Lera Savinkov (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
firecracker_hopping) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
zenderael_rl2013-11-17 06:34 pm
firecracker_hopping) wrote in zenderael_rl2013-11-17 06:34 pm
Entry tags:
Lera + Iravati: Friendship
Who: Lera, Iravati
When: Friday the 28th
Where: The Nenakret
Before/After: The parade bombing.
Warnings: Sadness, friendship.
An hour passed. Two. Then six. And six was about what Iravati assumed would be the limit. Her resigned calm was overtaken by a fit of useless panic. She could jump at her cell, call for someone, or throw a tantrum, but mental exhaustion kept her still. Despite that, she later found sleep to be impossible. Each time she nodded off, she was up before another hour could pass.
Iravati was a spellsword. She was support. Training ended in praise instead of exasperated sighs. Even if Lera walked down the hall and let Iravati out in the next five minutes, there wouldn't be that kind of praise again. They wouldn't even sigh. They'd just look at her, and Iravati would know why.
Stupid! Stupid! She had joined the spellswords because the Armaiti went missing. What did Iravati matter to anyone? If she had stayed a useless, lazy assassin, it wouldn't have helped anyone! Not even the assassins themselves. Stupid!
She found just enough energy in a fit of frustration to kick the wall, sending a jolt of pain through her shin and sharply resonating in her knee. Whining, Iravati slumped into the wall and slid down, curling around herself.
Lera would come eventually, because Lera was okay, and because Lera didn't believe that dumb list. Iravati let those thoughts repeat, over and over, refusing to let her mind wander anymore.
Lera came, but it was the next day. It had been a long day, with little sleep for her, and it had been emotionally draining. The accusation against Iravati was the last nail in the coffin for her. Her brain shut off after that and she couldn't do much else. It might not have seemed like her when she showed up, either; there was a scrape of wood on stone, repeatedly, as she made her way down the hallway with the holding cells. It came at a regular pattern and wasn't heavy enough to be furniture.
Finally, she moved in front of Vati's cell, looking at her through the bars. She stood on two wooden crutches, clinging to their handles tightly. Her left pants leg was folded up and sewn to the fabric above the knee, where her leg ended.
She stared at Iravati, silent for a long time. A small part of her, the part that had been louder in her mind after bombs killed Omid, nearly killed her, and injured the rest, wondered if it was true. She felt tremendously guilty for that. She stared longer; her expression was drawn and tired, her eyes were red with lack of sleep, and she looked weaker. She practically sagged into the crutches.
She finally opened her mouth and managed a ghost of a smile, but it couldn't last. She spoke softly, though, and not angrily. "Hey."
Iravati had learned to ignore footsteps. It was never Lera, and her head felt too heavy to bother to check one that definitely wasn't Lera. She dug her fingers into her scalp, half for comfort, half for sensation. Being in such a small space, and that knowledge she could not leave, was familiar in a way she was desperate not to think about.
The voice made her head shoot up, snapped to Lera. Her tired expression brightened, hope in her eyes that died as soon as it had begun to rise. Iravati's eyes scanned Lera's body and became fixated on her leg. Or lack thereof.
Something in Iravati's stomach crawled into her throat and stole her voice. Lera hadn't come for her yet. Iravati had fallen asleep, finally, and tugged on her thoughts, willing herself to wake up with a mental thrashing. The world did not change.
Breaking down was not what Lera needed right now. Iravati let her head tip back against the wall as she looked up at Lera. "Hey," she mimicked, just as quiet, and failing to force herself to smile. "Long day?"
"Just a little," Lera said. The attempt at humor failed to come through in her voice and she slumped back against the wall awkwardly; she kept her crutches up, trying to feel comfortable leaning against the wall. It did not work very well. She rubbed at her nose with a hand that pinned the crutch against her side, before she looked down at Iravati.
There wasn't judgment in her tone. She felt some dread at the idea Iravati could have done it, a lingering worry that she should be suspicious. Being suspicious of Vati sounded exhausting, though. It sounded like giving up, too.
"What happened, Vati?" she asked, quietly. "I'm gonna try to fix it."
The idea that anything could be fixed did not register. Legs didn't grow back. It was several stunned moments of staring later that Iravati remembered where she was and why she was there.
"A fake list," she said quickly. "They're probably still in the ranks." A lump in her throat had her wondering if that had anything to do with what happened. But bombs were bombs. They didn't need to hide their identities to tear off limbs. "This guild, or others. I don't-- I don't know."
Iravati's eyes found the ground. She was silent, shaken, biting at the edge of her dirty fingers. "I didn't do anything," she said, quietly, wondering if it was a defense or a confession. She didn't do anything. Was she supposed to? She could have. The last time she was at the guild, while the Armaiti was away...
"I didn't want to betray either guild. I wanted my own life. My own choices. I don't think they liked my choices." She frowned deeper. "No. I don't think they cared so much. But I was conveniently placed."
"I know you didn't," Lera said quietly. "I didn't believe them, when they told me about it. I..."
She hesitated, looking down again, and then she shook her head in a firm "no." It was the truth; she had considered that Vati had in the way a person entertains an impossible scenario, imagining a terrible apocalypse that never happened. She still had no evidence, though, and it meant that she failed to meet Vati's eyes while she spoke. She hadn't yet climbed out of her feelings of depression. Standing here made her slide back into that pit.
"I can't bring myself to not trust you," she said, finally. "Sometimes people talk like we can't trust anyone. Sometimes I think Ezra still doesn't really trust me, even. But I can't do that, Iravati. If I can't trust you, then I can't trust anyone, and I can't live like that. I'm not built that way." She wondered, not for the first time in the last day, if she was really cut out for this job.
She looked up, her lips drawn back with repressed emotion. She kept it in check, mostly. "I don't wanna become like those people. I believe you. It's the right thing to do, even if it's not the smart thing."
It had only been a day for Iravati, hoping a system she swore into wouldn't cast her aside. But for Lera, it had been since she became the Mazda, everyone a potential threat depending on their ambitions. Trust was terrifying.
Doubting it was exhausting.
"I'll make it smart," Iravati said. It didn't matter if it was a vague promise, and one impossible to keep locked in a cell. Her voice steadied with it, determination setting in. Oaths and choices and thoughts that were so deep Vati shied away from them. Philosophy, morality, she considered all of those things too complicated to question.
This wasn't like that. This was simple. "I won't turn you into one of those people. I won't be one of their 'I told you so's." The rebellion inherit in the idea lent natural volume to her voice. "I only swore this oath because I trusted in what you believed in. I... don't know what's happening. Or what's going to happen now. But that part doesn't change."
Lera smiled at that, slowly, and uncertainly. She moved her crutches forward, crossing the hall with awkward scrapes and shuffling. She still didn't have a good handle on how to move with the crutches yet. She finally crossed, closer to the bars, and leaned up against them. She grabbed one of the bars with her fingers and looked at Vati, nodding.
She blinked her eyes and tried to ignore the couple of tears in them.
"I'll get you out of here," she said. "I promise. I'll have to sign the paperwork and tell them--tell them the truth." They wouldn't believe her, she thought. It wasn't fair, to her or to Iravati. Her eyes turned down at the floor again. "I'm sorry you got caught up in this. I never thought..."
She looked back up and shook her head. "The Greycloaks don't play fair."
Iravati met Lera at the bars and clasped her own hands around Lera's. She caught the tears and could no longer keep looking up.
"If it would be better to tell them you didn't know, then tell them you didn't know." Iravati earnestly could not tell which would cause them less trouble-- or more success. It was one of those leadership decisions she had the luxury of never having to think about. She squeezed Lera's fingers tighter.
"I should have know better," she said, voice soft again. "I just wanted out."
"It could get you killed, if I said that," she replied, quietly. "If they found out the truth, they could--they could decide I don't know what I'm talking about and take matters into their own hands." They could do that already, Lera thought, but it felt like honesty was the best way to minimize it. Let it be her mistake and fall on her head. She could take more of it.
She unwrapped her fingers off the bars and squeezed Iravati's fingers back, tightly. She leaned her forehead against the bars, between two of them, and closed her eyes shut. Her breaths were still ragged, while she tried to keep things under control.
"You were trying to make things better, Vati," she said. "It's not your fault. They did it. We were blindsided, and maybe we shouldn't have been, but... they killed those people, framed you, and cost me my..." She closed her mouth She still couldn't say it. Her fingers tightened around Iravati's again. She stopped rambling in a shaky voice and sounded more measured, when she spoke again. "It's okay, that you wanted out. I wanted to help you get out."
"They clearly don't trust me now, or else I would offer to be a double agent." Iravati leaned her head forward. "Unless you want to stage an escape for that, but the whole idea sounds dangerous on every level imaginable."
Being in a cell had dropped lower on Iravati's list of concerns. That could be fixed. Even hearing that the spellswords might take matters into their own hands-- no way. Lera wouldn't let it happen. But Lera was tired. And missing a limb.
"Should you be here right now? You look worse than you did during the war, and I can't go and get you hot chocolate."
Would be nice. Vati tried to crack a smile, but it never made it before her expression faded back to grim.
Lera laughed. It was funny, if because of the absurdity. The laugh didn't last long, though, and her smile was subdued at the end. "It's okay. When I sign the release order, we'll have all of the hot chocolate that we can find."
She rubbed at her face, while she considered the rest, and leaned back up so her head wasn't against the bars. It made it easier to look at Iravati that way. The bars were not exactly comfortable to lean against, either. "I don't really have a lot else to do," she said. "I'm still--I mean, I'm still in charge, but the doctors told me to take it easy. I tried to take a walk, but..."
The joke fell completely flat and she looked down. She sighed, softly. "It's still too soon for that one, I guess."
Iravati's heart lifted. When, not if. She would get out of here. Sooner, not later, she hoped, but Lera saying it was enough to toss the concern aside further.
"Well," Iravati began, managing a grin, "I appreciate the company. Sorry I didn't get the place cleaned up." Maybe that was too soon as well. Ah, there expressions kept dropping that way.
"You should listen to them. The doctors, I mean. Decisions made when you're tired sound great at the time, but tend to end in disappointment and food poisoning."
"F-Food poisoning?" Lera asked. "I don't--my rushed decisions usually didn't--um." She had a thing about keeping everything clean and not getting food poisoning. It was something of a sticking point for her. She smiled after she thought about it; for a second, she had forgotten everything. The jail bars, the way she sagged into her crutches, and the way her balance was simply all wrong. She looked at Vati, smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.
"But they have occasionally involved drunken decisions and randomly appearing magical ghost swords," she allowed, "so I concede your point. I'll listen to my doctors. "
She sighed and still smiled; it was genuine, though it faded again after a moment. The feeling of normalcy that came with it did, too, but for the first time in a day and a half, it felt like maybe life could be normal again. It was the first real glimmer of feeling something besides despondency in all that time.
Iravati smiled in return, as short lived, but with a spark of life they both needed. "Good. I'm not there to make sure it happens. Or bring you things. So don't go ruining all of my hard work while my back is turned." It felt more normal to joke like this, even with the weight of it lurking behind each word.
Things had changed in ways Iravati didn't know how to handle. Or what did it all mean? Reputations, bombs, legs. She took a deep breath and leaned into the bars, knowing she'd end up with awful marks on her head and not particularly caring.
Eventually, Lera would have to walk away and leave her here. She tried not to think about that happening, even if it was probably exactly what needed to happen, from the look of Lera.
"Hey... uh." Iravati hesitated with a new thought. There had been one piece of news she wanted, but whether Lera had it, and whether Vati wanted the answer. Nope. Just got to ask. "Is. Is Ravindra okay?"
"I'll be good," Lera said, smiling again. It was true, though; the person she would call if she needed to talk to get her mind off things was in this cell. She didn't have Vati for that -- or for the other things that were more definable, but maybe mattered less. She had to resolve this quickly, she decided, but still try to handle it delicately. The idea sounded exhausting and frustrating.
Even Harriet doubted Iravati.
And then, she realized, there was Ravindra. Lera had to write him, she decided. "Y-Yeah," she said. "He was fine--he, um, he saved my life. One of the Greycloak clerics did this. He botched the heal, so my leg couldn't--" She closed her mouth tightly, sharply again. "Ravindra saw it and stepped in, then fought him off, when the cleric tried to kill me."
She shook her head, looking back down. She leaned her head against the bars again and her fingers curled around them, tighter. "I asked about him," she said, "and they said he was fine. Busy, I think, too."
"Motherfuck, I told them the list was fake, that someone would-- Ravindra saved you?"
Iravati stared back at Lera. She didn't doubt Ravindra's capabilities. Or really think him someone petty enough to turn a blind eye. But her imagination may have also been greatly exaggerating the feats necessary to rescue the Mazda. There had probably been some wall jumping, for example.
"Y-Yeah, I bet he's busy," she said. Putting on a cape like one of those Earth heroes. Or. Trying to rest after the trauma of an exploding parade. Iravati needed to find a way to thank him. Once she was out of here. Or before? Writing Ravindra a dragonmail while in jail was a potentially bad idea.
"But that's-- that's good. I mean, a lot happened, but." Iravati sighed again. "... The food here is terrible," she said, letting the subject drop. "Let's get something together once this is all over."
Did Ravindra know that Iravati was in jail? Lera suddenly wondered and worried. She definitely owed it to him to write, even if she planned to have that fixed as soon as possible.
"I'll make sure he's okay," she said. She looked down at that, then she looked back up. She smiled, a touch of awkwardness on her face again. "And, um, fill him in so he... doesn't worry more." He would worry. There was no way that he wouldn't worry. She could at least try to make sure that Vati was out of here and safe.
And find out why the Greycloaks wanted to implicate her. She had only started puzzling that.
"We'll get Korean," she said. She smiled, then. "It'll be great. Maybe they'll have the... prosthetic ready, then, too." The smile vanished again. "It's alchemical."
Yeah, yeah Ravindra should probably know. Just not the whole... heeeey guess where I am I'm going to be coy about this for as long as possible so I don't have to admit anything distressing kind of know.
But he wouldn't try to break her out of prison a second time. Probably. It was necessary this time.
Iravati nodded. "Thanks."
Her eyes lit up at the mention of a prosthetic. Legs didn't grow back, and a fake one was little real comfort. But it was something. "Oh, yeah? Get the Khshathra to do it personally?"
"They've got a few of them already, so I think they're gonna get me one once the swelling and everything goes down, and then she can make modifications and stuff," Lera said. She forced a smile at that. It wasn't really good news, but it was better news. "So I'll be able to walk around and all. Hopefully it won't be too... you know."
She made a vague motion with her hands. Not talking about losing her leg directly was going to be hard, because it was hard to communicate that she wanted something that didn't look too cybernetic with hand gestures.
"I kind of want a spike launcher, though," she added sheepishly. "And a recharger for my mobile phone."
"Yeah," Iravati said quickly. She got it. She wouldn't want to look made of alchemy either. Flesh was warm and personal. Alchemy was... well.
"Spikes are good," she said sagely, tapping at her chin in all too deep thought. If Lera made her leg a sword, like a peg-leg-- sword-leg, peg-sword-- could she...
Far too soon to ask.
Iravati tried to smile again. "We'll have to test it with ice skating, too."
"Yeah," Lera said. She smiled again, but with that effort, still. It might be easier, she thought, when she had her new leg; when she knew that she could do more than hope right now. "It's almost Christmas, anyways. I better be able to go skating then."
She shook her head. "I better get going, though, okay?" She reached her fingers out and squeezed Iravati's briefly. She looked down when she spoke, though. "I'll need to talk to people, make sure the release goes okay, um... make sure that no one gets some funny ideas about it. It shouldn't take too long, though."
Iravati's heart made a violent thump in her chest. "Yeah," she agreed. No. She squeeze back on Lera's fingers. Iravati had forgotten the bars. For a few minutes there, she wasn't trapped, alone, waiting.
Soon she would be.
"You do what you got to do. But take it easy, okay?"
"I'll try," she said. She smiled at that, looking at Iravati a moment longer. She wanted to say more, but she couldn't find the words. An apology for getting Iravati into this felt wrong. Another attempt to be comforting would be false and forced, when Lera was off to do the real work of making things better for her. Even saying that she wished this never happened felt hollow. She patted her fingers once more.
"I'll be back soon. I promise."
Lera smiled again, before she moved backward, balancing for a moment on one leg until she had the crutches under her. Then she started making her way up the hall, with that awkward scraping noise made when the crutches hit the floor.
When: Friday the 28th
Where: The Nenakret
Before/After: The parade bombing.
Warnings: Sadness, friendship.
An hour passed. Two. Then six. And six was about what Iravati assumed would be the limit. Her resigned calm was overtaken by a fit of useless panic. She could jump at her cell, call for someone, or throw a tantrum, but mental exhaustion kept her still. Despite that, she later found sleep to be impossible. Each time she nodded off, she was up before another hour could pass.
Iravati was a spellsword. She was support. Training ended in praise instead of exasperated sighs. Even if Lera walked down the hall and let Iravati out in the next five minutes, there wouldn't be that kind of praise again. They wouldn't even sigh. They'd just look at her, and Iravati would know why.
Stupid! Stupid! She had joined the spellswords because the Armaiti went missing. What did Iravati matter to anyone? If she had stayed a useless, lazy assassin, it wouldn't have helped anyone! Not even the assassins themselves. Stupid!
She found just enough energy in a fit of frustration to kick the wall, sending a jolt of pain through her shin and sharply resonating in her knee. Whining, Iravati slumped into the wall and slid down, curling around herself.
Lera would come eventually, because Lera was okay, and because Lera didn't believe that dumb list. Iravati let those thoughts repeat, over and over, refusing to let her mind wander anymore.
Lera came, but it was the next day. It had been a long day, with little sleep for her, and it had been emotionally draining. The accusation against Iravati was the last nail in the coffin for her. Her brain shut off after that and she couldn't do much else. It might not have seemed like her when she showed up, either; there was a scrape of wood on stone, repeatedly, as she made her way down the hallway with the holding cells. It came at a regular pattern and wasn't heavy enough to be furniture.
Finally, she moved in front of Vati's cell, looking at her through the bars. She stood on two wooden crutches, clinging to their handles tightly. Her left pants leg was folded up and sewn to the fabric above the knee, where her leg ended.
She stared at Iravati, silent for a long time. A small part of her, the part that had been louder in her mind after bombs killed Omid, nearly killed her, and injured the rest, wondered if it was true. She felt tremendously guilty for that. She stared longer; her expression was drawn and tired, her eyes were red with lack of sleep, and she looked weaker. She practically sagged into the crutches.
She finally opened her mouth and managed a ghost of a smile, but it couldn't last. She spoke softly, though, and not angrily. "Hey."
Iravati had learned to ignore footsteps. It was never Lera, and her head felt too heavy to bother to check one that definitely wasn't Lera. She dug her fingers into her scalp, half for comfort, half for sensation. Being in such a small space, and that knowledge she could not leave, was familiar in a way she was desperate not to think about.
The voice made her head shoot up, snapped to Lera. Her tired expression brightened, hope in her eyes that died as soon as it had begun to rise. Iravati's eyes scanned Lera's body and became fixated on her leg. Or lack thereof.
Something in Iravati's stomach crawled into her throat and stole her voice. Lera hadn't come for her yet. Iravati had fallen asleep, finally, and tugged on her thoughts, willing herself to wake up with a mental thrashing. The world did not change.
Breaking down was not what Lera needed right now. Iravati let her head tip back against the wall as she looked up at Lera. "Hey," she mimicked, just as quiet, and failing to force herself to smile. "Long day?"
"Just a little," Lera said. The attempt at humor failed to come through in her voice and she slumped back against the wall awkwardly; she kept her crutches up, trying to feel comfortable leaning against the wall. It did not work very well. She rubbed at her nose with a hand that pinned the crutch against her side, before she looked down at Iravati.
There wasn't judgment in her tone. She felt some dread at the idea Iravati could have done it, a lingering worry that she should be suspicious. Being suspicious of Vati sounded exhausting, though. It sounded like giving up, too.
"What happened, Vati?" she asked, quietly. "I'm gonna try to fix it."
The idea that anything could be fixed did not register. Legs didn't grow back. It was several stunned moments of staring later that Iravati remembered where she was and why she was there.
"A fake list," she said quickly. "They're probably still in the ranks." A lump in her throat had her wondering if that had anything to do with what happened. But bombs were bombs. They didn't need to hide their identities to tear off limbs. "This guild, or others. I don't-- I don't know."
Iravati's eyes found the ground. She was silent, shaken, biting at the edge of her dirty fingers. "I didn't do anything," she said, quietly, wondering if it was a defense or a confession. She didn't do anything. Was she supposed to? She could have. The last time she was at the guild, while the Armaiti was away...
"I didn't want to betray either guild. I wanted my own life. My own choices. I don't think they liked my choices." She frowned deeper. "No. I don't think they cared so much. But I was conveniently placed."
"I know you didn't," Lera said quietly. "I didn't believe them, when they told me about it. I..."
She hesitated, looking down again, and then she shook her head in a firm "no." It was the truth; she had considered that Vati had in the way a person entertains an impossible scenario, imagining a terrible apocalypse that never happened. She still had no evidence, though, and it meant that she failed to meet Vati's eyes while she spoke. She hadn't yet climbed out of her feelings of depression. Standing here made her slide back into that pit.
"I can't bring myself to not trust you," she said, finally. "Sometimes people talk like we can't trust anyone. Sometimes I think Ezra still doesn't really trust me, even. But I can't do that, Iravati. If I can't trust you, then I can't trust anyone, and I can't live like that. I'm not built that way." She wondered, not for the first time in the last day, if she was really cut out for this job.
She looked up, her lips drawn back with repressed emotion. She kept it in check, mostly. "I don't wanna become like those people. I believe you. It's the right thing to do, even if it's not the smart thing."
It had only been a day for Iravati, hoping a system she swore into wouldn't cast her aside. But for Lera, it had been since she became the Mazda, everyone a potential threat depending on their ambitions. Trust was terrifying.
Doubting it was exhausting.
"I'll make it smart," Iravati said. It didn't matter if it was a vague promise, and one impossible to keep locked in a cell. Her voice steadied with it, determination setting in. Oaths and choices and thoughts that were so deep Vati shied away from them. Philosophy, morality, she considered all of those things too complicated to question.
This wasn't like that. This was simple. "I won't turn you into one of those people. I won't be one of their 'I told you so's." The rebellion inherit in the idea lent natural volume to her voice. "I only swore this oath because I trusted in what you believed in. I... don't know what's happening. Or what's going to happen now. But that part doesn't change."
Lera smiled at that, slowly, and uncertainly. She moved her crutches forward, crossing the hall with awkward scrapes and shuffling. She still didn't have a good handle on how to move with the crutches yet. She finally crossed, closer to the bars, and leaned up against them. She grabbed one of the bars with her fingers and looked at Vati, nodding.
She blinked her eyes and tried to ignore the couple of tears in them.
"I'll get you out of here," she said. "I promise. I'll have to sign the paperwork and tell them--tell them the truth." They wouldn't believe her, she thought. It wasn't fair, to her or to Iravati. Her eyes turned down at the floor again. "I'm sorry you got caught up in this. I never thought..."
She looked back up and shook her head. "The Greycloaks don't play fair."
Iravati met Lera at the bars and clasped her own hands around Lera's. She caught the tears and could no longer keep looking up.
"If it would be better to tell them you didn't know, then tell them you didn't know." Iravati earnestly could not tell which would cause them less trouble-- or more success. It was one of those leadership decisions she had the luxury of never having to think about. She squeezed Lera's fingers tighter.
"I should have know better," she said, voice soft again. "I just wanted out."
"It could get you killed, if I said that," she replied, quietly. "If they found out the truth, they could--they could decide I don't know what I'm talking about and take matters into their own hands." They could do that already, Lera thought, but it felt like honesty was the best way to minimize it. Let it be her mistake and fall on her head. She could take more of it.
She unwrapped her fingers off the bars and squeezed Iravati's fingers back, tightly. She leaned her forehead against the bars, between two of them, and closed her eyes shut. Her breaths were still ragged, while she tried to keep things under control.
"You were trying to make things better, Vati," she said. "It's not your fault. They did it. We were blindsided, and maybe we shouldn't have been, but... they killed those people, framed you, and cost me my..." She closed her mouth She still couldn't say it. Her fingers tightened around Iravati's again. She stopped rambling in a shaky voice and sounded more measured, when she spoke again. "It's okay, that you wanted out. I wanted to help you get out."
"They clearly don't trust me now, or else I would offer to be a double agent." Iravati leaned her head forward. "Unless you want to stage an escape for that, but the whole idea sounds dangerous on every level imaginable."
Being in a cell had dropped lower on Iravati's list of concerns. That could be fixed. Even hearing that the spellswords might take matters into their own hands-- no way. Lera wouldn't let it happen. But Lera was tired. And missing a limb.
"Should you be here right now? You look worse than you did during the war, and I can't go and get you hot chocolate."
Would be nice. Vati tried to crack a smile, but it never made it before her expression faded back to grim.
Lera laughed. It was funny, if because of the absurdity. The laugh didn't last long, though, and her smile was subdued at the end. "It's okay. When I sign the release order, we'll have all of the hot chocolate that we can find."
She rubbed at her face, while she considered the rest, and leaned back up so her head wasn't against the bars. It made it easier to look at Iravati that way. The bars were not exactly comfortable to lean against, either. "I don't really have a lot else to do," she said. "I'm still--I mean, I'm still in charge, but the doctors told me to take it easy. I tried to take a walk, but..."
The joke fell completely flat and she looked down. She sighed, softly. "It's still too soon for that one, I guess."
Iravati's heart lifted. When, not if. She would get out of here. Sooner, not later, she hoped, but Lera saying it was enough to toss the concern aside further.
"Well," Iravati began, managing a grin, "I appreciate the company. Sorry I didn't get the place cleaned up." Maybe that was too soon as well. Ah, there expressions kept dropping that way.
"You should listen to them. The doctors, I mean. Decisions made when you're tired sound great at the time, but tend to end in disappointment and food poisoning."
"F-Food poisoning?" Lera asked. "I don't--my rushed decisions usually didn't--um." She had a thing about keeping everything clean and not getting food poisoning. It was something of a sticking point for her. She smiled after she thought about it; for a second, she had forgotten everything. The jail bars, the way she sagged into her crutches, and the way her balance was simply all wrong. She looked at Vati, smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.
"But they have occasionally involved drunken decisions and randomly appearing magical ghost swords," she allowed, "so I concede your point. I'll listen to my doctors. "
She sighed and still smiled; it was genuine, though it faded again after a moment. The feeling of normalcy that came with it did, too, but for the first time in a day and a half, it felt like maybe life could be normal again. It was the first real glimmer of feeling something besides despondency in all that time.
Iravati smiled in return, as short lived, but with a spark of life they both needed. "Good. I'm not there to make sure it happens. Or bring you things. So don't go ruining all of my hard work while my back is turned." It felt more normal to joke like this, even with the weight of it lurking behind each word.
Things had changed in ways Iravati didn't know how to handle. Or what did it all mean? Reputations, bombs, legs. She took a deep breath and leaned into the bars, knowing she'd end up with awful marks on her head and not particularly caring.
Eventually, Lera would have to walk away and leave her here. She tried not to think about that happening, even if it was probably exactly what needed to happen, from the look of Lera.
"Hey... uh." Iravati hesitated with a new thought. There had been one piece of news she wanted, but whether Lera had it, and whether Vati wanted the answer. Nope. Just got to ask. "Is. Is Ravindra okay?"
"I'll be good," Lera said, smiling again. It was true, though; the person she would call if she needed to talk to get her mind off things was in this cell. She didn't have Vati for that -- or for the other things that were more definable, but maybe mattered less. She had to resolve this quickly, she decided, but still try to handle it delicately. The idea sounded exhausting and frustrating.
Even Harriet doubted Iravati.
And then, she realized, there was Ravindra. Lera had to write him, she decided. "Y-Yeah," she said. "He was fine--he, um, he saved my life. One of the Greycloak clerics did this. He botched the heal, so my leg couldn't--" She closed her mouth tightly, sharply again. "Ravindra saw it and stepped in, then fought him off, when the cleric tried to kill me."
She shook her head, looking back down. She leaned her head against the bars again and her fingers curled around them, tighter. "I asked about him," she said, "and they said he was fine. Busy, I think, too."
"Motherfuck, I told them the list was fake, that someone would-- Ravindra saved you?"
Iravati stared back at Lera. She didn't doubt Ravindra's capabilities. Or really think him someone petty enough to turn a blind eye. But her imagination may have also been greatly exaggerating the feats necessary to rescue the Mazda. There had probably been some wall jumping, for example.
"Y-Yeah, I bet he's busy," she said. Putting on a cape like one of those Earth heroes. Or. Trying to rest after the trauma of an exploding parade. Iravati needed to find a way to thank him. Once she was out of here. Or before? Writing Ravindra a dragonmail while in jail was a potentially bad idea.
"But that's-- that's good. I mean, a lot happened, but." Iravati sighed again. "... The food here is terrible," she said, letting the subject drop. "Let's get something together once this is all over."
Did Ravindra know that Iravati was in jail? Lera suddenly wondered and worried. She definitely owed it to him to write, even if she planned to have that fixed as soon as possible.
"I'll make sure he's okay," she said. She looked down at that, then she looked back up. She smiled, a touch of awkwardness on her face again. "And, um, fill him in so he... doesn't worry more." He would worry. There was no way that he wouldn't worry. She could at least try to make sure that Vati was out of here and safe.
And find out why the Greycloaks wanted to implicate her. She had only started puzzling that.
"We'll get Korean," she said. She smiled, then. "It'll be great. Maybe they'll have the... prosthetic ready, then, too." The smile vanished again. "It's alchemical."
Yeah, yeah Ravindra should probably know. Just not the whole... heeeey guess where I am I'm going to be coy about this for as long as possible so I don't have to admit anything distressing kind of know.
But he wouldn't try to break her out of prison a second time. Probably. It was necessary this time.
Iravati nodded. "Thanks."
Her eyes lit up at the mention of a prosthetic. Legs didn't grow back, and a fake one was little real comfort. But it was something. "Oh, yeah? Get the Khshathra to do it personally?"
"They've got a few of them already, so I think they're gonna get me one once the swelling and everything goes down, and then she can make modifications and stuff," Lera said. She forced a smile at that. It wasn't really good news, but it was better news. "So I'll be able to walk around and all. Hopefully it won't be too... you know."
She made a vague motion with her hands. Not talking about losing her leg directly was going to be hard, because it was hard to communicate that she wanted something that didn't look too cybernetic with hand gestures.
"I kind of want a spike launcher, though," she added sheepishly. "And a recharger for my mobile phone."
"Yeah," Iravati said quickly. She got it. She wouldn't want to look made of alchemy either. Flesh was warm and personal. Alchemy was... well.
"Spikes are good," she said sagely, tapping at her chin in all too deep thought. If Lera made her leg a sword, like a peg-leg-- sword-leg, peg-sword-- could she...
Far too soon to ask.
Iravati tried to smile again. "We'll have to test it with ice skating, too."
"Yeah," Lera said. She smiled again, but with that effort, still. It might be easier, she thought, when she had her new leg; when she knew that she could do more than hope right now. "It's almost Christmas, anyways. I better be able to go skating then."
She shook her head. "I better get going, though, okay?" She reached her fingers out and squeezed Iravati's briefly. She looked down when she spoke, though. "I'll need to talk to people, make sure the release goes okay, um... make sure that no one gets some funny ideas about it. It shouldn't take too long, though."
Iravati's heart made a violent thump in her chest. "Yeah," she agreed. No. She squeeze back on Lera's fingers. Iravati had forgotten the bars. For a few minutes there, she wasn't trapped, alone, waiting.
Soon she would be.
"You do what you got to do. But take it easy, okay?"
"I'll try," she said. She smiled at that, looking at Iravati a moment longer. She wanted to say more, but she couldn't find the words. An apology for getting Iravati into this felt wrong. Another attempt to be comforting would be false and forced, when Lera was off to do the real work of making things better for her. Even saying that she wished this never happened felt hollow. She patted her fingers once more.
"I'll be back soon. I promise."
Lera smiled again, before she moved backward, balancing for a moment on one leg until she had the crutches under her. Then she started making her way up the hall, with that awkward scraping noise made when the crutches hit the floor.