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Gelvaan was nice. It was fairly small, in a grassy little valley. Usually she avoided small towns, especially those not surrounded by deep woods, but there’d been this farm on its outskirts - with horses! She could not resist the thrill and so she threw up her hood, tightened her belts, and slipped into the marketplace.
Perhaps she could find the people from that farm, perhaps they were nice, perhaps they would teach her how to ride a horse instead of chasing her off with a pitchfork. It was a nice idea to entertain. Maybe she could make a friend there - it had been so long since she’s had a friend. Other than Pâté, of course. There had been the little girl, before him, but…she did not want to think about it. The sadness of that betrayal lodged itself too deeply in her bones whenever she did, making her heavy and slow and quiet. She wanted to enter this town with lightness in her step, so she did.
There were stables there, she found out, right in the centre of the town, next to the market. Stables, with all kinds of horses with noble faces and kind eyes. She liked being near them, being near animals. They usually didn’t judge her, especially not if she had treats for them. She was surreptitiously feeding apple slices to one of the smaller horses - nearly a pony, really, spotted brown and white with an adorable fringe - when something caught her eye: A young woman with striking lavender hair. She was cleaning out another one of the boxes, chatting quietly to the horse tied up outside it, and ignoring and and in turn being ignored by the other stablehands.
Laudna watched her from afar. There was something different about her (it wasn’t just her hair, although it was that which first had caught her eye), something in the way she held herself as if she was trying to disappear, but failing and standing out even more. Yet everyone ignored her, as if by an unspoken rule. She felt a pang of sadness: Here was a woman just like her, almost like her, and she had no idea how to talk to her. To say: I understand how you feel, let’s be friends!
As if called by Laudna’s thoughts, the woman’s head whipped around and she looked directly at Laudna, who froze in the spot, hand still outstretched to the horse gently nibbling on her offering of apples.
The woman didn’t say anything, only cocked her head curiously.
“Oh! Hi! Uh…I…Hi! Hi, I’m…Laudna…I’m new! In town, not here, I mean, I am new here too! Hi! Who are you? I mean, what’s your name? I like your hair! It’s like flowers!”
The woman frowned and for a moment Laudna thought she was about to be run out of town before even properly arriving - it’d be a new record - but then followed the most beautiful sound, a laugh, light and airy and delighted. Laudna decided then and there that she would make this woman laugh again. She seemed so sad, so quiet, and Laudna wanted nothing more than to hear that wonderful sound again.
Well, and perhaps to ride a horse and find a town that wouldn’t run her out with torches and pitchforks - figurative or literal.
She giggled. “I’m sorry, I’m nervous! I ramble a lot. When I’m nervous. And when I’m not!”
“That’s okay. I’m Imogen. It’s sure nice to meet you, Laudna.”
That was how it had started, the end to her loneliness.
Imogen was nice. She treated Laudna like any other person, like there wasn’t anything strange about her, like her spindly limbs and stringy hair were unremarkable, like she didn’t look like a walking corpse. Imogen didn’t ask prying questions (What’s wrong with you? Why do you look half-dead? What dark magic brought you here? What’s wrong with you?) and Laudna didn’t expect answers in return (Why do you seem so sad, so lonely? What is up with those marks on your arms? Why do I feel like, sometimes, you know exactly what I am thinking?).
Imogen didn’t care for such trivial things, Laudna realised a few days into knowing her. She cared for quiet, for a space where people wouldn’t bother her, she cared about the horses and she cared about her dad - though there was something in his face that made Laudna feel uneasy, the way he looked at Imogen like he was scared of her. She only saw them together once and he didn’t seem like a bad sort, but she did not like how being around him made Imogen’s aura sad and heavy (she did not have to ask Imogen how she felt, this was something she knew well - loneliness).
Laudna learned very quickly that crowds - people - were like poison to Imogen. She’d get quiet and nervous and her hands would twitch and tap in a certain rhythm which she tried to hide and only made worse by doing so.
“I can hold your hand, if it would help.” She had said on the third day when she’d come to the stables and found it loud and busy and Imogen tense as a bowstring. A pause, a fraction of a question, and then Imogen had visibly relaxed and nodded, not saying a word, but holding on to Laudna’s hand like it was an anchor. Perhaps to her it was.
A week later - they’d started meeting by Imogen family’s farm, a quieter, more familiar place, and Laudna was chatting about something or other while Imogen smiled and listened, as was their routine by now - Imogen laid it all out for her.
There it was, the answer to the questions: Why does your father look at you like you’re the big, bad monster under the bed? Why are you tense like the bow string about to snap around everyone else? Why do you hide the lighting on your arms? What do you dream of at night that makes you look so sad in the morning?
“This is why,” Imogen said, “I am afraid.”
And Laudna replied: “You don’t have to be afraid with me.”
‘I know’, Imogen’s voice rang in her head, ‘You dampen the noise.’
Imogen did not say: ‘Here is why I have loved you from the moment I first heard you.’ She didn’t have to say it, Laudna understood. Or at least she thought she did, she was never quite sure. She smiled at Imogen.
‘You fill the silence for me.’ She replied. It was easier, somehow, to say these things through their newfound telepathic link. It was easier not to have the words hang in the air like birds that had forgotten how to fly, like an imminent crash. This was for them and only them.
“Stay with me tonight.” Imogen asked. “I’ll sleep better with you there, I know it.”
And what could Laudna say but yes? She had wanted - she wanted nothing more than to be close to Imogen, to watch over her at night so that she wouldn’t be alone when she woke from her nightmares. And she got so lonely at night, so lonely and cold.
She did not say this.
“Ohh, I’ve always wanted to have a sleepover! Are we going to brush each other’s hair and look at the stars together?” Is what she said instead.
Imogen laughed lightly. “Yeah, we’ll do that.”
She showed Laudna the stars, put new worlds and new constellations in her mind. She took Laudna’s hand and guided it - ‘Look, up there, those are the lovers’ - and Laudna thought, not for the first nor the last time, how lovely it was to have company. She’d gotten so used to the loneliness that she had been convinced she preferred it that way (preferred to be alone, preferred the silence, preferred the solitude of being an outcast) but this was among the many things Imogen taught her: Laudna loved people. She loved being around them, she loved making them smile, she loved loving and being loved in turn.
When they went to sleep that night - and many after - they turned towards each other, two horseshoe shapes in the dark, hands intertwined, and it seemed to Laudna that this was a bond stronger than any rope or tie could ever be. The world could have split right down the middle of the bed and they would not have let go. When Imogen tossed and turned and woke with panicked gasps, Laudna was there to soothe her.
“You are here,” She whispered and wrapped her arms around her, “Whatever it is, it cannot reach you here, not while I’m around”. Imogen held on to her like someone on the edge of a cliff, facing freefall, facing endless void below, and her breathing slowed.
‘I’m sorry,’ Her voice came to Laudna, ‘I have these terrible dreams of a red storm and my mother’s voice.’
Laudna held her, not knowing what to say, knowing that being there for Imogen was enough for the moment. Imogen melted into her touch, into her arms, and this, too, was something Laudna knew, the subconscious want of someone who had been so awfully lonely for a long, long time.
‘She cannot take care of you like I do,’ the voice in her head whispered at night. Always, at night, always the terrors, always Delilah’s voice dripping with venom. She was sick of it, sick with it, and yet she kept trudging on every day. It was easier, now, with Imogen. The first few days, she had doubted even that, but then Imogen’s smile, Imogen’s laugh, Imogen’s hands gesturing wildly that third day when she talked about one of the other stablehands. Delilah whispered insecurity in her ears, but how could she believe her when the evidence was so contrary, so bright and beautiful?
And so Laudna had built walls in her mind out of every memory she had with Imogen: There was Imogen teaching her how to ride a horse, there was Laudna cooking in Imogen’s kitchen, there they were in a field gazing at the clouds. Every one of them was a brick in the wall to keep the dark and lonely thoughts at bay, to ward her against the poisoned whispers of Delilah.
Because this was where Delilah was wrong: Laudna didn’t need someone to take care of her, she just needed someone to care for her, and Imogen did. Imogen listened, really listened, Imogen asked questions, Imogen laughed at her jokes, Imogen told her stories, Imogen shared her thoughts with her, Imogen cared about her, for her, Imogen was her friend where Delilah was not and never would be.
Days passed and turned into weeks, stretched like candlewax into eons. Time had little meaning to Laudna: She had been alive forever, she had been alive for the fraction of a second, she had died a thousand times, she had never died. After so many years of heartaching loneliness, she’d lost her grasp on the meaning of time. It was just one of the many things she was relearning with Imogen: Time, friendship, company, joy.
She wasn’t a fool. She knew the way the townspeople eyed her - and the way they eyed Imogen, too, more so now with her constant proximity to Laudna. She knew there would be something - something minor, insignificant - that would break their resolve. They were gearing up for it, she could sense it. She’d had a lot of practice in learning the tells. It worried her in a way it hadn’t for a while because now, there was Imogen, now, she wasn’t alone, now, she wasn’t going to be the only one caught up in this.
It was a comfort, in the lonely nights, to know that even when it all would end, there had been someone who had loved her - whole and true. Someone who had shared joy with her, someone who had looked at all her idiosyncrasies and paid no mind to them, someone who had held her hand because they wanted to and for no other reason than that.
She was gathering moments with Imogen like putting them into jars to remind her of joy in the darker days to come. For example, this:
“I’m not like the others,” Imogen said as the sky bled pink and orange on a gentle summer evening, “and they’re scared of me.”
A tumbleweed drifted by. The horse nuzzled Imogen’s head. Laudna was silent.
“You make things bearable.”
“I do?”
Imogen nodded. “Yeah. When I’m near you, everything is calmer. There’s less noise. You’re like this.” She said and gestured towards the dusk sky, the grassy field, the horses, the flowers.
Laudna entertained the future in her mind. They would get a house together, no, a farm, a ranch. They’d have horses and goats and while Imogen tended to them, Laudna would bake bread and make soup and iced tea that she would take out at noon. They’d have lunch together in the garden where they grew flowers and vegetables and maybe they’d have a tree - apples or cherries. And maybe they could take in some kids, orphans, children who had no home, and they could give them the love they deserved, the love they both have been missing for so long now.
It was nice, and for a moment, Laudna believed in no other future but that one. A quiet life, peace for them both, a family, a home. But then she opened her eyes and looked at Imogen, bright and radiant and lively, and then her own hand in Imogen’s, grey and papery and deathly, a stark contrast. She was wrong, she wasn’t right.
“I can’t stay, Imogen. They’ll run me out eventually. They always do.”
“Then I’ll protect you.” Imogen’s voice was intense, her fingers tightened on Laudna’s hand. ‘I’ll protect you.’ She repeated in Laudna’s head, softer this time, and Laudna believed it.
How could she not? Here was this woman, this wonderful, beautiful, soft-spoken woman and she was turning her voice into daggers for her - for Laudna. No one had ever done that before.
She squeezed Imogen’s hand three times (she’d noticed it was a soothing rhythm to her friend; one-and-two-and-three). A thought struck her like lightning: She would tear the world apart if it ever dared hurt Imogen. If she ever lost her, she would claw and bite and turn more monstrous than ever before and she would take her revenge.
It scared her, a little. She had been so alone, so lonely, for so long, she had had no need for feelings. No, she’d…
Here was the thing about her loneliness: It was a vicious, hungry beast. Laudna hadn’t much to give, bare bones and paper-thin skin, but the loneliness had taken every remaining scrap. It had fed on her body and when there was no more body to feed on it had fed on her mind and when that was gone, too, it made her heart its meal.
She hadn’t felt anything - strongly - in many years. She hadn’t been able to bear it anymore, the crushing weight of loneliness, the constant fear of the world, the deep, deep sorrow and grief for something she could not even remember.
And then Imogen - and then Imogen.
There she was, radiant as the setting sun, her eyes fierce and intent (for her! For her!), and her hand warm and safe in Laudna’s. All she could think was this: I love you. I would go to the ends of this world for you. I would challenge and defy the gods themselves for you. I will do anything to lessen your burdens. I will sing you to sleep at night and soothe you after a nightmare. I will make sure you smile every day, even when there’s little to smile about. I will never let you feel lonely, not while I’m around.
Imogen smiled at her and suddenly reality rushed back to Laudna.
“I…I didn’t mean to…” She started, but Imogen shushed her.
Her voice entered Laudna’s mind again: ‘I know. I love you.’ There was something in Imogen’s eyes that Laudna couldn’t decipher; something soft or fierce or perhaps both, a look that made her inside turn upside down in a good if slightly terrifying way.
She couldn’t help but feel like she was missing something big, something important. She knew there was a puzzle to be solved, but she didn’t know the picture she was meant to make. It was alright, though. This was Imogen and if Laudna knew one thing then it was that Imogen would never belittle her for it. She smiled back and squeezed Imogen’s hand. One, two, three; ‘one, two, three’, Imogen responded.
They had stolen too much time already, Laudna knew that, but she could not deny the twinge of disappointment she felt as the people gathered around her. She’d just wanted to see the horses, just wanted to meet Imogen when she finished work, she’d even bought a few things for a picnic at the market, she’d been polite and kind and as lovely as can be and still - and still .
“Imogen, step away.” Someone said.
Laudna instinctively dropped Imogen’s hand. This was where she would be betrayed. She knew the tune - even the best people would not face a mob for her. But before her hand could even fall back to her own side, Imogen had reached out again, held onto her tighter than before, and squeezed three times.
‘Don’t worry, dear, I’ll take care of this.’ She said, straightened her shoulders, and faced her townsfolk with a determined face. It was a look Laudna had seen before, if rarely: It was that look on Imogen's face when she talked about the future, when she talked about finding out what her dreams meant, when she talked about leaving Gelvaan with Laudna.
“Y’all should leave us alone. We want no trouble.” Imogen’s voice was quiet, the soft-spoken girl they had all seen grow up, but it carried with such a gravitas that surprised even Laudna a little.
There was a brief pause, a halt of time, and then many things quickly: A sneer, a snide reply, someone made a grab for Laudna, a hand around her wrist, a forceful pull (she felt her socket give, just a little, a sharp pang of pain, nothing new). She felt her hand almost slip from Imogen’s grasp and saw her own panic reflected in her friend’s eyes.
This was not how it was meant to go, she meant to leave quietly, this was not what was supposed to happen. A flicker in Imogen’s face, a flash of subtle rage, was all the warning anyone got, and no one but Laudna saw.
Lighting and thunder exploded from Imogen with such force that it pushed everyone away - everyone, but Laudna. Imogen had pulled her back, pulled her into her arms, and held her tightly in the eye of the storm she had conjured.
‘They will not hurt you.’ She reassured, again and again.
‘I know.’ Replied Laudna. I know, I know. You took care of it, of me.
She remembered nothing much after that. They left, she knew that much, knew she held on tightly to Imogen’s waist as they rode out, out, far out. Noon turned to evening, then daylight faded to night, and still they rode. Animals howled in the darkness, but Laudna wasn’t worried. Imogen would take care of her and she’d take care of Imogen. They needed nothing more.
When they rested - two horseshoe shapes, hand in hand - she did not sleep for a long while. She watched Imogen’s face as the tension bled out of it and was replaced by a hesitant peace. Laudna counted her steady breaths, watched for every flicker of movement underneath her eyelids, felt for her pulse at her wrist. If anything happened, if her outburst had hurt her in any way, Laudna would know and she would be ready.
‘She brought down a storm for you,’ a voice in her head said - not Delilah, not quite her own either, but something new, a bud of a flower, a beginning growth. It felt warm and lively, like butterflies in the sun or wheat swaying in the wind.
She looked at Imogen’s hand in hers, at the marks on her forearms: Signs of dedication, sigils of power. She thought back to Delilah’s doubts and smiled. Imogen could protect her, Imogen had brought down the skies - for her, for Laudna. It seemed like the greatest display of dedication, of love, that she had ever witnessed and it had been for her .
Laudna fell asleep under the stars, firelight dancing over her content face, her hand holding tightly onto Imogen’s. There was no whisper in her head that night and no fear of losing her home. Imogen was her home now: Wherever she was, Laudna would be too, and they would be safe together.