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Laudna is going to kill Braius.
She may be free from the clutches of Delilah, from her slimy tendrils of dark, terrible hunger, but there was always a part of that hunger that didn't belong to the necromancer.
It was hers. It was Laudna's.
And it was threatening to break free from her chest like her hound of ill omen at the sight of Braius locking lips with Imogen.
Maybe it wouldn't be hurting so much if Imogen hadn't said that thing earlier. Her words becoming an errant worm of a thought that burrowed into Laudna's brain and began to fester there. If he had asked Laudna that question, she wouldn't have been so unsure in her answer.
"Are you single?" Braius had asked, horns and eyes both twinkling with the reflection of the Aeorian landscape surrounding them, leaning in close, too close, to her beloved Imogen.
"I..." The pause alone had been bad enough. Had speared Laudna on a knife's edge with her crumbling teeth clenched and split hair gripped tightly in a bony fist.
"I don't know."
A clump of hair had detached from her head upon hearing those three words, a decent portion of her scalp along with it. Laudna had pressed the handful of skin and hairs and midnight-stained fibers into the folds of her skirt; prayed to the void of nothingness in her soul that it seemed like a regular Laudna-ism. Not the actions of a depraved, jealous, possessive individual because those were traits of Delilah, not Laudna. Never Laudna.
Then, for the safety of each and every one of them, she had walked away.
The rest of the group likely thought that any violence enacted towards their fellow party members on Laudna's behalf was driven by the desires of Delilah, but they were wrong.
Laudna was born of shadows, a waif of a creature with dark eyes, lanky limbs and pallid skin. Skeletal by nature, yet made worse by years of enduring the deprivation only those without money know.
She suffered through droughts, poor harvests, sickness among livestock and eventually the necromantic plague wrought upon Whitestone by the Briarwoods.
She knew hunger more intimately than anything, knew it deep in the crevices of her being and the marrow of her bones. Laudna knew what it meant to yearn, to long, to gasp and grasp and reach towards something, anything, to fill the aching void within.
She knew this before Delilah. Delilah had wanted power. Laudna wanted to consume. Wants to consume.
Delilah was a corrupting force in many a way, but for this?
Laudna had corrupted her.
And so she was going to kill Braius, because he was taking Imogen away and sullying their bond with his essence and his strange hooved hands and his stupid betrayer God. It's petulant, childish, immature in all the ways she's grown to resent; this knowledge does nothing to change what sits and waits and rots inside. But Laudna can't do anything; she wouldn't have the excuse of Delilah's influence if she acted out her desires.
They think that now she's trapped, Laudna is free from all the evil things they saw caged within her. They don't know the horrors they'd find if they took a second to look once more.
But they don't. The perceived risk is gone so they leave her be and Imogen feels safe in her prescence and isn't disgusted by her anymore and doesn't hesitate to meet Laudna's eyes but she does hesitate to say they're together and Laudna can't do this, she can't, she can't cope can't sit still can't seethe in silence she needs release she needs to
"Laudna?"
Of course it's Dorian. Far more perceptive than he'd ever let on. She tries to discretely wipe her damp cheeks, wet the with the anger of black ichorous tears, before turning to face him.
"Are you.." She has always unsettled him, now more so than ever after Opal's descent into Lolth's clutches. "Okay?"
She snorts. Okay. How could she ever be such a thing when Imogen doesn't want her; isn't sure that this thing, this tether that's kept her 'alive' and kicking all this time is even real anymore.
"Oh don't you worry about me Dorian." She tries to force her voice into it's usual sing-song melody, from the way Dorian winces she isn't particularly successful.
"I just needed some alone time for a second, to decompress you know? All of us together can sometimes be..."
"A lot." He finishes, tilting his head in a way that indicates he doesn't fully buy it.
" A lot ." She agrees with a jerky nod of her head, inadvertently cracking her joints with the motion.
Dorian fails to supress yet another wince.
"So you're ok with.." He gestures back towards the rest of the party, still raucous and rowdy with the results of their silly little game. "What just happened?"
Laudna frowns, forcing wrinkles to form on the flat, bloodless skin of her forehead
"Why wouldn't I be? We all knew going into it that spin the bottle was going to end with someone kissing someone else." She pauses, attempts to collect her rapidly escaping thoughts before they spill out of her and break everything apart.
"Besides, Imogen said she didn't like him. She said."
Dorian smiles slowly, like he isn't sure he's allowed to because Laudna is lying and he can tell but can he really ? Does he really know what's going on underneath?
"Exactly. I'm glad you're alright, and I'm glad we managed to banish that wretched bitch somewhere far, far away where she has no power. You deserve this."
Poor Dorian. He doesn't realise, none of them do. The wretchedness of which he speaks was not Delilah's; she wanted power. Wanted the stone, the magical items, the weapons oh the weapons. Laudna doesn't care about that, she never did.
Laudna wants to unhinge her jaw till it drops halfway down her body or rip herself open from top to bottom and trap everything, everyone , she's ever wanted inside so nothing can never leave her.
She never would. She's not evil; just hungry.
She wants to though.
She rejoins the cluster of her friends and family eventually, falling back into a stilted rhythm that feels safe. She cannot look Imogen in the eye, though that doesn't stop her from looking everywhere else.
Her hands, pale and glowing and gorgeous and so strong. Her arms, visible where Imogen has pushed the sleeves up to reveal lithe forearms, muscles accentuated by the jolts of lightening shooting down to frame them.
Her shoulders and chest, hunched slightly with relaxation, pushing forward in a way that emphasises her collarbones and Laudna wants, oh she wants.
Her neck, her pulse, the tip of the lightening that hasn't yet spread up under her chin and onto her face. Laudna wants to run her teeth along the verge of where marred skin transitions to soft, run her tongue across the ley-lines that paint Imogen's skin and inhale her very being.
Once upon a time Imogen would have let her. Now? After her comment and her actions?
Laudna isn't so sure.
She loses so much time that somehow when she blinks she's kissing Orym so awkwardly that it turns into a hug, one she's barely present for. When she moves back to her place beside Imogen she swears she can see some of that hunger she feels reflected in Imogen's eyes.
It can't be though.
The idea that Imogen, her Imogen, would have the same deep seated, ravenous hunger for Laudna that Laudna has for her?
She can't entertain that thought, can't give it any oxygen for fear that it'll grow and flower and bloom and take over her nervous system until she's a puppet to her darkest whims screaming at her to bite and taste and take.
It could've been five minutes later, perhaps five hours, but Laudna comes to with a start and a realisation that the group has dispersed, leaving only Imogen half asleep at her side.
Something begins to unfurl at the sight of her, cheek pressed up against Laudna's shoulder, brow furrowed ever so slightly with the never ending stress of being as smart and powerful and capable as she is. Something sweeter than her bitter starvation, something that wants to stroke instead of dig and caress instead of bite. It's nice to know that side of her still exists, but now there's no Delilah there to push it up against in rebellion, Laudna hasn't found much use for it.
"Copper for your thoughts?"
Imogen's voice breaks through the brain fog threatening to suffocate Laudna, like a bell chiming clear in the wind of a hurricane.
Bizzare. Clarifying. Perfect.
"They're not so interesting, darling. Though you're always welcome to see for yourself."
She projects her most passive thoughts out towards Imogen, the ones of sweetness and light and a voice in the storm. Perhaps if she does so the rest will be drowned out. It's not likely, but Laudna will never hide from Imogen regardless of how horrific she is. No matter how much she fears Imogen's reaction.
Imogen shifts beside her, blinking once before rubbing the side of her face into Laudna like a cat desperate for attention. Like Laudna would ever deny her. She can't stay mad at Imogen, truly she never was. It was Braius she wanted to destroy.
"What? Why d'you wanna destroy Braius? I get it, he's a flirt and a little bit of a creep, but he's not done nothin' to you has he Laudna?"
Wide eyes gaze up at her in concern from where Imogen is resting, and Laudna takes a second to adjust to the emotional whiplash she's undergone in the last few minutes; few seconds really. Imogen truly is her tether to humanity.
"No, no it's nothing like that, it's.." Laudna begins to fidget with the hem of her skirts, careful not to push Imogen off with the movement but unable to sit still through this line of questioning.
"It was just odd I suppose, seeing the two of you together. I know you said we aren't together like.." She swallows hard, thick black ichor blocking her throat and thank the Gods she doesn't truly need to breathe because she doesn't think she could right now. "Like that anymore - which is perfectly fine Imogen! I would never infringe on your comfort or safety and force this upon you. Never ever. Not even when the voices up in here want to do mean things about it."
Laudna knocks rather harshly on the side of her head a few times for good measure, still remaining careful not to jostle Imogen.
Turns out she needn't have bothered, as Imogen pushes herself upright in an abrupt manner before staring at Laudna with an expression that is entirely indecipherable.
"What the fuck are you tryin' to say here, Laudna?" Oh. Oh she's angry . It's wrong it's so so wrong but something deep within Laudna stirs.
"Do you not.." Imogen's breath hitches, caught on the edge of a sob or a tear or a scream; Laudna can't tell. "Do you not want that anymore? I guess Delilah's gone and maybe some of her feelings and stuff went with her, it makes sense.. S'not what I want at all but I'd never force you into anything either Laudna."
Feelings? Leaving with Delilah? Feelings for Imogen leaving with her? The idea is so preposterous she can't help but giggle, which does nothing to ease the discomfort of the woman crouched before her.
"What's so funny about that?" Imogen glares, voice no longer catching on the edge of something sad; instead now gliding along the edge of something sharp. "You're thinkin' all sorts of stuff right now Laudna and I got no way of tellin' how much of it is real because you're sat here gigglin' at the thought of us ending?"
She begins to push up to her feet, a hand reaching up to hastily wipe at a tear that had managed to push through the gap and escape.
"No, wait Imogen!" How had this turned around so suddenly? How had her hunger disappeared the second Imogen was in pain; over something that wasn't even true? "That's not what I'm saying at all, darling. Not in the slightest."
Imogen sniffs, wiping again at another errant tear that begins to gather in the creases of her eye.
"So what does it mean then, Laudna? Cause from where I'm standin' you're all set on us splittin' up, to the point where those thoughts you projected weren't even your real ones. Not really. I've been in your head too many times for too long to fall for that shit."
The chasm inside Laudna begins to twitch and push itself open ever so slightly further, as if preparing to stretch itself wider and wider to accommodate the loss she's about to feel. The loss she deserves to feel. Despite it all, the can feel her stomach rumbling in anticipation; in hunger.
"That's not what I intended Imogen, not at all. I only wanted to shield you from what was truly there, what's been there the whole time, before Delilah and after." Now it's Laudna's turn to sniffle and duck her chin in order to wipe her nose on her shoulder. She can barely bring herself to look up at Imogen again. "I couldn't bare the thought of you seeing.. those things. And thinking less of me, or worse, thinking I feel a certain way about you."
Imogen huffs out a sarcastic laugh, eyes wide and indignant.
"Well damn. I sure am an idiot for thinkin' you feel a certain way about me. Must be a complete moron to have been wrong this whole time. Thanks for clearin' that up for me though, Laudna. I'm glad we finally know the truth."
And with that, Imogen swivelled on her heel and marched out of the more communal space, making her way (at least Laudna assumes) towards their shared room.
Laudna scrambles to her feet, nearly crushing Pâté in the process, desperate to follow after her.
"Imogen please forgive me, I.. I'll let you hear it all. Every disturbed thought I've had since my birth, death and rebirth. Everything I've hidden or pretended was Delilah. Everything you thought was her but was actually me."
Imogen doesn't slow down until she's deep in their shared room, breathing heavily and eyeing Laudna like a wild animal.
Laudna almost doesn't notice how her limbs have elongated as she ran to catchup, how her arms seem to have stretched into murky shadows and her shoulders have appendages in the form of branches sprouting from her. How utilitarian, her form of dread used for the sole purpose of closing the distance as quickly as possible. It's laughable really.
One of her limbs, though not one of the ones she was born with, stretches out to push the door closed; waiting to hear the latch click and the lock close before focusing all her attention on Imogen.
"Look inside my head. Please Imogen, darling, I can't promise you'll see me the same after this.." Some of the branches begin to wither and bloom, what little greenery adorned her form shrivelling up and collapsing to the ground the way Laudna herself wishes to. "But I can't live with you thinking I don't want this. Dont want you. You're it for me, Imogen"
There's a beat of silence, both verbal and mental, before Laudna feels the familiar press of Imogen against her mind. She feels herself pulled towards her, subconsciously inching closer to Imogen's spot further into the room until she's practically on top of Imogen's feet.
Looking up at her wonderful, capable girl, the hunger begins to take hold. What were once the vibrations of a second heartbeat are now the thundering of an aching gap where her stomach should be. Where once there was an even, ominous, monotonous beating of a second soul within her body, there is now nothing but emptiness and gnawing pain carving her inside and out.
It feels as though the thin stretch of skin that covers her bones could snap and break free at any second, the claws of desperation scratching the surface of her stomach from the inside, desperate to get out.
"Imogen.." She breathes, or rather tries to. Attempts to imitate what she knows to be a living, breathing, careful thing and not a beastial hulking monster who only knows depravity.
The branches start to snap and splinter the same way her pathetic head of hair does, breaking and falling to the floor by Imogen's feet. She can feel sap - is it sap? Leaking from the remaining splinters protruding from her body. Black droplets begin to gather by her knees; on her thighs. Not sap then, not the kind a living tree would have.
Laudna tries to open her mind as much as possible, to let Imogen in; it only serves to remind her of how she wants to open herself wide and swallow Imogen whole.
She fights against it, against the fat viscous drops of ichor splattering across their legs, against the never ending hunger fuelled by a numbness that prevents her from ever being full. Except she could be full. She could be if she could have Imogen, all of her.
Imogen may be a child of Ruidus but Laudna feels as though she may be a fractured part of Predathos themself, only her hunger is not for the Gods; instead it is for her. For Imogen.
For her to fill the vacuous billowing darkness inside.
It takes Laudna a moment to realise these thoughts are all being funnelled into Imogen too, that she can hear Laudna's greed and pathetic pleading to please, please feed her.
One of Imogen's hands finds it's way into Laudna's hair, brittle strands wrapped around each of her fingers, gripping just as tightly to the snapped and weeping branches hanging there.
"Oh..."
Is it in her mind or did Imogen speak out loud? Laudna can't tell, she doesn't want to tell. She only wants to feed, to devour.
The hand falls to cup her face, fingers glistening with onyx tucking under her chin until her neck strains with the effort of looking up.
"I didn't know.. Laudna I had no idea." The pale, purple flecked finger brushes across her gaping maw, applying the gentlest pressure before slipping inside.
This.
This is all she wants, all she needs. Just Imogen. Imogen in front of her, Imogen above her. Imogen feeding her parts of herself so slowly, with such care that Laudna knows she won't be left starving, left wanting for decades deprived of sustenance.
"Oh sugar, this whole time. This whole time I coulda been helping you, giving you what you need. All this time I was dangling it in front of you, teasing you so." Her thumb pushes further into Laudna, she can't call it a mouth anymore; it's just a cavern of nothing that's being filled with something.
" What can I do for you baby, what do you need from me ?"
It spikes through her mind, sharp and jolting and running parallel to the arousal shooting the opposite way. The ground beneath them looks more akin to a black hole than a floor, sap, ichor, smeared between the floorboards by her juddering knees and frantic hands.
Laudna leans towards Imogen, stained hands pulling at her underclothes; pushing up her dress with difficulty because she's so close. So close to what she wants.
The hand that's been cradling her mouth redirects to her head, pushing then pulling her exactly where Laudna wants to be.
The first taste sends a shockwave of bliss through her insides. Like a flashbang into an unlit room, lighting up the caverns of her organs and the holes within. She needs Imogen to fill them. She hopes she will.
Laudna can feel her tongue splitting, grotesque and disgusting and untoward but Imogen only moans and hangs onto the dead bark festering on Laudna's scalp.
"You're.. you're so good Laudna. So respectful. I woulda given this to you years ago, had I known. We gotta make up for lost time." Imogen's breath hitches in a way that is both familiar and foreign. Laudna knows what it means but the intensity of it, being inside of Imogen, devouring her as thoroughly as she's allowed. "I'll give you as much as you'll allow."
If Laudna could moan, could make any kind of noise around the shape of Imogen she would.
She can't though, not with her entire jaw wrapped around Imogen's cunt and Imogen's hands, two of them now, pushing herself further and further into Laudna. Filling her as Laudna fills Imogen. Satiating her hunger; if only for a minute.
They're still telepathically connected, still so wrapped up in each other in every conceivable way, Laudna can't tell where her appetite ends and Imogen's begins. She doesn't want to anymore, wants to keep feeding, wants to be fed.
Wants to absorb Imogen through the barrier of her flesh, push her own ichor through Imogen's pores until she's got a layer of Laudna under her skin.
That shouldn't have been what did it and yet it was. The culmination of her denial, her inability to articulate what she craved more so than any food on Exandria. On any plane of existence.
Laudna doesn't need to breathe all too often, so she doesn't bother trying to now. Allows herself to feel the mingling of her and Imogen drip down her form of dread, slowly starting to shrink back into her regular form. Still just as monstrous; yet more palatable to everyone but Imogen it seems.
It's only as she begins to shrink in size and pull her jaw back from the apex of Imogen's thighs that she realises her spindly arms are all that's keeping Imogen upright, which is about to become a problem because every part of Laudna feels so perfect and filled with Imogen that she's losing what minimal strength she has.
"Sorry." Laudna hears, or rather feels, wash over her mind, the only warning she gets before Imogen collapses into a puddle on top of her.
"I love every part of you. You know that, right?" Laudna hums in ascent, although it comes out as more of a strangled groan; a lot quieter than she would've liked. "We're still connected sugar, you don't have to respond verbally."
Lands feels the vibration of a laugh as Imogen looks at her fondly, there is nothing in her expression that belies discomfort, disgust, or any of the things Laudna has convinced herself Imogen would feel about her.
"It wasn't even so much that you wouldn't love me, but that you'd see this part of me as Delilah's and become disgusted by it again." Memories flit through her mind of Imogen's hatred for Delilah, her disgust at being watched by her. "I know how deeply you love me, it's how deeply I love you darling, but you don't love her and so much of what people thought was her is really me."
Imogen wraps herself around Laudna with more purpose, using her body to cocoon the undead woman in a twisted parody of metamorphosis.
"Laudna, because those things are you and not her, I love them. Because the hunger is yours and not hers, I want to feed it. Because the desire is yours and not hers, I want to give into it. What you want is what I want, so long as it's just you doing the wanting. Does.. does that make sense."
A smile, cracked and tight as it fights to break through the still cooling ichor smeared across her face.
"I'm sorry I got so jealous over Braius." Laudna starts, croaking her words out loud so as to hold herself accountable. "I panicked after you said you weren't sure we were still together, so seeing you with him so soon after just made me think it was over."
"Oh, Laudna." There's an exasperation that's so uniquely Imogen, and somehow she manages to convey it telepathically. A capable woman indeed. "I was just as unsure, what with Delilah gone and what I said at Nana Morri's. I didn't know if you still wanted this."
Laudna isn't able to move her face in the way she wants currently, so instead pushes wave after wave of incredulity through their linked minds.
"Okay! Okay I get it now, I really do. Although.." Laudna can feel the tease coming before it hits. "Would you ever have told me about all of this, all of you, if it hadn't come to a head in this way?"
She wouldn't have, of course she wouldn't have. How selfish to devour the one bright thing in her pitch black sky. How greedy to covet a living, breathing human as if she was a treasure for her hoard.
"Probably not, no." Laudna whispers.
"Then I'm glad. Not that it happened like this, but that it all came out. I don't want you goin' hungry, Laudna. Never want you feelin' like that when I'm right here to feed on whenever you need. Always."
Laudna struggles a little before pressing her lips to what she thinks is Imogen's cheek. They're still on the floor, Laudna fully clothed; attire ripped to shreds and covered in ichor. Imogen equally as clothed, but with skirts crumpled and stained and pushed up at an angle that gives away exactly why they were moved.
Perhaps tomorrow they will talk about this properly, about how this was the just tip of the iceberg of Laudna's hunger, how she has fifty years worth of empty space to fill. For now though, she'll enjoy the way her limbs are fusing to the floor, and the way Imogen is pressed against her, warm and perfect.
Laudna closes her eyes, and for the first time in the dark expanse of her being, there is a speck of light on the horizon.