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If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
"Don't Hesitate" - Mary Oliver
Laudna died her first death the way she lived her first life: quietly.
Oh she had screamed, of course, the pain so visceral as her blood was sucked from her flesh, the marrow stripped from her bones, that she felt her throat tear itself to shreds, but there was no sound. Lady Briarwood had made it clear that she didn’t have time for distractions.
When she woke she was alone, surrounded by corpses she recognized but had never mustered up the courage to talk to in life: the baker, the holy woman, the blacksmith’s daughter, the mischievous child with their gap-toothed smile, and more, so many more, their faces lax and their bodies crumpled. She had missed her chance, it would seem.
She stood there for a moment, or ten, or a lifetime, and just looked. She had always been bad with names but she remembered kindness. Laughter. Generosity. Whitestone had fallen on hard times but the people were strong. Their compassion ran deep, deeper even than the roots of the Sun Tree.
Laudna had always believed in the fantastical stories her parents would weave for her before bed. Stories where goodness prevailed and evil was stamped out by the righteous, where bloodshed and vengeance was an unceasing machine of misery that could only be broken by love and forgiveness and faith. As she picked her way, weak and stumbling, over the misshapen bodies of her neighbors, she didn’t look back.
And she stopped believing in fairytales.
It was unfortunate, then, that fairytales didn’t seem to stop believing in her.
They followed her like starving wolves roaming from town to town, nipping at her heels. But these were darker tales than the sugarsweet ones her fathers had acted out for her before bed, the kind that tired parents told rowdy children to frighten them into obedience. Laudna had never understood the thought behind it. She had been a quiet and studious child, preferring books and dolls to running unchecked through the streets, but she had always envied the children who were wild. It seemed like such fun, the joy of refusing to be tamed.
Now, she was the tool used to reign them in and terrify them into compliance.
So she stayed away, as much as she could. She found home in ramshackle huts at the outskirts of towns too small to do anything about the creepy woman spearing frogs and scavenging berries in the swamp late at night. And when those towns got big enough or mean enough to really take notice of her, she fled.
She became very, very good at running away.
She got used to it, the mobs and the pitchforks and the seething hate that humanity offered her now. It wasn’t normal, she knew that much, but it was her normal. Normal enough. She had Pâté for company and, when he got too lewd and had to be put in timeout, she had Lady Briarwood.
“Big D stands for big demeanor,” Laudna would rasp, mangling the lyrics of popular folk songs she had heard just to annoy Delilah into snapping at her. “I could make you dust before I ever meet you. If he ain’t fanged, then he can't bang. You can't hurt my—”
“Whhhhhhhattttt do you wanttttttttt Lauuuuuudna?”
“Just checking in, D! Got any dastardly deeds you want me to carry out? Any hot gossip from the depths of the nine hells or wherever you spend time these days?”
“All in good time…” was the usual response, and no matter how much Laudna poked and prodded she rarely got anything more out of her.
It was a lonely second life, but Laudna had always been good at being alone.
She was so good at it, in fact, that she almost missed her opportunity to turn things around.
It had been decades since she fled Whitestone. Decades since a stranger had treated her with anything kinder than mild distaste or outright hostility. So when she heard a voice, soft-spoken and desperate, ask, Please, could you help me? she almost ignored it. She was planning on being in this town only long enough to purchase some incense and other bits and bobs she needed to begin crafting a spell outside of Delilah’s sickly influence, and she knew even that much time spent here would be pushing it.
Please, the voice came again, and this time Laudna realized she hadn’t heard the voice at all, at least not in the traditional sense. It spoke to her inside her mind, similar enough to the way Delilah did that Laudna hadn’t realized at first, but different in all the ways that mattered. Even those few words had a timidity to them, an unspoken but clearly expressed pardon the intrusion that left her feeling warm where Delilah’s voice, even when Laudna asked for it, felt invasively nauseating.
Yes? What’s the matter? Laudna thought back, straightening from her usual hunched posture and craning her neck to try and identify the owner of the voice.
Down the alleyway to the right. Oh, thank you so much.
Are you hurt?
The alley was narrow and dim, but that had never mattered much to Laudna. She had learned to love the dark, and she knew it loved her right back. She saw a figure dressed in dark clothes, light skin and blonde hair that practically gleamed even in the low light of dusk. And just beyond them, a flash of lavender.
No, but…just go with me, alright?
“Oh, there you are!” The first thing Laudna noticed was that the voice was pitched higher than it was in her head. High and sugarsweet. “I’m so sorry, I must have lost track of time,” the voice continued as a stocky woman with cascading purple hair sidled past the figure partially blocking the narrow alley. Her full mouth was turned up in a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes as she waved one gloved hand at Laudna.
“Now hold on a second,” the other figure said gruffly. When he turned Laudna could see that he was a young man dressed in armor a size too large for his smaller frame. He was glaring at the purple haired woman and, before she could get clear of him, he snatched at her raised arm.
Immediately something inside Laudna perked up, fully prepared to call upon the dark powers of Lady Bitchwood to blast him clear off this plane of existence, but—
Oh, wow, I didn’t realize you could…goodness, please don’t do that, she heard in her head. I mean, I want to see it just as much as you want to do it, believe me, but he has friends who will make my life hell if anything happens to him.
Laudna sighed. She let the darkness inside her settle regretfully.
“That’s quite alright, darling,” Laudna said, trying to remember how people usually talked to their friends and lovers. She had never really had much experience with either. “It seems you’ve made a new friend, how wonderful! What’s his name?”
“This is Clyde. Clyde, this is—”
“Laudna,” Laudna said, striding further into the alley. Clyde was still gripping the woman’s arm, tight enough that Laudna could tell there would be a bruise left behind. She smiled at him, all teeth. “Now if you’ll excuse us, Clyde, we really must be going.”
For a moment, she thought he might resist. She could see him turning the odds over in his head, sizing them up as she came close enough to thread her arm through the purple haired woman’s. He was taller than them both, and clearly stronger even if his armor was ill fitting. She stared straight back at him, still grinning, until finally he released his hold. The other woman stumbled forward into Laudna’s arms, and she just barely managed to catch her and keep them both on their feet.
“Fine,” Clyde said roughly. “But I’ll be seeing you soon enough, Irene, and then we’ll have our conversation.”
“Of course!” Irene said brightly as she pulled Laudna along, out of the alley and back onto the main street, deserted but for a single rat scurrying along the edge of a wooden building. Clearly a good sign. “I should be free tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be sure to come by.”
“Bye bye now Clyde!” Laudna called cheerfully.
Thank you, Laudna heard as they began walking in earnest, Irene’s lips still fixed in a strained smile. I didn’t realize you were a, um, fellow magic user, but really, I appreciate your help. My name’s Imogen, by the way, not Irene. I never tell men my real name unless I can’t help it. You said you’re Laudna?
That’s me! Laudna projected back, impressed all over again. Imogen suits you much better than Irene, dear, and I must admit I don’t have much use for them usually but that man seemed especially useless.
Imogen’s mouth twitched slightly in amusement, her smile looking a bit less strained now. Laudna couldn’t stop staring at her.
Gods, tell me about it. He did me the teensiest favor a few days ago and now he won’t leave me the hell alone.
Ah, I see. He wants reciprocation?
Something that like, Imogen grumbled silently, and a blurry, half-formed image of what might be two nude figures embracing, or maybe fucking, appeared in Laudna’s mind. This is what he was thinking when I asked how I could pay him back.
Ew, Laudna thought back, scrunching up her face in disgust.
When they were a few yards further away, Imogen’s arm still looped through hers, she chanced a look back. Clyde was following them, clearly not even bothering to try and hide.
She caught his eye and smiled again, but this time she let herself tap into that well of darkness she had become so familiar with these past decades, the grotesque horror that she had learned to enjoy so much when it could serve her.
She felt her grin stretch past its natural limits as her lips cracked and split, spider webbing up her gaunt cheeks. Her shoulders turned to face forward but her head remained facing Clyde as black ichor squelched between her teeth and poured out of her open mouth, the faintest shadow of a veil clinging to her dank hair and dripping past her shoulders. When she lifted a hand in a jaunty wave, fingers extended abnormally and nails sharpened into claws, she made sure to grab a bit of copper wire from her pocket so she could send a message, hissing threateningly directly into Clyde’s mind, Leave her be or I will show you the true face of darkness, and my dear Clyde…you will not fucking survive it.
As always, her form of dread was a resounding success. She watched as Clyde’s eyes widened in fear, the sneering grin he had worn before melting into a rictus of terror as the front of his trousers darkened and he collapsed, soundless, to his knees.
She kept it up until they turned a corner, and only when he could no longer see them she snapped her neck back into place, shaking her head like a wet dog to banish the remnants of the veil. When she glanced over at Imogen, half expecting her to scream in horror herself, all she saw was a delighted glint in her eye as she covered her mouth to try and smother a giggle.
“Sorry,” Laudna said aloud, somewhat sheepish. She wasn’t used to being around someone she actively didn’t want to scare away, but she couldn’t help herself when she saw the vile man trying to follow them. “I hope that wasn’t too…horrifying?”
“Oh, it was fuckin’ creepy as all hell,” Imogen replied cheerily. Laudna was struck again by her voice, how it was a bit deeper now that they were away from Clyde. “But also maybe the best thing I’ve ever seen. His face, holy hells, I thought he was about to shit his pants!”
“Well, he did piss them for sure,” Laudna said, more than a little proud. “I haven’t scared the literal shit out of someone in quite a while, but to be fair I am quite rusty.”
Imogen laughed, no longer attempting to hide it behind her gloved hands, and, oh, she was even lovelier than Laudna had first thought. She had a pair of round glasses resting on a button nose and a slight gap between her front teeth that Laudna wanted to trace with her tongue. Her hair was a riot of lavender puffed out around her head like an unruly cloud. She was vibrantly, wonderfully alive, a rosy flush to her cheeks that made Laudna feel warmer just by looking at her.
“If that’s rusty then I can’t wait to see what happens when you’re on your A-game,” Imogen giggled.
“You…you’d want to see me do it again?”
“If that’s alright with you,” Imogen said, sounding suddenly shy. She tried to tuck a strand of curling hair behind her ear with the hand not resting on Laudna’s arm, but it only behaved for a few seconds before springing back to join the rest. “I just—you know, I haven’t run into many other magic users, and…well, I know we just met and all, but you feel…nice.”
“Nice?” Laudna wiped a bit of dried ichor from her chin with the back of a bony wrist and raised an eyebrow in question.
“It’s hard to explain but I can…” she trailed off and then, after a moment, Laudna heard her again, loud and clear in her mind, talk to people like this. And sometimes I can see into their heads, y’know, like I’m reading their thoughts. But it can get pretty loud and overwhelming when I do that, and most people’s minds are all…I dunno. Staticky and loud and mean, when I make a connection with them.
Imogen looked up at her, her round face creasing into a sweet, hopeful smile.
You don’t feel like that at all, though, Laudna. You feel nice. Peaceful. Usually I get pretty tired communicating like this after a few seconds, but you make it easy.
Oh. I suppose that does sound nice. Laudna grinned back at her. She hoped the ragged flesh of her splintered cheeks wasn’t too upsetting, but Imogen didn’t seem to mind. Are you heading anywhere in particular? I don’t have much of anything holding me here, you see, so I’d be happy to tag along if you’re sure you wouldn’t mind.
Imogen nodded happily, pushing even closer into Laudna’s side, until she could feel the warmth of her skin against her own, clammy and chill as it was.
“I’ve got a couple places I need to get to, a few things I’d like to accomplish. And I wouldn’t mind the company at all,” Imogen said aloud. She let her arm fall to her side, untangling them from each other. For a moment, Laudna was disappointed. It was probably uncomfortable, being so close to her not-quite-dead flesh, but it was so nice while it lasted. Then she felt a nudge against the tips of her fingers, and another, somewhere deep in the back of her mind. I hope I’m not being too forward, I really try not to sense things if people don’t want me to, but I do like touching you. You don’t make me uncomfortable at all, promise, I just don’t want any of Clyde’s buddies to see us being too close. It might put a target on your back.
Laudna kept her gaze focused carefully ahead, taking note of the few people they passed, the muddy pot holes and wagon tracks pockmarking the ground in front of them. She nudged Imogen’s fingers back with her own, careful to keep her claws curled in so they wouldn’t nick her. In her head, she held onto the point of connection she could sense thrumming through her, the strangely pleasant overfullness of Imogen talking to her like this.
Darling Imogen, she thought, trying to push the words firmly through their connection while not wanting to shout. If they dare to put a target on me I shall simply rip it off and smother them to death with it. And I don’t mind that you can read my thoughts, so don’t concern yourself about such things. You are quite sweet, and kinder than anyone I have met in a long, long time. You are powerful and fascinating and beautiful and if you’d like to touch me, even just to hold my hand, please know that I’d welcome it.
Alright, Laudna heard after a few long seconds, and even though it wasn’t spoken aloud, Imogen sounded breathless. Y’know, you’re awful sweet yourself, Laudna.
Laudna cackled, loud and unrestrained at the mere idea, and didn’t stop even when Imogen’s warm fingers wriggled between her own, palms pressing together as they continued walking, side by side, into the coming night.