mahalakshmi | AU - MAGNI & LAKSHMI

"Did you?" She doesn't believe it. Her gaze doesn't turn away, marching forward without pause or consideration. "I am sure you had plenty to console yourself with."

Which is hurtful, mean. Given that Magni had done nothing, but to Lakshmi's mind, she'd been made a fool of. A whole night and day with images in her mind, colouring them in like a sickness. Filling her up bitterly.

So, no, she doesn't stop, just keeps walking in a furious stride that she thinks she's done very well to make fast and long after so much time keeping up with all these bloody giants.

What? What does that even mean?

She doesn’t stay still, and instead dashes so that she can come to a skidding half and block Lakshmi’s way. “What are you talking about?”

Confused, hurt, wondering if Lakshmi found out about the surprise and was for some reason angry about it rather than happy. Silence hangs off her like a heavy cloak, and she looks utterly, utterly bewildered - but in a Magni way, which is to say unhelpdully understated.

It pulls her up short, stopping just before she bumped into her directly. Her hands tightening on her skirts. A pronounced fury to all of it, that makes her stiff, every bit of her held taut as she bites. Because she should stop, and she should cool down, and she should find a better way through.

But she has worked herself far too much into a state for that.

"You think you could have your fill of me, and what, take her as a mistress now that things had cooled some, your duty to your wife was done? I know I was not your first choice, but you could at least keep up some kind of appearance when I have been dutiful to you so that I do not learn about your whoring from a traveller in front of all our people."

She feels as though she has been slapped full in the face. Looks it, too, taking a half step back. Realisation dawns, where she had been near, and she almost groans.

“How many times must I tell you I love you before you believe it?”

Had she told her? Had she said it? She thought, surely, that she had, and anger and desperation edges her voice equally. “I don’t love Demetria. I don’t want Demetria. My heart has been yours for months and you do not trust or respect me enough to—“

To have faith, to consider that a traveller, a nameless traveller, might not know all? That rumours were malicious. She stares at Lakshmi for a moment, and shakes her head. “If all we are is duty to you, still, then I misunderstood much.”

It's the mistresses job to screech and rage, Lakshmi, it is yours to accept, and always to provide a home to return to of peace and respect.

But it's much too late for that. This seething mess she'd worked herself into and let all the words out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Because there is a dawning realisation, that she has made a mistake, somewhere in all this. That something had been terribly misunderstood and she is being a fool.

"Kisses are not declarations of love - when the one you give them too runs off to the lands of another but a week later. As I am sure you well know." An awful thing to say, an awful thing to bring up. "What else do I have but duty here? Especially when I was humiliated in front of all of our people. Ask me anything else, but do not take my pride from me."

To have that abandonment flung in her face stings, and Magni is silent as she swallows past a dry throat, struggles to comprehend that her Lakshmi would seek to wound her so specifically. When next she speaks, her voice is soft. “I told you once that I did not wish for Demetria any longer. That she had thought the way to happiness was to betray and hurt.” Her voice stays steady, barely. ““You sought humiliation in this. You looked for it readily, at the first opportunity. If I leave Talonhold then anywhere I go will be the lands of someone my family or this land has some connection to, and you can make— make whatever connection you desire to see, or believe.”

Her shoulders drop, and she starts to turn away.

“If you valued reason and truth as much as pride,” don’t, don’t “then you would see that by believing it you humiliated yourself. And that by— trying to hurt me with humiliation and scorn you only bring yourself lower.”

The words are hard to say; she isn’t a famous talker, and saying hurtful things to Lakshmi goes against the grain completely.

Edited 2018-12-26 03:37 (UTC)

"I don't care where you go! I just want to know where you go first so I can save face when you leave me here with no one. You tell me nothing and expect me to put up with it because you don't feel like it!"

And ever contrary, ever at odds with herself, she snaps back at her. When Magni steps back, steps to leave, she follows, skirts bundled up in one hand. "Don't you walk away from me. That is all you ever do when I have to give up everything, stay here, you can just leave whenever you wish to try to manage your people!"

Isn't fair, Magni hardly kept her locked up in a tower with no one. But it stung often enough, and right now, she reaches for the weapons that hurt most, hurt deeply.

She stops, expression twisting before she looks to Lakshmi. "Does it make you happy, being cruel so that you win? Lashing out always so you are the most clever?"
Where is the wisdom in that? Where is the compassion? Less pride and concern with reputation, more learning, more faith.

But then, where had that line of thinking gotten Magni? One fiancee abandoning her, and a wife who thought so little of her and was so eager for the last word. Magni's head shakes very slightly. "I try. There is not shame in trying. And I left without saying where, because I went to get a gift for you. A surprise, so you would not feel alone."

Swallowing past her throat is hard, it feels hot, dry and rasping, and she can't look at Lakshmi, because she hurts. "I did not know you felt that way. That— being here was so— prison-like."

Edited 2019-01-09 05:34 (UTC)

"Because all I have is you! Of course, it is prison-like, I have nothing of my home and a wife that never understands that she will never be blamed, that whatever she does, it will be me who is called ugly, frigid, wretched, for not being enough for you! When you are my whole world!"

She is shouting, now, no doubt, this argument was no longer private. But no one at least dared to stick their head around either end of the corridor. Good, too, because it is more than she means to say, more because it hurts and in the way her father taught her - to strike in with her blade, to press and press and press to the hilt, hold true, do not falter.

He did not teach you to be cruel, Lakshmi. Listen to what she said, she said -

For the first time in her tirade, she falters. "... A present?"

"I'm the fool who didn't see that her fiancee and her best friend were so enamoured of each other. I am— I am the last resort. Not the born ruler, the one no one expected to lead. The one people were relieved was not to lead, because I am— I am as I am." Quiet, pensive, introverted. "Every day I'm blamed because I'm not Asvaldr. Every moment that Talonhold knows difficulty or disappointment, it's because I'm not my brother."

And now Lakshmi blamed her as well. "Maybe you would have been happier with him as well. Smiles and talking and the need to be right and to win." He was the charmer.

(When you are my whole world, she said. That should make her feel such joy, but it was said with such anger and venom that can't even give it thought.)

Her arms are crossed protectively over her chest and she's staring at the ground, rather than at Lakshmi, and tilts her head to the hallways that would lead them towards the courtyard and the gardens where the puppy was to be taken to await Lakshmi.

It's pride that keeps her back straight, and nothing else, as something like shame begins to creep into her limbs. Up her throat, her temper was always a fast thing, burning quick and hot, it didn't leave much but embers in its path. A charred piece of earth with nothing left to give.

And she rapidly begins to realise, the land she has left behind is her own wife, hurting and with wounds dug up.

She'd seen the portrait, certainly. He had looked proud. But Lakshmi hadn't - hadn't thought much of it. It was as pointless as wondering what life had been like if her family had the gold to match their prestige.

So finally, finally, Lakshmi shuts up. Her teeth clicking together. Not sure what to say, or do, now all that pain had shouted itself to foolishness. Confused, unsure, so stiff in her limbs, she goes the direction that Magni indicates. Her skirts gathered up in her hand, trying to work out what to do, what to say. How to undone what she might have just done because she hadn't stop to think -

Following behind Lakshmi until she’s required to move ahead to indicate which way they must walk, Magni leads her wife to the gardens in silence. Not looking at her, unable to, and it is as though a visor has fallen forward and blocks the world out. She does not appear to react to anything about her - not the warmth of the sun as they step outside, or the trill of birdsong that normally draws her curiosity to what birds are visiting, and a smile to her lips.

The gardens of Talonhold are well kept and beautiful. Of all the places in the keep, Magni loves the gardens best. Winter still lingers, but slowly spring is beginning to reclaim the mountains, and soon flowers will begin to bloom. She had taken care that beautiful bulbs would be planted so that when spring came Lakshmi could see how beautiful Talonhold could be, but— that seemed very foolish, now.

As they advance into the garden, she hears the excited whine of the puppy, and then sees the stable master holding the little pup on a lead. A red ribbon, comically large, is tied about her neck, and the current minder holds papers of breeding to present to Lakshmi.

“She’s yours to name and to keep. “ She says, finally. “A companion and guard who can accompany you through Talonhold wherever you wish, loyal to you above all others.” Her voice sounds a little flat, and she turns to start moving away.

She takes it all, silent and stricken by it all - by her own foolishness.

There is the small mercy, that probably, every single person standing here in the courtyard just got told about the argument, that now was not a good time to come bounding up about it. Rather the fellow is very respectful, as he gives her the puppy, but utterly quiet as he gives her murmuring. She takes it with both hands. Holding it up to her face as it's little feet kicked in the air, barking and desperately trying to lick her face in eagerness.

"I'll call you Nandu." She murmurs, turning her cheek up to let the puppy lick her face. "Someone must be." Far bitterer.

Because Magni turns to leave, and Lakshmi does not stop her. Rather, if she presses her face into the dog's fur, soft as it is, it will blot her far too frustrated tears from falling.

For a moment, she hesitates. Wants to go to Lakshmi, wants to— to apologise, and the desire baffles her. When she did nothing wrong, when it is she who bleeds, and yet she wishes to heal Lakshmi's wounds, now? She swallows heavily, and begins walking again.

Another day she might go to the forge, but now she is tired from travelling, and this argument feels as though it has sapped the strength from her. She just runs to their room, their room, a space that is meant to be shared, and falls back into a chair by the fireplace.

Giving Lakshmi this power over her was stupid, foolish, and her head drops into her hands.

The silence that falls over the castle and the hold over the next few weeks. No longer newly weds for it to be that nervous being about each other and more than something that can just have gotten over. Lakshmi took to only taking her evening meal in the hall. Even when she knew it was no more than stubbornness on her end, that what she must do is apologise for her lack of trust, her stubborn hurt pride did not find it so easy warring with -

How lonely in her bed it was. How empty her rooms felt. Once her only sanctuary here, now, they felt like a prison cell. The only joy was the puppy she had. Clutched to herself both as a reminder and an ache for her love. She cradled it and sulked to herself, whilst refusing to admit how terribly she missed her Jarl, her mountain, who carried her up to high peaks, and walked her back down again. Who thought of her bound loneliness, who she still caught looking at her, and she looked back, with the affection of but a few weeks ago.

Little was she to know how servants could plan, conspire, in her self put upon misery and stupidity over her pride. How Jhalkari traded words with Krogstad. That she had quite enough of watching her mistress sulk and bemoan to herself the situation. That she hatched a plan that only she could get away with, such was their sisterly affection after a childhood together.

That after Lakshmi had taken them out for a ride, her mood still black, Jhalkari and Kashi in tow, that when they returned, the summer weather at its peak that all three women were wrapped in their sarees just for the ride that as they dismounted and gave the horses back to the stable hand, and Lakshmi got them ready to do something else that she spoke up. Loud, at the top of her voice she whinged in - mercifully - Hindi.

"Why are you dragging us off again, I don't want to go. It's hot and the river would be nicer."

"Because there are better things to do than sit around here. "

"What like sulk instead of say sorry because you're being a stubborn old cow? "

"Excuse me! "

Lakshmi whirls on her, then, voice raised, regardless of where they were, who they were as Jhalkari went on with her list of grievences. "--Everyone knows it! Whining and laying about like a stinking sow, bet she doesn't even want you back like this!"

That does it. Well and truly, Lakshmi shoves her, dearest oldest friends they were, and much to the surprise of everyone back, Jhalkari shoves right back. So Lakshmi slaps her in return. And then she is slapped just as squarely in return.

Then it's on. Blood churning over in the summer heat, the ground mercifully a little more muddy for the summer rains to cushion their blows and falls, they lay into each other. Shrieking and biting, rank, circumstance and positions gone. The way sisters could they get their elbows and knees and teeth into each other in a blind rage. Though both warriors true, there is nothing elegant and refined to this, as Lakshmi gets a elbow into Jhalkari's back to shove her face first into the dirt, nor delicate to how Jhalkari gets a handful of Lakshmi's long braided rope of dark hair and drags her back a few feet as she kicks and shouts. Kicking and flailing and shrieking curses vile enough it is probably best most do not understand them.

Nor does anyone value their life so little to get in the way of the jarl's wife and her maid. But nor does it stop them from forming a circle and cheering at the all put brawl between the two women. When the two of them get into it, rather Kashi waves her arms above her head in a signal of Krogstad to send someone to finally go and get Magni before this got any worse.

Which when the boy knocks on Magni's door he's breathless, red in the face hammering on her wood. "It's your lady and her maid, my Jarl! Come quick."

That being where Magni can find them, rolling around on the ground, yanking pulling and shoving, kicking biting and scream. Both covered in dust now, Lakshmi bleeding from a cut lip, and Jhalkari from a bloodied nose. But neither showing any sign of stopping their fight just because position might dictate, blind to Magni as much as the hollering crowd.

The Jarl shoves her way through the crowd relentlessly - once they realise she's there people begin to scatter, although there's still a crowd clustered about them, shrieking and clawing at one another like a pair of alley cats. Mud splashes up her boots as she runs in, hauling both women up and forcing herself between them in the same movement.

There hasn't been much time to think, aside from the walk down, wondering what in the hells was going on, and now this. A fight, between Lakshmi and one of her maids, where all of Talonhold can see them. A spectacle, certainly, though that is not her first concern. It is for Lakshmi's safety that she worries, and as she leans down and pushes them apart, she is rewarded for her concern by an elbow striking hard at her brow. Enough to bruise and split the skin, and—

"Enough." Sharp, bitten out, and Krogstad almost (almost) flinches as he arrives at her side and gently steps between Jhalkari and the Jarl as though he might obscure her from view, handing her a clean shawl and offering one to Lakshmi as well. Magni wipes away some of the blood that is running down her cheek, and looks to Lakshmi. Briefly, sees the blood on her face and it hurts her heart, before she makes herself look past Lakshmi because she— can't. Not after that. She can't let Lakshmi keep hurting her after that, can't keep caring so much, but it feels like all she can do.

"Grevinne," is all she says, taking her wife by the elbow and starting to lead her away from this spectacle. In silence, moving swiftly and with little concern if shoes or other things are left behind, a steady walk to Lakshmi's chambers. And once they are a few meters from the door to her room, Magni stops short. "I will send the doctor to see to your injuries, and the servants will see to arranging a bath." Not making eye contact, not looking at her, even if she kept stealing concerns sidelong glances to try and assess Lakshmi's state for herself.

In those first few moments, Lakshmi doesn't see Magni particularly or anyone else, just the blind rage to want to hit as hard as she can that had finally after almost a year of living in this place, finally bubbled over. Of doing her best to only being a demure wife cast aside to the heat and satisfaction of being able to strike and hit and have the satisfaction of it returned by someone who didn't care that she was Grevinne.

Until her elbow connects with someone who isn't Jhalkari. That finally makes her pause, stunned for a moment when she's lifted up like a doll. There was only one person who would dare, would ever consider doing it.

She can't even think what trouble this all might be as Magni very sensibly leads her off. Has to hop a quicker step to keep up with her wife's longer legs as she's taken off by her arm. Away from prying eyes, mercifully.

Because there is no other word for it. She's a mess. Blood on her face, mud streaked over her clothes, dust sticking to the sweat on her brow. Hair stuck up where it had been yanked on, and a smattering of bruises that would come up in following days.

She blinks, wide eyed in a daze as she realises Magni is talking to her, all at once, and they are speaking alone for the first time in days. About doctors and a bath and being seen to and that very soon, Magni was going to leave in a moment and that thought - that thought.

"I don't want them." she blurts out, all the refinement gone out of her like a sawn off edge, rough and husky after all that shouting.

"What you want is not always what will be," she snaps back, though it's raw and vulnerable despite every inch of self-preservation she has tried so hard to claw together. Feels foolish and raw all at once. "I wanted us to be happy, and here we are."

Her mouth tugs painfully, unhappily, and she looks away from Lakshmi with that. Doesn't move, but looks at the other wall, a focus point she can train her gaze to.

"You will be seen to, and then you can decide if Jhalkari is to be dismissed."

If there are wounds that could cut more she doesn't know them. She flinches. Bodily so. As sure as if Magni has struck her.

"I don't want her to go." Because what was her crime? Nothing but saying what was plain, furiously so, perhaps, the way so few dare would, and that needed to be said. "Do not be cross with her. She only said the truth."

Hard as that was to admit. With that, she winces a little, "perhaps a little more harshly than another might, but only because we know each other so well."

Wanted us to be happy. it's what she deserves for what she had done, but it hurts, it hurts so dearly much.

"She hurt you."

Anger simmers under her words, rare in the Jarl but baring its fangs now. Despite all her efforts, she looks to Lakshmi, moves closer. Hesitantly reaches for her, raising only a little before her hand drops. Now she's looking at her she can't pull her gaze away again.

"I know you— have disdain for me and for this place, but I won't see you hurt."

It takes her so much by surprise. That ire, anger on her behalf that she does not deserve. That Jhalkari does not deserve to be the brunt of right now either. She breathes, slow. Shaking her head.

"No, I struck her first."

She could not have started this conversation. But suddenly it does not matter, her hand reaches to catch Magni's before it can fall totally away. Catching to bring it up, against her streaked, dirty cheek. Bracing it to stay like she had so desperately craved.

"She said I was being a old stubborn cow, and that I deserved to lose you for being like this. That I was going to - I got so angry. That I might, that I had driven you away, when you are the one thing -"

There is an echo of a conversation in the rain the last time she had worked herself up this, taken odd half baked in hurt, that left babbling like this. "I was a fool and I have been a fool for weeks."

Her hand stays at Lakshmi's cheek, not needing to be held in place, but so glad for the contact that she's sure she should condemn herself for it.

"You said this place was a prison." Or maybe she didn't speak it in such words, but the sentiment had been close enough. "And that leaves me as good as your jailer."

That had hurt almost as deeply as all the rest, but those things felt too difficult to speak of for now, how Lakshmi had raked her claws right across her belly and the wounds did not feel even close to healing. "And you have— this temper."

A monstrous temper, it seemed like, that made her ready to tear the people she cared for to ribbons.

Her hands stay there, smoothing across the back of her knuckles in thought as much as appreciation.

"I know. I had it long before I came here and I have been trying -"

For as much as Magni found it hard to speak. So did Lakshmi, at times, the training of it different, perhaps. About what could be said and not said. What was acceptable and what wasn't.

"I am the daughter of warriors, I was raised as one. The only thing I have been taught to do when I am upset, was fight. So I do. I do it until there is nothing left."

She sucks in a breath, wouls Magni hate her for this? Not want her anymore. But then was it love? "I was upset, that man humiliated me and I had no weapon to protect myself with, not against words, so I took it out on you... That was wrong of me. You are not my jailer. You never have been. I have never thought of you as such. But..."

This is what she was, always had been. She could try to pretend, but then what would their love be? "... As your grevinne, I know, I must be everything otherwise."

A daughter of warriors, where Magni was the daughter of smiths, not of mountains and skies and all Talonhold was meant to be. More comfortable at the forge than in a throne room, better at ease in the vicious heat and hammering metal than the dance of words.

Leaning forward, stooping with it, she brings her forehead to rest against Lakshmi's. Never mind the dirt and the mud, and her other hand cradles the other side of Lakshmi's jaw, so for long moments she can just lean against her with her eyes closed.

"I don't understand," she says softly, uncertain. "I don't— you don't have to be everything. Just you."

Too simplistic, probably, naive in some ways. She was never meant to be a leader and she doesn't really want to be, and she doesn't want Lakshmi to suffer from the burdens of it either. "Even with that temper."

She swallows, rough on her dry throat. Desperately leaning up into the affection, drinking it in like a desert under rain. "Then something must change."

Its hard to say, hard to admit like she might wound Magni further. To admit something like unhappiness. "You want me to be happy, I know this, as I want you to be happy with all my body and soul."

Tries to get it out before she stumbles, before the world returns to ruin their newly return peace. "But I am not just your wife, I am your Grevinne. I rule in your stead when you are not present. But I had to hear from stranger that you were somewhere I had no idea about? it makes me, us, look... "

Weak. She grips harder both her hands over Magni's, holding on. "Talonhold has wealth, but she does not know how to defend herself. That is why we married, because someone had laid its most precious heart bare. Let me be your blade, let me defend our home. Let me be that extension of you, and I will not bite so much in feeling useless and unprotected." and to that - and that, she is terrified to ask because no matter how she hard she worked, she was still an outsider to some. "Let me sit on your meetings with your advisors and when you make plans for the hold."

Edited 2019-03-03 05:45 (UTC)

AU - MAGNI & LAKSHMI

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)