prompt her closer, she is already moving so, nodding her understanding. She couldn't do everything, and recovering was important - she needed to be there for her wife, her little one, all their people. She just wishes that it felt less like giving in, to let herself relax when so much had happened and so many had perished in the storm.

"I might—" her jaw works uncomfortably. "I might have nightmares. I want you with me, but you need to sleep," for her own health, for the baby, and Magni can't in good conscience beg Lakshmi to sleep by her side with how disturbing her dreams have been. I need to be stronger than this.

Lakshmi shakes her head in dismissal of the idea that Magni would even be apart from her for a second from here on out. Recovery or otherwise.

"I need to sleep, it is true, and I can only have it when you are with me." She lifts both her hands, sliding against her cheeks, cupping her face. "Only now can I rest, now that I have you again."

She leans up, standing all the way on her tiptoes that half makes her topple from being out of balance from her far too big belly. But not to go far, only to kiss her forehead soundly. "We will face your dreams, together. And when you wake, I will be there to tell you where you are."

With me, with me, with me.

As the risk of toppling comes, Magni braces her hands against Lakshmi's sides to make sure she is steady, and leans down to make the kiss easier, leaning into the contact hungrily.

For long moments she is silent, not sure how to speak without her voice betraying her, without making the weakness all too apparent, hands holding tightly onto Lakshmi.

"I missed you." Miserable with it, her voice finally cracking.

AU - MAGNI & LAKSHMI

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