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She doesn't talk much.
Laudna speaks for both of them.
She's a head shorter.
Laudna seems to bend down to hear her better.
She has lilac eyes.
Laudna has eyes so black that sometimes the universe seems to live them.
She knows how to split a stone with electricity.
Laudna knows how to convince the night not to be cold.
She wears her hair up when they travel.
Laudna leaves hers loose, and it falls over her eyes like the most liquid tar.
She walks quickly because she's fast and small and doesn't like to be left behind.
Laudna walks slowly because she's always looking at something that doesn't exist for anyone else.
She has a southern accent, and her words come out rounded, low, timid.
Laudna laughs loudly, opens her mouth wide, lets each phrase fill the space.
She thinks before she speaks.
Laudna speaks before she thinks and then laughs at both (she's caused several misunderstandings because of it).
She sleeps with one hand on her chest, as if someone might rip her heart out during the night.
Laudna sleeps stretched out beside the fire, as if her fate were no longer in her own hands.
She knows the names of the storms.
Laudna knows the names of the lesser demons and some of the greater ones, even addressing them informally.
She isn't afraid of monsters.
She's afraid of saying a single sentence.
Laudna is afraid of many things: the ancient patrons, the voices that speak from the shadows, of magical debts.
But she's never afraid of saying what she wants.
She would like to touch her hand as they cross the path that leads them to the city of Jrusar.
Laudna has already touched her hand many times, to pull it away from a root, to show her a poisonous flower, to laugh at something insignificant.
She remembers each of those times.
Laudna probably doesn't remember any.
She thinks: I could tell her now.
Laudna is telling a story about a girl in a nameless village who ignored the elders' warnings and offered her friendship to the witch in the abandoned hut.
She thinks: not now.
They continue walking with determined steps, trying to outrun the night that's nipping at their heels. With a bit of luck, they'll soon reach the next village, where they can finally rest in a comfortable bed and even take a well-deserved bath.
She thinks she smells of dampness and rotting leaves.
Laudna smells of sweet smoke and recent rain.
She wants to tell her: when you smile, everything stops being dangerous.
Instead, she asks if it's much further to Jrusar.
Laudna replies that it's not too far and smiles at her.
And then everything stops being dangerous.
She hates that.
Laudna doesn't know that happens.
She has faced bandits, specters, beasts from the underdark.
Laudna scares her.
Not because she's a witch.
Not because she's made pacts.
Not because she sometimes stares into the fire as if someone were speaking to her from within.
She's afraid because she might say no.
Or worse.
Because she might say yes.
She imagines saying it at night, by the campsite.
Laudna slowly raising her gaze.
She imagines saying it as they walk.
Laudna barely pausing.
She imagines never saying it.
And continuing to travel like this for years.
Laudna ahead of her on the trails.
Laudna laughing by the campfires.
Laudna barely aging.
Laudna not knowing.
She thinks that silence is safer.
Laudna suddenly turns and asks her why she's so serious.
She replies that she's tired.
Laudna offers to carry her backpack.
She wants to say: I've been in love with you for months.
She says her backpack isn't that heavy.
Then they keep walking.
She’s counting the steps between one town and the next.
Laudna whistling a beautiful and eerie lullaby.
She’s holding the words in her mouth as if they were a dangerous spell.
Laudna is smiling at the entire forest, unaware that someone loves her silently just inches away.