mental link | day: 006

[shri]

[ Her options are at this point, are brood up how much she wants to kill Damon and Elena, or get on with work. She didn't do so well at brooding, though her mind is still so new, so sharp and edged and not kept inside of herself. But in this case, a fire trying to find new kindling to keep itself going. Her own impatience and frustration are evident. But when isn't she anyway - ]

( I was informed when I arrived that we need to be ... ascertaining particular pieces of information.

Have we begun such? If not, should we not begin planning to reconnoitre? )

[ She has already plans, but even so, if it's already been done - well, she's happy to be told if it means she doesn't have to go chasing her own tail. ]

( And does anyone know how to use these - light books - that has the time to show me? It keeps flashing at me and I cannot make it stop. I think it wants something. )

[ The data pad, she means the data pad, she's grouchy at it for not! giving her! the things! she wants! Being a grandma in space is a trial. ]

Comments

[shri]

[ She smiles again and - that wonder is something she keeps to herself. Not a place for it, even if the world has changed so much in the sixty odd years since she was born. The life that she led now no longer had the kind of innocent interest in the world.

But even so, it places her somewhere kinder, if she cannot be on the end of such interest, to be able to give it to someone else - ? She smiles a little, eyes down on her work as she unfurls the stories of her home, and does her best to cut out something softer, tender out of her reaction to it.

( The hand, light, at the edge of her sari, the little boy's eyes that look up so beseechingly. Rani - ? Why is - ? A question that follows, as he hooks his little finger into the material as they walk the walls. ) ]

Perhaps. [ She reaches forward in a clatter of her golden ornaments and bells, chiming, as she takes up another thread. It sways, back and forth. ] Have you ever seen a lotus?

[somnifacient]

[He thinks back to his world, of a green expanse that led into the swampier areas, which is the only place that Noctis believes he might find such a thing. The idea of a lotus is not foreign to him, and yet he can’t be sure he’s ever seen anything like it in person. Only in motifs that may not have been quite the same, done in various forms of filigree in… what, clothing? Even then his experience is limited, having gravitated mostly to solid blacks.]

No. I’m not sure where to find something like that growing in Lucis. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, just that I never stumbled across one before.

[shri]

[ She keeps her stitches, and it is no matter. Impossible to know between them what is and is not, if nothing else this place and being connected to them has taught her so much of her own size. Thinks again, that pause in her words as she considers how to say them, how to phrase a the understand she's had since childhood. ]

They are chosen for her, because Lotus' bloom in water. But it does not matter if the water is clean and could be drunk, or nothing but filth and river mud, a lotus always blooms. Lakshmi, is more than anything, a reminder, that prosperity always comes, no matter the hardship.

[ She drops her stitches there, looking at him properly then. Had that lesson? The most important one a ruler could ever have. ] It was my husband's Goddess, and that was in no small part why I took the name - but more than that, as I grew older, I began to understand. It is not simply that I honoured her, it is that I must be her in action. Not as a Goddess, I am not that presumptive, but in myself, to be of her, to bring prosperity as well, no matter the hardships and suffering that befall my people. To give them that reminder every day, in all I do or say.

[somnifacient]

[To bring prosperity, no matter the hardships and suffering. Noctis is quick to understand, then, why the lotus would be chosen symbolism for such an ideal. He can't avoid being reminded of his own situation back home, to be the shining ray of light in a world gone dark. Eos itself crumbling, but that he must stand straight and walk tall in the face of it.

He latches onto her words, not only because of the idea behind them, but because of certain phrasing, as well.]

Your people? Are you a leader?

[shri]

[ She looks up, briefly surprised like it was all some how, a great joke. Pulling another stitch through, twisting it briefly before she brings it back down. ]

Did I not mention? I am the Queen of Jhansi.

[ No, Lakshmi, no you did not. But what fun is there in telling people something like that immediately. They never quite talked right after that - is the sigh of a thought. ]

[somnifacient]

[Noctis blinks in surprise, words failing him -- not out of awe and sudden reverence, but simply he had not been expecting to be met with royalty in such a casual way. But perhaps in retrospect, this should not be as surprising as it truly is.

He sets his jaw, tilts his head ever so slightly. Watches her work a few seconds more.]

This place drags in a lot of royalty. I wonder if it means to. [His broodmate, now gone, was a princess, too.]

I'm the King of Lucis, but- [He returns the title, because it only seems proper. But these days, he doesn't know what to do with it.] -I wonder how much of that matters now.

[shri]

[ She laughs, shaking her head. What a thing. But the sound of that laughter, it is far, far older than what deserves to come out of so young otherwise her face seems to be.

This is not the first time, she's felt the ground ripped out from underneath her feet. Not the first time she's touched what she thought to be walls and found them to crumbling sand. Slipping and grappling onto what was burning in her fingers for the effort just to hold. But she was long past that, now, and to that, she goes about finishing the row, as she talks. A memory that's a little softer around the edges, of a room, small and dark and damp.

In the end, there was no beautiful way to tinge those memories, they were ugly and brutal to their last. The smell of slums was shit, blood, rot and death and the fetid smell of unwashed bodies living on top of each other. Wet animal fur and mouldy bread. ]

I asked myself much the same, when I found myself in an upstairs attic of a brothel, listening to women ply their ah - treasures. Assuring the young girl, who had come so far with me because her mother died fighting by my side and her daughter now swore herself to me in kind. I wondered why I should ever bother with any of it, anymore - surely I had done enough, now?

[ She leans across, slow, to place her hand over his. ] - but I realised if that title was ever deserved, it was only ever in the actions I did in its service. In the service of those that had ever called me Queen.

[ And as suddenly as she leant close, she pulled away. Her face turned away to a distant quiet sound that says to her own wars, that prickle of paranoia before she looks back. ] That to me, is the only thing that matters.

[somnifacient]

[It isn't the first time Noctis has felt like the earth has been shaken, cracked in two beneath his feet. His life shuffled around to accommodate the war and strife that swirled around him, pushing him into place so that he could fulfill a prophecy thousands of years in the making. It's almost viable to say that being tossed into space had been less of a shattering change for him, for what happened on Eos was far more personal, fair more painful in its loss.

He listens when she speaks, as he's in a habit of doing. Quietly, he does appreciate the point she makes. He had tried to embody it himself, standing tall and strong for his friends and his people, in what were supposed to be his last moments. Hearing it now, again, brings him a modicum of reassurance. Hearing it from someone else, who was like-minded in the weight of their responsibilities and what they meant, was something he had been without up until now. The hand on his, slow and unassuming, only bolsters this tenfold.]

I understand.

[He pauses, though, as she pulls away.]

Did you ever speak to the man they call Prince? He told me not to think of myself in those terms anymore. That everything I left behind, I shouldn't let it affect me here.

[He's curious to hear what she thinks about that. It had been a point of contention with him for a while now. Doubts, swirling within.]

[shri]

He said something similar to me.

[ And the snort of dismissive laughter says exactly what she thinks of that notion. But even so, let it not be said that at least where it wasn't concerned with Half-Breeds, she could be somewhat moderate as she leans into her work. ]

It may be so that is what serves us best. But I do not think you should ever forget what has made you. You owe what you are to those served you in body and soul.

[ It's not about them, and to that, she hears this notion - of hive, of being part of the many, and to that - this connection is the second, not the first she has ever made. She has always belonged to many, and it is for them she will always act first. ] They deserve better than to be forgotten so readily.

[somnifacient]

I think... I think you're right. That's what I'd rather believe in, than just forget about what defined me before I arrived here. It's not so easy to just shrug off who you once were.

[He looks at her more directly this time, straightening, tilting his chin upwards -- not proud, just a physical showing of affirmation.]

Anyway, I'm glad someone believes the same. Sorry, I was supposed to be showing you how to use this technology?

[shri]

Always.

[ Ah - that, right, and she sets aside her sewing for now. A frustration over the ridiculous flat screen that she does not comprehend and yet continues to flash at her like it has something to say. ]

It will not desist in it's... noises.

[somnifacient]

[He smiles a little.]

Yeah... it does that.

[He shifts to move, but then hesitates. Noctis motions at the empty space just next to her, wanting to draw near enough so that he can provide a demonstration without having to awkwardly lean forward the entire time.]

Um, may I?

[shri]

[ She waves her hand to indicate him to have the space he wants beside her - not bothered if only for the dance of his asking and her allowance. The presumption, after all, would be what is too much. ] By all means, whatever you need to let it give me some peace.

[somnifacient]

[It's the permission he needs, and so Noctis gets up just long enough to scoot over and sit beside her, legs crossed. He taps at the screen, and it's obvious that he's far more comfortable with technology like this. Back home in Eos, after all, he spent more than a few days just glued to his phone to pass the time.]

All these notifications... it just means there's been some updated info recently.

[He pans the screen to face her, sliding a finger down said notification list to clear them.]

See?

[shri]

This is where we will receive communications about our orders?

[ She leans over the screen, careful to not touch him too much as that comes with leaning into his shoulder as she takes his cues. ]

[somnifacient]

That, and an overview of what the mission is. A reference for the tools that we've been given, and profiles on... important targets, too.

[He doesn't mind her leaning close, given that he sees only as what it is -- her being curious, and him being willing to teach.]

So you don't have anything like this at all, where you come from?

[shri]

[she shakes her head slowly, bit it's distracted to the task of learning the device in front of her. ]

No. Unless you count... Telegrams I suppose? Radio and Morse code might be a sight closer.