[ 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.
I didn't. [ Her face earnest to that. ] Perhaps I was a very different woman then. But I trusted him. Did you not hear me, when Sir Herian asked? I took him in like one of my own.
Nor I ever let a lycan in willingly. I did not say I did so immediately, or I gave friendship of that sort.
But... I was alone, Kitty, I was so terribly alone. Think of yourself as you are now. That is when I had lost my child and gained another only to lose my husband. I had been humiliated in every possible way. I was alone, caring for ten thousand people asking myself, always, was this right? But I could not speak of it, I could not share it. I knew I must and always would be their Rani and never anything less, that was who I was now. Sir Bors, for all his years, did me one kindness I could never forget. He understood what I must do, and helped me make peace with it.
[ which at this point is a sort of familiar sound. The one that says 'I'll remember to come back to this later.']
You are, and for many years it was hard to be around Englishmen, I will not lie to you. I feared often if they might turn, if not into monsters then to trap me and betray me. The many years however have dulled some of that pain. I fight beside them like they were my own now. But you need to understand this at least - for many, even your poorest Englishman, no matter who he is, when he comes to the lands that Britain rules? He could get a local man killed, and no one would stop him because he is English and his word always matters more than anyone elses. It makes all of us afraid of your people. It is one of the great benefits of the United India Company's rule, and because of it, many of them will do wicked things in far away lands from their home because they know they will never get punished for it. So they are happy to turn the other way, even those that are not turned to Half-breed, will happily be complicit, even when they know the truth. Because what does it matter if it's not their home?
It isn't about who has it worse, Kitty. It's about the truth. I am not here to make you feel guilty for existing. I simply thought the truth was something you valued to hear, rather than the lies people tell themselves to be comfortable.
What's wrong? There's nothing wrong. I'm just giving you what you apparently want. [ Then a hard shake of her head - ] You can say it's not about who's got it worse until your face turns blue, but this is the third time in this conversation alone that you've pointed out how much more power and privilege my people have got. Which - Maybe they have. I don't know. But also, my people aren't from your world. And you don't know anything about how my people live, or what we go through, or any of it. You haven't even bothered to ask. You've just assumed. So, no, there's nothing wrong.
[ Hard not to bite further. Lean into it. Easy, easy, easy. ]
You asked, you asked about my people, my land, why I went to England, about the English I know. You questioned how I could do any of it, and then when I told you, you talked about your people, so yes, Kitty, I am confused. I care for you, like my own family, but I do not know what you want from me.
I talked about my people, 'cause during war, my people suffer. Because that's always how it goes. They always round up the poor and shove them in front of the enemies' guns, and then they turn a profit off our deaths. They turn our corpses into money to stuff into their fat stupid pockets. They -
[ She's getting off-track. She shakes her head, sharply, then says - ]
What I want is for you not to act like - Honestly, like you have it worse. You've just got it different. I mean - you say that if an Englishman came to your country, his word would be worth more than yours and all that. Well, my Englishmen aren't allowed to go to other countries. We're not permitted to travel, not unless we get sent there by a magician to work or manage to forge papers pretending that's the case. You say that our word would be worth more - Well, I've sat in court and had someone from the government look me in the face and tell me that my word was rubbish and worthless and that I was probably a criminal and a thug for having the audacity to get attacked by a magician. Every day, we're watched by surveillance spheres that report back on everything we do - Every day, we die in factories - And every day, people disappear because a magician walked by and they didn't look at 'em with proper adulation and the magician got angry. Or the magician wanted them, and they said no, so the magician sends his demons to kill them. That happened with a man I knew - a magician murdered his wife 'cause his wife refused to leave Mr Pennyfeather for the magician. And when they're not killed outright, we don't know where they go. Usually they're taken to the Tower to be tortured, we know that, but sometimes they're just disappeared - eaten, maybe, by the Night Police. And sometimes they come back, and that makes it worse, that sometimes they'll survive it, because it means there's nothing you can count on, you can't even give up hope when they disappear. And we're shoved into schools, locked into schools, where they force-feed us propaganda every single day so that we don't even know that it's not all normal and good. They control all the news that reaches our ears and all the stories we hear, and they put on plays that are laced through with propaganda to just keep making us think what they want us to think, and they keep us illiterate so we can't even read and think for ourselves. And so everyone stays docile. We all stay quiet and sweet and polite and we die in their wars and we die in their factories and we die for their pleasure and they make money off it, every time, all the time, and we can't hide and can't escape.
[ She reaches up and drags her sleeve along her eyes, dashing away the tears that have sprung up. ]
So please don't tell me how wicked my people are. I swear, I'll scream if you do.
[ Lakshmi is, ultimately would always be, a woman of so many reactions - part no doubt of the issues she has here. That directness she uses with both hands.
But it has and remains the only one that makes sense to her. To move and act and strike.
So it is not welcome perhaps, she isn't sure. Kitty would not be the first one to seem to act like care and affection were plague ridden actions - but she grips Kitty's forearm, the other to her cheek. Not an embrace, but enough that she can wipe the stray tear that leaks for her. ]
Look at me, please?
[ for once, it's a question. Not just a barked demand like she knows she talks to most. ]
[ Really, as if she could ever let that just sit? ]
No one ever said it would, but do you know what else matters? Being reminded from time to time, you aren't alone and that people care for no other reason than they want to.
[ Could her good for nothing parents not even manage that. ]
[ She lifts her chin up and - not to go away, it's just to tug her in, wrap her arms around her shoulder and rest her chin on the top of her head. ]
I am sure you are.
[ Which is to say, she's getting a hug, regardless. Because there was a lot to be said about what should and should not be done, what has and has not, what is deserved.
But how different the world might be, if there was but a breath of kindness, from time to time. ]
[ Kitty is stiff in her arms, but doesn't pull away. Indeed, after a moment - in a rare concession - she even lifts a hand and puts it awkwardly on Lakshmi's arm. Not quite hugging back, but... ]
The point of saying all this wasn't to make you sad.
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timeasmymeasure
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.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 02:34 pm (UTC)How did you know he didn't have some agenda?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 02:36 pm (UTC)I didn't. [ Her face earnest to that. ] Perhaps I was a very different woman then. But I trusted him. Did you not hear me, when Sir Herian asked? I took him in like one of my own.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 03:03 pm (UTC)[ She screws up her mouth, shakes her head. ]
I'd hardly let a magician into my house.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 03:23 pm (UTC)Nor I ever let a lycan in willingly. I did not say I did so immediately, or I gave friendship of that sort.
But... I was alone, Kitty, I was so terribly alone. Think of yourself as you are now. That is when I had lost my child and gained another only to lose my husband. I had been humiliated in every possible way. I was alone, caring for ten thousand people asking myself, always, was this right? But I could not speak of it, I could not share it. I knew I must and always would be their Rani and never anything less, that was who I was now. Sir Bors, for all his years, did me one kindness I could never forget. He understood what I must do, and helped me make peace with it.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 03:35 pm (UTC)That's - not how I am now.
[ Anyway. ]
And you really don't have any idea why he broke with the others? Why he went against them?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 03:39 pm (UTC)Kitty, is that what you think I mean when I say English? You think I mean you as well?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 03:45 pm (UTC)[ It was a response to the charge of loneliness. But now that she mentions it... ]
But - yeah. I am English.
Phone tag rip
Date: 2019-02-08 03:57 pm (UTC)[ which at this point is a sort of familiar sound. The one that says 'I'll remember to come back to this later.']
You are, and for many years it was hard to be around Englishmen, I will not lie to you. I feared often if they might turn, if not into monsters then to trap me and betray me. The many years however have dulled some of that pain. I fight beside them like they were my own now. But you need to understand this at least - for many, even your poorest Englishman, no matter who he is, when he comes to the lands that Britain rules? He could get a local man killed, and no one would stop him because he is English and his word always matters more than anyone elses. It makes all of us afraid of your people. It is one of the great benefits of the United India Company's rule, and because of it, many of them will do wicked things in far away lands from their home because they know they will never get punished for it. So they are happy to turn the other way, even those that are not turned to Half-breed, will happily be complicit, even when they know the truth. Because what does it matter if it's not their home?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-08 04:48 pm (UTC)Yeah. You all have got it worse than me. I get it.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 08:41 am (UTC)[ Her jaw locks. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:13 pm (UTC)Kitty, what on earth is wrong?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:21 pm (UTC)What's wrong? There's nothing wrong. I'm just giving you what you apparently want. [ Then a hard shake of her head - ] You can say it's not about who's got it worse until your face turns blue, but this is the third time in this conversation alone that you've pointed out how much more power and privilege my people have got. Which - Maybe they have. I don't know. But also, my people aren't from your world. And you don't know anything about how my people live, or what we go through, or any of it. You haven't even bothered to ask. You've just assumed. So, no, there's nothing wrong.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:37 pm (UTC)[ Hard not to bite further. Lean into it. Easy, easy, easy. ]
You asked, you asked about my people, my land, why I went to England, about the English I know. You questioned how I could do any of it, and then when I told you, you talked about your people, so yes, Kitty, I am confused. I care for you, like my own family, but I do not know what you want from me.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:57 pm (UTC)[ She's getting off-track. She shakes her head, sharply, then says - ]
What I want is for you not to act like - Honestly, like you have it worse. You've just got it different. I mean - you say that if an Englishman came to your country, his word would be worth more than yours and all that. Well, my Englishmen aren't allowed to go to other countries. We're not permitted to travel, not unless we get sent there by a magician to work or manage to forge papers pretending that's the case. You say that our word would be worth more - Well, I've sat in court and had someone from the government look me in the face and tell me that my word was rubbish and worthless and that I was probably a criminal and a thug for having the audacity to get attacked by a magician. Every day, we're watched by surveillance spheres that report back on everything we do - Every day, we die in factories - And every day, people disappear because a magician walked by and they didn't look at 'em with proper adulation and the magician got angry. Or the magician wanted them, and they said no, so the magician sends his demons to kill them. That happened with a man I knew - a magician murdered his wife 'cause his wife refused to leave Mr Pennyfeather for the magician. And when they're not killed outright, we don't know where they go. Usually they're taken to the Tower to be tortured, we know that, but sometimes they're just disappeared - eaten, maybe, by the Night Police. And sometimes they come back, and that makes it worse, that sometimes they'll survive it, because it means there's nothing you can count on, you can't even give up hope when they disappear. And we're shoved into schools, locked into schools, where they force-feed us propaganda every single day so that we don't even know that it's not all normal and good. They control all the news that reaches our ears and all the stories we hear, and they put on plays that are laced through with propaganda to just keep making us think what they want us to think, and they keep us illiterate so we can't even read and think for ourselves. And so everyone stays docile. We all stay quiet and sweet and polite and we die in their wars and we die in their factories and we die for their pleasure and they make money off it, every time, all the time, and we can't hide and can't escape.
[ She reaches up and drags her sleeve along her eyes, dashing away the tears that have sprung up. ]
So please don't tell me how wicked my people are. I swear, I'll scream if you do.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:17 pm (UTC)But it has and remains the only one that makes sense to her. To move and act and strike.
So it is not welcome perhaps, she isn't sure. Kitty would not be the first one to seem to act like care and affection were plague ridden actions - but she grips Kitty's forearm, the other to her cheek. Not an embrace, but enough that she can wipe the stray tear that leaks for her. ]
Look at me, please?
[ for once, it's a question. Not just a barked demand like she knows she talks to most. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:26 pm (UTC)I don't need - If you want to, like - comfort me or something - I don't need it. It's not going to make injustice disappear.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:55 pm (UTC)No one ever said it would, but do you know what else matters? Being reminded from time to time, you aren't alone and that people care for no other reason than they want to.
[ Could her good for nothing parents not even manage that. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 07:35 pm (UTC)I mean - I guess. I'm all right, though. Emotionally, I mean.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-11 10:44 am (UTC)I am sure you are.
[ Which is to say, she's getting a hug, regardless. Because there was a lot to be said about what should and should not be done, what has and has not, what is deserved.
But how different the world might be, if there was but a breath of kindness, from time to time. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-11 12:50 pm (UTC)The point of saying all this wasn't to make you sad.
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