Work Text:
Imogen looked up at the pale white ceiling in silence or as much silence as one could be afforded with Laudna whose soft breaths pierced the delicate veil that surrounded them as they lay tangled.
It was quiet in their room. No soldier's marching past their windows. Or nearby thoughts that invaded Imogen's mind and took all her will to keep at bay. It was quiet. Just the sound of Laudna's delicate breaths and the regular thump thump... Thump thump... Thump thump of Imogen's heart which hours after their kisses in the market square, still beat just as fast as it did when she first leaned in.
Thinking about it still made her head spin in all the best ways. The way Laudna's lips felt against hers. She had imagined the scenario time and time again in positions similar to this. Laudna was splayed out across the bed and Imogen slotted in right next to her. Melding and moulding to whatever shape Laudna had fallen asleep in that time.
Looking back now, she had imagined kissing Laudna the first night they spent together under the Marquesian skies as they both escaped Gelvaan. Laudna had told her stories of the constellations, telling stories of gods and mortals and how the Moonweaver solidified their tales in the stars for everyone to revel in for eons to come.
Imogen didn't know when she had stopped paying attention to Laudna speaking about the stars that night. All she could focus on was Laudna's lips and how every so often, Laudna's tongue would dart out to wet them as she continued her tales. Their knees or a shoulder would touch as they huddled close together by the fire that seemed to crackle and pop every so often. Imogen was hyper-aware of every inch that connected the two. How every touch felt more electric than the scars that snaked their way up Imogen's arms.
That night, as Imogen slipped next to Laudna under their shared blanket, she spent the entire night looking at the stars and wondering why people didn't stop and revel at Laudna as they did the stars. She was different and gods was she beautiful.
Imogen studied how Laudna's pale skin almost seemed to glow in the white light of Catha as it traversed across the sky, Rudius following her ominously behind. The moonlight reflecting off her skin made her look ethereal. Here in the moonlight, laying side by side, Laudna was a dream that Imogen didn't want to wake up from and hoped she never did.
Moonlight streamed in through the open window, illuminating everything in the soft glow of Catha. Imogen carefully turned over to look at Laudna. Her Laudna now... The thought brought a smile to Imogen's lips and Imogen wondered when her feelings for Laudna turned into something more.
As Imogen studied the slow rise and fall of Laudna's chest, Imogen went through every memory. Every moment and every touch she has cataloged in her mind as she tried to piece together when she fell in love with Laudna.
Was it when Imogen was miles away in a corrupted woods where if she closed her eyes and held her red bracelet, could imagine Laudna behind her as she brushed Imogen's hair. Their freshly washed clothes, drying by the fire.
Imogen took a deep breath in and could've sworn she smelt the faint whiff of Oak leaves that Laudna always seems to smell like as she sat by that fire, not knowing if Laudna was dead or alive.
As Imogen remembered the heat of the fire as she sat down, running her fingers over the red strand that seemed to connect the two together, she realised that she was already in love with Laudna by then and knew it.
Every time she went to bed, she would think of Laudna and how Laudna was. She would think of her lilting voice and how it seemed to dance on the wind like a tune that Imogen's mum would sing her when she was young before she left. Soft and peaceful.
Every time she would wake up, Imogen's first thought would be of Laudna and only Laudna. She would daydream about two onyx eyes and a wide smile that made Imogen warm all over. She would think about her melodic laugh that would put Imogen at ease in an instant. All of Imogen's thoughts started with Laudna and ended with Laudna.
So as she sat by the fire in Molaesmyr, Imogen was already deeply in love with Laudna and she knew it. The fire that burned in front of her, burned inside of her whenever she thought of Laudna. So no, it wasn't then when Imogen had fallen for Laudna.
Maybe it was on the airship going to the Malleus Key but Imogen would be lying to herself if she said that it was the moment she fell in love with Laudna. Her words to Laudna aboard that deck about how she was a tether sounded like a prayer to a long-forgotten god that only Imogen knew how to worship. Her words exalting and praising Laudna as if at that moment, her purpose was to worship Laudna's mind and body.
No, Imogen was long gone for Laudna and knew every word she said that night, was a wordless prayer to Laudna and only Laudna. She knew it in the way that her whole body relaxed as Laudna wrapped her long arms around Imogen's waist. She knew it in the way that Laudna's scent of fallen oak leaves surrounded her senses and made her head spin. She knew it in the way that Laudna's mere presence made her weak at the knees. She would worship Laudna every night if given the chance.
Imogen put her forehead gently against Laudna's cool one. She let the contact soothe her and bring her back down just as it had always done. A hand on a thigh. Or around a waist or her shoulders. Laudna's touch was always enough to tether Imogen back down to Exandria when she got too high.
Her memories when to the early days of the Bells Hells and when they met Yu. Stupid Yu with their stupid flirting and hand-holding and asking if Laudna and Imogen were a "thing".
Seeing Yu and Laudna together, laughing and smiling together made Imogen grit her teeth so hard that she thought she would break them. They had a fight and this is how Laudna is acting? It made the little coil that was getting tighter and tighter and tighter with each little smile that Yu gave Laudna. It wound itself up and up and up with every laugh that Yu coaxed from Laudna till it snapped.
And when it snapped it wasn't violent or loud or gracious. No. It snapped when Yu asked if Imogen and Laudna were a thing and all of the feelings that Imogen felt towards Laudna snapped into a blinding focus.
Imogen was in love with Laudna. Is in love with Laudna. All the red-tinged cheeks from sitting a little too close together but Imogen always found a way to blame it on the fire even when the fire had long been extinguished made sense now.
All the times that Imogen felt the breath leave her lungs when she would see Laudna cooking dinner for them in whatever hut they had found themselves in that week. Or all the times when Imogen's heart would skip a beat when the sun would hit Laudna just right and it would send Imogen back to that first night under the stars wondering if this was all a dream. A dream that when she woke, she would be in her suffocating room back in Gelvaan.
When the coil snapped it wasn't violent or loud. It was quiet and devastating at the same time as the realisation shook Imogen's core. Imogen was in love with Laudna. And somehow, on that street in Bassuras, Imogen finally realised it.
But that wasn't the moment that Imogen's heart had decided on Laudna's slow beating one. As Imogen sifts through the memories of them, Imogen realises that her feelings of love have always permeated their relationship.
It was so long ago and they both seemed like different people, but seeing Laudna at the market for the first time, buying bread... Imogen had to remember how to breathe again.
After the third time of seeing Laudna in town and finally getting to hear her thoughts and how melodious they are, Imogen decided to speak to Laudna for the first time and Imogen's heart sped up to as fast as Flora galloped back to Faramore's homestead.
Even when she saved Laudna from the town folk. She could barely focus on the thank yous that were tumbling out of Laudna's mouth as they galloped away from the market. Imogen was only aware of how nice it felt to have Laudna's arms around her waist and how different she smelt.
If Imogen had known then, she would've known that Laudna, from the very first embrace had always felt like home. Why? Because her heart had always known that Laudna was it for her.
Imogen didn't need to fall in love with Laudna. She was already hopelessly in love with her from the very beginning. Her heart knew with every missed heartbeat, with every time she was left breathless at the person that was Laudna. Every touch, every laugh and every smile. Imogen was a goner from the start. It was just a matter of time before her brain caught up to her heart.
Right from the very beginning, Imogen was in love with Laudna. She just needed a little push to see it. And then another to take the leap and ask Laudna if she could kiss her. And one more to actually lean in and finally capture those lips she had been dreaming about for so long.
It took some time but it happened. Fate had brought them together in Imogen's small town in the middle of nowhere. Fate had kept them together, their paths intertwining as they went towards Jrusar and its libraries where answers of red storms and lightning scars may have laid.
Now fate has brought them back to their room, in their quiet neighbourhood on the Core Spire. There was silence. Or as silent as their room was ever going to get as Laudna's soft breaths pierced the room, Imogen's steady heartbeat and the only thoughts that came into Imogen's mind were how much she wanted to kiss Laudna again.