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It wasn’t the same.
Of course it wasn’t. How could it be? On the one hand the city was the same as it ever had been. The same soaring towers, the same janky cable cars, the same crowds and inns.
But for Bell’s Hells, standing the in the entrance of the Soot and Swill, so much had changed. A week away - slightly more? Slightly less? - and the world had shifted. Eshteross dead. Laudna dead and returned. New threats revealed, new allies encountered, and above all a sense of some great purpose hanging over everything. It was like the mice in an experimental maze had suddenly looked up and seen the faces looking down at them.
In a world so upended, how were they supposed to find familiarity? How were they supposed to find rest?
It was with a sense of profound alienation that Imogen turned to the weary group as they trouped through the door. “I guess we need to get some rooms.”
“You think they have the ones we stayed in before?” Fearne asked.
“Or…” Orym started hesitantly. “Or all of us might be able to fit into one room, if some of us don’t mind taking the floor.”
Ashton raised a gold-scarred eyebrow. “Getting attached to the cuddle pile?”
Orym shrugged. “You know me - always happiest being the littlest spoon. But there’s something else. Our… friend… is still out there. I’d hate her to drop in in the middle of the night with everyone in different rooms.”
“Could we maybe…” Imogen stopped speaking almost as soon as she began. A blush flared across her cheekbones.
The group turned to look at her as one, but it was FCG who spoke. “Maybe what, Imogen?”
“I was wonderin’… if maybe Laudna and I might have…” she swallowed and rushed to finish, “our own room just for tonight.”
A contemplative silence followed, everyone studiously avoiding eye contact with everyone else.
It was finally Orym who spoke, his voice regretful. “Well I understand that Imogen, of course I do. And usually that would be just fine. But with things as they are…”
Imogen ducked her head. “Yeah. Yeah of course. You’re right. I’m bein’ dumb.”
“No you’re not.” Ashton’s tone was brusque.
“Ashton?” Orym looked up at the towering figure of his barbarian friend.
Ashton, however, was staring at Imogen. “You’re not being dumb. Anyone would want that, after the week you’ve just had. Let’s do it.” He cast a glance over at Orym and ploughed on before the halfling could protest. “And if I need to stand guard outside your door all night to make sure you’re safe, I’ll do it. We can do this.” He hefted his hammer, meaningfully.
Imogen gave him a grateful smile before turning back to Orym. “And the orb’s still dark. I know there’s no guarantee that means she’s not in the area, but at least it’s somethin’, right?”
Orym’s expression softened. “It’s something. Laudna, are you okay with that?”
Laudna’s head jerked upwards as if she’d just been startled awake. “What?”
“Are you okay with you and Imogen taking your own room tonight?”
“Oh, yes.” She ducked her chin and stared at the floor. “Whatever everyone wants.”
Orym gave her a strange look for a second before relaxing into another shrug. “All right. Well if that’s all settled, then I guess all we need is for Chetney to pay for the rooms.”
The good-natured argument that followed sounded almost normal, but to someone who knew them, there was something performative about it. Like every member of the group was putting on a front. But for whose benefit that might be, wasn’t clear.
*
Imogen pushed through the door first, Laudna following a couple of steps behind. The only light was the glowing oil lantern they brought with them, which cast a warm golden sheen over the simple interior: bed, nightstand, an open wooden chest standing against the wall.
Imogen let out a sigh as she gazed around the windowless space. “Normally I like a room with a view, but things bein’ what they are…”
Laudna didn’t reply. She sank down onto the bed, hunched forward with her forearms resting on her knees, head bowed over clasped fingers.
“Laudna?”
No response.
Laudna?
“Hm?” Laudna’s head lifted as Imogen’s voice spoke directly into her mind.
“Are you okay?”
Her whole face scrunched up, brows lowering, lips pressing together, nose wrinkling, eyes squinting almost shut with the effort of either showing or repressing some hidden emotion. Silence reigned for a long moment before her voice creaked out. “That’s a… complicated question?”
Imogen felt like kicking herself. She crossed the room in two strides and sank to her knees by Laudna’s feet. She set the lantern carefully beside her before reaching up to take Laudna’s clasped hands. “No, it was a stupid question. I’m sorry, Laudna. What a thing to say. I’m an idiot.”
This time the small smile that flitted over Laudna’s face wasn’t repressed. “You’re not.”
“Askin’ a fool question like that.”
Laudna shook her head and moved her hand just enough to allow her thumb to stroke across Imogen’s fingers. “Can I be honest?”
“Always.”
Her brow furrowed again. “I’m tired. I’m so tired, Imogen. Time doesn’t seem to be… working right. I can’t seem to… think properly.”
Imogen tightened her grip on Laudna’s hands. “It’s the resurrection. Ms Trickfoot said it would take a while for the effects to wear off.”
“It’s not just that.” She looked down again, eyes fixed on the floor. “I’m scared. I feel like I’ve been scared since I woke up. Scared of the Lord and Lady. Scared of the tree. Scared of the castle. Scared of the dinner.” She took a deep breath. “Scared of Otohan.”
Imogen stared at her, stricken.
“I know, I know.” There was a forced lightness to Laudna’s tone now. “One of those isn’t like the others. But I felt all of them as strongly, Imogen, just the same. Fear is so exhausting. I thought I was done with it.”
“I’m scared too.” It tumbled out suddenly, unbidden.
Laudna looked up to meet Imogen’s gaze.
She hurried on, desperate to get the words out. “I was so afraid. All the time you were gone. That we’d do something wrong, that we’d run out of time, that you would stay… gone… forever. I couldn’t bear it. And now you’re back…,” she squeezed Laudna’s hands, unsure who she was trying to comfort. “Now you’re back I’m scared someone might take everything away again.”
The weight of that hung between them for a moment before Laudna shook her head again. “Well that’s life, isn’t it? So much to be afraid of. I don’t know what the answer is. Everything feels very new right now, very raw. Perhaps it’ll all adjust over time. Let us get numb again to the big existential questions.”
The oil lamp guttered, and Imogen felt its flutter as if it were in her heart. A sudden sense of fragility. A shadow passing over her spirit. She couldn’t say it, but she felt it - she didn’t seen herself getting numb to any of these feelings anytime soon.
“Sure,” she said, instead. “Time’s a great healer, they say.”
“Well it certainly eased things the first time round,” Laudna said with that same brittle lightness. “Hopefully it’ll take less than thirty years this time.”
It was a gut punch, and Imogen tried not to react to it. It wasn’t deliberate, not by any means, but Laudna’s words cut deep. She felt so useless, so helpless in the face of Laudna’s pain. How do you heal trauma like that? You can’t. You can support, you can encourage, but in the end you’re a witness, not a participant in the struggle. In Laudna’s limbo nightmare Imogen had been able to shoot lightning bolts at the source of her beloved’s pain. Here… not so much. She looked away, hoping Laudna wouldn’t notice her suddenly-glistening eyes.
Laudna pulled her hands away suddenly and sprawled back on the bed, lifting herself on her elbows to stare up at the shadowed ceiling. “Soooo…” she drawled, “what will you do now you’ve got me all to yourself?”
Imogen’s heart just about stopped. She scrambled to her feet, face flaming red. “I don’t… that’s not what I…”
She struggled to a stop as she saw the look on Laudna’s face - amused and mischievous - and flopped down beside her on the bed, trying to ignore the kicking of her heart. She slapped weakly at Laudna’s leg. “Oh, you.”
Laudna smiled, all teeth. “No seriously, thank you. I love everyone dearly, but it was all getting a bit loud. A bit much.” She gave Imogen a knowing look. “Familiar territory for you, I know. I should have known you’d spot it.”
“Yep,” Imogen said. Yep, absolutely that was what she had been thinking. By no means had she spoken to Orym out of pure selfish desire to be alone with Laudna again after that terrible week of absence. Of course not. There had been no unstructured hope that she might share any of the feelings in her that were only growing in intensity and impossible to ignore any longer. None of that.
“You’re welcome,” Imogen said.
Laudna let herself fall prone on the bed and wiggled her way around and up until her head rested on the pillow. She patted the space beside her. “Lie down with me?”
Imogen needed no second bidding. She levered her boots off and climbed fully onto the bed. Laudna’s arms were spread wide in invitation, and Imogen crawled into them. It was like coming home. She fitted just so, head resting in the hollow of Laudna’s shoulder, right arm wrapped around Laudna’s midriff. Soft in her ear she heard the achingly slow regularity of Laudna’s heartbeat.
A feeling washed through her with an intensity that took her breath away. Love, warmth, belonging, mixed inextricably with heart-rending grief and fear. An awareness that this sensation, this moment, was what she had wanted for so long - and that it was finite. That at any moment it could end. Future grief mingled with remembered sadness, and she felt it like a physical pain in her chest. Imogen’s eyes filled with tears and she turned her head to bury her face in Laudna’s shirt, her arm tightening to pull her even closer.
Laudna said nothing, but her arms closed around Imogen’s shoulders and held her there.
If she noticed the dampening of the front of her shirt she didn’t remark on it.
Imogen’s visions of deep conversation in this hard-won privacy had scattered like ashes in the wind. For this night, words were simultaneously too much and not enough, so neither of them tried.
And the only movement was the shadows rippling with the guttering of the lamp.
And the only sound was the hiss of the flame.