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They were in bed together, finally alone together, pinkies hooked, hair mixing on their pillows, and Laudna was watching her. Unsubtly, unabashedly, and with intensity.
Yios defied her wildest imagination of what a city of flowing lights could possibly be. It was awe-inspiring. It was intimidating. It was overwhelming. It was the kind of place that felt like it had the answers to any questions you might ask if only you dug your fingers in hard enough.
Imogen so badly wanted to dig in. But tonight, she could think of nothing else but the one in front of her.
Sometime in the past few days, Laudna appeared to have realized that Imogen would refuse her no affection and was tentatively testing the lack of limits to their closeness. Her weakness being uncovered was in similar parts deeply humiliating and immensely distracting. Laudna was gentle as she took the sheets off the most private and desperate part of her heart and called it friendship.
But Laudna was alive and within reach and back in her bed. She could withstand any trial.
Laudna looked downward now, untangled their fingers, and reached out. “Your arms,” She murmured, hovering around Imogen’s elbows. “I didn’t see them clearly until now.”
She had gotten new gloves from Xandis on their way back to Jrusar, the only person she had ever known who would own elbow-length gloves just for fun. They were comfortable enough to sleep in so had kept them on faithfully, as much as she could. The illusion of normalcy was sometimes necessary when you could read the thoughts of every passing stranger. You had to keep the monster on the inside.
But not with Laudna. She knew she was safe with her.
“You can touch if you want.” Please touch them , she swallowed down. No one has yet and I want you to be the first.
Laudna met her eyes, ran her hands along the curve of her elbows, and slid her fingers across the dully pulsing purple cracks. It hurt a little in a good way, like pressing on a tender bruise.
Imogen burned, and leaned into it.
“What happened while I was gone, Imogen?”
To hear the way Laudna’s voice lilted over her name again. It felt like a miracle each time. For that, she would answer everything, even this.
“Otohan,” The name ground through her throat like glass. ”She pushed me too far. I broke. And then I broke a dozen houses with my mind.”
“Nothing could ever break you,” Laudna said. The belief in her voice was hard to bear.
Imogen laughed a little, and not very happily. “You sound so sure.”
“More than anything.”
“You didn’t see me with you gone. Getting you back was the only thing keeping me going.”
Laudna stroked her cheek and came away with damp fingers. “You’ve done so much for me. I could never thank you enough.”
“You’re here .” Imogen breathed, voice snarled with tears, “That’s enough. It’s always been more than enough.”
“My Imogen. I’m so sorry.”
“ I’m so sorry. You wouldn’t have- she wouldn’t have-” She struggled and Laudna waited, ever patient with her.
The words wouldn’t come. How could she describe the depths of those days of despair, the darkest valley of her young and valley-rich life. Those days spent in fevered movement, in the realization of just how far she would go to have Laudna by her side. The fear that this simmering in her being had been unmasked too late to do anything with it but grieve.
“Can I get you anything?” Laudna inquired sweetly after a moment.
“No,” said Imogen, and bent closer until her head was tucked into Laudna’s neck, “I have what I need.”
They stayed like that for a while, breathing in sync. Laudna, breathing. It felt like the greatest gift.
Tentatively, already expecting deflection, Imogen asked, “Can I get you anything, Laud? Are you okay?”
“I have everything I need,” Laudna echoed. Imogen felt her smile on the top of her head. But she also felt spindly hands rise to touch her own hair
Imogen pulled back to look at her face. Laudna’s smile was brave, but perhaps not entirely true.
Imogen took her hand, the one with their ring. “It’s alright if the answer is no. It’s alright if you don’t want to talk about it just yet. I know I wouldn’t be okay. It’s hard enough for me to relive one awful thing. So…” She felt her courage falter at Laudna’s wordless stare, flickering over her face as she spoke. “I’m here for whatever you need. That’s what we do. What we do for each other.”
“Imogen,” Laudna murmured, “You’re too good to me. I don’t understand it.”
Imogen squeezed her hand tight, tight enough that maybe never good enough would impress itself into her skin. “You don’t have to understand it,” she said, carefully stepping around her heart between them, freshly dusted and pulsing, and somehow, the only part of her Laudna didn’t truly see. “Just accept it.”
Laudna didn’t speak for a while, just let Imogen run her thumb along the ridges of her.
“I couldn't always feel her.” She started slowly. “Sometimes, in the happier moments, with you mostly, or with the Hells, I'd forget she was there. But-” She laughed a little, a laugh drenched in a bitter history. “She’d always find a way to remind me. I’ve spent more time with her than anyone. In any life. I can hardly believe she's gone for good. I still… I still don’t believe it.”
Laudna's eyes were far away. “If this is a dream, I hope I never wake up.”
Imogen wished she could reach into Laudna’s mind and drive the hurt out of her blood. What good was the power of a moon if she couldn’t use it to help heal the one she loved? And she did love her, with every inch of her tarnished heart, a love grown from those years of companionship she had once only imagined could be given to someone like her.
“It’s not a dream. I’ll tell you that as many times as I need to.” Imogen tapped Laudna’s cheek, a question, and Laudna’s head snapped to hers. Jumpy. Familiar. She’d get like this on the bad days, the days when the world pushing back on her existence was a bit too much. She folded her pain inside her until her whole body cracked and twitched at the slightest provocations. “And if it was, I’d keep you here with me. We’d live in it.”
“That sounds nice,” She said dreamily, still small, still drawn inwards.
Longing rose in Imogen for a glimpse at that distinct lightness that glowed from Laudna she would see when found something a little crumbled, in need of love. To her, an abandoned shack that threatened to cave in on them was just a home waiting to be realized. “If it was a dream we could make it what we wanted. We could fix up another place…” She trailed off, inviting.
“I miss having curtains,” Laudna admitted, “I miss fussing over cups. We have to finish what we started here in Yios. We have to find your mom.” Imogen bit her cheek at just the mention of her, pushed the feeling away. “But after- after we could?”
“We could,” Imogen said softly, though she had seen the domino fall, undeniably, in Otohan’s intent eyes, and could feel with sickly anticipation that all of this would not be over for a very long time. “We will.”
“I never thought I’d have this.” Laudna was lost in their shared fantasy, Imogen could feel it, slithering from her mind in waves. The two of them were in a flower field. They were trying to coax a wild horse to them with little success, but they had time. Home was nearby, a home that was safe and theirs with certainty you could feel in the hollow of your throat. Laudna pictured it so vibrantly that Imogen could practically see it, projected in her eyes like dancing lights. She could have wept for how badly she wanted it.
“You know what it was like for me as a child. You saw it. It was strange being the woman I used to be again. I was a bit of a freak before I even started getting run out of towns,” Laudna grinned, as she often did when talking of the pain of her past, but it was a new grin. Before Otohan, time and distance had curled its edges into a macabre tale worth chuckling about. Now, it was a bit too sharp, too fresh. “My magic was unwieldy in ways that weren't as” -—She waved a hand— “congenial as the odd wizard in town. Whitestone could be as small-minded as it was grand.”
“I’m glad it’s changed,” Imogen said firmly, “But I wish it hadn’t been like that for you, honey.”
“You called me that then, too,” Laudna was giving her one of those new looks again, intent and unbalancing. “You know, you were my first friend. Now when I remember those times the loneliness is less loud. There’s a hand on mine through the glass.”
“I’d do it again.” It felt as though she had never meant anything so much in her life as she meant this. Nothing had been so urgent, so vital. “I’d do it to every memory you ever had and will have. You deserve love in every inch of them.”
“What a funny thing a mind is, hm?” Laudna closed her eyes, lost in hers. “I hear your voice still speaking to me with warmth and… good intentions. My parents tried, but there was always a distance between us.”
“Not with me. Never with me, if I can help it.” Then, quieter, “You were my first friend too.”
Laudna leveled her a look, eyebrows raised a little, with an incredulous smile curling at the corners.
She wanted that smile on every part of her. “I mean it, Laud! I thought I had friends for a while when I was young, but once the dreams and all that started I learned I didn't. I was pretty lonely too. It was always just Flora and me. And… my father. At a distance. I-,” Imogen hesitated for a moment. “I wasn’t lying when I said you saved my life.
It was not that Imogen needed Laudna to acknowledge her part in the ritual. But she had in turn puzzled and agonized over the lack of reaction. It was so unlike Laudna to leave affection unreturned and in all the years they spent together, they had rarely said they loved each other out loud, instead in a thousand and one actions and phrases that delicately danced around the sentiment.
Confusion was not the expected response, and it painted the furrows of Laudna’s brow. “That’s- I’m sorry, Imogen I’ve been so scrambled. Did you say that someday when I was still sleeping maybe? You know how I move around when I’m quite tired. I’ve been quite tired a lot lately but I-,” Laudna’s hands fluttered around like a question, “I think I would have remembered when you said that.”
“Oh,” Imogen said, deflating a little under the reality that everyone had listened to her pour herself out except the person she had been doing it for, “It was during the ritual in Whitestone. I thought you’d heard.”
“I heard you where I really needed you. My whole life. But… what did you say, darling?”
“I said that meeting you when I did saved me. I couldn’t have survived much longer in Gelvaan. Every day I was sinking deeper into a hole and nights were worse. You showed me that there was so much more to life.” Imogen spoke slowly and watched as if outside herself as she pressed her heart, polished now and shining, into Laudna’s palms. “I said that I was sorry I hadn’t known how much she was making you hurt. That it was your choice to come back and that no one could control you anymore. And that- that I love you.”
“Imogen,” Laudna said so gently it scraped at her insides. “Imogen,” she said again and this time Imogen let herself look away from how she stained the sheets pink. “Thank you.”
She was gazing at her as if searching for something. It was overwhelming. It always was, to know that she was the person at the center of her affection and it made Imogen feel like singing, or crying, or kissing the warmth that filled her right back into its source. “I want to show you something,” Laudna said and twisted herself to an impressive degree to reach for their belongings at the side of the bed.
She resurfaced with a dark pouch of sturdy leather, with embroidery of such an eccentric pattern that Imogen knew instantly it was her own make. Laudna opened the bag and inside were dozens upon dozens of rocks.
Most of them looked similar at first, brown and large-grained. The more she studied them though, the more varied they showed themselves to be with crumbling pieces of road and sharp red streaked stones. Laudna held the pouch open with one hand and brushed through the pile with the other.
“They’re nice,” Imogen murmured with instinctual politeness, and they were nice, some smooth enough for good skipping and others with rough chunks that scraped on her scars with buzzing pleasantness, but she was still feeling distinctly unbalanced, “Are you making something?”
“I’m not. I could, maybe. They’re for you.”
Imogen blinked at her. “They’re nice,” She repeated and cocked her head. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know quite what to do with them, Laudna.”
“They’re just rocks. Nothing special about them.” Laudna was still touching them, rolling them between her fingers. “It was hard for me when we weren’t talking. Ashton suggested I get you a new rock to make up for it. The advice was pretty confusing. I’d never find anything like the Gnarlrock in Bassuras. But I was quite forlorn and willing to try anything. Every moment I could get away I was looking for rocks. I didn’t even have to do much digging, crawlers did most of that work for me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever give them to you. I just needed to do it.”
As Laudna spoke, Imogen's hand had come to clutch at hers until they were entwined in the pile of stone. This is how it always was, Laudna offered intimacy and Imogen took what was offered, always took what was offered, and grew ever hungrier.
“I’ve not had much chance in my life to love someone and be loved in turn. I don’t quite know how to do it. These rocks were one way to show I love you. More than I knew possible for someone like me.”
“Laudna,” Imogen managed, and could say no more. The image of Laudna bent over piles of rocks, faithfully picking the sturdiest, the most striking, the ones that might please her the most, even in the uncertainty that had been between them unspooled her so thoroughly that her name was all that was left.
“I’ve been crying so much lately.” She sniffled finally.
“Happy tears?”
“Always happy, with you.” She shuffled back into the cradle of Laudna’s neck and mumbled into her collarbone, “Love you.”
It felt so good to say it to a living Laudna, and feel her body fold further into her as she said it, that she said it again and one more time for the way it soothed the longing tick of her heart.
Laudna began to card her hands through Imogen’s hair. “You like that?” She murmured.
Imogen nodded and tilted her head into it.
“I know. I like to think I’ve gotten good at reading you.”
“I like to think you’re right,” Imogen said. “No one knows me as you do.”
Laudna let out a satisfied sound at this and slid her fingers across the shell of her ears until Imogen was floating in it. “I've been watching you lately. More than usual.”
“I've noticed,” Imogen replied wryly.
“I've been noticing, too. How you react to me.” She felt herself tensing at Laudna’s tone, careful and leading, like she was laying dynamite, until she eased her nails down her scalp soothingly. The effect did not last long.
“You lean into me when I touch you and reach for me when I don't. You didn’t like that Yu wanted me. You tried to hide it, but I saw your face after they kissed my hand. I want to know why.”
“It sounds like you know why,” Imogen said, speaking slowly, feeling very small and exposed, like Laudna had shone a light in the furthest recesses of her. There was no room in her tone for pretending ignorance, and she had not lied to Laudna since she had come back to life and could not start with this, with something so precious.
The comfort of her touch had melted into cloying dread. Imogen forced herself to pull away from their embrace and stared hard at the sheets, at her foolish heart’s obvious pulsing. It didn’t feel as catastrophic as she had imagined. The worst thing that could happen to them had already happened. But it did not feel good.
“I’m not the most-” Laudna fumbled with her words and wrung her hands. “-practiced in this area. But I started thinking about it- really thinking about it when you gave me this.”
Laudna twisted the ring on her finger. It glinted red up at them.
“I gave myself away with that one, huh?”
The attempt at joviality lay like chalk in her mouth. “Imogen.”
Imogen did not let her go on. “It’s alright, Laudna. Truly. I’m just so happy you’re back it’s got me all kinds of flustered, but I know you’ve got too much going on to think about that sort of thing.” Her words stumbled into each other, trying to build a ladder out of the pit of her selfish longings. “All I’ve ever wanted was to support you. You know that.”
“I know that.” Laudna said, “But I don’t know about the rest of it.”
Imogen felt on the precipice of something vast and terrifying. It was an echo of the feeling she had had every night for years, on the edge of a porch, on the edge of a storm, frozen in the line between stagnancy or the unknown, the specter of some death.
She gathered her bravery. “What do you mean?”
“Desire,” Laudna began, and Imogen shivered to hear the word aloud, two years of nameless sentiment now spoken, made irrefutable between them, “always felt like something I was apart from. Whenever I got near, it was painful. It slipped through my fingers. It left scars. I think I didn’t recognize it with you because it was always so… easy. Even when everything else was hard. Even when we weren’t speaking. The feeling was easy. It was constant.”
“I thought I just wanted to protect you,” Laudna’s voice pitched up, “And now I look at you and I want to- I want to-”
“What do you want?” Imogen’s voice belied her desperation, but she was past shame. There was no place for it here when she could see how Laudna’s eyes ducked down to follow her words. “I’ll give it to you. Whatever it is, I want it too.”
Laudna wavered, her hands fluttering in the air between them. There was a flash of copper—a whisper in her head.
I’m half monster. I can barely keep myself alive. You could have anyone.
If you’re half monster, what am I? None of that matters to me. I want you. Every side of you.
Imogen lifted her hands to Laudna’s cheeks. “Can I see?” she asked quietly.
“Anything,” Laudna said, and it was a promise.
“Your-” Imogen shifted up to Laudna’s forehead and felt her sway forward into her palms. She traced the impression of a veil down her cheekbones. “Please.”
Laudna’s eyes melted into uneven blackness, like the nights she would ride under the stars of Gelvaan. Her jaw lolled and cracked under Imogen’s hands.
More and more, as her destiny caught up with her, Imogen had found herself drawn towards the darker corners of her world. She felt a kinship with that which shielded their nature in the shadows but knew when to wield their scary like a crown. After the terror of the storm that roiled and snapped inside her, external fright was almost comforting. She wasn't alone.
And Gods, it was stunning on Laudna.
Laudna’s back burst open and branches shivered out from her. They were like extensions to her spine and for a moment, a ghostly mirror of the decaying Sun Tree that had haunted her mind. And then the leaves bloomed.
They were a tapestry of colors. Some were curled in on themselves, cracked and withered. Some were bright yellows and deep reds. All were glowing with a faint light that Imogen could just barely see up close. All of them were beautiful.
“No veil anymore,” Laudna rasped. Her voice was a forest of movement.
“That's alright,” Imogen whispered, enchanted. “I like it like this, honey. I like you like this.” Deep green liquid slipped from her eyes and Imogen wiped them until her fingers were sticky with sap.
“Sorry,” Laudna’s voice quavered in emotion, “It’s been an evening.”
Imogen slid her hands down to her neck and wound her arms around it. Laudna put a hand on her side and there was the barest prick of claws, not enough to hurt, just enough to feel. To know that Laudna had a steady hold of her.
The sweetness swelling inside her became a sigh, long and low. She wanted to get closer. She wanted to tilt her chin up. “You're so lovely Laudna,” came spilling out as she reached up and brushed a thumb along her branches.
Her cup was brimming over. She shuffled closer still until their foreheads were pressed together and the tips of their noses brushed. Imogen couldn’t speak through the fierce tugging in her throat so she pressed at the edges of Laudna’s mind, and waited.
They met gently and then less so. Laudna kissed like she had found the answer to a question that had been eating her alive for decades. Imogen clutched at her sleeves, windswept.
Laudna’s mind hummed through several sounds in short succession, one that sounded startled, one that sounded pleased, and one that beat like a hungry drum. Imogen had heard all these sounds before, but none in this key, none with this intensity, none with a tone that so brilliantly meshed with her own.
Laudna curled her fingers firmly at the nape of Imogen’s neck. Maybe entangled was the right word, she thought dizzily, joyously, and would have laughed if she had breath.
They pulled apart. Laudna looked shier than she had kissed and gorgeously lit up. And Imogen did laugh then, in astonishment at herself, for she looked down, and saw what she had somehow missed. Between them there were two hearts, there always had been. Growing full, growing strange and growing, even now, towards each other.