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[rathercommon]

crystal | letter | cease and desist notices slipped under her door | action

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[rathercommon]

[ That stops Kitty in her tracks. She stares at Lakshmi, mouth slightly agape. ]

How'd - how'd you learn to talk like that?

[ Like Stan, like Fred - not really like Kitty herself, her parents having scolded those improper vowels out of her. But like people she knows. ]

[shri]

Haven't you learned, Kitty? I do all sorts of things.

[ And she has the gall to wink as she straightens up, and with it, out of the bag comes the jar of tea to go with the breakfast. Setting it down on the container. ]

I have spent the last ten years living in Whitechapel. It's been an... educational experience.

[rathercommon]

[ Ugh, that wink was so smug. Kitty goes for the tea, far more interested in that than she is in the food. ]

Why?

[shri]

[ And oh she knows it too, but she's too busy readying the items for Kitty to wear, a balanced plan, get everything straightened out, then see if Kitty was finally out of bed. If she wasn't, steal the blankets. ]

Because England was where the Vampires and Lycans were being amassed and sent from, no good destroying their shipments when they reached the places. But my name has been a crime for many years throughout the Empire and many would never seek to breath it for fear of imprisonment or execution. So I went to a place where they never trusted the government to begin with and were happy to welcome someone as well abused as they were.

[rathercommon]

[ She can't ever fully suppress the automatic suspicion. You can, after all, take the girl out of Whitechapel, but you can't fully take Whitechapel out of the girl. ]

That sounds like it could be exploitative.

[shri]

[ She pinches her mouth. Eyebrow raising up as she looks her over. ]

Yes, Kitty, the people who could turn me over to the police at any moment and get me killed simply by telling anyone, anyone at all, who I am. I was most certainly exploiting them and they could do nothing against me if they didn't like what I was doing.

[ her head tilts, a flat line, really, Kitty? ]

[rathercommon]

[ She purses her lips. ]

Yeah, 'cause I'm supposed to believe you were all alone, and didn't have a great lot of armed guards?

[shri]

[ That, that is the strike too far. She drops the armour in her hands with a heavy thump. But it isn't rage on her face, it's hurt. A flicker of pain too pronounced to be hidden as quickly as she'd like. ]

Believe what you will, I cannot change your mind if you're determined to think that despite everything else I told you.

[rathercommon]

[ And Kitty - feels a flush of embarrassment. Of shame. Her gaze drops, and she mutters: ]

I'm just saying. People like that - it's easy to hurt them without even knowing that you're doing it. [ And - ] And it's not like you've really told me anything.

[shri]

[ She rests back on her foot and knee. Propping her arm against her leg as she leans back where she's crouched to look up at her. ]

What do you want to know then?

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty shakes her head. ]

I don't know. I hardly even know enough about you to know what to ask. I mean - I guess - How did you fight them? The vampires and all them. And why?

[shri]

[ She purses her lips, and it's clear the desire is there, to tell her nothing, that comes in a knee jerk response to protect herself.

Then she straightens, brushes her hands against her legs and sighs. ]

Alright, but it is a long story, you can eat your breakfast in the meantime. [ Rather she sits on the side of the bed, trying to work out to begin that. ] Where do you want me to begin, fighting? The Vampires? Or Why?

[rathercommon]

[ She goes to the food, finally, and sits with it. Doesn't eat it quite yet. ]

I guess - why. I know what vampires are.

[shri]

[ What a place to start. Lakshmi drums her fingers against her knees. ]

The why is very simple. They infect the cities of other countries, and then because they know no one will stop them, they eat the people there, or turn them, so they go on to do the same.

[rathercommon]

That's why they ought to be stopped. Not why you try to stop them.

[shri]

[ She stops, she turns. And she looks long at Kitty. Fixed something there unhappy and sharp. ]

Very well. But you must promise not to interrupt me on behalf of your countrymen because you are going to hear something you don't like, do you understand me?

[rathercommon]

[ Dubiously: ]

I suppose.

[ Asking Kitty not to break in when she's been offended is like asking a crab not to pinch. ]

[shri]

[ Gunna take those little claws, wrap them up in tape, and hang her by her little leggies over the bucket. ]

Good. Then... I suppose you must understand who I was. What Jhansi was.

[ Her tapping resumes, and the tone is removed, and perhaps that is easy to understand, old as she seemingly was. ] As you know, I became Queen when I married. I was 13 at the time, my family was very poor and we were servants of more powerful men. But my husband was a good man, he did not care for my upbringing, even if it was seen as unorthodox by many. Jhansi is not a big land, a small kingdom in comparison to some. Despite that, it was an important stop between larger cities, and itself - because my husband was very dutiful, it was prosperous. So the British had long desired it. I suspect they hoped he would be childless even after we married.

Secondly, these details may bore but they need to be understood. It is not like your lands, or even here, like Orlais. Every day, we would hold open petition for members of our court to come to us, they would tell us their problems, and we would decide upon them. Similarly, they would give us gifts, we would take them, into inventory, calculate and redistribute them amongst our people to disperse wealth. This was done personally by the rulers, with help from our treasurer, on every level. Whether that was to our aristocrats, suppose you would say, or organising with our temples to host large banquets for a thousand once a week. All told, we had upwards of a thousand retainers that would come to us, personally, for their funding.

[ This at least, is mirthful. A happier time is always easy to talk about, she supposed. ] I do not say we were perfect, we were not. I was austere and often unforgiving of people who acted in a way I deemed wrong. [ Lakshmi, that hasn't changed. ] My husband was lavish and doted on mindless trinkets. Once, despite my saying I needed no grand gifts, he snuck about to build me a palanquin of silver he designed himself. The expense was - ridiculous, but he said he could not bear to see his Goddess dressed in anything less -

[ Kitty didn't need to know those details, she realises, and she clears her throat. Moving on. ] But we tried our best, for all of our people, is what I mean, every day we tried as much as we could. Our land is one steeped in thousands of years of tradition, practises, it is not an easy thing to live in accordance with them, and the needs of your people, and being fair to all of them, but we did our best.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty waits. Doesn't interrupt. Does take the opportunity when Lakshmi pauses for breath to shoot her a pointed look - See? I'm not interrupting. ]

[shri]

[ She raises her eyebrows at her, we'll see ]

This is where things become... complicated. [ She wets her lips, a lot of this was a matter of deliberately confusing bureaucracy. ] Over a hundred years ago, the English came to India. They arrived first as traders, and they were represented by a Company, called the East India Company. That was not... a problem, of itself.

... But in time... they wanted more than that. They were given certain areas to rule by leaders looking to keep them interested. Then they took more, from defending themselves. Then other rulers seceded them other parts of land. Soon, they no longer were the East India Company. They ruled from Calcutta in to the north east to Madras in the south. They were becoming the United India Company, though that was not quite yet. They still had to delegate power through many Rajas and local customs.

[ That laugh, she cannot help but be bitter in. ]

Which is where... I came in. Do you know a law called the Doctrine of Lapse?

[rathercommon]

[ She shakes her head no. ]

[shri]

[ Deep, deep breath. Easy, now Lakshmi, a good thirty years should be enough to ease this pain some. ]

It is a law, stating, that if the English felt that any land was going to lapse in rulership, they could annex it under their direct control and it, and it's people, would be subjects of the East India Company. To ensure that their good trade could continue to the benefit of the English.

[ It writhes, ugly inside her mouth, sheer contempt. ]

I was about a year younger than you, I think, when I bore my son. My Damodar. He... [ But then, there is nothing there to make it easier, even now. It isn't how she is - a listlessness, a vacancy. She looks at Kitty, and then past her, seeing and not seeing, the shapes of ghosts. ] ... Four months later, he was gone. The pride and joy of Jhansi, our subjects hope for the future. My husband wasn't a young man, and it broke him. A year later, he was on his death bed.

[ Those days were listless, helpless, fate like a cold hand that began to wrap around her limbs, shackling, binding, tipping and rattling, dragging her one way or another towards a single point she never could have imagined.

Or what that am embellishment? Something to comfort her for her own choices, that somehow destiny played some role in what was her own fault? She couldn't tell anymore, and she wasn't sure if it was ever going to be her place to say. ] We both knew what would happen if we didn't have an heir. So we followed the traditions of these moments that has been followed many times. We adopted a grand nephew of my husband's family. He became my second son, and I was named Regent. The British Officers witnessed the adoption, even as it was done quickly. The next day, my husband died, believing his duty done.

[ Her jaw sets, works, loosens, and she forces the words out. ] And a month later, they annexed Jhansi citing that they did not believe the adoption correct or legal, and under the Doctrine of Lapse, it was now theirs. I must remove myself, all my household from our great fortress, and submit myself to their rule absolutely.

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty's lips thin. It's not an unfamiliar sort of thing, is it? Her country - They'd gobbled up France and Italy, killed and burned until Germany and Prague were theirs. India, they call independent, but it's a lot like that there - pretending independence, when in truth it's theirs. It's the magicians who've driven that cruelty and greed, that seizure of property, but - Tyrants don't have to be magicians.

So she just nods as she listens. ]

[shri]

[ It takes her a second, there is no easy way to explain what it was to be hopeless, but nor does it need to be said. They took everything from me, and left me with the price of it. ]

Shortly after, English families arrived, sixty all told. I was moved into the lesser palace, whilst they took over the Fortress. I was young, and a fool. I still believed in their words, then. Nothing then was out of sorts, a transfer of power as usual. One that left me, admittedly, crippled. I was still Rani, but it was an honourary respect, at best. I was in no way in charge of the state.

[ What best, what best to show what it was like? That it was more than just the death, the blood, the murder? That it was all of it? ]

The first murder, I suppose. Was not of men, a half a year into their living there, but I awoke one morning to screaming. My people hold animals as dearly as their own children. But for no creature is this so true as for the cow. To kill one is to earn a death sentence. Devout Hindus do not even eat meat, let alone meat from a cow. They do not even kill them when they grow too old to produce milk. Instead, they are let go, free to wander wherever they will. One of the Temple's jobs is to see to their upkeep, and many return there of an evening, as they are wont.

... They found them gutted open in the street. Their carcases ripped apart in front of the Temples. If not for the grief, I think the street would have ripped apart in riot then and there.

[ And there, there was when it began. She hadn't seen it at the time, some sick portent in a play she did not yet know the ending too. ] I went to the Officer in charge at the Fortress. He was an odious little man. I asked him, what was he going to do? If no justice was done, this unrest would spread. He asked me what all the fuss was about over a few cows being killed? I did my best to explain. It was not his faith after all, and he.... said it was none of his concern. I said it was his concern, these Temples were in his keeping now, they were his to look after, as they had been mine.

He said he never had any intention of ever seeing to any of them, and would not waste a cent on them, our faith was none of the Crown's concern, nor were 'a few beasts'.

[rathercommon]

[ She continues to listen. ]