01.

[shri]

FORM: Sending crystal.
SENDER: Lakshmi Bai
RECIPIENT: Anyone and everyone.
WHAT: Polite requests.
WHEN: After the recent group of rifters arrives back.
WHERE: The Gallows.
NOTES: Tired Queen is tired.

[ There's a little laugh of wonder and then - ] To think I spent all my time hungering after Tesla's machines... [ Clears her throat with the end of that wistful sigh, no time for what-ifs, and she adopts a far more even a tone. Dry, clipped and careful to not muddle her words. Not Tesla's machines, no, but she has heard plenty of poor announcements across radios, to want to make sure that she doesn't do the same. ]

Greetings. I am... Rani Lakshmibai, the, ah.. widower of the King, Maharaja, of Jhansi. [ There's a hesitation, unsure. But like the titles she just gave, she brushes over it quickly. ] I have a request for an individual, who would spend a few hours telling me of this place and its manners, so I might be a better guest of this... Inquisition. I have no more than what I am to receive you, but I can provide honest company in return for yours.

[ pause, and then a moment later. ] And where may I exchange jewels and gold for coin, find a decent cloth merchant and tailor, and whether the weapons the armies here supply are worth the metal they're made from. I prefer a shamsher or talwar, by preference, but any long, heavy blade suffices if its decent enough quality.

Comments

[supersonic]

[ Pietro arrives promptly, and as described — tall for an elf, but still most assuredly that, and carrying a simple wooden staff. One end bears a haphazardly leather-wrapped bauble, spider-webbed with frost and emanating a faint, pale glow. His clothes are similarly simple, mostly standard Inquisition scout's gear, but well kept.

At actually seeing the bangles and veils in question, he raises a quizzical eyebrow. ]

You were not exaggerating. [ About being easy to spot, that is. What an odd experience rifters are. Nonetheless, he inclines his head in greeting. ] My name is Pietro. –May I ask, are the veils a religious gesture, or a political one?

[shri]

No, I was not.

[ Her fingers hook at the edge of the material. A comfortable gesture that she knows well. Despite the stares she gets, the strangeness she apparently is to them - she finds no reason to be other than what she is. They would damn her for the mark on her hand anyway, so what good was thereafter that of dressing in a way she didn't prefer? She certainly hadn't bothered to change much except where practicality was concerned anyway even when her name was a crime in half the world, felt less of a reason here and now. ]

Are such things ever so different? [ Very funny, Lakshmi. ] Privacy. This is how women in my homeland dress, at least some, though not all. Some things are to be reserved for my closest, not for anyone I might meet on the street.

[ Which was not strictly true. She only kept curtains against the British, limited how they could and would speak to her. But until she had a reason to go giving more to anyone here? ]

[supersonic]

[ Pietro likes her immediately, for that comment.

At the rest of her explanation, he tilts his head a touch, considering. He's not a polite young man, nor particularly restrained or respectful of other people's beliefs on the whole, but this desire to keep some things sacred, restricted to only the few with whom you choose to share? ]

That makes a certain sense. Privacy is— well, it is one of many things you have less of in a Circle, and I can't say I would voluntarily part with any more myself, given the choice.

[ Even when flung through the Veil into another world. ]