[ And like everything she does, she won't say something that isn't her concern until it becomes important.
So get ready in two weeks for her to bring up that murder. ]
No, it isn't. It's just a precursor to war, except now you've been a fool and not given anyone an ability to defend themselves. Violence begets violence, and if you begin in it you will end in more of it.
[ The last, she grits out, hard in her mouth as a horse would go against a bit. Hurt, so painfully cut to the quick. ] I listened to you - when you said that the common man were treated worse than animals in your homeland. Even when it offended my faith to see you treat an animal so. I have stood beside Englishmen in their own lands to help fight their government on their own soil. I listened, to their pain and suffering, like it was my own. Perhaps you could do me the favour of listening in return instead of judging those who were pushed too far. The heroes of my land who gave their lives to free their home.
[ And Kitty shoots Lakshmi a look. This isn't the main point here, but she can't not call this out. ]
I'm pretty sure what you did was insist that I apologize to the animal and then stormed home and stopped talking to me for weeks when I wouldn't. That's quite a liberal definition of 'listened to me.'
I asked you to do something that mattered to me, but you insisted you did not have to care about other than that which has grieved you. Yes, I grew angry with you. Yes I took my time to my peace with it and understand where you came from. But I did, and I did not belittle you for feeling as you did once I understood it, I was wrong.
And again, let's remember that I didn't mistreat the horse. I said a single mean word about it, and it doesn't speak English anyway, so its feelings weren't even hurt.
[ Anyway. ]
And I'm not judging your heroes. I don't know anything about your heroes. I'm saying that war is the wrong choice. Always. Because it's a hundred times more people who suffer, and they suffer for years, and it drags on and on and on with more and more deaths while the leaders get fat off the profits. At least if there's an assassination, they've got to suffer themselves, rather than sitting around chuckling about how much they made selling guns.
[ her head rolls back, save her, save her from the arrogance of youth. Save her more exactly in this moment, from herself. ]
Kitty! I don't expect you to understand but if I must spell out to you - I will.
[ slow breath, slow breath. ]
Stop thinking so small or you will never change anything. I killed a damn man in tevinter, did it stop Corypheus the next week from taking the city? No? Funny that.
So you've accomplished all your goals, have you? The British government's been brought low, there are no more werewolves or vampires, and your homeland's free?
[ Kitty doesn't know who the Haitians are, but - the other two are familiar to her - territories of England. She shakes her head - ]
Maybe they've achieved independence in your world, sure. But that only answers one of my questions. Is the British government brought low, and are the abuses of people that force them to become werewolves ended.
They've lessened, now that I've taken to blowing up the UIC ships and actively and consistently engage the company guards and their pets at every opportunity to disrupt all outgoing trade on every level.
[ she won't pretend she hasn't turned England's streets to battlefields, because there are things she has sorrow for, it isn't helping people who had no one else to stand for them. ]
You don't know anything other than that? [ Well - ] Why do vampires make more vampires? And how many of the werewolves are voluntarily so? D'you have any allies who are vampires or werewolves?
[ the look on her face says it all really. Them. ]
The Order of Her Majesty's Knights. Blackcoats is what everyone else calls them. Eternally sworn to protect England's shores against the Half-breed scourge. Or something like that. These days they mostly butcher the poor on United India's orders.
[ She huffs - look for that guilt all you want Kitty. ]
They didn't matter until I came to England. Technically our goals were aligned, regardless of the fact they had been twisted and corrupted like the rest of their land to ever see it that way.
That's a grand idea Kitty, of course, I should I do that. Why did I never think of it? [ Then she clicks her fingers, theatrically rude. Perhaps Byerly would be proud of just how scathing it comes out. ] Wait, I forgot, I sent them letters that never reached them. Because Lord Hastings and his ilk carry all the letters in and out of India, and had stopped them from leaving by destroying it all because the entire British system is in their pocket. Then I was forbidden from leaving my own country to seek help, then they impoverished me. Unless you meant after I was a wanted criminal, while even speaking my name bears a life sentence or death, let alone if it turned out I was still actually alive and they would happily give out those orders to - oh, what was that, 'kill the rebel woman Lakshmi first amongst all the leaders'. Shall I walk in the front door of Parliament, where, I might add, the Knights reside as they are part of the British Government which if you had been listening at all I noted several times was entirely corrupt? Or shall I sneak up on an immortal warrior in his bedchamber and wait to see what happens hoping that maybe this one would listen?
[ And with that done, she gives her one flat look, Really? Do you think she hadn't thought about it? ]
Indeed. In the time of King Arthur, so I am told, the knights set out to find the Holy Grail, to fight against the Half-Breeds who had started to beset their lands. I am sure you know those legends.
[ It was written into the English blood like the Mahabharata was into any child of Hindustan. ]
Well, we certainly didn't have anything about Half-Breeds. But, yeah, we got stories of the great magician-king-who-subjugated-demons-and-made-England-great crammed down our throats.
[ But then, with a shake of her head - ]
But don't tell me all these old stories. I don't care about the origin of the - Blackwater or whatever. How come you've got the same powers as these people who are your enemies?
Half-Breeds are Lycans. But those bitten, not born. They are half the strength, half the size, half the ability. [ A brief explanation, hand shifting in a flick.
Because she realises - she's stalling on the rest of it. That weight shifting back on her heels, hovering in the swallow that works a hard muscle in her jaw. Fixing inside her teeth like she doesn't want to relinquish something so private. There is an answer there for her, but it isn't easy. It isn't easy to place Sir Bors. Immortal and tired. They are too deep in now, too deep to old things, old memories for it to not play on her - loss and uncomfortableness at being so. The man with his gray eyes.
Gray, Gray you fool. ] A knight came to my court. That is as much as I could tell you about how, when and why he arrived, just before my husband... One of the first, from the time of Arthur. His name was Sir Bors de Ganis. He too died and passed it onto me.
[ Kitty, of course, is as ever uncompromising in pursuit of the truth. She doesn't shy away in the face of Lakshmi's obvious discomfort - doesn't flinch; instead, she just watches and asks - ]
[ The words linger, long, long as he hung onto breath, do they linger, a half gasped of an ancient thing, bleeding all out. She picks a spot, a little bit above Kitty's head, as she says it. Long and flat and said as clear as the day she heard it. Soft against cannon fire, loud against whispers. ]
'You will change this, Lakshmibai, you must. This all must end.' He pressed it into my hand, and he died. I do not know what else he thought, what he saw in me. I do not even say we were friends. But we... agreed. I do not say how we agreed, what it meant, but... he knew as I felt, and...
[ She clears her throat. ] He was an old man, a wise man, and perhaps a fool too. He saw things no man should done worse, had to live with, he had given over everything else. I think... perhaps... at least, he wanted to die with hope. That is as much as I could tell you of him. Anything else would be presuming too much of both he and I.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 08:27 am (UTC)So get ready in two weeks for her to bring up that murder. ]
No, it isn't. It's just a precursor to war, except now you've been a fool and not given anyone an ability to defend themselves. Violence begets violence, and if you begin in it you will end in more of it.
[ The last, she grits out, hard in her mouth as a horse would go against a bit. Hurt, so painfully cut to the quick. ] I listened to you - when you said that the common man were treated worse than animals in your homeland. Even when it offended my faith to see you treat an animal so. I have stood beside Englishmen in their own lands to help fight their government on their own soil. I listened, to their pain and suffering, like it was my own. Perhaps you could do me the favour of listening in return instead of judging those who were pushed too far. The heroes of my land who gave their lives to free their home.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 12:28 pm (UTC)I'm pretty sure what you did was insist that I apologize to the animal and then stormed home and stopped talking to me for weeks when I wouldn't. That's quite a liberal definition of 'listened to me.'
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 12:41 pm (UTC)I asked you to do something that mattered to me, but you insisted you did not have to care about other than that which has grieved you. Yes, I grew angry with you. Yes I took my time to my peace with it and understand where you came from. But I did, and I did not belittle you for feeling as you did once I understood it, I was wrong.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 12:49 pm (UTC)[ Anyway. ]
And I'm not judging your heroes. I don't know anything about your heroes. I'm saying that war is the wrong choice. Always. Because it's a hundred times more people who suffer, and they suffer for years, and it drags on and on and on with more and more deaths while the leaders get fat off the profits. At least if there's an assassination, they've got to suffer themselves, rather than sitting around chuckling about how much they made selling guns.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:05 pm (UTC)Kitty! I don't expect you to understand but if I must spell out to you - I will.
[ slow breath, slow breath. ]
Stop thinking so small or you will never change anything. I killed a damn man in tevinter, did it stop Corypheus the next week from taking the city? No? Funny that.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:08 pm (UTC)So you've accomplished all your goals, have you? The British government's been brought low, there are no more werewolves or vampires, and your homeland's free?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:10 pm (UTC)I didn't. But America did. France did. The Haitians did.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:14 pm (UTC)Maybe they've achieved independence in your world, sure. But that only answers one of my questions. Is the British government brought low, and are the abuses of people that force them to become werewolves ended.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:19 pm (UTC)[ she won't pretend she hasn't turned England's streets to battlefields, because there are things she has sorrow for, it isn't helping people who had no one else to stand for them. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:22 pm (UTC)Where did vampirism come from? And - werewolf-ism? [ Whatever the word for it is. ] How did it get started?
Don't ask me things canon never tells me.
Date: 2019-02-05 01:28 pm (UTC)The time of King Arthur, I'm told.
look
Date: 2019-02-05 01:37 pm (UTC)You don't know anything other than that? [ Well - ] Why do vampires make more vampires? And how many of the werewolves are voluntarily so? D'you have any allies who are vampires or werewolves?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:42 pm (UTC)[ You know, the second of oldest and only one likely to give her a straight answer because Lancelot is a jerk that she'd gotten killed.
Wait, shit - ]
I tend not befriend those would eat the flesh of children or gladly let others do so.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:45 pm (UTC)The Knights? Who are they?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-05 01:52 pm (UTC)The Order of Her Majesty's Knights. Blackcoats is what everyone else calls them. Eternally sworn to protect England's shores against the Half-breed scourge. Or something like that. These days they mostly butcher the poor on United India's orders.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 02:09 am (UTC)Surprised you haven't mentioned them yet.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 06:26 am (UTC)They didn't matter until I came to England. Technically our goals were aligned, regardless of the fact they had been twisted and corrupted like the rest of their land to ever see it that way.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 07:35 pm (UTC)That's a grand idea Kitty, of course, I should I do that. Why did I never think of it? [ Then she clicks her fingers, theatrically rude. Perhaps Byerly would be proud of just how scathing it comes out. ] Wait, I forgot, I sent them letters that never reached them. Because Lord Hastings and his ilk carry all the letters in and out of India, and had stopped them from leaving by destroying it all because the entire British system is in their pocket. Then I was forbidden from leaving my own country to seek help, then they impoverished me. Unless you meant after I was a wanted criminal, while even speaking my name bears a life sentence or death, let alone if it turned out I was still actually alive and they would happily give out those orders to - oh, what was that, 'kill the rebel woman Lakshmi first amongst all the leaders'. Shall I walk in the front door of Parliament, where, I might add, the Knights reside as they are part of the British Government which if you had been listening at all I noted several times was entirely corrupt? Or shall I sneak up on an immortal warrior in his bedchamber and wait to see what happens hoping that maybe this one would listen?
[ And with that done, she gives her one flat look, Really? Do you think she hadn't thought about it? ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 10:00 pm (UTC)[ A curious look. ]
What - like you are?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 11:10 am (UTC)[ It was written into the English blood like the Mahabharata was into any child of Hindustan. ]
What they came back with is the Blackwater.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 01:32 pm (UTC)[ But then, with a shake of her head - ]
But don't tell me all these old stories. I don't care about the origin of the - Blackwater or whatever. How come you've got the same powers as these people who are your enemies?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 01:53 pm (UTC)Because she realises - she's stalling on the rest of it. That weight shifting back on her heels, hovering in the swallow that works a hard muscle in her jaw. Fixing inside her teeth like she doesn't want to relinquish something so private. There is an answer there for her, but it isn't easy. It isn't easy to place Sir Bors. Immortal and tired. They are too deep in now, too deep to old things, old memories for it to not play on her - loss and uncomfortableness at being so. The man with his gray eyes.
Gray, Gray you fool. ] A knight came to my court. That is as much as I could tell you about how, when and why he arrived, just before my husband... One of the first, from the time of Arthur. His name was Sir Bors de Ganis. He too died and passed it onto me.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 02:20 pm (UTC)Why?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 02:28 pm (UTC)'You will change this, Lakshmibai, you must. This all must end.' He pressed it into my hand, and he died. I do not know what else he thought, what he saw in me. I do not even say we were friends. But we... agreed. I do not say how we agreed, what it meant, but... he knew as I felt, and...
[ She clears her throat. ] He was an old man, a wise man, and perhaps a fool too. He saw things no man should done worse, had to live with, he had given over everything else. I think... perhaps... at least, he wanted to die with hope. That is as much as I could tell you of him. Anything else would be presuming too much of both he and I.
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