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(no subject)

Characters: Lavi, Elizabeth Tudor, and maybe Lenalee Li
When: Soon after the battle with Credinta
Where: Apartments, first floor, random-unclaimed room
Rating: PG?
Summary: Lavi gets a talking to by a(/two) powerful woman(/women).

[Lavi had managed to keep his mouth shut the entire journey to the apartment building even though he was in intense pain despite the help from Raven and Kiriko. He had learned his lesson, most definitely, don't ever go up against a tank.

Part of him was glad that they hadn't used airplanes to bomb the ruined city. He had no idea how to combat them now if his hammer didn't work.

So he's sulking in his new and uncomfortable bed, longing for his own room on the top floor but injured as he was it was sort of impractical to cart him up there. The door is cracked but for now he's dozing as best he can while in pain, broken bones tend to make sleeping impossible to get.

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[He would be honored to have been thought of as one of her men, if even for a brief while.

But he would welcome the water, even something sweet to suck on to rid himself of the metallic taste of blood still lingering in his mouth. Really Kanda, what was in that stuff?

He stirs slightly, the worst of his injuries being a broken leg, three ribs, and an arm with multiple breaks. The gunshot wounds are mostly closed thanks to Raven's healing. Lavi's eye flutters open and he frowns slightly, having a slightly hard time focusing. Then he realizes his forehead bandage has come undone.]

I'm not...a lord... [The bandages around his ribs make it hard to breathe.]

[Well she's got both, she's got such a terrible sweet tooth after all.

She frowns when she sees him, he looked awful. He looked as frail as ever looked. Elizabeth bit her tongue against whatever clip she was going to give him about that sort of nonsense near her.]

No, you're not, because if this were England of my time, you'd be dead from those injuries...

[she tsked at him though.] Besides haven't you figured by now I call everyone that? The only one whose different is my lord Cross. [she shrugs, walking closer going about things orderly, sitting the drink and food down beside him on the bedside table before finding a chair to drag closer and sit beside him.]

[He could use something sweet to help with his blood sugar. He's perhaps paler than normal but he still had that tan about him at least, a small part of it held on to keep him from looking pallid.]

In England...I would not...have had great friends...like I do here... [Kanda perhaps but not Raven or Kiriko.]

Don't...need a title... 'm just...Lavi.

[Which once she'd settled into the chair she got the water and held it up to him, but didn't let go of it, she hate to fuss and mother, but she didn't trust his strength right now.]

No, you wouldn't have. So aren't you lucky? [because she could already see his grace and it makes her shudder.]

You might not be, but I will still call you that, because you are my friend here also.

[He does reach up with his unbroken arm to steady the glass as he drinks out of it, lowering it a few seconds later.]

I am...a rabbit... [A weak grin at the nickname that he normally hated.]

Why not...call me Lavi...?

[When he's finished, she gives him the only sweet thing she'd managed to find. Condensed milk. Sorry Lavi, supplies are going to be awful for awhile.]

Rabbits aren't that lucky when they end up in pots and turned into muffs. [she sighed and lent back.] Is it not the same thing 'my lord Lavi'? To me is, it's common courtesy. Because if I am to call you just Lavi, then you need to start calling me just Elizabeth.

[He makes a little face at it, he doesn't need to be taller, but he does drink a bit of it.]

The ones...that get away...are the lucky...ones... [A slight shake of his head starts but it stops as she mentions calling her by her given name.] It...isn't polite for...me to...

[she doubts that it'll do much more then rot his teeth. It's used to make caramel after all. Sticky and gooey, basically.]

They are. But you nearly went into a pot, and you know it too. [she gave him a stern look -- and then a exasperated sigh at his protest.] And it doesn't bother me one way or another, why does it bother you if I call you 'my lord'? I call everyone 'my lord'. Save Cross, but that's because he is a General. It's polite, that's what it is, and you're being hypocritical. [she draws a slow breath in.] I thought about what you said, for I've had much time to think, and there needs to be an understanding between us Lavi. We both have duties to do, and neither of them pleasant. I am sorry I grew upset with you when I was... drunk. Sorrier still that you left before I could explain why I was so upset. But I didn't understand why you were so upset with me, either.

[It'll help his blood sugar at least.]

Not yet...not here... [Rubbing at his face with his unbound hand.] "My lord" is...for those of...higher class... "Sir" is the least...of what I should...be called...

[This...is going to be hard to explain with these bandages hampering his breathing. Lavi's hand goes for the fastenings, undoing them so that he might talk normally. He'll regret it later.]

I was upset because you didn't think highly of yourself, you were lowering yourself the way that they wanted to back home. To make you fold in on yourself and simply give up. That wasn't the queen I had admired and the friend that I had come to know.

[There's that. Just don't make a mess, else she'll have to clean you up.]

No, not yet, which I'm thankful for. [she shakes her hand.] 'My Lord' is whomever I think is worthy of respect. I give people those titles, I give them that respect when I call them that. Is that so hard to understand? [Which she was sick of people correcting her on that, when it was all she was trying to do.]

... I'm glad that is what you meant. [she just didn't know how to begin with it. Confusing, all of it.]

[He'll try his best to. She might need to clean his mouth a little if some spills out.]

No, it is just not something I want for myself, a title like that. [Even out of respect.]

You are a good queen and a good person, my lady, even if you have a temper it just means you are human like the rest of us.

You don't have a title. It's just a term of address. The correct title for you, as a distinguished man in your field is 'Master Lavi'. That I learnt as a child. You see why it's a hard habit to shake? It would be like telling you to forget how to fight. These things are how I run almost everything, and are sometimes a comfort to me. [she could control people like that, raising them in her favour, dropping them down, all with a few words and a different way of addressing them. Fiddly, but she had no blades to do the fighting for her, just words -- and in this foreign place, the little bits of home she could scrape together.]

The temper... well, I'm a lion's cub, and you should of heard him when he roared. I sound no worse then a pathetic mewl in comparison. When I was a girl I swore the ground shook when he raged. [and no one ever said anything, because no one ever said anything to her father.] It's not the... 'being the same as you' that is the problem. I'm not supposed to be. No matter how much I want to... marry some lesser lord [she was speaking and trying to sound detached, but in her minds eye all she could see was Dudley.] Give him a brood of children, and love them all and whole heartedly as I never was... I can't, and I never will be. I serve a higher purpose, whether I like it or not.

So if I am bitter. It's not because of what they say, it's because I am unhappy in myself. But my mother's anniversary... it reminds me that there is a price must be paid when you gamble with such things.

I get it, I get it. [It doesn't mean that he likes it. Being referred to as "my lord" or "master" is something that just isn't him. But he does know how hard habits can be to kick. Perhaps one day he'll call her by her given name himself.]

You have the ability to do that here though, my lady. [Closing his eye.] There is no one here to govern you and tell you what you can and cannot do. Excluding the idiots across the way. If he were here now with us, would you be with him more than you could be at home?

There is always a price, but the question is do you have the strength to try and capture your prize or just let it slip away and do nothing.

Thank-you. [When he starts calling her Elizabeth, she'll start calling him Lavi.]

I can't have the man I loved, he betrayed me and I will never forgive him for it. [it hurt less then it used to, and she still is quiet about it's admission.]

Don't tell me of the price, I've already paid it, my mother paid, so did my sister and my brother. [that came out sharper then it meant to.] I know what I am -- and I am not a good person. I've ordered things that would make you horrified and it's not a kindness to say I am a nice person regardless. For as far as my country is concerned, I'll kill and steal until she is strong again. I've done it already, and I will do it again before my time is done. And no doubt, when it is over, you will not recognise me. That is the price, my body and my life and a great deal of my conscious is forfeit.

[Months from now and probably months longer while he nurses the bit of heartbreak at her and Cross being a thing.]

...I see. [He thinks of Dudley, there were rumors even in the records of history that he read of their dalliance and his marriage to someone else. But Lavi was wise enough not to ask clarification.]

You do these things because of the mantel you wear, were you not a queen you would not venture to spill the blood of any man or steal the purse of another. They are the Queen, these prices paid, they are not my lady Elizabeth. [He will be vehement in this.]

[Oh Lavi... ;; Well, that explained a lot at least.]

It is not something I will ever be doing again lightly. [she's glad he doesn't, it's not something she wants to go into ever again.]

You are very young, Lavi. [She feels old, so damnably old. Old as the grey hairs she knows she already has. Like she could feel her bones creak.] And you know much, I'm not saying you don't. But there is much you still need to learn... [about that the Queen was her, and it did not matter what she would do if she weren't a Queen, the fact is she was. There was no separating the two.

She didn't say anything to the 'my lady Elizabeth'. But she lent forward anyway, over him. Even if she thought he might hate it, to run her fingers through his hair gently, smoothing his bangs back.] But I pray you don't lose what you have already learnt. I think I would like to see myself as you do.

[He has a lot of puppy loves it seems, first Naoto and now Elizabeth. But he never did once hold onto the idea of confessing to her, she'd think him a silly thing. Joking at that. All of them do.]

You will find someone else to give your heart, I know it.

[Snorting despite the pain.] I am not that young. I have seen more than any one my age should see. [Twenty almost twenty-one and he had seen more wars than he cared to remember but always would. Nothing but wars since the age of six. Enough to make him embittered to the whole human race yet still...still he found kindness in them. Lenalee was kind to all that she met. Allen fought for them all despite the prophecy laid against him. Kanda...well, was Kanda. But he still did something when he could have done nothing. Even if it was just to vent his frustrations. He did it by doing the right thing, saving the world that had taken his eternal rest. Lavi admired them all for that, it took him out of the shell he had created that blocked him off.] Naive in some things but I am learning. I am always learning...

[He wouldn't learn more about her if they were arguing all the time though. The touch to his hair he could never hate, it was soothing and he liked to think it was the same way it would feel should he have had a mother or an older sister do the same. He had to make do with things like that, wondering if it would have felt the same. He had no memories to tell him otherwise.] I never forget. [But...his opinions do change even though he shouldn't have them at all. Betrayal is not something he takes kindly or forgives/forgets easily.]

[She doesn't say anything to that, there isn't much. This is why though, she wouldn't be able to accept him. There was a naivety about this, and about her. She understood it. She played almost all things close to the chest. But that was the problem.

The woman that Lavi spoke of, that woman knew in her heart what the Queen did in her mind.

Neither of them flinched any more.]

I've no doubt, the way you talk speaks of it. The way you tried to be patient with me even more.

[she lets her hands linger, leaning forward a little more to gently do back up the bandages that had fallen loose. Using it as an excuse to leave a gently kiss his forehead.] I know. I'm glad for it. So you should never forget that no matter how I snap, no matter how my temper flares, that above all I care for you. Whatever that is worth, you are very dear to me, and I do not want to fight with you, or see you hurt.

Sadly though, I get too unreasonable for my own good.

[He's willing to learn though, isn't that the important thing? And he's a quick learn too. Not that it'll make much of a difference.]

One has to have patience for life to be worth the journey in the end.

[At least that's what people tell him. The kiss to his forehead gets a faint blush, one that doesn't reveal his puppy-love crush.] I will try to remember that in the future. [A soft, very small smile at being told she doesn't want to fight with him.]

And redheads will forever bicker with one another.

[It is, and that he'd bother with her, who she was fairly sure no one really tried to any more...]

That's a very fine proverb. I shall try to remember it the next time I am faced with a room of advisors that I would dearly like to have executed.

[It's a joke. Mostly.]

It does seem that way, and would certainly explain my sister and I... and both of us and my father. [they fought terribly sometimes.] And I will try and keep in mind what you have said.

It is not exactly a proverb, just a rough hashing of what I have been told. But by all means, use it.

Families are inclined to it more so, you cannot ignore them forever like you might a former friend or ally.

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