Chapter Text
Imogen is scared.
Her skin buzzes and threatens to burst. Breathing is harder than she ever thought possible; her lungs can’t take in enough air, like the scream took the ability right out with it. The worst is her head. She can still hear that voice, feel the calling and longing she wants so badly to ignore. But it’s persistent. Heavy. A belonging that settles in with urgency. Her soul reaches out for the only sense of home she’s ever felt.
And she’s so fucking scared.
The pressure her friends set on her sits on her shoulders and pushes.
A sacrifice worth making. The purpose she was created to serve. But Imogen wants to live. She wants to breathe and laugh and hurt. The word creeps up on her again — inevitable. It curls against her shoulder and roots into her ear. She tries to shake it, block it off. But her friends push it further in, force it to fester and grow.
Imogen cries; she weeps and grieves and wants to go. Anywhere but here, away from the scattered voices of the people she loves, telling her how this is what she needs to do. No matter how much she cries, denies, tells them she won’t come back. Because, in the grand scheme of things, information is more valuable than anything else she can offer.
Laudna’s hands are cold against her cheeks, the gentle presses of her lips something Imogen barely registers. Her hands are shaking. Her ears ring and her skin burns. She remembers the network, the tether, the way she was called and praised and sunken. How that pull wanted her more than she’s wanted anything before. She reaches out and grabs the fabric of Laudna’s dress, squeezes it until she stops being able to feel the shaking of her hands.
It’s a betrayal, in every sense, down to her core. One that makes sense. It would save the world, whether she lives to see it through or not. But she’s scared and she’s selfish and she wants to live.
It’s not fair. She doesn’t want to be a messiah, a sacrifice. But they tell her it’s going to happen one way or another; she lets that acceptance overtake her until the familiar numbness comes back. She has a use, a purpose. Her friends need her. She’ll bleed herself dry and lose her mind to give them what they need.
(She’s so scared but it’s slowly chipping away, relocated and locked down and tucked away.)