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A sound like a large bell tolling rang, deep and sonorous. Laudna awoke, pulled herself out of a pile of fellow corpses, and surveyed the landscape. Smoke. Burning buildings. Death was everywhere.
She remembered dying, of course. It would be very hard not to, considering that it was the most interesting thing to happen to her in her lifetime. Relatively short, her life. She could see that now. Just a couple miserable decades of peasantry and hard labor, starving and scraping and for what? To get called to Whitestone to be fattened like a goose for slaughter? Some life that amounted to.
Sorry, darling, said the voice in her head. It wasn’t personal.
She knew that voice. How could she forget it? It’d been the last thing she’d ever heard before she died. Delilah’s smooth voice dropping the spell keeping the seven of them aloft, and then the snap of rope going taut, and then her own blood rushing in her ears. Throat creaking. And then even that faded.
Not personal. Laudna rolled her eyes as she picked through the blood-soaked ruin of her town. Slim comfort, wasn’t it. She was sure it wasn’t personal, when the crops failed and her parents had lost nearly everything. They’d still starved. And ultimately, she discovered, they’d still perished as well. During whatever this was.
Everyone had perished. Like, everyone. Around every corner was a face she’d known paralyzed in the rigor of death. It was a bit of a pleasant surprise to discover that whether they’d been kind to her or unaware of her existence, she felt the same pangs of sympathy and pity. Death bestowed a universal empathy.
Still. Of everyone, her parents hurt the most. Not just the shock of seeing their faces, but the other part as well. When she reached out to touch their pale faces, she snatched it back in horror. Why were her hands nearly white, her nails as dark as a bruise? She turned her arm over to find deep purple veins marbling grey skin, pulled her skirt up to find her legs and feet in similar states. She looked just as dead as they did.
She had died. That was undeniable. She’d been hung and woke up hours later, haunted by the voice of the woman who’d killed her. It was safe to say Laudna wasn’t at her best. She could be forgiven, she thought, for some disorientation. Losing a few hours.
The sun sank behind the distant mountains. Light was fading. That spurred Laudna to action. The thought of staying in the city after dark sent a cold shiver down her spine. There was not a single living thing within sight, aside from feasting carrion birds. Laudna taken her death magnanimously, she thought. She was handling it well. Now, she rationally and reasonably decided to leave town and never return.
Well, Laudna said to herself. Her voice, not Delilah’s. Well, if we can't stay here we'll need some things. And like she'd swiped the occasional loaf of bread so many times before, Laudna helped herself to some supplies.
She found a young lady about her shape in a gorgeous dress of dark brocade, crumpled under some rubble. Sturdy fabric. A little fancy. Perfect for travelling. It took all her strength to get the body up. "Cooperate, please," Laudna said to her sternly, and began to wrestle the dress off. Quite the process. First there were the buttons, and then she had to lift each arm to shimmy the sleeves down them. From there it was easy enough. Death had granted some dexterity, it seemed. It almost felt as she had another hand, helping her with the tricky spots. That was impossible, though. As was waking up dead. But Laudna didn’t have time to concern herself with details.
She gave the ravens and vultures quite the show, stripped where she stood in the street. In that process, she received confirmation that the rest of her body was as grey as her hands. The same color of the other corpses. But that wasn't worth thinking about. She needed a belt for her new dress, coins to fill the pocket on the belt, shoes for her feet that kept stumbling over rough cobblestone. She’d had shoes on when she died. Where had those gone? No matter. There were plenty of shoes around now. Plenty of belts, and bags, and even weapons. All she took was a dagger. She doubted she could lift a sword, let alone swing it.
After some foraging in the streets, Laudna’s wits returned. If the town was abandoned, so was the market. Honestly it was a little fun. A shopping trip the likes of which she never could’ve afforded in life. Laudna went to the grocer for crackers, dried meat, and apples. She went to the tailors and picked up the sharp pair of shears she’d always wanted, as well as a spool of red string too long for her to ever use it all. The shop travelers and hunters always frequented had a flint and steel, a heavy cloak suitable for rain, rope, and a lantern.
“I’ve never left Whitestone before,” Laudna told one of the crows. “Not even to walk through the woods. Do you think there’s a wrong way to go?”
She would’ve welcomed some input now, but of course received none. The crows had nothing to add, and Delilah’s voice remained silent as well. Laudna only had herself. Death hadn’t changed that either.
So she left. She didn’t look back.
The first few days were peaceful. Laudna walked while the sun was up, climbed up into a tree and slept when it was dark. Her shoes were sturdy and her cloak thick. It wasn’t winter yet, hardly into fall, so the cold was pleasant rather than deadly. She was moving south, she thought. Towards the coast. Interesting things always came from the coast.
There were minor complications, of course. One night she shook a toenail out of her shoes. It had grown back by the next day. Just like her fingernail did, after it snagged on a rock. Her hair was prone to coming out at the slightest provocation. She snagged her arm on a briar, and where her flesh torn away there was only black liquid that streamed down her arm, slightly too thin to be blood.
One couldn’t have everything, she supposed.
Laudna remained focused on the bright spots. The weather, for one. Her warm clothes. She didn’t need nearly as much sleep as she once had, which left more time for crafting. There were a couple good hours of weaving by firelight between when it got too dark to walk and when it was dark enough to sleep. She would’ve preferred a loom, but she knew how to use her fingers to braid and twist and make a little scrap into something she could actually use.
First, a netted bag for firewood. Much easier to carry it with her than go searching every night. Then, she started braiding herself a belt. She used every fancy knot she knew, all the techniques she’d only learned last year when Mother had deemed her old enough to be worth teaching. Even made herself a needle out of a slender twig for the parts that required more precision. It was glorious, and far too dainty for travel. Still. She wore it, because why shouldn’t she? No one was there to tell her not to.
As the forest got warmer, the flora and fauna changed. More creatures and critters skittered through the underbrush as she walked. More flowers bobbed in the grass around her. Her cloak stopped being necessary in the middle of the day, and the evenings were lovely, cozy things.
On one such evening, Laudna experienced her first mauling. Firelight threw flickering tendrils across the tree trunks, the shapes irregular and always moving. It was perfectly understandable that she not see the beast coming. In her defense, she didn't know such thing even existed - it was almost like a large cat, something the traveling circus might've had snarling in the middle of the ring. The appeal was admittedly diminished when it was inches from her face.
Ah, Laudna thought grimly. Another death for the tally. She couldn't be too unhappy. Two was more than most people got. Even if this one felt particularly brutal. Teeth tore into her arm, black stained the creature's muzzle, and the pain burned like acid. At least the first time it hadn't hurt.
Out of obligation, she put up the pretense of a struggle. Screamed, when she remembered to. Only she didn't just scream. The sound that tore out of her was more than that. Other voices wailed along with her, and she felt her neck crack with the strain. Something that felt like tears but thicker streamed out of her eyes and down her face, and the voice of Delilah made its second appearance. Come now darling. Dig a little deeper. There was something happening to her hands, but Laudna was too busy trying to push the beast away, desperately away, to note what was different in particular. Don't give into fate.
"It wasn't fate, it was you," Laudna growled. Anger curled in her breast, a hard knot of energy. She knew her own strength, knew it was nothing special. Nowhere near enough to hold her own. Still somehow, she managed to get away and get her back to a tree. Her arm was oozing. Her palms were coated in the stuff.
The animal was in no rush to finish her off; it took the long way towards her, avoiding the fire. Passed her bag with the dagger in it. Why hadn't she kept that out? Why had she never thought to protect this second life she'd been given? A thing had to be real, perhaps, to be protected. And things had just gotten real very quickly.
“You could help, you know,” she said out loud, but Delilah didn’t answer. All Laudna could do was hold her dripping hands out. She screamed in helpless fury. Life was being ripped from her yet again, when she’d never even asked to get it back.
Then. Against all odds, something happened. The tight ball of anger in her chest ruptured, it shot through her hands. Through the black slime. Twin jets of sickly green something shot out from her, and knocked the beast backwards. It bounced, once, and moved no more.
That was me too, Delilah murmured and receded to wherever she went when she wasn’t making Laudna’s life terrible.
In the hubbub her belt had been tragically severed, a few threads hanging on past the assault of claw and tooth. It fell off of her and lay there, a strip of crimson in the dirt. That was for the best, though. It really was too fine to be worn. She'd been wasting her time.
She skinned the cat, cut the best strips of stringy meat off and stretched them over a frame made of branches she tied together. The pelt got stretched too, two big square pieces that she scraped clean and put over a frame of their own. The smell was intense, but worth it by far. It’d be excellent crafting material.
Civilization couldn’t evade her forever. After several weeks, her path crossed a literal path. The squeak of cart wheels and clatter of hoofbeats drew her attention while she was still far away. Sounds that were more familiar to her than the ambiance of the forest, up until recently, felt foreign.
When she emerged from the tree line to see the well-beaten dirt, a portion of Laudna’s - likely now-blackened - heart wished to cross it and keep walking deep into the trees. There was peace in the trees.
There were also, doubtlessly more of whatever had attacked her. And worse. Magic could not be counted on. There was also the fact that after all of this, she really did want to see people again. Just for the confirmation that they existed as living, breathing things. Not in Whitestone anymore, but elsewhere.
So. Once she arrived at the road, she followed it. She’d come to a town sooner or later. Restock. Maybe they’d even have some beads.
She did not expect her appearance in the town to be met with horror and revulsion. Honestly, she’d sort of forgotten about her new and improved look. It was the new normal.
No one else had gotten the memo.
From a distance, things were fine. She entered the outskirts of the town just fine, waved brightly to the field hands who straightened up as she passed. It probably wasn't that usual an occurrence, to see a woman traveling on her own. Her hair was a little less than brushed. A night in an inn would do her some good. Hot food, a basin of water. Something to freshen her up. The thought of that kept her steps light.
This was a smaller town. Lots of farmland. The center of town was just a few buildings - judging by the signs, an inn, a general store, and a blacksmith. Laudna made for the general store first. "Hello, shopkeep," she called out as she sailed inside. "Any chance you have some beads?"
The shop keeper - an older gnome with greying hair and thick glasses, was taken aback by her sunny demeanor. "Uh. Hello, miss." He peered at her closer; one of the lenses was cracked. "What brings you here?"
"I'm looking for beads," Laudna repeated graciously. "Or if you have any thread or cordage, I'd take that as well. Also needles. Provisions would be nice, too."
"Pardon me for asking, but. Are you quite sure you'll be able to afford this?"
It was a kind question, Laudna decided. He was simply trying to save her the embarrassment of amassing a great haul only to be humiliated during check out. "Wonderful question," she said, and extracted several gold from her purse. The coins were laid on his counter with her winningest smile. "I think this should cover most of it, don't you agree?"
He did agree, after making sure the coins were real. And with that secured, he hurried to get together everything she'd asked for. He did indeed have needles, a pack of ten in a little leather envelope. He also had a very nice hank of waxed black cord. Beads were harder to come by. He had none. "Well, one can't have everything," Laudna said sympathetically.
"I suppose not." His glances at her were furtive for some reason.
"How much for this and say, two weeks of food that will travel well?" she asked. Gold in hand was the best comfort, and she paid the price he asked for without haggling. That more than counted as her good deed for the day. She'd always had a weakness for kindly old men.
She had to lay her bag on the table to arrange her purchases inside of it, removed the her drying racks from where she'd affixed them too. The old gnome paled at the sight of the fur, and asked where she'd gotten it.
"Oh, I killed it!" Laudna was more than happy to answer. "It was a close call, but I persevered. And now I have this beautiful hide to work with. I think I'll be making a hat. Or a bag. Or both."
"Killed it," he repeated. "With what?"
"I don't really know. Dumb luck, honestly. Are they numerous, around here?"
The gnome clutched at a medallion around his neck, the symbol of the Dawnfather engraved in silver. "Heavens, no. They avoid people."
Surely, he didn't mean what it sounded like he meant. "Ah," she said. "Just my luck. What happened to your glasses?"
“Nothing, I'm always dropping them.”
She was just reaching out to see what was wrong with them. She did not intend for an encore of her previous uncontrolled blast. There were a few terrifying milliseconds where she was convinced she was going to inadvertently murder this kindly gentleman. But the ether had other intentions. Or perhaps it was responding to hers. One moment, the glass was cracked and cloudy with scratches. The next, it was clear and whole. Brand new.
Laudna snatched her fingers back. "That was an accident. Sorry. I should get going." Quickly, she swept her things into her bag, with no concern for order, and fled the shop at top speed. There was no reason, most likely, to be in such a hurry. The old man called his thanks after her. But the thing that Laudna couldn't abide was the potential to do something else like that. He was a kind old man. She couldn't stand to see him hurt.
As nice as that interaction had been, she did not make it to the inn unscathed. A young girl glanced Laudna's way and gasped in evident horror. A few passing laborers caught sight of her and simply couldn't wait to shout their nasty opinions about her. She was resolved to ignore them until they began throwing things, and then she had to speed up her pace. Surely, they wouldn't follow her into the inn.
They didn't. Their voices did. She had the full attention of the mostly-empty hall the moment she entered. A few grizzled men were sharing a pitcher of ale to one side. A woman stood cleaning the bar top off. They were all staring at her.
So be it. Laudna smiled as brightly as she could manage, and made her way towards the bar. "Hello," she began.
"No way," the woman said. “Out.”
Laudna stopped, smile frozen on her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“Get out of here. No undead in my establishment.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re undead. You’re not welcome. Get out.”
Hard to know what to say to that. Laudna initially meant to deny the allegation, but then she had to admit that, by any definition, she did belong in that category. She’d died, and come back. This was simply discrimination, not slander.
As she retreated in indignity, Laudna took the opportunity to examine herself from the outside, as well. Her hair was unkempt, her clothing stained with mud and the dark ichor she leaked. She smelled of rotting meat, of death and dirt and gore. It was only reasonable, she had to admit. She would drive business away. It made sense.
For no particular reason, the next time the road passed within a stroll of the river she stopped to bathe. She beat her clothes clean with rocks and then contented herself with blowing bubbles and untangling her hair while they dried on the riverbank.
Tragically, her reception at the next village wasn’t any more sunny. And while she did, in time, learn how to conceal her appearance with a simple bit of magic, that was not sustainable long-term.
So, Laudna made the simple decision to become a recluse.
It wasn’t hard. She’d already been alone most of her life. Sure, she had her family, but parents weren’t the kind of company that could save her from loneliness and no one her age wanted to be her friend even before she looked like the corpse she’d once been. Always a little too odd for the other girls of Whitestone, and once she got too old to rough house with the boys that left her options slim. On top of that, she was always working anyways. When an hour more was the difference between eating or not that week, her decisions had been made for her. Money had a way of disappearing around Father, too. Or perhaps magically transforming into bottles of liquor.
None of that was relevant now. All those people had been dead for weeks. So she cast that out of her mind, and found a cozy deserted shack to fix up in the next town she found. Far enough from town for no one to find her presence objectionable, close enough that she could pop in when she needed things without running into spell limits. A little mending, a little sweeping and construction and it was just as habitable as any room she’d rented.
She didn’t mind a fixer-upper. That was the thing with weaving, too. You started with something that was almost nothing. Literally just a line, until you doubled it back on itself and gave it substance.
Her hut was a wonderful home. Cozy. She spent many a morning near the window, reading or writing in her journal. She practiced her new magic in the middle of the room, and slept on a mat to one side, and cooked over a fire in the tiny hearth.
Laudna lost track of how long she’d been there. The seasons began to change. She was more than happy to stay one place. She’d been on the road for goodness know how long, not running but definitely trying to escape. It was nice to not be constantly moving anymore. It was comfortable.
Which meant, of course, that she got too comfortable. She’d taken to gardening outside in a wide brimmed hat, waving at the few children who happened to pass on their way to the river. She’d been having such a good time feeling like a neighbor that it hadn’t occurred to her to worry about what her neighbors thought in return.
They did not like her. She escaped, just barely. Her second life was proving to be more robust than her first by far.
Undead, Laudna came to understand, were not welcome anywhere in Tal’Dorei. They were considered unclean, bad omens, dangerous, maligned at least in part because of the general distrust of necromancy but also for the normal taboos against the dead. Being dead at any point in ones life seemed to be quite the unpopular move.
No matter. It was a large world.
There were always new places to start over, and start over she did. Countless times. Stayed as long as she could, tried each time to win over the people she was still so relieved to see alive no matter what. As far as she got from Whitestone, the events of her second birth never were far from her mind.
Perhaps this was her penance for surviving. A life that was merely a shadow, looking in at everyone, watching lives she never got to have. All she had was this life. And solitude.
Until she found Paté.
She was cleaning the leaves and cobwebs out of yet another rundown hut when they ran into each other. Well, she ran into him with a broom, but he never held it against her. Paté was cool like that.
Laudna picked him up carefully, looked into his little face and smiled. “Oh, hello. Who are you?”
My name’s Paté, he answered.
It took a moment for her manners to kick in; while she couldn’t claim to be high class, she did have manners. “Care to stay for dinner? I don’t often have company.”
Wouldn’t mind a spot of supper, Paté said with a crooked smile on his little face. He stayed the night. When she had to flee in the dead of night, he came with her. They were basically inseparable after that.
People were even more hostile to Paté than they were to her. Granted, his appearance was a little strange. No more than hers, but then that was what made them such a good match. Still, Laudna learned to never bring him out around people, on the rare occasions she was around any.
Years passed. Fashions changed. Laudna’s life did not materially change much. Her dress was easy to mend if it ever tore, and her red spool of thread was hardly depleted even after all her various projects. There were always more projects. Always Paté to entertain with another one of his raunchy stories, meals to be cooked. Simply too much to do to look back.
In time, she made it to the coasts, to Emon. It was much easier for her to go unremarked upon in a large city, full of bird people and lizard people and turtle people and tieflings, even. Laudna was absolutely thrilled the first time she met a tiefling. Bumped into him, at the market, and rather than apologizing she could only stare. His skin was hot - as hot and dry as hers was cold and clammy, and he drew more angry looks from passersby than she ever had.
“Pardon my stare. I simply love your horns,” she said.
Red eyes narrowed when they met hers. “You do,” he answered, with great skepticism.
“Yes, they’re so fetching. Do they get longer as you get older? Or do they stay sort of proportional? The gold chains are also.” Laudna kissed her fingers dramatically. “Perfection.”
After another moment of suspicious eye contact, the tiefling tossed his head a bit. His hair fell in black ringlets around his horns and over his shoulders; it bounced, fetchingly. The thin chains made a light jingling sound. “Depends on your lineage. Mine get longer.”
“Fascinating,” Laudna assured him. “Oh forgive me for my rudeness - I’m Laudna.”
“Skathos,” he answered with a sharp toothed grin. “You mind me asking what you’re doing on the Promenade?”
Laudna grinned. No one ever asked. “Looking to buy beads. Any tips?”
“Beads,” Skathos repeated. His voice was very deep. Quite smooth, as well. “Yes, I think I saw some at Lillibet’s stall, this way.” And he spread one large indigo arm out. He was quite strong judging by the size of his muscles.
There was a fraction of a second where Laudna almost turned down the help. Surely, she could find her own beads. But the prospect of a mentor, for however briefly she could hold his interest, won out. “Thank you,” she said, and allowed him to take her wherever they were going.
Lillibet was a wonderful bird woman with a real eye for trinkets. She did indeed have a beautiful stash of dozens of kinds of beads, divided neatly into little pots. Laudna filled one of her tigerskin pouches, bartered the other pouch and several of her woven net bags for her haul since her coin purse was a little too light. Skathos stood right next to her as she shopped, his presence indicating something she couldn’t understand. He wasn’t trying to make overtures. He was just looking out for her, for some reason.
Once Laudna had her new treasures stashed in her bag, she prepared for this interaction to be over. Skathos had other plans. "What do you consume, generally?" he asked.
This was not what she was prepared for. “I’m sorry?"
"Can you eat? Or drink?" He jerked his horned head at a doorway with a sign hanging above it. A goblet on the sign, she determined. A local tavern. Laudna was being asked to grab a drink.
This, more than everything she'd experienced, was nearly an out-of-body experience. She nodded, her mouth suddenly dry. From her pocket, Paté weighed in. Maybe he's feeling horny. And while Laudna certainly appreciated a good pun, now was most emphatically not the time. For one thing, this tiefling was the size of a minotaur. Simple logistics were not encouraging. For another, he looked older than her father. And on top of all of that, she hadn't ever had so much as a simple mug of ale at a bar. Not once, in either life. Her hands would be full.
Still, what harm could it do? The area was populated, and it'd been so long since she'd had any meaningful conversation. So she followed Skathos into the establishment he chose, and up to the bar. His indigo tail waved in front of her. Its sinuous motion was hypnotizing. Laudna had never seen a tail up close, and spent a moment examining its spade shape. It was slightly darker than the rest of his skin, a little more leathery. Like the sole of a foot.
Skathos ordered the ale, paid with a couple silvers. Laudna made a mental note to cover the next round, now that she knew how to do it. Assuming they made it more than one round. No strange looks in here. There was what appeared to be a goblin in the corner, a couple firlbolgs, several ordinary men who looked like bad news. She was perhaps the most unremarkable being here.
“Wonderful place,” she said as they sat at a free table. “Sort of a local hot spot, perhaps?”
“For a couple of lowlifes, sure. Nobody respectable would be caught dead in here.” The tiefling’s toothy grin was strangely reassuring.
“I must admit, I’ve found myself among your number quite on accident.” Laudna gestured at herself. “This was all done entirely without my consent.”
Skathos seemed to take this in stride. “Necromancers,” he said with feeling, and had a swig.
“Tell me about it,” Laudna said, and took a drink of her own. Something occurred to her at the first taste. “Hold on. Is this some plot to lull me into a false sense of security and then kill me for your own nefarious purposes? Because that was not fun the first time around.”
“Please.” Skathos waved this concern off. “I’m too old for things like that. And you’re too young, if I have my human ages right.”
“I was twenty-one when I died,” Laudna said.
Skathos fixed his eyes back on her, their irises like two dark rubies. Sharp, deep. “And how many years ago was that?”
She didn’t know, precisely. Years were a meaningless division of a resource she’d never asked for. So, rather than answer, Laudna attempted to change the subject. “What about you? You look like a seasoned traveller. How long have you been on the road?” she asked, and took another deep pull from her drink. She didn’t care for the taste, but that wasn’t the point of it.
That earned a sharp bark of a laugh from her companion; something that, she noted, earned looks even from the company in here. Tieflings were quite the societal lepers. “Very polite way to ask an old man his age,” Skathos said once he caught his breath. “Let’s just say I’m old enough to have a couple children of my own, but I still have some years on the sea ahead of me. My eldest is about your age. Or, your age before… whatever happened.”
“I was hung,” Laudna announced.
Skathos’ eyebrows disappeared into his hair and he paused, his drink halfway to his mouth. “For what crime?”
“No crime. Has word of Whitestone reached you?”
“Whitestone. The city that lost five of every six men to a vampire lord?”
Please, Delilah sniffed. Silas was arm candy. I did all the work.
“Something like that,” Laudna said. “I’m not sure. When I woke up, everyone was already dead.” She took another sip of her drink.
“Well,” Skathos said after a moment of silence. “You’ve certainly made the best of it. Something my kind is very familiar with.”
Laudna latched onto that conversational lifeboat. “Oh. Yes. What’s the deal with that? We didn’t have many tieflings where I grew up.”
“The deal?” he repeated.
“Yes. Where did your kind come from? Why are you such pariahs?”
The question made him blush, maybe. Scoff, sort of, and fidget in his seat. His tail thrashed once, against Laudna’s chair leg. “By all the hells, you’re bold,” he said. It was unclear if he meant that as a complement.
“What do I have to lose?” Laudna shrugged. She did want to soothe his nerves. One thing came to mind. “Shall I pick us up a second round, while you get together your answer?”
“Now that’s an idea,” Skathos said.
They sat there for the better part of the afternoon, swapping stories. Laudna learned about the infernal parentage of tieflings, their various curses and gifts, a connection with magic that sounded more natural than hers. In return, she managed to share a bit as well. After three drinks, they’d both teared up at different points. After five, Skathos allowed her to touch the tiny delicate chains decorating his horns.
After six, Laudna showed him her ears.
It had taken months for her to discover them herself. They didn’t hurt. Plus, not much occasion to see herself in mirrors, let alone look closely. She knew they were roughly cut into sharp points, reminiscent of an elf’s. Half-elf, maybe. The edges were still raw and black. Never got the chance to heal.
Skathos teared up again when he saw them, and was careful to keep the sharp tips of his claws away when he felt the wound. Laudna felt the dull tingles of healing magic; he was trying to fix her, but it didn’t take. Nothing could be done. “So you understand,” he said. They were both slurring their words a bit, now.
“I do,” Laudna nodded.
“You should get some gold pretties,” he told her seriously. “Distract. It’s the name of the game.”
“I’ll think about it,” Laudna assured him.
“You’re brave.”
Laudna’s face flushed sluggishly with cold blood. She fiddled with her mug. “I don’t know what I’ve done to give you that impression. I run away from things. All I do is run.”
“Sometimes that’s the bravest thing to do.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please.”
There was a moment of silence, but not silence like an empty home. Silence like two people together with their thoughts. “If I hadn’t promised my family I’d be home,” Skathos began, and stopped. It was nice to know that other people mixed up their words too. “Hate to leave you on your own. You’re quite a charming young lady. It’ll be hard.”
Kind of him. She opted to make it easy. While he was picking them up another round with her coin, she slipped out the door and into the crowds of Emon again. Funny how different the crowd felt, knowing it could be full of friends.
So. Big cities. Diverse populations. Laudna’s deft hand with mending magic won her a spot on a ship bound for Marquet. That was different, at least. A place she didn’t know.
There was only so long she could stay in one place, now. Not because she was chased out, but because moving was what she knew how to do. Would she stay here forever? Certainly not. So she didn’t see the point in staying more than a few days. Soon, she set off to see the beauty of Marquet.
No forests or rolling hills like Tal’Dorei. Jungles, but she didn’t venture there on her own. Instead, she wandered through abandoned mountaintops that still baked under the sun, passed through villages just as hostile to her as ever, roamed plains with wild horses thundering across the horizon. Alone except for Paté. She knew by now that solitude had an adverse effect on her mental state. Paté had made that clear. And she tried, of course, to alleviate the pain of her loneliness. She made friends for an evening, or an afternoon. As long as her disguise spell lasted. Until she couldn’t keep out of the light any longer.
Laudna learned a lot about herself, in this heat. She didn’t tan. She didn’t sweat. Her skin was always clammy, too cool, grey. She worried sometimes that the sun made her smell. She had a vivid memory of the bodies in Whitestone, the whiff of sweet death about some of them. As much as she never caught the same smell on herself, she still worried. Something gave her away, even disguised. People gave her looks. Kept a suspicious distance. The life of a recluse, Laudna told herself, and kept moving.
The horses could not be remarked upon enough. Unlike the sturdy stock of her hometown, these creatures were tall. Delicate ankles, bright gold and terracotta. They ran faster than the wind, hooves dancing across packed dirt, and Laudna wanted to run with them. Watching them made her feel free.
She always asked after them, when she stopped for provisions. “How much for that one?” she’d ask, pretending she could ride one. Pretending they weren’t skittish at the sight of her. Animals always knew what she was. The trainers humored her as well, they told her a hundred gold, or a hundred and twenty - depending on bloodlines, endurance, speed - and she politely declined. Thanked them for their time, and continued on foot.
So be it. Life was a series of little heartbreaks. Laudna was coming to feel like the pain was a gift. At least it was something. Confirmation she still lived, to whatever extent she'd ever been alive this second time around. Pain was a blessing, which was good because it was all she had.
That and her crafting, of course. Her needlework only got better over time, her mending spells were now seamless. She learned to weave the tall grasses of the highlands into mats, baskets, prickly little hats. Those sold for considerable sums. The time involved was equally considerable, but time was the one thing Laudna had an endless supply of.
Laudna was in another general store, enjoying the breeze from the wide-open windows. The day was pleasant, the air fresh. She was looking through the balls of twine for the biggest one when she felt something. A sort of touch, but a mental one. "Delilah?" she said out loud.
No, it wasn't her erstwhile killer. This was someone new, crackling with energy. Who are you? a new voice murmured, and the surprise made Laudna drop her disguise spell. She nearly cracked her neck looking all around for the source, before she could be inevitably discovered and kicked out.
A girl with light purple hair and even features met her eyes from across the room. The surprise on her face said everything Launda needed it to; she approached with no regard for her appearance at the moment. "You," she said.
The girl began speaking immediately, words falling all over each other. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I try not to intrude. I just can't help it sometimes, and you... you sound like nobody I've ever met before." She came closer too, out from behind the counter to look at Laudna from up close. Her eyes were wide, possibly not in disgust.
"I can go," Laudna offered.
"Please don’t. You're the first person whose thoughts don't hurt."
Oh. Laudna was taken aback. It had not occurred to her that her presence might convey some comfort to someone.
She stayed where she was for introductions. The girl was Imogen Temult. She could read minds. And she desperately wanted to go on an adventure. “Not just any adventure. I want to visit the Starlight Conservatory and learn what’s going on with me,” Imogen told her later that night, when they met in the stables. Imogen knew all about the stables. And horses. And magic. She was remarkably educated for a village this small, and more understanding than any human Laudna had encountered.
“That sounds like a worthy goal,” Laudna agreed.
Imogen shot her a sidelong glance. “Yeah. But I don’t know how I’d ever do it. The journey sounds treacherous.”
“Please, if I can manage it you certainly can,” Laudna assured her. She was only half listening - the other half of her was focused on the fresh bread and warm stew Imogen had brought her. It had been quite some time since she’d gotten to have a hot lunch. That was why it took Imogen’s final, most obvious hint to break through.
“Not on my own. I couldn’t do it alone,” Imogen said with another glance.
Laudna struggled for a moment to remember how to handle this. Was she supposed to let Imogen know her ruse had been seen through, or would it be more polite to play along? Most importantly, she could hardly believe that she was right. That she was understanding this person she hardly knew. This person, she had to remind herself, who could read her mind. And still wanted to spend time with her, for whatever reason. For reasons Laudna knew better than to interrogate just now - a certain phrase about gift horses came to mind.
“Well.” Laudna daubed her mouth with a napkin carefully, drawing out the moment. If she was going to be rejected, she wanted to at least treasure the anticipation. “I’m going no particular direction. I’d be more than happy to accompany you, if you needed a traveling companion.”
Imogen left no time for doubt. “Give me a minute, I have my bag ready to go,” she said instantly, and ran off. Laudna could feel her mind retreating, its presence already familiar and missed.
A companion, then. A partner. It would be nice, as long as it lasted. Until they reached this conservatory, this city of Jrusar. Strange to have a destination to aim for when for so long, Laudna had only what she was moving away from.
No matter. They were moving together now. Walked side-by-side in the road. Imogen’s hand tightened on the strap of her bag as they passed the last buildings on the outskirts of town.
“Are you alright, Imogen?” Laudna asked.
“Never better,” Imogen answered.
Not strictly the truth, Laudna suspected. But still, neither of them looked back.