Work Text:
She hadn’t meant it. She wanted to help. Wanted to figure out the hold it had on Imogen. Wanted to protect her. So she asked to hold the gem, the thing most precious to Imogen in that moment. Imogen asked her not to do anything with it, so she promised not to. Not without her permission first. Without Imogen’s explicit consent. Without it being Imogen’s choice.
But then Delilah… Delilah took over her body, pulled her limbs into submission the way a puppeteer pulls strings. She filled Laudna’s chest with a dull throbbing, unlike anything Laudna had felt in years. The sensation got more intense, the pulse - a heartbeat? Was that what it felt like? - increasing, getting warmer and warmer until…
“I’ve taken care of it for you.”
One last burst of warmth, of that strange throbbing heartbeat, hit her in the chest and she desperately hoped against hope that it was going to be okay. As she started to feel control of her body return to her, she opened her palm to find the gem splayed there in pieces. Cold. Broken. She felt dread creep up her spine, unused to the feeling of fright after years of being immune, her body colder than it had been in years.
She scrambled to apologise, to explain herself, to fix the situation but…
“You lied.”
The words, the emotion, the look of betrayal on Imogen’s face cut to Laudna’s core. She swore she hadn’t meant to do anything. Tried to reconcile the feeling the gem had given her as she promised, begged, “Imogen, I, I can fix it. I'll fix it. We'll fix it.”
Imogen’s face schooled itself into a look of defeat, a look of hurt and dismissal that didn’t match her statement of agreement. “Yeah, we'll fix it. We'll fix it. I'm going to go to bed, Laudna.”
Laudna’s name sounded wrong. Imogen always spoke Laudna’s name with such kindness. From the day they met, always kindness. But now, it fell out of her mouth with pain. With a finality Laudna had never heard. So Laudna let her go, with a simple and broken, “All right.”
Once upon a time, Laudna had sworn to herself that nothing was allowed to make Imogen cry, not as long as Laudna lived. Yet tears had welled in her eyes and then slowly rolled down her face as she uttered those two words, “You lied.”
Standing on the deck of the airship, Laudna was spiralling. Her mind was stuck on the two words Imogen threw at her with such emotion it still burned.
“You lied.”
At first all she kept telling herself was that she hadn’t lied. She hadn’t. She was taken over by Delilah, her body no longer her own. Just a puppet in Delilah’s increasing torment of Laudna and those she held dear.
But a gnawing thought crept into her mind. In a way she had lied. She had lied to herself. She had lied to herself everyday since she had met Imogen. Had told herself that she was deserving of people. Of friends, just like everyone else. That she was working toward the goal Bella had set for her all those years ago. That soon she could return to see Bella having succeeded in no longer being a monster.
Leaving Bella had been hard. She had lied to her to spare her feelings. One small lie to protect her. One last act of kindness. In her mind, there was never going to be a day when Delilah was quiet, where her soul was her own. When she was not the monster. She had walked the desert for ten years, ruminating on her nature and circumstances. She always came to the same conclusion, her mind never changing. In her heart, she knew the truth.
But then she met Imogen.
Imogen gave her a hope unlike anything she had felt before. She made Laudna believe she could defeat the monstrous side of herself and become the person Bella wanted her to be. That, one day, the truth she had come to accept was just a misconception. It wasn’t that the day would never come, it was just something she needed to believe to be able to walk away from the sliver of happiness she had somehow found. She began to tell herself that she was improving, day by day, little by little. She told herself that she was succeeding where she thought she would fail.
And therein lay the lie. She was still failing. She was still a monster.
When Imogen and Laudna met, Imogen explained the peace that Laudna’s thoughts brought her mind. Laudna promised that, if Imogen explained how she brought that peace, she would keep doing it. After some teasing, Imogen told her she just needed to be herself. She asked one thing of her.
“I just want you here, that’s all. Next to me. If you want, anyway.”
Laudna agreed earnestly and they had not spent more than a few hours apart since. Imogen always maintained a light connection to Laudna’s mind, reducing the weariness and pain she received from the thoughts of every other person who came near. Laudna relished in the connection herself. She had spent so long with only her thoughts to keep her company, fearing Delilah’s commentary. Now Imogen was there to keep her company. All she had to do was think and she was never alone.
Standing on the deck of the sky ship though, Laudna felt no connection. Her lifeline was gone. Imogen had walked away from her, with intent, and severed the bridge that connected them for two years.
Laudna spiraled. She broke her promise to Imogen. If Imogen was walking away, severing their connection, then she clearly no longer brought her peace. Instead she brought her pain.
“I just want you here, that’s all. Next to me. If you want, anyway.”
In that moment Laudna felt there was no other answer to this request than an enthusiastic yes. She would rather experience the desert for centuries than to say no to the smile that graced the lavender haired beauty before her.
Having spent two years on the road with Imogen, Laudna knew that the choice had always been her own to make. If she had declined, Imogen would have accepted it.
She always accepted her choices, she always allowed Laudna the chance to choose. Imogen never dictated Laudna’s actions or tried to control her. For the first time in 30 years, maybe even more, someone respected her autonomy. So Laudna had endeavoured to treat Imogen with the same respect.
But now. Now Laudna had taken away Imogen’s choice. There was nothing to be done to repair the rock, no way to go back and stop herself from ever touching it. Part of her, deep down inside, knew that she too was not in control of her actions. But it was her body, her hand, and her unwanted but always present patron that had caused this. Her. It always came back to Laudna.
Laudna had taken Imogen’s trust, Imogen’s autonomy, Imogen’s choice and crushed it in her hand like the rock she now held.
“Imogen, I, I can fix it. I'll fix it. We'll fix it.”
She had meant it as a promise. She would do whatever it took to fix the rock. Not just the rock, but them.
But what did her promises mean anymore?
She had promised Imogen she would be careful with the rock. That she wouldn’t do anything without permission, and look what had happened. Mere seconds and her promise was broken. They were broken. The two years they had spent together, the best years of her life, destroyed in an instant. All the promises she had made to Imogen were lies in disguise. Broken promises from a broken monster, during a broken friendship that should never have been allowed. She didn’t deserve Imogen. All she deserved was pain.
How could she ever fix this? Should she even try? Surely Imogen was better off without such a dead weight constantly by her side. Imogen, who looked past what everyone else saw and seemingly recognised something good in Laudna now knew the truth; Laudna was not worth even the small space she took up.
Laudna found a dark and secluded area of the deck and curled in on herself. She would wait here until morning, her body frozen in grief. Her mind racing, her heart broken, and so very alone.