“Oh Imogen, ” Laudna’s voice purrs through her mind, cutting through the static noise of the street. Imogen looks up from the produce she was inspecting and smiles at the stallkeeper before moving on from the wilted stalks. The summer heat beats down hard on the farmer’s market and sweat sticks to her brow beneath her sunhat. “I found greens and a stall selling shaved ice. Come find me by the south entrance.”
There’s something sickening, to be truthful, about Laudna. Too much of too many things, she is tall and dark and wretched but sweet as sunshine once you get to her. The oily roll of her voice through Imogen’s mind is wet and oppressive, but something about its consuming echo blurs away the messy noise of the crowds. A little bit of spooky is more comfort than an awful lot of loud nothing.
“That sounds just about perfect,” she messages back as she steps back into the stream of the people in the streets with their noisy minds. A clamour of music, half remembered grocery lists, and the animalistic images and colors pummels against her mind and she reknots her kerchief around her neck with irritable twitchy fingers. “I’ll meet you real soon.”
They see a set of rooms later that day, mouths still sticky-sweet from the lemon ices. The landlady Zhudonna is old and greying, but there’s a sparkle to her eyes that makes Imogen like her. She isn’t phased by Laudna in the slightest, and knits away tidily at a shawl as the girls inspect her lodgings. The rooms are small but clean and come furnished with beds and dressers. Rent’s not bad either, they can swing it on their small savings alone for at least two or three months, so they agree to sleep on it and sign a contract tomorrow unless anything else seems better.
Dinner is simple, eaten next to the window for a prayer of a breeze through the sticky staid summer air. For a port town, there’s next to no relief from the relentless sun, and they both strip down to their skivvies and fill the basin with the coldest water that can be managed from the taps to soak their feet in. Privacy vanished between them some time ago on the road in shared rooms and beds to save money on the journey here. Imogen doesn’t linger on the pale sprawl of Laudna’s body in the chair across from her anymore, but is distinctly aware of her presence.
“We’ll go down to the docks tomorrow,” Laudna says, lethargy in her voice. She re-casts the little spell that was flapping her fan towards them both. “Put our little feetsies in the sea.”
Imogen breathes deep through her nose and closes her eyes, trying to recall the memory of swimming in the ponds as a child, before her mind grew too cluttered to play with the other children. Cool waves lapping on her ankles, fish darting between her legs, the horror of a plant tickling your foot. Laudna’s like the lakeweeds, thin and horrifying until you realize it’s just grass. Nothing to pull you under. “I’d like that.”
The sun dips below the spires, casting pinks and reds across the sky and bringing enough drop in the temperature that they can stand to be decent again. Imogen does her breathing exercises, focuses on muffling the noise from the other patrons in the inn and on the street below. She reads a little from one of the history books on Marquet she picked up. Laudna reads too, some salacious little red book entitled Tusk Love that she seems to find plenty of humor in, snickering delightedly to herself as she pages through.
They tuck into the narrow inn bed together, no blankets with the heat. “Goodnight, dear,” Laudna says, spindly finger brushing Imogen’s purple bangs out of her face and behind her ear. Imogen doesn’t like to read people in particular if she can help it, but Laudna’s mind is so quiet and slippery that she couldn’t even if she liked. And maybe she'd like to know a little more, dig a little into those inscrutable expressions and dark eyes that trace over her so gently.
“Goodnight,” and with a snap their lamp is extinguished.