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Imogen arrived home near dusk, lugging a sack full of all the ingredients to make Eshteross’s maple ginger cookies. This wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last, she would be bringing these items. Laudna had taken it upon herself to perfect the making of the recipe. First it was like a coping mechanism, and Imogen was fine with that. Everyone processed grief in their own ways. But after a few days of rest and thousands of cookies, Imogen knew two things.
Laudna wasn’t processing her grief, and Imogen fucking hated the smell of ginger now.
Zhudanna sat in her little nook, the latest plate of cookies untouched. She looked up with a sad smile as Imogen came through the door.
“Oh, hello, dear. More supplies?”
“More and more. She take a break at all?”
Zhudanna shook her head, her shawl swinging a little around her hair. “She’s driven, isn’t she?”
Imogen sighed. The banging of pans and clatter of spoons came from the kitchen. Laudna cursed. Pâté laughed, that hoary, throaty chuckle that Imogen couldn’t stand, except for love of Laudna.
“You got any advice?” Imogen asked.
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you how to act. Everyone’s different, aren’t they? What worked for me through all my friends and family passing on may not for you, or her. Better just to ask her what she needs. And if it’s cookies? If it’s remembering your friend–your mentor?–in this way, we might just have to suffer a few dozen more cookies.”
Imogen smiled. Cookies. They had quite literally just gotten Laudna back, and hadn’t had a chance to talk privately by the time they knew something was wrong with Eshteross. Laudna hadn’t had time to process anything, and now she didn’t have to because she had a new mania to nurse.
Can’t feel if you don’t let yourself. Imogen placed a hand on Zhudanna’s shoulder as she passed, and the older woman patted it gently. “I could use some more tea, dear, if you’re going in there.”
“Of course, Zhudanna. Ginger, right?” She shared the sad smile with her elder landlady and walked towards the kitchen. Zhudanna didn’t know Laudna had died and come back. Better if she didn’t have to.
Imogen opened her mind to Laudna as she stepped through the threshold. She braced for the overpowering ginger and maple, and the brackish noise that was Laudna’s mind, fractured and painful.
It hadn’t been music since she came back. Imogen would give anything to have that music again. To have her Laudna again. She could just shut herself off to it, she knew, but it was better to have her there than not, even if it was painful right now.
“Oh, Imogen,” Laudna said out loud, in that singsong way she had. “I just ran out of eggs, perfect timing as usual.”
“I got more’n enough for you, Laud.”
“Eggs, is it?” Pâté asked, flapping closer to Imogen’s sack. “I like a good yolk, but Mistress won’t let me at ‘em.”
“He’s been incorrigible for hours.”
Days, Imogen thought. Pretty much the entirety of his existence.
Telepathically, Imogen said, “We could take a break, go for a walk, get some fresh air.”
In response was just that discordant noise.
“Laud? You want to take a break?”
“I can’t,” Laudna said, wiping her spindly hands on one of Zhudanna’s aprons, putting stains on stains. “I haven’t got it right yet.”
“You will, but not if you drop dead from exhaustion.” She bit back on her own words. She hadn’t meant to invoke death, even flippantly.
Laudna turned away, muttering, “I’ll get up again. I’m good at that.”
“Laud–”
“I need you to try this next batch, it should be cooled down. I think I got the measurements right, but I’m not adding them correctly or perhaps at the right time, the way that Eshteross said in his–in his letter. But I think I’m getting closer. If I can just perfect it, every–”
“What?” Imogen asked, interrupting her. “If you make the perfect godsdamned ginger cookie, everything will be okay?” She hated that she snapped at Laudna.
Laudna’s shoulders tensed. “Of course not. But I’m trying to remember him the only way I can.”
“It won’t bring him back. We used the only favor we had getting you back, and you remember the letter. He might not even want to come back.”
“And how do you know I wanted to come back?” Laudna shouted in Imogen’s mind, with such ferocity and anger that Imogen felt it as a spike of pain, and felt drops of blood on her vest from a sudden nosebleed.
Imogen stared at the blood and whispered, “Because you came back.”
Laudna reached a hand out, concern masking her anger. “Oh, Imogen, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”
“It’s fine.” Imogen reached for a clean towel, couldn’t find one, and settled for the least soiled cookie towel to press against her nose. “I’m fine.”
“You are, aren’t you?” Laudna asked. An accusation, and not about this moment.
“I’m not.”
“Then why aren’t you crying, or looking for leads to kill Otohan, or helping me make the perfect cookie? Why are you completely okay?”
Silence filled the space between them, punctuated by the little flaps of Pâté’s wings. Even the little monstrosity knew better than to interrupt this with his weird, horny ramblings.
“Why are you okay, Imogen? Our friend is gone.”
“Because he ain’t you.”
“Isn’t me? He’s dead because of me.”
“What–that’s–how do you figure?”
Laudna’s normally animated gestures were muted now. She folded her arms in front of her chest, shoulders hunched, making herself as small as possible.
“If anything, he’s dead because of me,” Imogen said. “I’m the one Otohan was goading when she–when she took out Orym, and Fearne, and you. She’s making a point.”
“And we didn’t do so bad against her that you all couldn’t have taken her with Eshteross’s help,” Laudna said. “If you hadn’t been taking me to blasted Whitestone of all places, maybe you’d have been there when she came. Maybe you’d be enjoying a proper ginger maple cookie and laughing around a warm fireplace about how close that scrape was, rather than eating these inferior leavings.” She tossed a cookie into the wash basin and sighed.
“Oh, Laud.” Imogen didn’t know what to say to that. “Laudna, look at me.” Laudna wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Laudna.” Finally she glanced up and sheepishly stared at Imogen.
“We lost three of us fighting her. Eshteross had a mansion full of traps and weapons and lord knows what else. If we’d stayed here, we’d probably just be bodies next to him.”
“Probably, maybe, none of it is sure.”
“We made the choice to get you back. You made the choice to come back. Estheross gave everything he could to help us in that. I’m sorry we can’t bring him back, too.”
“It isn’t fair.”
“Of course it ain’t fair, love. Life is the shits and we had to call in every last favor, travel all the way around the world, and destroy Delilah, and still we almost didn’t get you back.”
“That little tin robot nearly fucked it up for everyone trying to force me back.” Laudna’s lip quirked up in a half smile. The first in a long time. Imogen’s heart soared to see it.
“They’re trying. We’re all tryin’ our best.”
“Still. How am I supposed to just accept that Eshteross is gone when I got a second–third–chance at life? At his expense?”
“You don’t, right away. You get crazy and make enough cookies to flood the Heartmoor, and eventually you stop because there ain’t no more ginger in all of Jrusar.”
Laudna chuckled at that, too. She stared around at all the cookies on every surface, at the wood-burning stove with its currently-baking ones. “I ran out of counters.”
“And tables, chairs, and cupboards, Laud, I know.” Imogen reached a hand out over the little counter island, fingers stretched for Laudna. Laudna wiped her fingers and reached out, taking Imogen’s hand. Gripped it fiercely.
“It’s gonna suck for a while. He was a good friend, someone whose heart was in the right place, who saw in our weird little group not a bunch of freaks, but people who needed answers, and help. A fun scary girl who just needed some people to accept her. A telepathic girl plagued by nightmares who was never not tired. Someone made of rock and is never not in intense pain.”
“Ashton’s always in pain?” Laudna asked, eyes wide with concern.
“We have a lot to talk about when we get past this, but yeah. Ashton’s always hurtin’.”
“Poor guy. No wonder they’re so averse to touch and people.”
Imogen walked around the counter, holding Laudna’s hand until she could bring it to her chest and stand in front of the woman. “We’re all damaged and broken. Eshteross was, too. He knew the risks, he knew how important you were to us. He accepted us for us, and sacrificed himself for a good cause. We can sit here and try to perfect his damned cookies instead of facing his death, grieving it like we need to, finding vengeance for his killer, and saving the whole damn world from the moon, or we can pick ourselves up, throw all these cookies in the trash and stop beating ourselves up for things we can’t control or change.”
Laudna’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I like it when you get protective of me, Imogen.”
“I like it when you’re alive, Laudna.”
“Eh, -ish.”
They both chuckled at the old joke and Imogen smiled. “You’re alive enough for this.”
Imogen pulled her in, and their lips met. Laudna was surprised for a moment, but only a moment, and then she leaned into it. It was needful, painful, hurried and angry. This kiss was everything they hadn’t said to each other, everything they had felt but were too in their own heads to acknowledge or even recognize. Losing Laudna had crystallized Imogen’s love. And maybe Laudna hadn’t felt the same. Maybe this was the worst possible time to act on it.
But people process grief in their own ways. Imogen chose to take a risk. To make a play.
And Laudna relaxed in her arms as they held each other, exploring this new facet of their relationship. The noise became music again. The brackish tone faded. Imogen sighed with relief, and love, and everything in between as their lips parted and they simply stared into each other’s eyes.
Then Pâté cleared his throat. “Oy, you two randy minxes, we’re in a kitchen, not a bedroom.”
And before they could react, from the doorway came an embarrassed clearing of an old throat. They spun to find Zhudanna watching them with the biggest, knowing smile on her face. “I was coming to get that tea you promised me, Imogen.”
Imogen’s face flamed up scarlet as Laudna’s turned a pretty shade of purple. They split apart and the moment passed. But it was the moment. It changed everything.
They weren’t okay. They had mountains to climb and legends to murder before they were done. But for right now, they had love.
Love and cookies, what could be better to get through a hard time?
Laudna pulled the latest batch out of the oven while Imogen prepared a few cups of tea for everyone. Laudna separated the cookies onto a pile with other cookies, but held one out to Zhudanna and Imogen, blowing on it with her meager breath to cool it.
“Is this the one, dear?” Zhudanna asked, accepting a piece of the maple ginger cookie.
Laudna split the remainder between her and Imogen, and smiled wide, glancing at Imogen as she did so. “Maybe, maybe not, but I have a good feeling about it.”