Chapter Text
Her first thought as she looked at the town’s modest sprawl from her vantage point just inside the boundaries of the trees was that Gelvaan was bigger than she thought it would be. Gelvaan was always quiet, or at least from what she knew of it which was admittedly not much. She never anticipated the rolling hills, the vibrant fields, or the soft, sweet smell of a flower she’d never seen before. A horse whinnied in the distance, the sound seeming to bounce off the flat-topped bluffs surrounding them. Maybe this town would be different. Maybe she could stay or find a home or at least pause long enough to figure out her next move. After thirty years of wandering from town to town inevitably ending in her being chased out by angry townsfolk, the best she expected was a couple of nights at most, especially if she wandered into town. Maybe she wouldn’t wander into town.
She slunk back into the relative safety of the trees, fingers brushing against the tall grasses as she walked. It was odd, really, how things changed and shifted with time. Even places like Gelvaan which seemed as consistent as the moons eventually bent. Not just places, but memories too. Time and death blurred her memories of Whitestone like rain washing away a painting. Was it her father who sang beautifully or her mother? Or was it neither of them? Had it been her? Her previous life blurred together, and perhaps it was for the best. It wasn’t like she could return to Whitestone anyway. It wasn’t like she ever wanted to. Besides, she had Pâté.
She pulled the puppet from his place on one of her belts and held him against her chest, wondering what she would do next. He kept her company, kept her from going mad all these years of solitude, but he never was the best at helping her make decisions. The voice in her head wasn’t either. Though she was less kind than Pâté, she supposed the voice was helpful in her own way. She kept her alive too.
The sun was low in the sky, but she still rested with her back to the tree cradling Pâté and humming a wordless song to him. Whatever she would do next would have to wait until tomorrow anyway. The last time she crept into a town after dark, the torches were almost immediate, and the warning clang of steel against shield still echoed in her mind sometimes. Fear was something she knew intimately, anxiety just as much. A night in the woods was far more palatable than the alternative.
“We’re alright though, aren’t we, Pâté?” she whispered against the raven skull affixed to the body of a dead rat. She let magical tendrils of black and gray magic drop from her fingers to anchor Pâté to her. She pulled a tendril, and Pâté saluted her.
“Alright we are, love,” she answered for him in a different accent, a lower voice.
“Alright,” she said in her normal voice. “Alright.”
She let the magical tendrils drop, but she kept Pâté tucked against her. For a moment she let herself worry if coming to Gelvaan was a mistake. The truth was she didn’t have anywhere else to go. It stung as much as it ever did even after three decades, and in dark moments she demanded to know why the gods had seen fit to let her be brought back. In her darkest moments, she wondered if it was her own fault, some spark of life demanding to be fulfilled in whatever way possible, some hunger that hadn’t yet been satiated. But there were times when she was optimistic too, when she hoped there was something out there still waiting for her to find, or to find her. Those were few and far between, but it had been enough so far.
“We’ll have to rough it tonight, Pâté, but that won’t be a problem, will it?”
He didn’t answer.
They were accustomed to it anyway. She couldn’t carry too much; she wasn’t that strong; she didn’t have a lot of space on her body to carry things. Nights where the wide expanse of velvet skies peeked through thick canopies of trees made the bedroll on the hard ground more bearable. Palatable even. A campfire was impossible in the dry weather, but she didn’t mind being cold. It reminded her she was alive, however tenuous that life was.
Darkness fell all soft and lovely. Through the trees, she could see the way the moons’ light seemed to make the tall grasses and abundant fields glow. The insects humming and the soft hsh-hsh-hsh of the leaves shuffling in the breeze soothed her loneliness, at least for the night. She rolled on her side to watch the grass ripple. She was not the only thing clinging onto the face of the earth to survive. She was not the only thing alive in these trees; there were other creatures, perhaps lonely too, that fought stubbornly day after day just to live one more day. As she watched the firebugs appear and disappear, she let herself be comforted by this extravagant show of existence and fell asleep.
…
“Ma’am?” called a voice uncertainly. “You alive?”
She woke up disoriented and groggy and was almost convinced the woman in front of her was a hallucination. The stranger was looking at her in concern with a lovely face pulled into a frown and an arm outstretched as if she would touch her. She looked between the woman’s hand and her face. She debated bolting, but something stopped her.
“I’m alive,” she croaked, hoarse from sleep. “I’m sorry. Am I on your property? I can leave.”
“No, no, nothing like that. I just—you weren’t breathing a whole lot.”
“Oh,” she said in surprise, “I tend to not do as much breathing as others.”
The woman looked at her curiously, but a half smile tugged at her lips as she reached out her hand more deliberately. “I’m Imogen.”
“Laudna,” she said and, though she was bewildered with this turn of events, shook her hand lightly.
“I live just over there in the Dureni Fields, but I come here every so often to… clear my head.”
“Oh, and I’m intruding on your quiet time! I’m so sorry; I’ll go!”
“Laudna,” she said, half-exasperated. “You’re not intruding. In fact, it’s kinda nice to meet someone else. Gelvaan is… Well, it’s what it is.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I am,” Imogen said firmly. “So, what brings you to these parts?”
Laudna forced a laugh. “Nowhere else to go, really.”
It was then this not-quite stranger seemed to really look at her. Laudna knew what she must have seen. A too-thin woman, gaunt and ghostly, with pale skin stretched taut across bones and a too-wide smile under a crooked nose that would never heal. Her dark hair was long with a shock of white, and it seemed to fall over her thin shoulders like a mourning veil. All sharp angles and shadows. Imogen seemed to be her complete opposite with thick, wavy lavender hair half pulled back and a healthy glow—vibrant and lively. Freckles kissed her face so gently, highlighted by the delicate blush high on her cheeks, that she wondered which god favored her. Day and night, Laudna thought. A girl and her ghost.
“Would you want to come to my hideout?” Imogen asked her. Laudna startled.
“With… you?”
She chucked, fiddling with her hands nervously. “I mean yeah, if you wanna hang out or something. I could use the company. I mean, only if you’re okay with that. You really don’t have to—”
“I’d love that.”
Imogen beamed at her, and she felt her skin warm like the first rays of sun after a long winter. As she followed her through the sun-dappled woods, she felt a sense of rightness, like a red string of fate being tied at last. Laudna couldn’t explain it. She wasn’t sure if it could be explained, or if it was something she could say to the woman leading her through the trees, if she would understand what Laudna was trying to say. So, she did what she knew how to do and held it close to her chest unseen and unspoken but thrumming with possibilities. Its very existence made her feel more solid, tethered.
“I— you’re not afraid of me?” she chanced to ask as Imogen grabbed her hand to help her cross a muddy creek. She looked at Laudna in surprise.
“Why would I be scared of you?”
“Because of how I look? Scary-scary,” she mumbled, trying to slip her cool hand back from Imogen’s warm one in fear of tainting her. Imogen gripped her hand more firmly, tugging her forward a little to make her look at her.
“You don’t look too scary to me, Laudna. You look beautiful.”
“I get scarier sometimes,” she said with a forced lightness, “dreadful even.”
“Anybody’s got the chance to be monstrous,” Imogen whispered, her eyes suddenly focused somewhere over Laudna’s shoulder toward Gelvaan. “Sometimes the people that don’t look ‘scary-scary’ are some of the most horrifying.”
“Imogen, I—”
“I won’t hear another word of it, Laudna,” she smiled at her, loosening her grip to swing their conjoined hands between them. “Now, you still up for an adventure? I’d like to get to know you, Laudna of the Woods.”
Laudna felt her face flush a little, warm but not unpleasant. She liked the sound of it, so she smiled and nodded her head. “All right.”
“All right then. C’mon, it’s not too much further.”
She followed Imogen obediently and tried hard not to dwell too long on the fact Imogen hadn’t dropped her hand. Was this what the first blush of friendship felt like, this buzzing along her skin? The heavy thump of her heart? This… excitement? She smiled to herself and let Imogen lead her into a new day.