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Imogen has always felt like a woman out of time; someone to whom things happened as opposed to an agent of her own destiny, master of her own fate. Her mother made decisions that Imogen had to live with, just like her dad, just like Faramore and the rest of Gelvaan. Object, not subject; recipient of the verb, not instigator.
It’s been different lately, setting off with Laudna in the pursuit of something more. She makes decisions that have lasting impact; she better understands the relationship between action and consequence. Opting not to stay at the nearest inn means she needs to cuddle with Laudna on a shared bedroll beneath a makeshift tarpaulin shelter. Plunging ahead despite dwindling rations means hours lost trying to spear a fish in the river for dinner. Holding Laudna’s hand as they make their slow trek along the road means she feels invincible.
Of course, deciding to go with Laudna at all on this walking tour of the Marquet countryside is probably the biggest, most impactful choice she’s made in… well, forever, really. She’d never considered seeing how big the world was until Laudna came into town. ‘Course, Gelvaan didn’t take kindly to strangers and even less so to homeless ne'er-do-wells with a penchant for vagrancy.
Laudna’s the one who decided they should head for Jrusar, though, even if it is for Imogen’s sake. The draw of a library, of scholarship, to try and track down her mom felt pretty far fetched, but she couldn’t deny the dim hope she clutched tightly in her chest. The truth of the matter is that Liliana Temult, if she even still goes by that name, could be anywhere in the world after disappearing twenty years ago.
Imogen may never know what happened to her, but Laudna didn’t take that lying down, not like Imogen had tried to content herself with for the last couple of decades.
That was probably the biggest catalyst in Imogen’s life.
Laudna.
They’d been gone for almost a year, having spent the first half meandering easterly without a goal and the latter half forging a path northwest to Jrusar. In that time, Imogen could count the number of phone calls she’d made back to her daddy on one hand – Winter’s Crest, his birthday, and hers.
She didn’t need a hand at all to count how many times he’d called her. So the phone in her pocket ringing with the opening notes of “Drive” from Alan Jackson for the first time in… over a year doesn’t spur her into action – it freezes her.
“Imogen?” Laudna asks, halfway through folding one of Imogen’s sweatshirts from the pile of laundry splayed across the bed they’re sharing to wait out a sudden summer storm in Gujjar-Serai. Concern coats the word in a familiar sheen.
“Right,” Imogen says, but it sounds like the words come from somewhere outside her body, summoned by a ghost she hasn’t heard from in decades.
Laudna puts down the shirt and crosses their little room as Imogen pulls her phone from her pocket, staring uncomprehendingly at the Daddy calling on her screen.
“Imogen,” Laudna prompts, reaching out a hand to slip her fingers between Imogen’s.
Imogen swipes her screen. “Hello?” she says, a quiet rasp, as Laudna tilts her head inquisitively, brow furrowing in concern.
“Uh, hi… Imogen,” her daddy’s gruff voice is barely garbled despite the shit reception in Gelvaan.
“Hi?” Imogen asks, unable to keep the surprise and confusion out of the word. He can’t be calling for anything good. He hasn’t before. She swallows thickly and asks the question that burns the back of her throat, “Somethin’ wrong, daddy?”
“Honey,” comes through the speaker and Imogen’s heart stops.
Relvin hasn’t called her honey in…
Not since Liliana left them, and Relvin knelt down on the kitchen floor, one arm braced on a knee, as he stumbled through telling little Imogen that Mama wasn’t coming back.
She’s already crying when his next words trickle through the phone, “It’s… it’s Flora, honey.”
“No,” she says thickly, the word sticky at the back of her tongue. Thin, bony arms must wrap around her because the scent of petrichor is heavy in her nose as Relvin shatters Imogen’s world.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but she’s gone.”
Her face is pressed against sharp shoulders and there’s a hand rubbing circles on her back. She can’t see anything – everything is blurry and unfocused, like forgetting her glasses only much worse.
She can’t be.
“No,” she says again, the only word in her vocabulary.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” Relvin says, clearly trying to be gentle even as he falls short.
Pressure on her shoulders, at the base of her neck, something running through her hair.
“How?” she croaks out.
She can practically hear him rub his neck awkwardly, in that way he does when he doesn’t want to do the hard thing like tell her the truth. Barely, she manages to bite back the what did you do threatening to burst from behind the cage of her teeth.
“I – she had colic, honey, and–”
“How long?”
How long did he know? How long did Flora suffer? How long did he keep it from her?
“Well, now, it’s not uncommon for older horses to get a bit of colic–”
“How. Long.”
Could she have said goodbye?
He clears his throat roughly. “Started a few months ago.”
She could’ve been there.
She should have been there.
“But she didn’t turn for the worst ‘til earlier this week,” he says, and Imogen doesn’t think she’s imagining the note of defensiveness in his voice.
Laudna disappears from around her and she is standing alone and cold and Flora-less in the middle of their rented room.
Something worn and soft gets pushed into her free hand and she curls her arm around it automatically as fresh tears start. She digs her fingers into the patchy fur of stuffy Flora’s mane and then Laudna’s arms are wrapped around her again.
“You should’ve told me,” she says, anger rising despite Laudna’s placating hands and murmured comfort. She wants it to bite, to cut, for her daddy to feel the anguish in her chest that Flora –
Flora –
“I should’ve been there,” she says, this time out loud, but it comes out broken and forlorn instead of spiteful.
There’s a heavy breath across the line.
“I know, honey, I –”
Imogen closes her eyes, presses her fingertips deeper into the plush, and sniffles.
“I thought I could turn her around for you,” he admits quietly, the low timbre of it like when he used to softly sing her a lullaby to fall asleep after a bad dream. Back when she was a little girl, at least.
“When did she–” Imogen tries to choke out the question – how long has her baby been gone?
“An hour ago. The vet tried, honey, I swear.”
She ducks her head against Laudna’s shoulder and bony fingers press against the back of her skull like a balm against the headache brewing.
“I wanted to have her ready and waiting for you whenever you came back,” he says, his voice finally breaking, too.
Imogen gasps, eyes flying open, as she remembers what happened to Sam’s horse when she passed away in high school.
“Daddy, you gotta promise me, okay?” she asks, tearful and forceful in equal measure. Her voice is halting, rasping and wet. “Daddy,” hating the way her voice falters on the word like it hasn’t done in more than two decades. “Don’t let her get made into glue.”
A masculine snuffle echoes in her ears.
“Okay, honey,” he agrees easily. “I promise.”
She burrows into Laudna’s sweater, hoping that, for once, it’s a promise he can keep.
Imogen is quiet for the rest of the day.
Laudna fetches tea and tucks her into a blanket. She tries to tempt Imogen into eating – even if it’s just one of the few cookies they have left that she knows Imogen has a fondness for. Laudna cushions her in pillows and everything soft and when all of that isn’t enough, apparently, Laudna slides onto the bed and adds herself to the armour she’s woven around Imogen’s body.
Imogen burrows into Laudna’s chest, letting Laudna comfort her and hold the pieces of her together in slender, delicate, trustworthy fingers. Stuffy Flora is squished between them, Imogen’s hand still tight around her neck.
It’s odd, really, for Laudna to be so quiet. She hasn’t even given Imogen the polite I’m sorry for your loss or She’s in a better place. Imogen’s thankful, because honestly, if someone says that to her, she might just lose her shit.
Laudna doesn’t fucking deserve that.
There’s no way – she refuses to believe that there is a world where somehow Flora being dead is the best case scenario. She refuses to accept a reality in which being without Flora is preferred.
It’s impossible.
Every universe, every world, Flora belongs with her.
The guilt of leaving her behind consumes her from the bones outward, every layer of flesh, every ridge of skin and bump of scar tissue.
It compounds with the press of Laudna’s comfort around her, the guilt growing denser, collapsing upon itself like a dying star. A mass of carbon that should be cold and alone in the vast expanse of space. Something that doesn’t deserve the warmth of a kind soul beside her.
Laudna tucks her in for sleep and she must acquiesce at some point because the cool rays of dawn are there to greet her when she next opens her eyes. For a blissful ten seconds that afterwards fills her with shame, she forgets that Flora is gone. She works hard not to let herself lapse for the rest of the day.
She wakes up. Laudna takes care of her. She confronts a reality she never wanted to take part in. She goes to sleep.
She does it all again.
It doesn’t hurt less, but somehow, it does get easier. Eventually waking up in a world without Flora isn’t Imogen’s first conscious thought.
She feels bad about that, too.
The package from her father is a surprise, to say the least. He didn’t even send anything for her birthday. Yet, there’s a flat, wide, and square package addressed to her on Zhudanna’s kitchen table when Imogen returns from another fruitless reconnaissance trip to the Conservatory.
Laudna doesn’t look as shocked as Imogen feels she should when Laudna stumbles into the kitchen behind her and smacks into her back.
“My dad sent somethin’?” tumbles off Imogen’s lips curled in something intricate as distrust but not quite as strong.
“Oh,” Laudna says, and any little doubts Imogen harboured are gone.
“Laudna, what’d you do?” she asks, all pursed lips and poorly concealed fondness in the tips of her teeth.
“I don’t know what you mean!” Laudna denies, but her eyes flicker between Imogen’s face and the package in a tell that Imogen knows better than Pâté’s slowly-improving Cockney accent.
Imogen fixes her with a look – not quite a glare, that’s too much heat, but it’s ripe with disbelief.
Laudna wilts under her stare. “Open it,” she suggests, prodding Imogen toward the package. She’s fussing with her coat instead of meeting Imogen’s eyes.
Imogen bites her tongue.
Pressing a letter opener into Imogen’s hands, Laudna’s mildly corrective tsk tsk tsk is smooth and indulgent. “Go on,” she encourages and it’s Imogen’s faith in her more than anything else that lets Imogen’s hands start to work.
After tearing through tape and packing paper, Imogen holds a translucent lilac record in her hands. She looks up at Laudna beseechingly.
“Laud, we don’t have a record player,” Imogen drawls. “And why’s he sending me a record at all?”
“Did he not include a note?” Laudna asks, a small crinkle appearing in the centre of her forehead as she peers around Imogen’s shoulder. Incredulity colours her tone, not quite covering the tiny dip of disappointment that Imogen knows too well from hiding it herself.
Imogen double-checks the wrappings, more for Laudna’s sake than her own. Laudna, it seems, still seems to have some faith in the man.
Imogen knows better.
“Nope, there’s nothing here,” she confirms after another moment of fruitless searching.
Laudna stops chewing on her bottom lip long enough to suggest, “Maybe you should call him?”
Well, here’s the thing… Imogen’s really bad at saying no to Laudna.
“Imogen? Are you alright?” his voice is gruff with concern as he answers.
Imogen swallows. “Yeah, I – you sent me something?”
She could reach out a finger to prod at the thick silence that descends between them.
“Oh good, you got it,” he finally comments, sounding distinctly uncomfortable.
“And what exactly is it?” she asks, only a little acerbic.
He clears his throat. “Oh, er, didn’t your friend say?”
Imogen watches Laudna lower her head, cheeks ablaze with a fierce blush, into her hands out of the corner of her eye. “No?”
“Ask her,” he says. “She’ll probably say it better’n me anyway.”
He’s literally on the phone with her, he could just say something.
“Alright,” she agrees, taking the easy way out because she doesn’t want to commemorate this call with a fight.
She can almost see his relieved slight nod as he says, “Alright, take care now.”
The line goes dead before she can say it back.
Imogen pulls the phone away from her ear and stares at the screen until it flickers off a moment later.
“He said you knew what this was,” Imogen says after a moment, redirecting her attention to Laudna. She slides the phone back into her pocket and then thrusts the record towards her.
Laudna’s eyes narrow in that way that speaks to her twinned disappointment and the slightest of irritation. Then, her shoulders sag as she runs her fingertip along the edge of the record.
“He wanted to do something nice for you,” Laudna says. It’s only Imogen’s practice at schooling her features until Laudna finishes a thought that keeps the skeptical eyebrow from rising earnestly.
“Then why does it seem more and more like he didn't have anything to do with it?” Imogen looks meaningfully at Laudna, setting her jaw in that way she knows she does when she clearly knows what’s going on – when Laudna insists otherwise even though they both know.
It’s sweet and endearing and a little frustrating, but gods, does she love her.
“Well, maybe he and I talked,” Laudna allows after a moment of very clearly weighing her options, eyes indecisive and fingers tapping anxiously at the table’s edge.
“Mhm,” Imogen hums, letting the silent expectation fill in around them like fluffy pink insulation.
“Okay, so maybe I called him, but we talked through some options!” Laudna says, wringing her hands atop the counter. “He mentioned, you know, the glue thing but that he didn’t know what else he could do, so, really, I just helped with a little research,” she continues and Imogen can’t stop the soft smile that pulls at her lips.
Laudna talks about trees and urns and deep northern pyre boats afloat on moving bodies of water.
Imogen’s grateful Laudna doesn’t say her name. It’s not as bad as it was when it was brand new – practically a terrible surprise every time, that one-two punch of Flora–dead – but it still takes minimal recollection to bring fresh tears to her eyes for her Flora.
That might just be how it works for the rest of her life.
“Do you want to put it on?” Laudna asks, cutting through the haze of swirling thoughts of Flora.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” she says and Laudna slips the record out of her hand. She wonders if she missed Laudna explaining how the record is relevant to Relvin and Gelvaan.
The crackle is warm and staticky through the speaker before it settles into the gentle picking of a very familiar song. Then comes a voice hewn from still-warm, setting lava, almost as familiar to Imogen as Relvin’s gruffer, slightly off-key tones.
Something lodges hard in Imogen’s throat when the twang hits.
“He used to sing this to me,” Imogen whispers past the longing stuck in the folds of her vocal cords. “Before Mama left, I mean,” she clarifies with a sniffle. “Pretty much every night.”
A slender arm drapes across Imogen’s shoulders.
“When we talked about, you know, what to do with the ashes, he said you might remember this song,” Laudna explains, squeezing with what Imogen knows is most of her strength.
That’s when it slams into Imogen’s forehead, right between her eyebrows.
“Flora’s ashes?” She cranes her neck to look Laudna in the eye.
Laudna’s head tilts quizzically. “Yes? Your father wasn’t sure what to do, so we settled on this idea and he said he thought you might remember and like the song,” Laudna says, shifting her teeth to give her bottom lip a small bite. “I really hope that’s okay. He said he wanted you to feel like you still had her and him, too.”
Imogen bursts into silent tears, saliva pooling at the tip of her tongue. She swallows and wipes her eyes under the rims of her glasses with the cuffs of her shirt. “Why couldn’t he say that to me?”
Quick fingers slide her glasses fully off her nose before she can protest. She’s pulled into a tight hug, a hand at the back of her head pushing her gently into the crook of Laudna’s neck. “I’m sorry, Imogen; I don’t know, darling.”
Laudna holds her there until long past the song ends and there’s a not-insignificant snot stain on the collar of Laudna’s shirt. It’s hard to see given the much larger dark spot from Imogen’s tears, but that feels like it’s beside the point.
“Thank you for helping him,” Imogen says quietly into Laudna’s ear as she attempts to use her sleeves to mop up Laudna’s clothing.
“Of course,” Laudna says immediately.
Imogen tucks her face back into Laudna’s neck and blindly reaches off to the side to put the needle back on the record.
The song of Imogen’s childhood crackles back to life as she wraps her arms around Laudna’s waist and pulls her closer. She breathes in that comforting scent: newly fallen leaves and the freshness of a sudden rain.
“Thank you for everything.”