Prompt: “I feel terrible.” And/or “I want you to kiss me right now.”
I love your fics 🥹 just yesterday I was thinking of your name while perusing ao3 and was wishing for another Imodna fic of yours
hi!! thank you so much for your kind words. it always shocks me when people, like, want to read my writing? so it really means a lot. i'm sorry this took me a little longer. i ended up combining your first one with another prompt and part of my wip so when i eventually publish a fic with an extremely similar scene from imogen's perspective.. dw about it.
anyway, here's some post-resurrection hurt/comfort. we're gonna all pretend they stayed in the castle for a couple days and sorted their shit out.
cw for feelings of helplessness and self-loathing
length: ~1.7k
some prompt lists if you're so inclined || my ao3
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It’s been three days since they got her back.
Three days since she woke on the worn wooden floors of Pike’s home to a small crowd of friends and strangers.
Three days since she set foot in Whitestone again, a place she never hoped to return.
And three days since everyone began treating Laudna as if she's going to shatter.
The worst part is she feels as if she might.
The world is too vibrant. Loud. The birds chirping outside the too-large castle window grate on her ears. The silky sheets on the too-soft four-poster bed cling to her in all the wrong ways. Her skin crawls and her bones grind and she can feel her teeth.
The gnome who revived her said this is normal. She’d been dead, after all. The body would need time to recalibrate. Time they do not have if they want to have any hope of intervening on the solstice.
Imogen dotes the best way she knows how. With soup and kind words and glares that warn the others to keep back if they don’t want a zap to the forehead. She offers furs from the trunk at the foot of the bed and cool cloths that do little to ease the ache of Laudna’s fragile joints. She brings pillows and keeps watch in the window seat as Laudna sleeps.
It’s sickeningly sweet and thoughtful and lovely, and Laudna hates it just a little bit because Imogen has spent far too much time fretting over Laudna as of late when she should be anywhere but a stuffy old castle spooning broth to a dead lady whose hands won’t stop shaking.
Laudna is fine.
She’s fine.
She is.
Delilah is gone, they assure her. Imogen herself sent a bolt of lightning through the bitch’s strange conjured tree trunk in the twisting nether realm that left the smell of iron and marrow lingering in Laudna’s nose. Her limbs still sting with phantom wounds where she had thrashed against Delilah’s cage.
Helpless. Weak.
The others were there, too. At least, for much of the fight and everything that preceded. They had seen Laudna’s memories, as Fresh Cut Grass informed her. Learned the name she had taken care to hide all these years. Buried deep enough, even Imogen, brilliant as she is, would have to dig to uncover it. Delilah, it seemed, only cared for secrets when they were hers to keep.
When her friends visit her chambers, their vivacity is dulled. They are tense, anxious, and trying and failing to hide the restlessness that they are all feeling.
Orym regards her with new wariness, searching for lies and cracks, though he is kind as ever. It’s understandable, Laudna reasons. In this place, where the Briarwood reign harmed innumerable lives, she is a liability. A threat to be guarded against.
Fearne is delicate with her hugs, moves cautiously through Laudna’s space. She hasn’t even stolen any of the silver soup spoons or fine teacups, which might be most concerning of all.
Ashton hovers in the doorway. They return her awkward waves with a nod and flick of their wrist.
Chetney and Fresh Cut Grass seem the most unbothered. Chetney in a plush bathrobe that appears to have been hastily cropped to suit his stature, and F.C.G. chattering on about the importance of rest to the healing process.
And Laudna hates them just a little bit because she cares for them all so deeply, but mostly, she just hates herself. Hates Delilah. Hates Otohan Thull.
They’re losing time and they’ve already lost so much. Imogen has already lost so much. Her mother’s trail is growing colder by the day, and there is nothing Laudna can do but lay in this godsforsaken luxurious bed and wait until her body recovers.
It’s all she can do not to break into a thousand pieces that she would scatter to the nooks and crannies so she wouldn’t have to see the pitying looks on her friends’ faces when Imogen has to help her up.
She turns on her side and buries her face in an obnoxiously soft down pillow to muffle the sob that wells within her and wracks her body.
She does a piss-poor job of that, too.
“Laudna?” Imogen calls sleepily, roused from a sun-dappled doze. Then, alert, “Hey, hey–”
She’s standing, Laudna can hear, and now she’s gone and disturbed Imogen. Bare feet pad across the cool stone floor, and the far side of the bed dips, ever considerate. She will not come closer, Laudna knows, unless given explicit consent because Imogen is wonderful and caring and lovely.
“What’s wrong, darlin’?”
Laudna shudders. “I feel terrible.”
“Oh,” Imogen says, and Laudna can feel the flash of guilt and concern that radiates off of her. “Can I bring you anything? Is it your head?” She shifts her weight. “Do you need water? I can go get a pitcher. Or food, maybe?”
“Stop. Please, stop,” Laudna croaks. Imogen flinches, and gods, Laudna could be sick.
Imogen retreats. “Sorry, I’ll just– sorry,” she murmurs, sounding so small.
Laudna lifts her head and darts a trembling hand to catch her wrist. “No!” she says. Her body betrays her, the word coming out as more of a roar than she ever could have meant. “No,” she repeats, softer, “stay. Please,” because if she frightens Imogen off, she fears what will crawl into the hole left behind.
Imogen hesitates, glances down at the ink-tipped fingers clasped around her arm, and sits again. She doesn’t speak, leaving the path clear for Laudna to lead the way, and oh, Laudna could melt.
Laudna sighs shakily, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…it’s not you.”
Not Imogen. Never Imogen.
The silence hangs heavy between them until Laudna can bring herself to speak again.
“This is my fault, I’m afraid,” she states flatly, refusing to meet Imogen’s gaze. Refusing to see whatever reaction she may find there. Anguish. Frustration. Irritation.
“What?”
Confusion.
Laudna looks up, gestures vaguely to their surroundings. “This. All of us being… trapped here.”
“Laud, what’re you talkin’ about?”
Imogen’s hand comes to stroke the back of Laudna’s knuckles where they wrap around her other wrist. Her fingers are calloused and work-worn, the rough patches of them catching on the imperfect parts of Laudna.
“You should be off tracking down your mother or finding out what you can about the moon, and instead,” Laudna’s voice catches in her throat, “you’re here.”
Imogen shakes her head, exhales. “Where I should be is for me to decide.” She says it gently. It is not meant to be a reprimand. It still feels like one. “And where I should be,” she continues, “is wherever you are.”
Laudna’s eyes flit anywhere but Imogen’s face.
“If you want me there, of course.”
Laudna’s response is instant. “Always.”
She finally meets Imogen’s eyes and is met with a somewhat furrowed brow. She wants to ask something, Laudna can tell. Imogen’s head is tilted curiously, her lips slightly parted. Her jaw works subtly, muscles tensing.
“It’s not your fault,” she settles on at last. “None of it, okay?”
Laudna opens her mouth to respond.
Imogen is steely calm. “You were gone, Laudna. And I couldn’t reach you, and…and you’re here now. You’re back, and that’s all that matters.”
Laudna shrinks into the pillows, takes her hand back beneath the sheet, fist clenching and unclenching. “I feel like such a nuisance,” she confesses quietly. “I should have tried harder to break her hold on me. I should have–”
“No. Gods,” Imogen snaps, lacking any real bite. She inhales. “Laudna, you…you were dead. And I hate sayin’ it; I hate thinkin’ about it. You couldn’t’ve done anythin’ more than what you did.” She softens, throat tightening with emotion. “You did so much. And I’m so proud of you. And… I’m so grateful you chose to come back.”
“It wasn’t much of a choice,” Laudna whispers, “I couldn’t very well leave you, darling.”
“You could’ve.” Imogen bites her lip, ducks her head, fiddles with the hem of her vest. “We, um, I know F.C.G. told you, but we… saw some of your memories. And, and I didn’t really wanna bring it up? So I’m real sorry, but we only saw a couple moments, and we don’t have to talk about it, but,” she looks back to Laudna, “you’re so brave. I don’t think you get told that enough. You’re so strong, Laud, and so good, and I missed you. So much.” She takes a sharp breath.
It bursts out as though holding it in any longer might suffocate her, and Laudna’s hands cease their twitching. She hesitates. Imogen’s affection has split her open, and it’s odd, she thinks, to feel so vulnerable and so safe. That those two sensations can coexist as a tingling in her chest that extends into her tendons and ligaments to warm her all over. She can sense the discolored blush rising in her cheeks.
She does not feel brave. Strength has always been foreign and abstract. That Imogen can see her that way is… incongruous. Absurd, even.
“You’re very kind.”
Imogen looks as if she might protest but seems to think better of it. She sighs, a slight, sad smile crossing her lips. She moves to stand again, to cross the room back to her seat, and suddenly, the thought of Imogen being so far away is unbearable.
“Stay, please?” Laudna shuffles, lifting a corner of the quilt. “This bed is plenty big enough for two, and I dread to think of the state of your neck curled up in the window.”
“You’re sure?” Imogen asks, faint hope coloring her words.
“Come here.”
The bed dips again as Imogen clambers in, pressing herself against Laudna, who lets out an oomph as Imogen wraps around her and intertwines their fingers.
“Sorry!” Imogen says with a relieved exhale, “Sorry, I just–I know I said it before, but… I really missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Laudna assures gently, taking in the oaty smell of Imogen. The smell of home. “Rest well, darling.”
Imogen squeezes their hands in response and burrows closer.
Laudna relaxes into the embrace.
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