Chapter Text
The plane still hadn’t started moving, even though the scheduled departure time had passed ten minutes ago. Imogen ran her finger along the zipper of the backpack in her lap, fighting the urge to check her license and wallet again. She did just that two minutes ago; and besides, didn’t taking out her wallet make it more likely that someone would want to steal it? Though she guessed they’d have nowhere to go on the plane. Maybe they’d make their move on the airport bus when they landed. If they landed.
A child started to wail several rows back, and Imogen felt that she was just about to lose her goddamn mind.
She hadn’t packed her earbuds—of course she hadn’t. The prospect of a week in Gelvaan was growing even bleaker, which she hadn’t thought was possible. And her earplugs must be waiting for her return in her dorm at the Starpoint Conservatory, standing their guard on her bedside table.
The conversations from around the plane were starting to filter in, suddenly seeming louder, even though she knew that was just her mind playing tricks, and her temple started throbbing. Fucking great. Sensory overload and a headache was just what had been missing from her itinerary.
She scanned her surroundings, trying to find something to distract herself. There was her neighbor in the window seat, she guessed—she hadn’t paid them much mind with the way their dark clothes blended in with the seat upholstery in the outrageously early pre-dawn light. It was a woman (she assumed), probably also in her twenties, though Imogen couldn’t tell if she looked older or younger than herself. She had long straight black hair that had probably once been held in a neat ponytail—Imogen could see what was left of it peeking out from behind the woman’s shoulders, the red tie almost level with the leather coat’s collar. Most of her hair was now framing her pale face in scattered strands. From under the strands, headphone wires (wow, when was the last time she’d seen those?) meandered down, barely visible against the jacket. Imogen traced a black wire up to its origin, noting the golden glint of an ear cuff of some kind, half-obscured by the hair.
It was a couple seconds later that Imogen’s brain registered the headphones properly, now placing the origin of the rhythmic backdrop to the din of voices in the cabin. The music wasn’t blaring on full volume or anything, it was just that Imogen’s hearing was freakishly sensitive, and with the open-eared headphones barely a foot away from her, she could easily pick out broad details. The song seemed nice—lively and with a catchy riff, but tempered a bit by the female singer’s powerful vocals. Not what Imogen would usually listen to, but not at all unpleasant, either.
In fact, she found that focusing on the barely audible harmonies helped her tune out the worst of the talking, and she let out a sigh she hadn’t realized she had been holding. Even the child calmed down somewhat, their now intermittent whimpering almost matching the beat. The woman was also tapping along, the fingers of the hand closest to Imogen moving in a complicated pattern.
Suddenly, she turned her head and fixed her eyes straight on Imogen’s, tilting her head quizzically, brows rising in a polite question. Her eyes were so dark that the irises blended in with the pupils.
Imogen was so mortified realizing she’d just spent a good few minutes staring at this absolute stranger that she didn’t even go as far as to open her mouth, just froze with her eyes wide.
The woman didn’t show any displeasure, however—on the contrary, she flashed Imogen a wide grin and extended her hand.
“Hi there! I’m Laudna. Nice to meet you!”
Imogen blinked. The hand was still there when she opened her eyes back, as was the smile. She had no script for this situation.
“Uh… nice to meet you, too?” That probably hadn’t sounded very polite, intoned like it was a question. But it probably was better than continuing to stare at her neighbor awkwardly. Laudna nodded encouragingly, and so, even though Imogen had a vague feeling people didn’t usually exchange names with their flight neighbors (she wouldn’t know, she never talked to people if she could help it), she found herself following up: “My name’s Imogen.”
She cast her eyes downward to escape eye contact (beautiful as the woman was), and registered again the outstretched hand Laudna was still holding.
She wasn’t usually one for physical contact, either, but nothing about this was going to plan anyway. It’s just some stranger who’ll forget I exist in three hours, she tried telling herself. It was sort of working. If I’m too awkward, we can just go back to ignoring each other. So, bracing herself, she shook the offered hand.
Laudna’s hand was pleasant to touch, actually—chilly, if a bit sticky. (Imogen imagined that after the anxiety of last-minute preparations and going through airport security, hers wasn’t doing much better.) And her grip stayed firm, even when Imogen accidentally squeezed too tight and elicited a pained “oof” out of her new acquaintance.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” She said, letting go immediately. “I’m used to haulin’ stuff more than I am to shakin’ hands.”
There was a beat of silence before she realised just how utterly pathetic that had sounded. Well. Perfect stranger. Will forget I exist in three hours. That was her new mantra now, seemed like.
“Oh, I can see that,” Laudna said, not sounding the least bit judgemental—more inquisitive and… appreciative? In fact, either Imogen’s poor brain had officially lost the plot, or she wasn’t wrong in noticing that Laudna had just checked out her biceps.
Imogen did like how this shirt made her arms look. Maybe there was some good in helping out with the shipments at Prudaj Textiles for extra cash, after all.
“Um. Thanks?” What was it with her and phrasing her answers like questions? Laudna just smiled at her again, in thought.
Imogen did not have a script for what to say next. Which was nothing new for her (outside of the blissfully scripted phone calls at work which sucked in every other aspect), and she had a nagging suspicion that the conversation already went off the rails in a way that wasn’t salvageable. She’d try plastering on her customer service smile and hope that worked, except she was still on edge from not enough sleep and the airport and the noise and everything. So instead, she just stared somewhere at Laudna’s shoulder and hoped the strained expression on her face didn’t come off as hostile.
The plane lurched slightly, and the scenery behind Laudna’s shoulder finally started moving. Laudna clapped, slowing down her hands at the last moment so as not to make a loud sound.
Imogen exhaled, feeling the anxiety of things not going to plan dissipate for a second, just to be replaced with the anxiety of the impending lift off. She did not like flying. Being a physics major really didn’t help in the slightest.
By the time the plane manoeuvred onto the runway and started picking up speed, the engines growing steadily louder, Imogen wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and pretend the outside world didn’t exist. That was probably not a great idea, though, what with the safety belt and also societal standards.
Instead, she had an idea that was so out of the ordinary for her that she didn’t let herself spare the brainpower to question it.
Stranger. Three hours.
“So, um, what brings you to Taloned Highlands?” she asked, trying to distract herself with conversation completely unlike the recluse she was.
“Oh, I’m so excited!” Laudna answered immediately, not turning back from where she was glued to the window, which suited Imogen just fine. “I don’t really stay in one place for long, you see, and while Jrusar was a lot of fun, I wanted to switch things up and stay someplace quiet, you know? For a few months, at least, and then I’ll see where that takes me. I found a job opening in this antique shop in Sruwargas—I’m going to love it there, I’m sure—and this quaint cottage to rent in a small town called Gelvaan, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it? I’ve seen the pictures on the internet, it looks absolutely lovely—all these rolling hills and wildflowers and did you know they raise horses there?”
Imogen blinked. Swallowed.
“I—yeah, I do know that. Grew up there, in fact, my daddy works at the Faramore stables.”
The thought of someone voluntarily choosing to visit her desolate hometown, even being enthusiastic about it, made her stomach twist in a vaguely uncomfortable way. Or maybe that was the lift off.
“Really?” Laudna beamed. "Isn't that serendipitous? Would you care to tell me more about Gelvaan? I've researched it extensively, of course, but there really is nothing better than learning from a local. And the website I found was a bit... sparse on the details.”
Imogen hadn't even known Gelvaan had a website. Also, she was still not over the whole her-shitty-hometown-as-a-tourist-destination thing. She tried to rake her brain for something, but all that came to mind were all the good-for-nothing drunkards who'd holler about never having left the place as if it were their lives' biggest achievement. (It probably was. The day Imogen realized that was the day she resolved to leave it no matter what.)
Some of that must have shown on her face because Laudna winced.
”Or, you know, if you don't want that then that's perfectly fine, really,” she added, obviously aiming for nonchalance but not quite hitting the mark. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
And she was, too, Imogen could tell. (Which was way out of the ordinary, for her to be able to reliably tell apart someone else's emotions, but she wasn't gonna look the gift horse in the mouth. Metaphorically. She very much would check if it were a real horse.) The thought of someone so kind and unapologetically herself, in Gelvaan, made something dark roil in Imogen’s gut.
And the thought of dropping the topic, saying nothing, and letting Laudna’s excitement shatter like beer bottles impacting against bricks… (Imogen didn’t look down on her hands, but she did clench them, healed scars tugging numbly.)
Well. She wasn't gonna let that happen if she could help it.
(A traitorous part of her pointed out that the excuse about perfect strangers didn't apply now, what with said stranger headed straight to her tiny hometown, so she really ought to be worrying more about social faux pas.
She told it to go fuck itself.)
“I'm afraid it's not quite as pleasant as it seems from the outside,” she replied after taking a deep breath. (It didn’t help, but she pretended it did.) “You know, that antique shop you mentioned? I think I know the one. A neighbor down the street would always rant about how it’s the devil’s work because, and I quote, all them fancy goblets were makin’ the children want to turn into vampires, out of all things. I dunno what she has against goblets specifically, but… you know.”
“Ah, it’s that sort of quaint town, then,” Laudna mused, frowning. “This changes things. I might need to find somewhere to stay in Sruwargas, after all. It wouldn’t do to repeat the Undead Incident.”
“The Undead Incident?” Imogen repeated. That did not sound pleasant at all.
“Oh, I was chased out of a town like that once!” Laudna explained in an alarmingly positive tone. “To be fair to them, I was squatting in an empty building—didn’t have much in way of funds back then—but, you know, it was quite an experience. I was skinnier back then, and, well, you see how pale I am,” she twirled her forearm where the jacket sleeve had ridden up, “so I guess I can’t fault their logic. I even got holy water flung at me! Well, at least, I assume it was holy.”
“Laudna, that’s…” even aghast as she was at the story, Imogen couldn’t quite keep her lips from twitching. “That’s horrifying, but… you’re a great storyteller, you know that?”
Wait. That wasn’t what she had meant to say.
“Oh?” Laudna beamed. “I think that’s the first time someone ever said that to me! It’s always ‘oh but you’re too rambly’ and ‘aah you move your hands too much’.”
“What, really?” Imogen couldn’t believe it. Well, she could, but only because she was already used to believing in the worst of people. “Your voice is so nice, though,”—Imogen, no—“an’ I think your gestures make perfect sense”—Imogen, stop—“an’ the way you pick your words is just so… funny?”
Funny?
“Wait, that’s not—I mean, like. Engagin’, that’s the word!”
Imogen couldn’t remember being so thrilled with something in ages, but she really was proud of herself of finding the right word and getting her foot out of her month, okay? And besides, Laudna was nodding and clapping in delight, so Imogen wasn’t even that much mortified to show her excitement.
“Anyway,” Imogen tried to force the conversation back into less treacherous waters, which she really should admit by now was a task doomed to fail. “Gelvaan sucks, but I got a scholarship, left for Jrusar soon as I could, an’ good riddance.”
“Well,” Laudna sighed, “I’m glad you found a way out, at least.”
“Yeah, joke’s on them, I guess, me leavin’, ‘cause all this time Mrs. Tildamere, the neighbor, the one with the goblets, was givin’ me shit for wantin’ to go off to study science. That meant I was going to end up a spinster, see, which is apparently the worst thing ever that can happen to a Gelvaani girl.” Imogen threw up her hands, bumping against Laudna’s arm accidentally, then locked her fingers to stop endangering her companion. “Not that I was planning to marry anyone anyway,” she grumbled, “I’m too…”
“Aromantic? Or asexual?” Laudna supplied helpfully.
“Uh, no,” Imogen felt her cheeks heat up. Less treacherous waters, alright… “Just… very… gay.”
Really, Imogen?
“Ah, that explains some things,” Laudna mused. Blinked. “I’m sorry, that was too blunt. But regardless, congratulations!”, she grinned. “I’m still exploring labels myself, but I’m glad you found yours.”
Imogen felt a modicum of hope. “Exploring labels” sounded way more promising than “statistically likely to be straight”. Even if it turned out that Laudna herself was aromantic. Or asexual.
Some of the folks on that spectrum still were into relationships, right? Letters was ace, and he had this thing with Frida, what did they call it? A queerplatonic relationship. They even had matching hoodies, for fuck’s sake. Imogen wouldn’t say no to a matching hoodie…
Not that this line of thought was relevant in any way.
(She was hopeless.)
(She really should read up on that stuff, though. She should ask Letters, they always had some helpful links to share.)
“Anyhow,” she said, willing herself back to the real world, “I’m sure this time around the purple hair will mean I’m a witch or somethin’.”
“I personally think being a witch is underrated,” Laudna offered conspiratorially. “Imagine if you could, I don’t know, shoot lightning out of your fingertips! Or read people’s minds!”
“Oh, believe me, my own mind is plenty crowded already. Cramming even more thoughts into it would be a disaster,” Imogen grimaced. “I wish I could fly, though,” she mused, a softness to her face. “That would be nice.”
“That’s the spirit!” Laudna smiled. “And for the record,” she added, “I think the purple hair suits you, regardless of what people would say.”
“Uh—thanks?” she knew it did, objectively, but hearing it from Laudna was… an experience, okay?
If Imogen were to spontaneously combust, she was sure that could be explained by the pressure change.
“Imogen?”
Laudna’s voice brought Imogen to reality from the depths of her musings. They’d sat in a companionable silence for a while, Imogen still glowing a bit from the compliment and trying her best to tone down the gay disaster that her brain was insisting on being. But as the minutes passed, her thoughts turned back to the trip, and to Gelvaan, and frankly, she fell into a bit of a funk over the whole unappealing prospect.
“Yeah?”
“Please forgive me if I’m overstepping,” Laudna started, very deliberately cautious. “From what you’ve said, I gather that you don’t like Gelvaan much at all. Not that you don’t have every right to!” she hastened to add.
“Yeah,” Imogen sighed. Not like she hadn’t just been thinking about that, anyway.
“But now you’re coming back,” Laudna offered—an observation, not a question.
“For the week!” Imogen’s reply was maybe louder than it should have been. “I just have to get through the week and then I can leave.”
It was then that it hit her.
She had to get through a week in Gelvaan. And she really, really, really did not want to subject herself to that.
“Um, Imogen?” It must have shown on her face somehow, because there was a tenderness to Laudna’s voice that she wouldn’t have expected given her general exuberance. ”Are you going to be all right?”
“I don’t know, is the thing!” Imogen replied and winced, the tone too desperate for her own liking. “Sorry,” she hastened to add, but Laudna was nodding along, waiting for her to elaborate. “I’m used to it, you know? Nothing I haven’t heard or seen before. But on the other hand…” She hesitated but pressed on. “I’ve been doing so much better lately, you know? This past semester, I really—well—let’s just say things hadn’t been great for a while. But this year, I found some friends for fucking once in my life, an’ I’ve been doing much better at the whole—” venturing outside her room for something other than going to class, and cooking something other than instant noodles, and feeling something other than constant anxiety and bone-deep tiredness. “At… things.”
Laudna nodded again, her ever-present grin fading a bit in a way that made Imogen think she knew exactly what she meant.
“An’ I just… I don’t know if I can take it as well when I know things can actually be good, you know?”
She surprised even herself with this. Sure, she hadn’t been looking forward to coming home, to put it mildly, but now that she thought about it… And without her headphones, too, or her collection of horse plushies that started amassing in her dorm room lately… Sure, Flora, real actual Flora would be there (she hoped, who knew if Faramore had sold her yet?). But much as Imogen loved Flora, was she worth it if literally everything else about the place sucked balls?
She had a sudden, intense urge to scream at the pilot to turn the plane around. She bit the inside of her cheek instead.
Fuck it. Imogen kicked her Converse off and drew her knees to her chest, showing off her striped lavender socks for the world to see.
“Thank you for telling me,” Laudna said, making Imogen raise her head a bit from where she let it fall onto her knees. “I do know, I’m afraid. There are places I never would want to go back to, even though they seem much nicer than abandoned shacks.” She scratched her neck and frowned, putting her hand back down slowly.
There was a dark undertone to her words—Imogen couldn’t help a chill that went through her. Whatever nice-seeming places Laudna had been to in the past, Imogen did not want to visit them.
“You know,” Laudna said, contemplative, “this might sound weird—more weird than usual, in any case, and feel free to tell me if I’m overstepping, but. If it ever gets too much and you feel like you have nowhere to go, you are more than welcome to stay with me until you figure something out. I…” she paused to take a breath, voice scratchy in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, “I didn’t have anyone to turn to the time I had to leave everything, and I wouldn’t wish that on… Well, okay, I would wish that on my worst enemy, the bitch—but probably not anyone else. I understand that you have friends and so you have some options already, but, you know, in case you need something nearby? Am I talking too much? I think I’m talking too much. Anyway, just something to keep in mind!”
There was no “just” in the way Laudna was wringing her hands, though. This was something very important to her, and Imogen could only imagine how much given the circumstances Laudna just described.
“That’s…” she didn’t know what to call it. Laudna’s offer was definitely overstepping some boundaries, ones Imogen actually understood implicitly, and it concerned her a bit—a lot, actually,—that a part of her wanted to start nodding and asking Laudna to please take her anywhere but there. But it was also kind, and raw in a way that made Imogen ache in sympathy for hardships she knew nothing about. Maybe Laudna was some kind of manipulative mastermind set out to prey on vulnerable plane neighbors, but… Imogen couldn’t see it. Laudna felt real to her, in a way few people did.
“That’s very generous of you, Laudna, truly,” was what she settled on. “I don’t think things are gonna turn out so bad for me, but in case they do, it really helps to know I have someone to turn to.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear,” Laudna said, and she sounded like she meant it. “Thank you.”
Imogen almost started replying how it was her who should be thanking Laudna, but it felt too… trivial, to reduce the conversation to an exchange of pleasantries. She could almost physically feel the weight of Laudna’s offer, strumming in her bones and making her teeth ache, her fingers warm as if from a phantom handshake. Maybe it was the altitude, she didn’t know. But it was there.
“Hmm. It really is a wonderful feeling, offering that to someone,” Laudna mused after a pause, more to herself than to Imogen. And if the gleam in her eyes didn’t quite match the way her smile dimmed slightly, well. It wasn’t Imogen’s place to call that out.
There was an awful staticky screech of plane speakers coming to life, and a too-loud, distorted voice started announcing how everything was going fine with the flying tin can of doom and that they even made up for their delayed departure. It shut Imogen up mid-word as she was recounting what exactly studying astrophysics entailed—there was no hope she could continue a conversation with this racket.
She didn’t quite manage to hide her grimace at the sudden sound, though.
“Too loud?” Laudna said sympathetically once the announcement stopped, bringing her voice down to a raspy stage whisper.
Imogen nodded, cringing. “Way too sensitive to sounds, sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize, I understand. I struggle with textures!” Laudna offered as if it were a trade. “Especially some foods.” The way she said it, she seemed offended by the very fact of said foods’ existence. “Much as I’ve tried to like them, it’s just… bleh.” She wiggled a hand in a complicated pattern that presumably illustrated the point. “I only recently learned that’s a thing, you know, all my life people just assumed I was being too picky.”
Imogen nodded. She didn’t know, not really—she personally had never had any problems with food—but she could absolutely sympathize with having to face challenges that others dismissed just because they couldn’t fathom why it would be a problem. And then you still had to get up and deal with them every day.
As if to illustrate her point, the fucking child from a couple rows back started wailing again, and she couldn’t stop her palms from moving to cover her ears, grimacing. She could feel a dull throbbing in her temple, and she didn’t like that one bit.
(Imogen tried her best not to be angry at the child themself—wasn’t their fault they were stuck on the plane—but that was taking up a lot of her willpower. She liked kids, she did. In theory. In practice, though, they inevitably were so fucking loud.)
Laudna made a sympathetic face, her hand moving as if to touch Imogen’s shoulder, then stopping abruptly and deliberately returning to lay in her lap. Imogen found herself weirdly disappointed with that.
That wasn’t like her at all. Usually, when someone tried to touch her, she’d move away as discreetly as possible. And a literal stranger, too? This was… weird, was all.
“Is there anything I could do to help?” Laudna asked in the same raspy whisper which, oddly, didn’t sound as grating as it ought to have.
“It’s just my own damn fault,” Imogen said, grimacing and shaking her head. (Then bringing her hand up to massage her temple because of course that made the throbbing worse.) “I managed to forget both my earplugs and my earphones an’ I’m just, you know, I could deal with the kid, or the engines, or thinkin’ about going to my hometown, or with the fact that we’re all stuck in a glorified tin can way too far up in the air, just—”
“Just not all at once,” Laudna nodded, as if she were being absolutely, perfectly reasonable and not just whining about all the overwhelming details she needed to daily accommodate for. That reminded her of Orym, the way he always listened and nodded and squeezed her shoulder when everything was being too much. But much as she cherished his support, she could never shake the feeling that she shouldn’t impose too much, that she shouldn’t add her own worries to the shadows that hunted his eyes sometimes.
But with Laudna… She wanted to. She was painfully aware that she was unloading her baggage onto a literal stranger who couldn’t even leave, squeezed in between her and the window. But this stranger was listening intently, and accommodating her at once, no questions asked, and finishing her sentences and making her feel seen and—and saying something that Imogen had completely tuned out.
“I’m so sorry, could you please repeat that?” It came out without any conscious input on her part, by way of sheer rote memorization.
“Of course!”—that was the quietest, most deliberate exclamation point Imogen could ever remember hearing. “I was saying, if music at all helps, do you want to listen to mine? I’m afraid my collection is a bit… eclectic, but I would be happy to share.” And she wiggled a headphone that she took off at some point, turning it in her hand.
Huh, those were weird. Imogen thought she saw something like these once—they had an ear clip design that held them in place much like glasses, yet independent of each other. Which made them perfect for sharing, really.
Imogen briefly contemplated refusing like a (passably) polite human being, but the idea of finding at least some relief from the overwhelming sounds all around was too appealing. She didn’t stand a chance.
“Well, if that’s not too much trouble,”—Laudna vehemently shook her head,—“then yes, please, that sounds amazin’.”
And she smiled, shyly, trying and failing not to self-consciously hope that it made her look cute.
There was something unexpectedly intimate about sharing wired headphones with someone, more so than the usual bluetooth ones. Imogen couldn’t even remember the last time she did that. In middle school, maybe—she’d walk from school to the stables with Sam sometimes, back when she’d had a crush on him and thought that listening to over-compressed AC/DC on his MP3 player was the coolest thing ever.
She was getting the same butterflies in her stomach now as Laudna fussed about attaching the ear clip to her ear, her fingers brushing against it in a way that made Imogen’s eyelids flutter.
Nope. She wasn’t thinking about that.
The music helped. At the very least, Imogen was able to tune out the worst of the sounds and focus on whatever came up next in Laudna’s playlist.
That is, until Laudna started saying something, and all Imogen could do was squeeze her eyes shut and reach up to her ear to get the headphone off, tugging at the fucking ear clip that stubbornly held on, how did this thing even stay put in the first place—
The music stopped, and Imogen could finally breathe.
“Sorry!” Laudna said, ever emotive and loud. “Are Talking Heads not your thing?”
Imogen shook her head, then realized she needed to elaborate.
“Sorry, no, nothing wrong with the song.” She’d kind of liked it, in fact, even though the meaning went way over her head. ”It’s just, auditory processing disorder,” Imogen explained apologetically. “Tryin’ to pick apart your words and the lyrics is like tryin’ to split my head in two. With somethin’ blunt and staticky.”
“Oh! I’ve read about it!”, Laudna started nodding with interest, blessedly bringing her voice down without Imogen needing to ask. “I don’t have it myself, but it’s fascinating, don’t you think? It really makes me wonder how exactly these signals get processed by the brain. I have synesthesia, for instance, I can hear some of my thoughts and feelings as if they were music—hard to explain, really—and then I got this MRI scan done—long story,—” she took a very brief pause to scratch her neck reflexively, “anyway, I spent hours trying to figure out where on the scan you could maybe notice that. Brains are so weird! It’s amazing. Oh!” She blinked and took another short pause to catch her breath a bit. “Am I oversharing? I’m told I’m prone to oversharing. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable!”
That last part sounded like the kind of stock phrases Imogen fell back on at her job taking bulk orders at Prudaj Textiles. She shuddered. It paid better than the stable hand position she’d had in Gelvaan and she needed the difference—and besides, there weren’t any stables near the campus, anyway,—but she’d take mucking stalls over talking to people anytime.
Well, except for now, maybe.
“Not at all,” she replied, and meant it, surprisingly. “I gotta admit, I hadn’t thought much about it past it being a pain in the butt—pardon the language—but it’s true that it’s fascinatin’. An’ it sounds beautiful, what you’re describin’ about music an’ thoughts an’ feelings,”—was that why Laudna’s voice was so lovely, musical as it was? Imogen didn’t trust herself to ask that second part without blurting out the first, so she backtracked. “Did you find anythin’ in the end?”
“Find what? Oh, on the scan. Nope, no idea in the slightest! But I had a good time regardless,” Laudna grinned.
Imogen found herself smiling, too. Laudna’s ability to find joy in whatever she was doing was really something.
“Oh! What was it that you were sayin’ just now, before you paused the music?” Imogen asked belatedly. “I’m so sorry I keep asking you to repeat yourself.”
“No need to apologize,” Laudna answered. “Talking with you is a pleasure, and this way, I just have more to say!”
That was, possibly, the nicest thing anyone had ever told Imogen when she hadn’t heard them the first time. Even if it sounded a bit weird when Laudna put it like that.
“What was I saying, what was I saying…” Laudna scrunched her brows adorably, then closed her eyes and started counting off on one hand. “Music, MRI, brains are weird, no, that was before, and there were these pretty clouds—cirrus, I think?..—and, music, oh, Psycho Killer came up, and I thought—I was saying, we should take a picture!”
“Guh?” Imogen asked eloquently. She had no doubt there was some internal logic in Laudna’s (adorable) retracing of her thoughts. But still… Psycho Killer?
“Oh, I meant, that’s probably coming off creepy, me inviting you to find lodgings together when we just barely met,” Laudna explained with another complicated gesture. “But if we take a photo together and you send it to someone you trust, then that would make it harder for me to, you know, do anything untoward to you? Not that I would ever want to, of course!” she hastened to add, “I’m just trying to be cautious for your sake.”
Imogen blinked. She could follow the logic now, sort of, and jumping to prove she was unlikely to be a kidnapper or something did seem, somehow, like the sort of thing Laudna would do.
It was adorable.
(Warning rainbow sirens were blaring in Imogen’s head but she suspected it was too late to help that anyway.)
“That sounds reasonable. I think,” she finally replied, and went on to pull out her phone. After a bit of uncomfortable squirming trying to find an angle that would fit both of them and to make a somewhat presentable expression (she didn’t hold out high hopes), Imogen clicked the shutter.
“Oh wow, that’s…”
“Awful,” Laudna finished.
It really was. Neither Laudna’s ponytail nor her own curls had been in a state that could be even remotely improved with a minute of hand-combing (in fact, she suspected she’d just made hers worse). The circles under Imogen’s eyes were rivaled only by Laudna’s, standing out starker on her paler skin. Laudna’s earphones were hanging limply on their wires in front of her crumpled shirt, the center of the image falling right on a patch of blue tape holding one of the wires together. And the whole image was off-center, too, Imogen’s shoulder clipped weirdly, and half of the image taken up by the window, the sun’s glare fucking with color balance and washing out Imogen’s hair to a moldy-looking grayish pink.
Imogen’s expression looked like she had slept like shit in the last several days and wasn’t quite sure what she was doing in a gravity-defying contraption thousands of meters above ground, let alone taking a photo with this woman by her side. (To be fair, that was true on all counts.)
Laudna, meanwhile, was staring right at the camera with her eyes wide open and a wide, toothy grin across her face. She was also giving a thumbs-up. She looked exactly like a potential kidnapper, just a very polite one that seemed to be delighted at being acknowledged in her evil role.
They stared at the picture in silence for awhile.
“I kind of like it!” was Laudna’s verdict, and, surprisingly, Imogen found herself agreeing. The picture was just like their conversation so far—awkward and rocky, but also genuine. It was fitting.
“I kind of do, too,” Imogen smiled. “I’ll send it to my friends once we land and there’s cell service again.”
They were some minutes into warm, companionable silence when the plane lurched suspiciously. Heart rate picking up, Imogen paused the music and took off a headphone just in time to catch the start of an announcement. A flight attendant cheerfully informed them that they would be entering a patch of turbulence, please keep your seatbelts fastened and stay calm, it’s a totally normal occurrence.
Oh, Imogen could stay calm alright. She had a wealth of practice staying calm when everything was going to shit. She was so very calm that her hands were starting to hurt from gripping her elbows, and her head was starting to spin from her breathing growing shallower with every inhale.
Had she mentioned she did not like flying?
“Imogen? Are you all right?”
Fuck. That wouldn’t do. She knew, logically, that the flight attendant was right and the likelihood of them crashing to their fucking deaths in the middle of Hellcatch was so low it was statistically negligible. She didn’t want Laudna to see her being irrational.
(In Laudna’s eyes, she’d much rather remain a weird neighbor with purple hair and nice biceps than an anxious wreck who had a panic attack on the plane.)
She inhaled deliberately—it didn’t go past the lump in her throat but points for trying—and tried for nonchalance.
“Yeah, why?” There. Nailed it.
“Oh, it’s just that you went pale, and your knuckles are white, and you didn’t respond the first two times I talked to you.” Well, when she put it like that. “Not that I’m judging!” Laudna hastened to add. “Is that… normal?”
Weirdly enough, that made Imogen want to laugh. So she did.
“It’s, well, it’s normal for me in the sense my brain’s a mess. But, uh,” she could do it, she could, “no, I’m… not. Alright. I’ve a bit of a thing with heights,” she mumbled, doing her best not to feel embarrassed. “I’m actually really close to a panic attack right now.”
She stared at the upholstery of the seat in front of her. She didn’t want to see even a trace of disappointment or judgement on Laudna’s face.
“Oh, I knew it!” Laudna exclaimed. Then, “I mean, sorry, that’s not something to be excited about.”
“No, that’s… refreshing, actually,” Imogen admitted. It definitely beat the resigned disappointment of her father that slowly replaced his worry as she grew older but not better. And it also, if she were being honest, beat Orym’s quiet concern, and Dorian’s worry which sometimes made the two of them feed off of each other in a double helix of broken-brain doom, and FCG’s trigger-happy unprompted therapy sessions.
Out of all of them, she probably liked Ashton’s support the most—he never hovered, but would divert the attention from her to give her some time to breathe, or tossed her a can of her favorite soda that they conveniently kept a stash of in their room. She loved her friends, she did, and they helped her lots, it was just that she never dealt well with being the focus of anyone’s care.
“How can I help you?” Laudna asked, direct and blissfully unpitying. “I’ve got some water here,” she produced a sorry-looking, one-third-full plastic bottle that was all crumpled from the pressure change. Imogen drained it like it was a painkiller. “Um. Do you want me to hold your hand?”
Imogen’s heart would flip if it weren’t already busy pretending turbulence was a predator she could outrun if she just had enough oxygen in her limbs.
“Do I what?” she repeated, eloquent as ever.
“Well, I’ve read that physical contact can sometimes be grounding for the person experiencing a panic attack—but only sometimes, so I should ask first!—and it’s the one thing I can think of doing apart from the water. You absolutely needn’t take me up on it if that’s not something you want!”
Well.
She really shouldn’t. The main reason Imogen wanted to agree wasn’t because of the anxiety.
This was probably unfair. Did it count as harassment if she misled a beautiful woman to believe she needed an emotional support hand-holding when she was in fact just being a gay disaster?
Besides, she usually shied away from physical contact when she was feeling off—way too much attention on her. So she didn’t even know if this would work. And she wasn’t wearing her gloves—they were somewhere deep inside her backpack, where she’d stuffed them on autopilot along with everything else she’d had to take out of her pockets for the security scan. Laudna had already shook hands with her, true, but still, her scars—
“I swear I can hear you overthinking this in your head.” Laudna smiled at her, telegraphing the joke. “Please, if it can make you feel better, let me try to help. Well, and only if you’re comfortable with it, of course! I know I can be… a bit off-putting.”
What? Why?
“Nonono, that’s absolutely not the case,” Imogen assured. “Quite the opposite, in fact.” Shit. Really, Imogen? She could feel herself blushing, again. Well. Not like she had any dignity left to lose. “Laudna, darlin’, I don’t know who told you that but I want to have words with them.” And oh, she did, if her hands itching for a punch were any indication. “You’re beautiful. And I would love for you to hold my hand. I just don’t want to take advantage of you, is all.”
Laudna was looking at her, mouth open slightly, the emotion in her eyes indescribable but raw in a way that made Imogen ache with the need to press a kiss to her temple to soothe it.
“You mean it?” Laudna asked in a voice so small it didn’t sound anything like her. Or rather, it sounded like a facet of Laudna she was yet to know—and by gods, she did want to know.
She was so, so fucked.
“Yeah, honey. I do.”
Laudna’s hand was cool and elegant, long pale fingers moving with purpose and grace. Her black nails were just blunt enough to not hurt when she moved them slowly along Imogen’s fingers. The contrast between the nails and the soft finger pads was very welcome, Imogen found.
She wasn’t usually one to pay particular attention to beautiful women’s hands, but… she was having a moment, okay?
(That was a lie. She absolutely was the one to pay attention to beautiful women’s hands.)
The good thing was, this well and truly drove the anxiety spiral out of her mind. In fact, it proved very easy to lean closer into Laudna’s touch, her forearm finding comfort in the cool leather of Laudna’s jacket; to press their arms together, too, providing grounding pressure and support. And, when Laudna used her other hand to hold Imogen’s in between the two, the vaguely ticklish sensation on her palm sending shivers up Imogen’s hand, to finally give a long, shaky exhale and to slowly, tentatively place her head on Laudna’s shoulder.
If Laudna had any objections, she said nothing. And if she noticed the scars on Imogen’s hands—and she must have, studying them as intimately as she was—she said nothing about that, either. She just inclined her own head, lightly resting it on the cushion of Imogen’s soft lavender tresses, and sighed contentedly.
There was not a single thought left in Imogen’s overworked, aching brain.
“…Imogen? Imogen, dear?”
“Bwuh?”
Her cheek was resting on something bony and pleasantly cool. She was hugging someone’s arm to herself. Someone’s other arm was pressing her shoulder lightly. She inhaled the smell of leather, fallen leaves, and inedible airplane curry.
Imogen was dimly aware she lacked a frame of reference for a lot of situations today (yesterday? today, probably). But she really lacked a frame of reference for this one.
“Good morning! Or afternoon, I suppose,” said a pleasant, musical voice coming from her side.
Right. The events from before rushed into her mind and she sprung up in her seat, mortified, finally realizing that she managed to fall asleep on her chance travel companion. After holding her hand to calm down from a panic attack and all but admitting she liked her, her memory helpfully supplied.
Still holding her hand, or rather, clinging on to her arm for her dear life, as her senses equally helpfully supplied.
Frantic with the need to fix whatever social gaffe she had inevitably committed, Imogen tensed up, only succeeding in pulling Laudna’s arm closer to herself, as if she’d been electrocuted and couldn’t let go.
(Judging by her body’s reaction, which was belatedly catching up and lighting certain parts of her on fire, she might as well have been.)
“We’re about to land soon,” Laudna informed her pleasantly, as if there was nothing at all unusual in the situation. “Have you seen how beautiful the fields look from this high above?”
She hadn’t, actually. Last time she visited, she was too busy powering through a pressure change-induced migraine with the help of two over-the-counter painkillers and sheer force of will.
And if she now had to press against Laudna even closer, leaning across her to squint at the scenery in the window, well, she was just making polite conversation, wasn’t she?
With the change in their relative positions, Laudna rotated her arm a bit so that her thumb rested against the back of Imogen’s forearm, rubbing an absent-minded circle as she pointed out something with her other hand.
Okay??… Not that Imogen was complaining in the slightest.
Between her mediocre eyesight and Laudna’s repetitive, grounding circles, she didn’t really catch anything apart from vaguely rectangular splotches of shades of green and the blinding glare of a lake she thought she might have been to on a fishing trip once. But she didn’t think that mattered at all. Laudna could be showing her the nine circles of Hell and she’d still be happy to watch, Laudna’s frazzled hair tickling her cheek and Laudna’s sharp elbow poking the soft spot just under her ribs.
(She was so, so fucked.)
Before long, the plane started its descent, Laudna looking sympathetically when Imogen rubbed at her temple with her free hand. Landing always sucked.
It did suck noticeably less, though, when you were cuddled up with a beautiful woman, Imogen discovered. She was quite honestly way past the mortification stage—if her being a gay disaster saved her from a migraine, well, that was totally worth it in her book. So Imogen just let her eyes fall back shut and breathed out slowly. Reality could wait, just for a few minutes.
Eventually, there was the tell-tale jolt of the chassis touching down on the landing strip and a brief moment of sensory hell as half the passengers started clapping. Imogen pried an eye open and saw that Laudna was barely touching her hands together, careful not to make a too-loud sound and also not to jostle Imogen with the arm she was still clinging to.
Laudna turned her head and smiled at her.
It was such a perfect moment that Imogen did her best to commit it to memory. She could already feel the magic start to unravel, the liminal space of a plane mid-flight replaced by the mundane. Her eardrums popped right as the bubble burst, and she could feel it all at once, now—her clammy hands, the crick in her neck, the throb in her temple. The impending pressure of being in Gelvaan that made her breath catch.
Maybe, it was the pressure change. She didn’t think it was just that, though.
“Um,” she said, wiggling to see if she could move the arm that was squished between Laudna’s and the back of the seat. And even disregarding the pins and needles that didn’t bode well in the slightest, it hurt—the need to pull away from each other and get ready to leave in a few minutes. She couldn’t just stay intertwined with Laudna like that forever, though. As appealing as that sounded.
“Hm? Oh!” Laudna moved her arm back in her lap, then rubbed at her shoulder. “Ah, circulation. I’m sorry,” she added, nodding at Imogen, “it was just so awfully cozy that I quite forgot we’d need to move soon.”
“Believe me, I understand,” Imogen said wistfully. Her tone was mirrored in Laudna’s quiet sigh, and then they both fell silent. The void of the handspan between them made Imogen’s bare arm tingle, growing harder to bear by the second.
“I’m so glad I met you,” Imogen blurted out before she could stop herself. “Really.”
“I’m so glad I met you, too,” Laudna replied, with a soft undertone so subtle that Imogen knew it was a privilege to get to hear it. There was so much in those words that was left unsaid, on both of their sides, that Imogen felt she could drown in it, drown in Laudna’s eyes that were looking straight into hers, fathomless, cut herself on Laudna’s sharp cheekbones and lose her breath against Laudna’s mouth, and she really should stop before she did something stupid—
“Oh, silly me, you need my number, right?” Laudna blurted out, breaking the spell and letting them both come to their senses, if barely. ”In case you do decide to come over, I mean.”
“Y-yeah! Here, could you type it out, please? And your name, just so it’s spelled right?” Imogen fumbled for her phone, barely avoiding dropping it under the seat. As Laudna carefully created a contact and sent a plane emoji so she had Imogen’s number on her own phone, Imogen’s shoulders sagged with relief.
Whatever happened next, at least she would have some sort of connection to Laudna. A tether. Even though they would need to part ways very soon, it wasn’t like she was losing Laudna forever.