nonsuch | & open gen post iii.

"I am aware. If I were not, I would not be here dealing with you."

Standing now and she's - the door is there. She wants to go for it, or the nearest window. That would serve her just fine. Her jaw sets, clicking her teeth together. Shifting her weight on her feet in a way that's clearly ready to make a run for it. "Why should I believe you?"

He's starting to wonder if he's going to need to bolt from his seat to stop her if she tries to make a go for it. A stunner is holstered at his side and if he needs to use nonlethal force, he will.

"What reason would I have to deceive you? I gain no benefit from your confusion or confinement." He doesn't have much to offer in the way trust except, "We allowed you to keep your weapons. If we truly wanted to see you harmed, we would have disarmed you first."

But given her unknown origin and no source of crime she may have been involved in, the Imperium would love to avoid a potential diplomatic snafu.

It's certainly logical, at least as far as he's spelling it out. Her fingers twitch in agitation. Weighing him and his word and that yes - she is still armed. Aside from manhandling in her confusion, she hadn't been touched. Granted, the gun might have something to do with it, but still. Enough men changed that, she couldn't kill them all. ( only most, says the blackwater at her throat. )

Her acceptance comes, when she sits again. Still just a little on edge, still ready to bolt. "Who are you? What is this place?"

Edited 2017-03-28 02:25 (UTC)

He nods in thanks for her taking a seat. It's not a lot of trust, but it's a small amount. Hopefully enough for him to get some answers out of her.

"Captain Duv Galeni. You are currently within the headquarters of Imperial Security." Because that is no secret and she deserves to know that much. "And you are?"

"Captain." Her head nods slow, in greeting, not taking her eyes off of him. Her lips pressing together in a hesitation on the truth. It would take trust.

But no, she had never hidden herself, just made it hard to believe she still lived. But from what he said - they were on another planet. ( still hovering on that world as a lie, perhaps but - ) "I am Jhansi ki Rani." A pause, a correction, and he would not know that if what he said is true. "The Queen of Jhansi."

All right. He has a name and a title though he would need to fact check whether this was reality or fiction. If she is speaking the truth, they really could have a diplomatic problem on their hands though he doesn't know of any royalty in Europe that hold any power.

"Of Jhansi? I take it that it's in India?"

She nods again. Slow, careful. Still watching him, still refusing to look away like she might find something in his face that will reveal something to her about him. "In the north, part of Bundelkhand."

Names that likely mean nothing, since he said he had only ever seen England. London. Soon, she'd be at that place and see it for herself. "What do you plan to do with me?"

"As of now, we're unsure," he admits. He has a datapad in front of him and he's entering in that location to see if their data on Earth extends that far. As much of a stretch as it is, he's still surprised when nothing is pulled up. That makes her story difficult to check.

"You'll have to excuse us if there's no protocol for royalty showing up on our doorstep. Usually we have enough notice to organize a ball." Not that he ever attended them, but he kept up on diplomatic events happening on Barrayar.

What's he doing? She eyes it in more and more interest. He has a half dozen little gestures that she doesn't understand that draw her gaze away before he speaks again, watching the light - how was it doing that? Flicks up in interest that she quickly smothers back. Now isn't the time.

Immediately at the suggestion, her nose wrinkles. "I have never attended one." Pulls, a little, he's attempting levity, and she can try to keep things even at least - "So perhaps it is for the best I am sure, I do not have anything to wear." She clearly is distasteful of the thought of having much to do with them. Staunch in her ways.

"Besides, if you aren't aware of it, my enemies shortly will make you so if this gets out that I have been captured even by mistake. I am a hunted woman. Wanted for treason against the British Empire."

Edited 2017-03-28 06:32 (UTC)

"I doubt you're missing much beyond backdoor politics." Said by a man with little patience for such. For one, it made it rather difficult to document history when Barrayar had oral traditions and favored using social events to political advantage. But that's not why either of them are here though he thinks that if she were to remove the blood, she would be dressed well enough to attend any function she cared for.

And while she continues to speak, he continues to search, this time entering in her final words as a term and-- "The British Empire no longer exists." Because that brought up results. Several and all of which had long since shown that Empire's fall.

She blinks, rapidly, mouth opened to say something, anything at all. Rapidly trying to catch up with it, like he'd told her the sky had fallen and it just might have. She had closed her eyes a moment and the sun was slipping where it should have always been a fixed mark.

"- What?"

No, that couldn't be right, he's mad, or she is or - "I am glad to hear it but that is not - how? When?" Whether she is mad or not, it's a great deal, all at once. Trying to fathom it. Her eyes shut briefly, shaking her head to try and assure herself.

Was that truly surprising? Given the dates he's seeing, it happened long ago and the British Empire hadn't survived to spaceflight. There was no chance they were holed up on another planet unless someone had adopted the moniker.

"You can read for yourself," he offers and turns the datapad to face her on the historical entry for the Empire in question.

The sky might have fallen down - or he's grown an extra head for the way she looks at him. He might have said Shiva destroyed them too, while he was at it, it seems as mythic.

He turns the thing he was - typing? She thinks? Since a typewriter only the once, and so recently too. This is nothing like that, it is full of light. A wonder enough for it as her hair fell forward over her face in her inspection. Not reading, not yet, more just looking at what he was holding. She couldn't find a cause for it. Any electricity as she knows it comes from huge generators, done to show an impressive trick, but nothing so mundanely used. Blinking at its brightness she leans forward and then frowns at it a little more. Her spoken English was fine but - written took her longer. Mouthing through the words, the dates, slowly but carefully. At least the numbers were the same, can make those out quickly.

The 1940s? She looks up at him. "But that's years from now."

She's staring at the tablet as if he's handed her something alien. Those had become standard issue even here on Barrayar at least where they could be afforded. The planets colonized that would find this level of tech unusual is an obscure enough list that Duv would have to look it up. Even then the colonizers would have come from a more advanced planet.

He frowns as he watches her, patiently waiting to see where her reading takes her. Something about her expression has him concerned that she isn't going to find what she's searching for.

"That happened over a thousand years ago," he replies carefully and watches her intently for her reaction. What she's implying would be impossible and he wonders if this is an elaborate ruse by one of Barrayar's enemies. Cetaganda? They would have the time for something this pointless and strange to send a message.

"It's 1867." She says it pointlessly. Like somehow if she does it will make it real. She doesn't know who she's trying to convince, really. He keeps saying these things. "You're lying to me. Stop. I have no patience for it. Whatever game it is you're playing with me, I am not the one to do it with."

He has to be, has to. If it's not then - what is she going to do? Nothing, because she can't. Because she's some place called Barrayar, a thousand years since her home was anything she might know. She knew there was always a chance, taking up the blackwater, that she would live to see such times. But she knew what was more likely: she would die in the fight before then.

Was she joking? The look he gives her in return says everything, that same feeling she has of him lying is one he shares about her. She is the stranger here, out of place in several ways if her story is true, but it's improbable. He isn't a man of science though he wonders if even a damn team of them could figure out the validity of someone claiming to travel through time and space in the blink of an eye.

"The year is 3102," he replies, keeping his tone even. If this is some story she's intricately woven then getting hostile will serve him no good. And if the strange feeling in his gut that she's telling the truth turns out to be right... Well. That would be a bridge they'd cross when they got there.

"What good would it do me to lie to you?"

That's - that's - She flickers, between fear and anger with no other outlet. It's not possible, and maybe she should rage and shout and demand. There is so much at stake. So much she must yet do. She cannot be away from her wars, her battles, her people. Does he not understand? What then, yell at him but who is he to fix this?

It's tempting, tempting to take the relief. He was clearly not in any position to change it.

She takes in a breath, eyes down. Nothing much crosses her face. A sinking behind her position, her rank. In that her hands settle into her lap, weighing her choices. Her stare fixed on him. "Either you are lying to me, or I must accept myself at your mercy, far from my home, from my people. Which would you take?"

He's ready should she decide to turn hostile. They're both armed and he has a nonlethal way to take her out if it comes to it. But she seems to... Not relax, but taking in her situation more pragmatically. If she wants his honest opinion, he will gladly give it. He's never been in the habit of lying.

"If it were me? I would assume the former, but realize the latter is also true," he admits. Neither option had to be mutual of the other. "Whether I'm lying or not, I gather you know nothing of this place nor the people in it."

It is honest, or she must believe it is so. Because he's right, she doesn't know anything about where she is, how these people operate. Fingers curling into themselves. Less scared, more weighing him in particular now.

"Then, I commit myself to your keeping, and you alone, and I ask for protection." She swallows. She cannot say how it works, but she has that he had been honest with her so far, and for now it would have to do.

"No one is asking you to surrender yourself." Well. Not in the way it sounds like she's implying. He's reminded of Barrayar's feudal system in the way she says it, as if he were some Vor lord that was meant to protect those loyal to them. He's the farthest from it.

"You will need to hand over your weapons temporarily at least. Until your case can be reviewed." And he'll have someone get her fresh clothes so she can finally clean herself up.

She doesn't want to, that much is plain. It leaves her open, vulnerable in a way she cannot stand in herself. But if that is how to sort this out in the short term then.

Lakshmi stands and gives him what he wants. Considerable as that is. She unstraps the heavy Falchion from her back, unslinging it over her head to set it down on his desk with a heavy clunk. The wood stock bearing a heavy line of claw marks in the timber, blood splattered across the base. The dragoon pistol is next, laying it and its holster that she unclasps from her chest beside the rifle on his desk.

The last in the long knife, and that, she hesitates with. The others - they are just another weapon, but this? "I would like to keep this. It is... deeply important, and of my husband's family." Of a sort, Sir Bors and what remained of her husband's Shamshir.

So she did have a firearm on her. Old by the style of it, likely 1800s if her story checked out. How he'd find out if it did he's unsure beyond investigating what she's brought with her further. Maybe an analysis of the material composition? Unless someone went through the trouble of making exact replicas, they may be a trace of the truth somewhere in there.

As for the knife, he frowns as he stares at it. She could do damage with that, but surrounded by stunners and plasma arcs she wouldn't get far. WIth some reluctance, he nods.

"Can you hide it?" he asks. "And if you would like new clothing, I can take you to the fabricator and have a set made."

Briefly, she's incensed at the thought, snapped quickly. "It is the blade upon which my people's fate is waged." Grits her teeth, lets out a breath, easing herself down a little. It made sense, at best he just thought her mad, as mad as she thought him, at worst, she was a foreign ruler looking to attempt something to assure her own power.

But she nods, relenting after a moment. She could do something with it. Looking down at her blood clothes and armour. Yes, she should get something else to be seen in. "Yes, I would... like that." When was the last time she had new clothes? Years ago, now. What a relief. "Will I have rooms I may return to?"

Or a maid, either way. It feels... isolating.

He raises a brow at that. She might fit in on Barrayar better than he thought if she and her 'people' placed that much importance on a simple blade. Never underestimate symbolism and the weight it carries. It's something he's learned well in his studies of this Empire. She's fortunate he's not asking her to hand it over with the rest of her weaponry.

He stands and motions for her to join him as he heads for the door. "You will have a room," he answers. "I'm not sure how long you'll stay there before you're given clearance to leave."

Regardless she would be under surveillance. No doubt this would go to the top and Security Chief Illyan would make the final decision of what to do with their foreign visitor. While he's leading, he watches her out of the corner of his eyes as he heads towards an elevator. It would be a strange, winding trip through the building but they would eventually make it to the fabricator machine that could scan her and issue plain clothes. It would have to do for now.

She follows beside him. The heavy shift of her armour under her clothes - chain shirt, mostly these days - clinks and settles as she does. Making her movements stiff - lost her helmet two battlefields ago and hadn't had an ability since then to replace it. A tangled mess of her hair where it had come free of it's tight braid, mattered with blood and dust, making her clothes stick to her skin. The chainmail a rustle of metal that she takes with each step that makes it loud, but she wears it easily enough to step light. Her long blade is clutched in her hand, all the same. Stiffly kept close with ceremony, rather than deadly purpose. A soldier, just the same as a queen. Stretched out over long battlefields and she meets the gaze of anyone that looks at her openly and flatly as they go past. Determined, flat.

Though, mostly, she hadn't been at liberty to look when she'd come in. Too concerned by what she might find. But she takes it in now, faint wonder that lifts her brow some small amount when she's not looking at others, eyes bright in the things she looks at. Light, so much light, a building that - no, it's not like the Mahal, the Fortress or half the palaces between Portugal and Gwalior that she had crept in and out of since then.

Something else, just as beautiful perhaps, for its difference to what she knows. Confusing, though. Makes it important that she doesn't miss a step beside him, when she shifts her gaze back to him. "Thank you. Will I need to be presented to anyone else?"

Sort of distracted, at least when they get to the elevator, trying to comprehend what they were doing, but better than to ask. He's handling it all as normal but - she'll do the same beside him. Even if part of her startles - a shift of her weight on her feet in expectation - at each little thing she doesn't comprehend.

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