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Laudna supposes it would always end up like this, with Imogen’s weight pressing her down into the mattress, head heavy against her chest. It was the one constant throughout her lifetimes.
Sometimes she doesn’t believe she gets to have this, its too good to be true after all, then she remembers what awaits her, imagines the cruel laughter of the gods when her time comes closer and closer still to expiring. She doesn’t get happy endings.
Never did, never will.
Maybe that’s the biggest curse Delilah could’ve given her: mourning the loss of her lover through every single-
Imogen shifts, presses her nose more insistently against her collarbone. It can’t be comfortable, she thinks, and Imogen’s comfort should always come first. “You’re thinking quite loud, hon. Is everything alright?”
The fireplace crackles around them, a yellow hue shining against Imogen’s naked back, sheets pooled around her waist and Laudna thinks she has never seen something, someone, so beautiful.
If the gods weren’t so cruel, to give her the chance to have all this only to rip it away, Laudna would consider building them an altar and offering everything else other than Imogen to them.
But they are. Cruel. And her time is coming to an end.
364 days.
She dies tomorrow.
She doesn’t want to think about the way she’ll go this time, even though she has a strong suspicion it won’t be her favorite. (She feels, gods how she feels, the monster growing inside, growing harder to contain, screaming to be let out and she wants… she wants…
Wants.
She doesn’t get to want, not anymore. The free will to do so was taken from her a thousand lifetimes ago.)
“Laud?”
She feels her everywhere, has fought her for the past thirty-one years, she’s tired and she wants…
Wants…
Fingertips touch the curve of her jaw, ever so grounding, the familiar buzz of Imogen’s magic dripping from her scars against her skin a comfort she seeks even in her slumber. She smiles against it, presses the face into the palm, and her lips against the cracked skin.
“There you are.” And even in the darkness, Imogen’s smile is the brightest. Gods, she’s going to miss this. “Where’d you go?”
There’s no beating around it, well, Laudna supposes she has beaten around this for three years already, and now there’s no time.
“Do you-” she starts, sighs a breathless sigh when Imogen notices the tone and uses the hand that was cradling her face to hold herself up. Suddenly, looking into her eyes takes her back to the first time she did this, the first time she left. It never got easier, not when she had Imogen like this, “you made me a promise a few months ago. Do you remember that?”
“I’ve made you quite a few promises,” Laudna doesn’t think they need the fireplace when Imogen smiles like that, she’d bet good money it was enough to light up the whole room, “I think you’re gonna need to be more specific.”
There’s no beating around this and she feels her consuming, taking, possessing, hungry.
Hungry.
And she wants…
“You promised you’d do the right thing.”
As fast as it came, the smile fades, the light vanishes from the room and the yellow warmth turns blue suddenly. She feels cold, for the first time in this lifetime, she feels cold when Imogen is holding her.
“No.”
“Imogen.”
“No.” And, from her tone, there’s no room for debate, it’s a conversation Imogen will not allow them to have, even if- there’s no time. She can’t push this further.
“Gen…”
But she’s already pulling away, she feels colder still when Imogen refuses to look at her, eyes shining with unwashed tears, skin glowing with unwanted power. She follows her, sits up, reaches for the hand that feels like it’s miles ways when in the same twin-size bed. Imogen doesn’t relent and she feels the cold chuckle at the back of her mind, a constant presence refusing to leave, refusing to relent.
Laudna has brought that on herself, after all. Cursed to lose her lover, like Delilah before her.
“I’m not having this conversation right now, or ever for the matter, she can’t have you, not after…”
After we’ve stopped Predathos.
After we’ve saved the gods.
After we’ve built the life I’ve always dreamed for us.
It goes unsaid, but Laudna knows. She also feels, growing ever stronger and she knows it must come to an end.
“I feel her, Imogen, and I’m tired of fighting her. She’s here, all the time, waiting. We’ve always known that one day she would take me,” “No-” “And Imogen,” she reaches for her hand, Imogen doesn’t flinch, not this time, even when a small sob rips from her throat, “I don’t want her to consume you.”
“And I don’t wanna lose you.”
“Darling” and Laudna is bolder now, after close to a year of being able to do this, runs her hand up Imogen’s arm with purpose, tugs lightly at her chin in a silent question of look at me, “there’s not much of me left, we both know it. I’m afraid of myself, and I’m afraid of hurting you when she…”
“She won’t. I promised you I’d do anything to not let her take you.”
“I don’t think there’s much to be done now. I don’t think I’ll wake up like myself.”
“I don’t accept it.”
Stubborn. Laudna has always loved that about her, Imogen is stubborn, and hard-headed, and so very kind it tricks her heart closer to a normal beating rhythm.
“It’s my choice.” “Don’t.” “Imogen, look at me. It’s my choice and you’ve told me you’d always give me one. So tomorrow, when I don’t wake up like myself, you’ll do the right thing, then you’ll honor the other promise you’ve made me.”
Imogen throws herself at her, tucking her face into her shoulder like she’s done so many times before. Dozens, hundreds, thousands? Laudna is not sure anymore, but her response is always the same. She tugs at Imogen’s waist, just a suggestion and never a demand, and Imogen is more than pliant to comply. They lay down and If Laudna thought she was being held before it was no match for the bruising grip Imogen had on her now. As if she could shield Laudna.
As if there was still a chance.
As if she could still change the outcome that was set in stone a millennia ago.
“There’s no moving on from you, Laud.” She whispers, so small and so broken that Laudna doubts if this is the right move. Finding Imogen, having her, losing her, rinse, and repeat.
Then she thinks about Imogen’s smile, the way she’d kiss her as she read her a book, the life in her eyes when she’d look at her, the care in her tone even when Paté… Theres not really another answer other than: having her, for no matter how long, is worth it the pain of losing her.
**
She wakes up with a gasp, the alarm sound blaring from her nightstand and the typical sound of horns from angry drivers that you could only find in the big city at nine in the morning. Her body is cold in the middle of summer, rays of sunshine covering her eyes, she feels her muscles tense, like they haven’t been used for the longest time, and the beginnings of a migraine at the base of her skull.
She’s all too familiar with this. It happened again. She lost Imogen again. And now, here she is, adjusting and letting this body’s memories flood back to her, adapting to the new reality she’s supposed to live for gods know how long.
She tries to feel her presence, the tug of magic at the knot of her stomach to come back empty- a world without magic.
Small victories, she supposes.
With a groan, she forces her legs out of the soft bed, eyes still adjusting to the explosion of information scattered around every single surface of her (?) bedroom.
She had three years with Imogen in her previous life, maybe she’s allowed some time to mourn on this one. She’ll find her. She’s tired of pretending she doesn’t need to.
**
It goes like this.
She dies.
She wakes up in a familiarly strange world.
She has a new life.
A new job.
A new family.
New friends.
The years go by with the memory of lavender hair and countless golden freckles.
A name at the tip of her tongue.
Imogen.
She goes on, sometimes for months, sometimes for decades, sometimes only for a couple of hours until she finds her.
She finds her and there’s no other outcome.
Imogen completes her. Imogen understands her. Imogen loves her. In every universe, they are drawn to each other and Laudna is powerless to stop the ending of their chapter.
She falls for Imogen, rather, her love for Imogen never fades, it just goes numb for a while until it comes back stronger than before. She’s intense, she knows it, all her focused attention in the one person she loved throughout her past two hundred and ninety-seven lifetimes, and she feels like Imogen is the same, when she whispers against her lips that she feels like they’ve known each other forever.
If only she knew.
Imogen kisses her, and the world falls into place, every piece of a puzzle fitting to form the prettiest picture: them.
And they are happy.
For a while at least.
A year, to be more exact.
Then Laudna dies and Imogen mourns her. Their chapter in an unending book concludes for the start of the next one to begin.
She wakes up in a familiarly strange world.
She has a new life.
A new job.
A new family.
New friends.
Time goes by with the memory of lavender hair and countless golden freckles.
A name at the tip of her tongue.
Imogen.
**
Sometimes, in worlds with magic, Delilah still haunts her every thought.
Sometimes, in worlds without magic, Delilah haunts her dreams.
Usually, she dies by her hands.
**
Laudna still remembers her first lifetime, before all of this started.
The world wasn’t quite different from some others she was thrown into. Delilah was still way too powerful for her own good and Sylas was a monster that needed to be stopped. How she was wrong.
If only she had known the true monster was the one who whispered sweet words into her ear and not the one who bared his teeth towards any human who passed him. He had been a job, just a job, and she had done what every hunter did: she followed the monster to a small town where rumors about disappearances happened randomly in the middle of the night, she talked to the locals about it, she followed his trail and put a stake through his heart. He got the ending a monster deserved, the same monster that had turned her into this, an insatiable hunger threatening to take over, begging to be let out.
Laudna had met her that night, younger than in most universes, maybe a tad more naïve than in most as well. Imogen had treated her like a person, despite the pointed fangs and pale skin, and in return she bought her a glass of wine, paid for their meal, kissed her hand goodnight, and left with a promise to talk in the morning.
That was the first time she ever broke a promise to Imogen. And not the last one.
She woke bound to a chair and Imogen’s body thrown at her feet. She died that day with her throat sliced open, with the witch who cursed her to an endless cycle of loving and losing the most important person of her life inside her head, chuckling ever time the sentence of losing Imogen was enforced.
Just like Laudna had taken Sylas from her, Delilah would take her from Imogen.
Repeatedly.
Brutally.
Cruelly.
**
She remembers her second lifetime. She had never been so confused in an endless feel of déjà vu, like living a life that was not hers but remembering every single memory in her mind, but they had been lived by someone else.
Her. But not really her.
This world is quite different but there’s a lingering feeling of home that Laudna can’t quite describe. There’s a familiarity to holding a professional camera, she thinks, because somehow, she instinctively knows what to do. The world is quite different, and for the first time in over a decade, she can walk in sunlight.
The world is quite different, and there’s no witches in the woods, werewolves deep in the forest at night, vampires lurking at the shadows. It’s still a cruel world, waiting to consume anyone who lets it.
(For a moment she wonders if her past was just a fever dream.
Oh, was she wrong.)
Laudna adapts, it’s what she has always done. She travels around the world, takes pictures of any sight that brings her joy (which is to say all of them because Sylas and Delilah are gone and she gets a second chance in life, a second chance to live. How wrong she was), gets a paying stable job as a sports photographer.
And she meets her.
Five years into her new life, she finds Imogen again. She’s not a barmaid anymore, and Laudna thinks it’s fair enough (she’s no longer a vampire hunter, so who is she to judge), but an equestrian. And she looks majestic.
And Laudna thinks she falls in love right then and there, with Imogen whispering into a horse’s ear and petting its muzzle, lavender hair flowing down her back, fitting white pants and black sleeveless high neck shirt that leaves Laudna appalled.
She never thought she’d find her again.
She never thought Imogen could be any more beautiful than that night. (She still remembers the coldness of her body pressing into her calves, her lifeless eyes, her-)
Imogen smiles, and it all stops. Laudna doesn’t waste any more time.
They go on their first date a week after. Imogen is funny in a way she has no right to be, she’s more confident in herself, she smiled more freely, she was more carefree, and she completed Laudna all the same. Because, just like Imogen, Laudna had learnt to be all those things in this new world.
“Can I kiss you?” Imogen asks after she walks Laudna back to the door of her small apartment, and there was no other answer.
Imogen is a light at the end of a tunnel, burning bright and guiding Laudna’s life. Imogen wakes her up with small kisses, burnt coffee (Laudna loves her, but she couldn’t brew a cup of coffee to save her life) and overmixed pancake batter (or cook for the matter).
And Laudna loved her.
Imogen introduces her as her girlfriend to every single person she has a chance to. She meets her parents, Relvin and Lilliana, more friends than a couple, Imogen had said, made Laudna promise that would never happen to them. Foolishly, Laudna had promised.
That was the second promise to Imogen she’d ever break. She didn’t live long enough to let their passion turn solemnly into friendship.
They move in together nine months into their relationship, and it’s stupid really, how Laudna complains about her landlord, too greedy for his own good and too impotent to solve the problems she brings up to him. She’d never get another place at the center of the city for that price, she knew it, he knew it, hell even her pet rat knew it, she was stuck and fated to pay an overpriced rent for the rest of her life in an apartment falling to pieces.
“Move in with me.” Imogen had said and Laudna had waited for her to laugh it off, pass it as a joke, but she had never seen Imogen so serious in her life.
And so, she did.
They were happy, gods, Laudna supposes she had never been that happy even considering her previous life.
In their one-year anniversary, Laudna wakes up her with breakfast in bed and kisses her temple with a shy I love you whispered against her hairline. It’s testing waters, she knows it, still those words have been on the tip of her tongue for who knows how long, but Imogen grins the biggest grin, drags her back into bed and they end up with maple syrup-stained sheets and Laudna is over an hour late to work that morning.
Imogen makes reservations in the restaurant they had their first date in, tells Laudna to dress fancy, whispers I love you too against her lips when she drops her off in the office.
There’s a fire in Laudna’s building that afternoon.
They never celebrate their first anniversary.
**
She remembers her third lifetime.
She swears she felt her skin burning for the better part of a month.
Delilah hadn’t shown up in this one either. The world, she finds out, is cruel no matter what. Maybe it wasn’t the monsters that made it evil, maybe the people carried plenty of it inside themselves and just tried to replace the blame.
There’s not a lot of people like her in this world, every woman she sees is either married to or promised to a man. She feels out of place, she wants to find Imogen, she needs to find Imogen.
It takes her less than the last one.
She wishes it took more, better yet, she wishes she had never found Imogen in the first place.
She moves to a suburb, wants a quiet life after her last one. She misses nature, she misses the sound of birds, she misses having enough space to craft and raise a pet bigger than a rat.
(She loves Paté dearly, but she had missed Sashimi.)
It’s how she finds herself driving up to north, finding herself a small two store house with white picket fence. The epitome of a stereotypical American experience. Her furniture was delivered two days in advance, already organized in a way she could stand not to spend the first few hours inside the new place making sure it’s livable, her and Sashimi, a Dobermann that most likely weighted more than herself, driving back taking a more cinematic route.
The yard is big enough for Sashimi to run around and she gets to exploring as soon as Laudna opens the door, and she thinks, she could get used to this. Give herself some time to grieve the loss of her previous life, the loss of Imogen.
Again.
She had found her twice before, when not really looking for her, it would be only a matter of time, she supposes.
She gets three peaceful days, not nearly long enough if you ask her, before a fateful knock sounds against her front door one afternoon. She sets down the brush (an artist, she’s an artist this lifetime and she can barely contain the giddy feeling that grows from her stomach), pets Sashimi and tells her to stay.
It’s one of the colder autumn days, the cardigan tightly wrapped around her torso and the heater knowing its use for the first time since she moved, she should make some tea before she went back upstairs.
She should also take Sashimi for a walk, when she sees the daylight slowly fading from the window of her living room.
Maybe take her to a nice park this weekend, find a coffee shop close by where they could sit outside, enjoy the sun, and get caught up in her reading. She likes this world, in just over a week she has a reading list that could last a lifetime. She needs ways to keep her mind occupied so she doesn’t think of Imogen, doesn’t get consumed by her, and the pain, and the longing and the hunger to find her.
The urge to be next to her.
The urge to be hers.
She’s going to find her; she just needs time-
And Imogen is standing at her front door, this third version way too different from the previous two. Imogen is blonde (blonde!), hair tight in an updo, a flowy blue summer dress (she must be freezing) biting at her ankles, smile a little too tight and a lot too forced and Laudna wants to ask, wants to know everything about her.
Wonders how she always ends up finding Imogen. Maybe that’s just one thing that just is, no matter what universe.
“Hi.” And even with one small word, Laudna knows there’s something different about this Imogen. There’s a spark missing, that passion hiding behind light blue eyes that turned the right shade of lavender against the light. There’s also a sort of defeat around her, in the way her shoulders slope down, in the way she won’t meet her gaze, this is a version of Imogen, but a shell. Laudna can’t wait to complete her. “My name is Imogen. I live right across the street.”
Laudna smiles encouraging, Imogen doesn’t see it, not with her eyes cast down, hands too busy picking at her fingernails.
“Just welcoming you into the neighborhood.”
“Would you like to come in? I was just about to make some tea.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose-”
“Not an imposition since I gave you an invitation.” A small smile tugs at the corner of Imogen’s lips, radiant freckles coasting her cheeks and Laudna can’t wait to get acquainted with them once more. “Would you care for keeping company to this lonely woman? Sashimi is a great conversationalist, but there’s only so much barking I can take as a response. I’m Laudna, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Laudna appeals for the dramatics, Imogen had always loved that about her. This one is no different judging by the breathless laugh that escapes her parted lips or the small nod in affirmation, as if she’s trying to convince herself more than Laudna.
“Can’t stay too long, though” Imogen slips off her shoes at the entrance, through Laudna’s insistence that is not a necessity, but Imogen just brushes her off, “my husband will be home soon, and I have to start dinner.”
Husband.
“Husband?” The word falls from her tongue, foreign and heavy, and her heart is ripped from her chest for the first time in her lives.
“Sam. Samuel, he works at the construction site a couple of miles from here, so he’s not at home much but you’ll meet soon enough.” Laudna truly hopes not, but that’s not something she can say. Not yet anyways.
They become fast friends after that, like they always do. Three times is no longer a coincidence but a pattern instead, right?
And it’s oh so gentle that makes her heart ache, hands twitching to reach out and touch, claim, take.
She wants Imogen, she supposes that’s something she’s going to have to learn.
And it’s oh so tentative, because Imogen flinches at the slightest touch, like she’s been burnt by Laudna’s mere presence too close to her. Laudna has many virtues, and luckily, patience is one of them.
Every scene she had envisioned herself in comes to reality with Imogen by her side: long walks as the sun sets, shoulders brushing as snow fell around them, Laudna tucking Imogen ears inside the beaning and grinning as the tip of her nose turned red, Sashimi running around them in the parks, sharing lunches together, laughter and a glass of wine.
Imogen becomes more open, more like herself, and Laudna is more than happy to oblige her newfound freedom and courage. Imogen is the one that touches her first. Sam was traveling for work, and they had been having dinner together for the better part of the past ten days.
For the past ten days, her house had pretty much become theirs, Imogen refused to leave and Laudna was too afraid to ask her with the possibility of her never coming back. Everything was fine, they were friends, friends. But there was nothing friendly in the way Imogen looked at her, something she noticed a month into this friendship.
There was nothing friendly in the way Imogen’s sight would drop to her lips and bite at her own, bashfully. Waiting for someone to be brave enough for the first move.
And, oh, how Laudna wants.
Devour.
Consume.
Take.
Possess.
In this lifetime? Imogen is an amazing cook and an even better baker.
But tonight, Laudna had ushered her inside, already pressing a glass of rosé to her hands and had sat Imogen down at one of the stools at the kitchen counter. She was met with no protest, none too strong at least, and Sashimi was more than happy to keep her company as Laudna went on and on about her new piece.
When dinner is a done deal, Laudna is quick to get up, starts collecting the dishes before Imogen has a chance to protest.
(“You’ve cooked, Imogen, it’s only fair I do the dishes.”
“It’s fine, really, I’m used to it.”
“Well… you shouldn’t.”)
She doesn’t, but a hand wraps around her wrist, thumb gently running against her skin.
It’s so familiar it brings tears to her eyes, no matter how much Imogen changes, she’s still the same woman she fell in love with once before and was so enchanted with that first night.
“Thank you.” She whispers. For what, Laudna is not entirely sure, but the sentiment is echoed. She’s thankful for Imogen, there’s nothing to add to that.
“You’re more than welcomed, darling.” And she basks in how red Imogen’s cheeks turn, blames it on the third glass of wine she gulped down after Laudna caught her staring. Blames on the alcohol because it’s easier, safer, than the truth.
They are inevitable.
And it’s only a matter of time.
Imogen turns more comfortable after that, not any more assured, like Laudna would deny her the possibility of having them so close. And it starts so small, really, Imogen would brush the hair that fell in front of her eyes with a shy smile, or she would brush her fingers against the small of her back when she passed behind Laudna in the kitchen, or the way Imogen started to get her attention not by saying her name but by placing her hand on her forearm, or how Imogen would wrap her arm around Laudna’s bicep during their morning walks for coffee.
She craves the touch, she wants more, she doesn’t know how to ask for more.
She doesn’t think she’s allowed.
Because when Imogen looks at her, there’s a shadow over her shoulder that looks a bit too much like Sam for Laudna’s liking.
That doesn’t seem to stop Imogen, because it escalates, of course it does (Laudna doesn’t know peace, only temptation and she’s so weak), and suddenly Imogen shares her couch on movie nights thighs pressing together and her head resting on Laudna’s shoulder.
Suddenly, Imogen has a key to her front door, and she waves Sam goodbye each morning before letting herself inside, hugging Laudna from behind when she’s too busy with breakfast to stop her. Not that she ever would. Not that Imogen needs to know that.
Suddenly, Imogen is strong enough to open about how unhappy she was, but only as long as Laudna’s hand is in hers.
(“Are you still?” Laudna had asked her then.
“What?”
“Unhappy.”
And Imogen had looked at her, violet eyes shinning in the morning light, “No. Not anymore.”)
It’s one of those mornings, when the sound of the front door opening doesn’t scare Laudna because there could only ever be one person. She hears a happy bark, smiles to herself because even if she never had Imogen the way she wanted, she still had this. It was enough, and she repeated that to herself every night as she laid in bed and remembered how it felt to have Imogen wrapped around her.
Hands tug at her hips, and she takes a step back, allows Imogen the space to slot her arms around her middle, mold herself to fit perfectly against Laudna, like she was made to fit in that space. And she was, but that’s not something she can just tell Imogen, right?
Summers are impossibly hard here, while winter is demanding, and Laudna has been enjoying the sun against her skin, with sleeveless shirts and crop tops that leave the rest of the neighborhood scandalized (Imogen’s eyes never stray too far from the strip of revealing skin from her stomach, Laudna counts it as a victory), and shorts that she admits are maybe on the far end of too short to be appropriate (Imogen turns beet red the first time she sees it, and Laudna is too weak).
And so, fingers spread against the unclothed skin, an unmarked territory they’ve never crossed, and she freezes, memories of a past life flooding her senses.
Imogen used to press her hips a bit closer, tug her hair over one shoulder and leave a kiss on the back of her neck. Laudna knew where it led, to her being late, she was never strong enough to stop her.
This Imogen is different, and the hand on her stomach creeps up, just shy of the underside of her breast, her breath leaving her lungs with a gasp.
“Imogen?” It’s hushed, breathless, she feels her chest heave with want and she wants, gods how she wants, “What are you doing?”
“’M tired of pretending I don’t want you.” Her accent is thick, thicker than she has ever heard, mumbled words against her neck and the shiver runs down her spine leaving goosebumps in its awake.
“We can’t.”
“We can.”
“But Sam-”
“I don’t love him, you know that. I”
Laudna doesn’t let her finish, can’t bear the thought of having Imogen tell her that, chancing having her again just to lose her. Maybe, if they are just friends, maybe she can keep Imogen forever. “Don’t.”
“I’m in love with you.”
It gets a little blurry after that, but after a lifetime, Laudna gets to remember the taste of Imogen’s gasps and to record at the front of her mind the unholy sound Imogen makes when she nips just right at the underside of her jaw.
They lay intertwined in bed when it’s over, her fingers tracing every bump on Imogen’s spine while a lazy smile graces her lips. She missed this, she missed her, and she was a fool to pretend she didn’t need more than what she had previously.
Rumors start like they usually do; with an ounce of truth.
One of the housewives pays a little too much attention at them, sees their secret moments shared when they don’t think anyone else is noticing, sees the lingering touches and shy smiles. It’s a matter of time until it all gets to Sam.
And Laudna supposes, a year was stretching their time a little too thin. She wakes one morning (“It’s okay, Sam is in another state for another two weeks”, Imogen had whispered when she refused to get up from her bed, in a pair of underwear she had stolen from Laudna months ago and nothing else) to the sound of Imogen’s screams and Sashimi’s howls, with an unfamiliar figure standing in her room.
A bulking man was dragging Imogen out of the room, brown hair stuck to a reddening forehead, sweat dripping down his temple. “I’ll deal with you later.” And he throws Imogen out of the bedroom and locks it shut.
Laudna doesn’t remember much after that.
**
She supposes she has wasted enough time, there’s only one way to get to know the new world and that’s by living in it.
She yaws, brings her hands to her face to rub the sleep off her eyes when she sees it. A red thread, wrapped around the ring finger of her left hand.
World two hundred ninety-eight is one of those.
She smiles.
**
In her fourth lifetime, Delilah shows up.
Laudna is still trying to gather the rules of this universe when she feels her: dark, and strong, and bursting with rage to the only space available, inside Laudna.
Finally, she whispers.
Shut the fuck up, Laudna mutters back.
Thing is, she can hear Delilah, she feels her there, but there’s no magic in this world, none that Laudna feels, none that she can use, no way to get rid of her.
Her brain is just built different, a psychiatrist tells her, prescribe some pills and she’s shown out of the office, with medical bills she can’t pay and a bitch muttering inside her mind.
She meets Imogen at the reception, she’s wearing a black hoodie and a headset around her neck, music blaring loud enough that she can hear from ten feet away.
Maybe there’s a silver lining to this world, even if she has to deal with her.
**
That is not to say Laudna doesn’t fuck up on some lifetimes. The constant is there is no running from Imogen, one way or another, they are destined to share paths.
But Laudna is weak, and after a while, she’s just so tired. She tries to avoid Imogen, keeps her at an arm’s length when they finally meet, tries to find someone else, anyone else, so her fate can be changed.
(In one lifetime, when Imogen tells her she loves her, Laudna turns and leaves, never talks to her again. She spends forty-seven years in agony, agonizing to go back in time and whisper the words back, but she doesn’t. She must try it. She’s tired and she wants this to stop.
She dies of old age, sees Imogen with a beautiful family and grandkids, hoped she got to live the life Laudna would never be able to give her.
She wakes with Imogen’s name on her arm.)
(In another lifetime, she doesn’t allow Imogen to love her. She’s cruel, and mean, and manipulative, and maybe, just maybe, she relinquishes in the anger growing inside of herself because of Delilah, taps into it.
She meets Imogen, and uses her, and its feels like a hole opens in her chest leaving enough space in its awake for Delilah to come forth.
She’s killed with a sword through her heart because she let her anger take over, she lives long enough to become the villain, and Imogen weeps with her hands tugging at the fabric of her dress.
She wakes with a new scar on her chest and a pretty doctor smiling down at her, telling her about the car accident and new heart, and the accent is way too familiar, and Laudna had been too tired to fight it.)
(She isolated herself for twenty-eight years, while Delilah whispering poisoned words into her mind, until she stumbled upon Imogen in a small town and allowed herself to be loved again.)
It can’t.
And being away from Imogen while she’s alive hurts more than in death.
So, she lives her life, finds Imogen, falls for her, dies, wakes up to do it again.
**
There are some lifetimes she’s fonder of than others. (Any of the ones that has Delilah is a fast candidate to worst experience of the next few years.)
She went home and chuckled once when she woke as a college professor, and on her first day of class, Imogen had introduced herself as her TA for the semester.
The same chuckle was ripped from her lungs when she woke up in the one with Imogen Temult written in Imogen’s calligraphy on the inside of her forearm.
Imogen was a villain once. In a world where Ruidus was too powerful and she didn’t have their friends to hold her back, Imogen had caved. Laudna was more than happy to follow and let Delilah out for a while, containing her was exhausting, and she deserved to let loose once or twice.
She burst out laughing one time when she woke up and the sun burnt her skin, and she could hear the heartbeat of anything within a three-mile radius. It took Imogen seven years to find her, laughing even harder when she showed up with a wooden stake. A vampire hunter, and Laudna had kissed her senseless before even introducing herself.
But her favorite, no matter what, when the one where she got to grow up with Imogen. She lived in a world where she still had her parents, and Imogen lived two blocks down. She got to see Imogen grow up, she got to grow old with her, she saw Imogen get her heart broken, she got her heart broken, and they were there for each other. It took them twenty-one years to figure it out from when they met, but it’s her fondest memory because she got to live with Imogen for twenty-two.
**
It doesn’t take her too long to find Imogen this time around. A couple of months, really, and she hasn’t been doing much to run after Imogen after all her lives. She knows they are meant to be, so when it happens, it’ll happen.
She’s well over a thousand years old now, she can wait another few to find the love of her life, let Imogen have enough time to live and be happy before it’s eventually taken away from her.
So, no, she’s not trying to find Imogen. But she volunteers in a hospital with a pediatric floor, and the moment she steps through the door, she feels a tug against her finger. She looks at the red thread, it points forward.
Imogen is here.
They had met in a hospital once; her hand instinctively goes to her chest where it used to be an angry scar that Imogen would kiss every night when they got to bed. It might not be as glorious this time around, they might not meet with Imogen saving her life. But she’s here, and it’s been two months, and Laudna misses her.
The nurses don’t even try to stop her, apparently, she’s been doing this for quite some time now and one of them even offer some cookies she baked the night before.
What she’s not ready for is to find Imogen laying on top of a hospital bed, as pale as a thin sheet of paper, and Relvin sitting next to her, eyes red, baseball cap tightly pressed between his hands.
She looks at her thread, pulsing red, vibrant around her finger, pointing towards Imogen, and fading into the darkest dark, creeping up Imogen’s hands where it traps her in an irrevocable sentence.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb.” Relvin looks up at her, defeated, Imogen is-
This is not how it’s supposed to-
It’s not how things happen-
Imogen can’t-
Not before her.
“Who the hell are you?” Same boisterous voice from all those times before and he gets up, Laudna had forgotten how tall he was.
She looks down at her hand once again, looks at Imogen, the dread consuming, spreading inside her chest, and she feels it, the dark chuckle. Delilah.
Relvin follows her line of sight, face softens in silent sorrow. “Oh.” He extends a hand. “Forgive me my manners, ma’am. Relvin Temult.”
“Laudna. Laudna Bradbury.”
An awkward quiet moment until he clears his throat. “It was a drunk driver; she was coming home from a get together with her friends last night.” A pause. “You see it, don’t you?” Laudna doesn’t get the strength to answer, Imogen is fading, and she doesn’t know what happens when Imogen is the first to- doesn’t want to think about it. “She’s not going to get better, is she?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too, ma’am.”
**
The one constant in all her lifetimes was that she’d find Imogen, she’d teach Imogen to allow herself to be loved, and she’d die.
She’s supposed to die first.
She doesn’t know what will happen if she doesn’t.
Maybe this is a way out, a silent thank you from the gods she had helped save in her past life.
Maybe it’s a way out and she is so fucking tired.
She doesn’t want to wake up and feel Delilah slowly taking over.
She doesn’t want to wake up and feel the loss of losing Imogen again.
She doesn’t want to have Imogen falling for her, just to leave with no choice in the end.
She doesn’t get to want anymore; she should’ve learnt that ages ago.
But now…
Now she has a choice.
A silent thank you, perhaps, but the gods are cruel. She gets the chance to break the cycle as long as she loses Imogen. Forever, instead.
(She’s so fucking tired.)
(A world without Imogen.)
(A world without Delilah.)
She gets to live, and die, and rest, and not wake up.
She gets to find peace.
She just needs to give up on Imogen.
The gods aren’t merciful.
She looks at the red thread around her finger. She doesn’t have a choice really.
Not when it comes to Imogen.
**
It’s different this time around, she doesn’t wake up in a bed as if being shaken up from a bad dream.
There’s instead, earth around her, and inside her lungs, and covering her eyes. She digs, not sure for how long before the filtering light of a blue moon shines down at her.
She digs herself out of the ground and looks at the black ichor dripping from her hands, touches her neck to feel the angry scar of a rope around her neck, joints popping back into place after being buried for gods know how long and she feels the magic soothing her slowly beating heart.
(There’s an emptiness in her mind that she’s not used to, she urges to fill it with Imogen, to be consumed by her.)
She looks up, at the imposing figure of the Sun Tree. Tal’dorei. She’s back in Tal’dorei and her last memories of this place aren’t fond. Imogen had promised. And she woke in a grave beneath the Sun Tree. It was her last lifetime before she sacrificed herself for another chance to find Imogen.
The Moonweaver shines down at her.
A small thank you.
She digs herself out of the ground, and there’s only one thought in her mind: Imogen.
She had waited hundreds of lifetimes for her.
She’s tired of waiting.