Chapter Text
They probably overpaid for the mule. She was a little old, a little stubborn, with a sad dun colored coat that faded into the sad dun colored farm they bought her from, but Imogen was certain that a mule was the right thing for Laudna. They weren’t as skittish as horses, and while this mule was the first mule they met in their quest for an animal for Laudna to ride, Imogen assured Laudna that this mule really was perfect. (And not just because she nuzzled into Imogen’s shoulder within minutes of their introduction.)
Laudna held her hand gingerly out to the creature who sniffed and turned away and stamped her hooves.
“She just needs to get used to you,” said Imogen, who was already the mule’s favorite person in the entire world. The mule was pushing herself between them, cutting Laudna away from the most important woman in the entire world, and Imogen was laughing softly at the creature’s antics, the traitor. “You can see she’s a real sweetheart.”
“Animals like you.”
“They like you, too, when they get a chance to know you. I don’t know anyone else who can keep a hive of bees in her chest.”
Laudna bared her teeth. “They’re ghost bees. Or, maybe undead bees? I don’t know where they come from. Or the dog.” She scratched her long nails against the scar along her chest and wondered if the hound stored in her ribcage even liked her, or if it only obeyed her out of gratitude for its occasional freedom. “I don’t think they count.” She turned her scowl on the mule. “I thought, as a fellow abomination, we’d have some kind of inherent rapport.”
Imogen gasped. “You’re not abominations,” she said, babying the mule and scratching behind her ear. “The family’s been calling her Daisy but she don’t answer to it, so you can choose a different name if you want. Maybe you’ll help her find the right one!”
Laudna let some black creep into her eyes as she gave the mule a wide stare. That creature couldn’t be further from a daisy if it came from Ruidis. What a terrible name. “Side Salad,” she said definitively, and the mule flicked its ear and looked its large wet eyes at Laudna.
“I like it,” said Imogen. “What about you, Side Salad?” The mule bumped her nose against Imogen’s hand. “She loves it.”
Side Salad did not love the name enough to make the ride home easy. The swaying motion jostled Laudna’s joints from their sockets, and she seemed to aim for low hanging branches to thwap across Laudna’s face and arms. Side Salad followed Flora and Imogen with a joyful canter that threatened to break her spine in half. It was miserable. And, because Imogen needed somewhere quiet and hard to stumble upon to make their homestead, the ride took an entire day.
“We could have used the teleportation stick,” said Laudna as they crested the final hill. Only an hour now. Another hour of being pulverized.
“I don’t think Flora or Side Salad would have appreciated it.”
“Maybe they should get used to it,” suggested Laudna, with just a hint of bitterness tucked beneath her tongue. “If they’re going to be familiars to two wicked sorceresses…”
“I thought I was your familiar, mum!” Pâté barked from his perch on her shoulder. Laudna pinched his beak shut.
“I don’t think we need any more familiars than you, Pâté,” said Imogen fondly, then she turned the terrible beam of her smile on Laudna, and Laudna’s bitterness melted away. “And who says we’re wicked?”
“Vasselheim. The Judicators. Most clerics, and probably half of Gelvaan if you asked them.”
“Nobody important, then.”
Laudna sighed. “Nobody important,” she had to admit. It was strange, how becoming important did not make her struggles vanish at all the way she thought it might. She never managed to be anything like a lady, but to certain circles, she was far more important than even her highest aspirations. And yet, she was running away again. Finding a quiet little hovel to hide in. But at least she wasn’t alone. And this one came with plumbing.
“Do you think Side Salad might make a good guard mule?” asked Laudna. Their numerous enemies hadn’t left the continent of Issylra, but it was only a matter of time before they were traced to Marquette.
The mule snorted beneath her and gave a high step over nothing at all, just to jostle her bones.
“Maybe if you ask her nice,” said Imogen. “Mules are pretty smart.”
Laudna looked down at the back of her mule’s head, but could find no way to ask her nicely, and the rest of the ride continued in a miserable silence.
The next day, Laudna could hardly get up from bed. Imogen doted on her, which felt terrible. She hated being a bother, and the ride had not been so awful in retrospect. Good weather, flowers in bloom, lovely company and a delicious lunch near a babbling stream. No, she didn’t really have a good reason to be miserable, aside from the pain, and she should be well used to that by now. Laudna groaned as she heaved herself up to sitting and Imogen came running from the kitchen.
“Stop that! Let me help you!”
“No, no,” said Laudna. Helping was her job. Always. She pushed Imogen’s arms away and rotated her skeleton through its many pops and snaps until it settled into something resembling human. Even after a god stitched her up with Imogen’s life force, Laudna could never quite close the gap between human and whatever she had stumbled into.
Imogen made concerned little noises over her, holding her breath as Laudna shifted toward the edge of the bed. She did not speak, but Laudna could feel the boil of discordant ideas bubbling under Imogen’s surface.
“You don’t need to worry about me, dear. I just need to get up and walk around for a bit and everything will fall back into place.”
“I don’t want to go if you’re hurtin’.”
Laudna looked up and her neck locked her into eye contact with Imogen. “Go where?”
“There’s a meetin’ between the former volition and a bunch’a important folk in Wildemount about places to settle and they were hopin’ to have a human representative with them. It’d only be a couple days, but I can tell them you need me—”
“I don’t need you—”
“Well, I always need you,” she started.
“That’s not what I mean!” Laudna hissed as the lock gave on her neck and she tumbled forward, a bag of useless bones. She scrambled on the ground and pulled herself back up to the bed. “I mean I don’t want you to let anyone down on my account.”
“I should stay.”
Laudna gripped the edge of the bed and sought some life through the shadows, something close enough to steal. Darkness flared around her as the shadows leached some life. A bit of vitality slipped in to bolster her and take the edge off the pain. She flexed and stretched and stood, smiling as kindly as she could in reassurance. “Right as rain, darling. Please go. Be important. I’ll manage the animals.”
Imogen’s nostrils flared, and Laudna was struck cold, afraid that she might have taken something from Imogen.
“You didn’t hurt me.” Imogen answered the unspoken question. “I’m just worried about you.” She grasped Laudna’s hands and gripped them tight. “If it helps, you can take some healing off of me. I can take it.”
Laudna blinked before tears could gather and shook her head. Her neck popped loudly, betraying the sentiment, but it released some pressure and Laudna sighed in relief. “Ah! See? Right as rain.”
Imogen smiled and shook her head. She was dressed for travel already. Her prettiest, sorceressiest dress, offset only marginally by the clunky pack over her shoulders. The teleportation stick was leaning against the wall of their bedroom, it’s dull yellow crystal glimmering faintly in the gloom. Imogen had kept the curtains drawn to let Laudna recharge in the dark.
“You’re already ready,” said Laudna.
“I really don’t want to let them down,” she admitted.
“Then don’t.” Laudna drew her in and kissed the top of her head, then cheek, then lips. She pulled away. “You’ll send every night.”
“And I’ll be back in two days. There’s feed for Flora and Side Salad in the barn. I’ve given Pâté instructions on their care, and…” she dove for the bedside table and presented a small blue stone with etchings for sending “…and I got you this so you can send to me in an emergency and I’ll be here in a flash. I’ll make one of the wizards send me home so I don’t even need to wait for the staff to charge. Wildemount is lousy with wizards.”
“Is it?” Laudna smiled. In three years Imogen had become better traveled than she was in thirty. Granted, Laudna took the long way, having walked for most of hers.
“Dinner is on the stove. I made that bread you like.” She leaned up for a kiss. “You be good.”
“I’ll do my best,” promised Laudna.
Imogen gathered the staff in her arm, another something in her fist, some anchor the mucky-mucks must have given her to lead her to the right place, and in the next breath she was gone, leaving only an absence that seemed to crackle like lightning.
Laudna sighed. She was alone. Or, not quite. She was alone with Pâté and with Flora and with a mule.
“Boss!” Pâté flapped wetly through the house and screamed into the room. “Boss, we gots a problem!”
“What is it!”
“That bloody mule kicked down the fence!”
Laudna pulled the curtains from the window and looked out to the little pasture. Flora was running anxious circles around the perimeter, giving a wide berth to one broken railing. Side Salad was missing entirely, but Laudna could guess from the trample of brush that she’d run off into the forest.
“She was leaning up against the house just mindin’ ‘er own and then spooked like something bit her, and she ran off! I tried to coax ‘er back, but I don’t think she likes me much.” His little skull face looked sadly up at her and Laudna stroked his greasy fur with care.
She’d hurt Side Salad. The poor thing hadn’t done anything but trust her new house would be a safe place to rest. She cursed inwardly and kissed Pâté’s skull.
“It’s alright, Pâté. She just needs to get used to you.”
Laudna looked out to the forest and resigned herself to the work. “We just need to make this a home.” She set a grim smile on her face and gathered her cloak around her. “A good home.” She growled. “No matter what.”