mahalakshmi | AU - MAGNI & LAKSHMI

"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)

Magni nods her understanding, though— her mouth twists unhappily, like she should have grasped all this sooner, understood it better. Their marriage, their union, it had not been a matter of love and adoration. It had been pragmatism, an arrangement between their families, and perhaps she had... not seen all that she should have done.

"You're right."

Quiet, voice rasping a little, and she leans down to rest her forehead against Lakshmi's shoulder, hands dropping away from her face so instead she can wrap her arms around Lakshmi's waist. Hell with the dirt, she just wants to hold her close.

"They're your meetings to attend." She suspects, now it's been said, that they always should have been. Was that the expectation that she had failed to grasp? It makes sense. It feels— absurd, a shortcoming, not to have considered it sooner. Perhaps her head has been too full of too many things. "I— feel foolish."

Lakshmi nods, silent, wrapping her arms around her in return. Sliding against her hair, her back. Holding onto her tightly.

"I was the fool. Not you. I made an assumption that hurt us both because I was frustrated."

She in returns burrows her face against Magni's hair. It is palatable the comfort she feels in her closeness. Rolling over her like a river, washing down and clearing it away. Til she was no more than a smooth pebble, and not the bundle of barbs she had been before.

There was a wonder in that, how Magni could soothe her so wholly in a matter of minutes when it usually required what Jhalkari had done to work it out of her. "Can you ever forgive me?"

Magni's arms steady around Lakshmi's waist, and then she hoists her up easily. Moving so that she can take them out of the hallway and into their chamber, rather than her barging into Lakshmi's, and bringing her wife back into that shared space. Keeps Lakshmi held up easily with one arm as the other hand opens the door and she steps the both in.

Silent, for a moment, as she sets Lakshmi down and kneels down in front of her, gently taking both her hands. "We're both learning. We are... forging a new path. I forgive you, and I— I hope you can forgive me. And that... that when we make mistakes we can talk about it, and— and learn together."

Still kneeling, she looks up at Lakshmi. "I don't— can you sleep in here, tonight?"

She so loves when Magni does that - makes her feel so precious, so particular with her, that she barely wants to detangle from her when Magni drops Lakshmi back down.

Happily, she finds, she does not have to. Because that question had but one answer, she swoops down and kisses her for the first time in weeks. Doing so soundly, almost tearfully, happily. "Of course, of course. I have hated having you gone."

There are prayers of thanks she might offer later, when she does not need to pour all her focus and her energy into Lakshmi.

She's so relieved with the kiss, but— "Careful, your lip."

Her arms wrap tightly around Lakshmi, and she is so relieved she could almost laugh. "I hope your dog has been worth this," she murmurs between kisses, hugging Lakshmi closer.

She laughs, brightly into kissing her.

Which is a mistake for exactly the reason Magni warns her about - "ow." is the soft little mutter of regret that she barely feels.

"He has. I think I would have snapped at someone else if not for him. He is a good companion for me, he soothes me when you are not there."

Exactly as Magni intended, no doubt. "I should get cleaned up." she says, eventually, without doing anything about it.

"We're only just at each others sides again," she protests, a very undignified whine, though she looks at Lakshmi with a sort of nervousness born of them re-learning each other. And she presses her forehead to Lakshmi's chest, staying determinedly.

It sounds practically petulant. Endearingly so, that Magni - Magni still wanted to be near her, not just after their argument, but messy, dirt smeared and sweat cooling on her skin in the lighter air inside the heavy stone walls of the keep that made everything always colder.

A smile plays, and rather than answer that, her hands moves. She supposes, Magni has never seen her in her own clothes, which is to say those from before she became of Talonhold. She makes sure most times to dress as her position dictates.

But she knew what she preferred for riding. The wrap of her saree to form pants. The way her kurta by contrast was tight to her upper body.

That - to all the layers of talonhold, these northern's rightly need for their weather. She right now, does not. So little in fact that when she decides upon it, it's over as quick as that. Bold enough, sure enough that the door is open behind them and they are half in the corridor but she barely considers it when she yanks off her top and pulls at one knot -

And suddenly there is nothing between her and Magni but skin, and a pool of fabric at her feet. Her top balled up and tossed at Magni's head.

"You were saying?"

She turns, slinking into her room, waiting, watching and the wink is probably too much, when she ventures it over her shoulder in the backwards glance when she reaches for the pins that hold up her hair. She figures, Magni can figure out the rest quickly enough.

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villieldr - 2019-03-08 11:51 (UTC) - Expand