Chapter Text
ships are launching from my chest/some have names but most do not/if you find one, please let me know what piece i’ve lost/heal the scars from off my back/i don’t need them anymore/you can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars/i’ve come home
‘welcome home, son’ by radical face
—
The Hells part ways with Imogen’s parents and her aunt after their meeting at the Sun Tree, but it’s a bit of a double-edged parting. On one hand, she manages to get them all out of following her parents up to the castle under the guise of showing them the parts of Whitestone they missed their fraught journey up to the castle and down to Pike’s house.
On the other, she can’t manage to get them out of a more formal invitation to dinner that evening. She’s been aiming to keep Laudna out of Whitestone Castle in entirety, but her mother insists. There isn’t a good enough excuse for Imogen to wiggle out of it without questioning, and when she tries anyways, Laudna shoots her a look— the kind that says she knows Imogen’s protesting for her benefit, and she should stop.
Once they’ve managed to get their freedom before dinner, Imogen makes good on her excuse, showing the rest of the Hells a few choice areas of Whitestone. She’s careful to avoid anything she think might be too tainted by the Briarwoods influence, including the farmlands on the southwest path down to the Parchwood where Laudna would have grown up. Some things are safe, like the Slayer’s Cake and The Heart of Whitestone clock tower— they were built after Laudna had fled Whitestone, too new to hold bad memories. Others she takes chances on; they pass a few older shops that are family run, as well as a few small memorials and temples. She must be in a particularly sentimental mood, because she drags them around the Grey Hunt Manor after showing it off and takes them down the Snowdrop Memorial Trail. It’s private, for most citizens of Whitestone, but Imogen is still a de Rolo.
(And— it’s a trail her aunt built behind her mother’s home in honor of her uncle. Who would turn her away from it?)
She warns the others to be careful where they step as they go. True to it’s name, delicate white flowers line the path to the Altar of the Raven. While surely some of them are new growth, Imogen can almost imagine her aunt Keyleth taking the careful time to grow them all, putting her grief to work in creating something beautiful.
It takes them longer to reach the Greyfield than it would if they’d taken the public path, there’s something more sacred about leading them through this way. It also means they don’t need to cut through the thick of the cemetery. There’s a grave there that bears Laudna’s old name, tucked between her parents and her little brother. Imogen saw it once, long before she had met Laudna, before she knew the dirt beneath that headstone bore no body. Back then, it had just been another sad story in a line of them, another life cut short.
She knows better than that now, though. She’d be just as happy to avoid it even if Laudna weren’t here.
The dirt path gives way to stone as they step out of the trees, and the altar rises from it. It isn’t the showiest in the world, or even within Whitestone; the Altar of the Raven isn’t too much more than a dark marble dais and a few stone pillars inlaid with stained glass. The biggest feature is the squared-off pool of water, and even that’s relatively tame compared to the actually Raven’s Crest temple and it’s communion tub of blood— the only way to be fully submerged at Whitestone’s altar for the Raven Queen is to lay flat on your back.
“This is… quite nice,” F.C.G. says, as they come to a stop at the back of Greyfield.
“It’s very beautiful,” Fearne adds.
“It’s not much,” Imogen admits. “But the Raven Queen isn’t widely worshiped in Whitestone. Not many people come out here.”
Ashton folds their arms across their chest. “Who was important enough to get this built, then?” They ask. “‘Cause it’s small and everything, but that’s some nice stonework, and there’s an entire private path to get here.”
“My uncle,” Imogen says. “He’s the Raven Queen’s champion.”
That earns her a low whistle. “By the nine hells, Imogen, are you related to every powerful person on this continent? Your parents are the Lord and Lady of Whitestone, your aunt is Orym’s boss, and your uncle is the champion of the Raven Queen? What’s next?”
Imogen throws them a look. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Fuck it. Yeah, I actually do.”
“My mother’s the champion of Pellor, and my aunt Pike is the champion of Saranrae. And—”
“The baker?” Ashton says, cutting her off before she can get to Scanlan. “She’s the champion of a god?”
“To be fair, she did bring Laudna back to life,” Fearne points out. “Maybe that should have been a clue.”
“A clue that she was a cleric, not an entire god’s champion!”
Ashton and Fearne start to devolve into bickering over how surprising the revelation should be. Both Chetney and F.C.G. jump in a moment later, one attempting to mediate while the other only eggs the first two on. Imogen takes the moment of distraction to turn to Orym.
“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” she says.
Orym seems almost amused, his lips quirking up at the corners. “Most people don’t know the champion of any gods,” he replies. “You just stated that you’re related to several of them, and another two of your relatives rule entire cities .”
“You know Keyleth. Is it really that strange?”
“Imogen,” Orym says, a little more serious. “The Tempest is the most powerful person I know, and she’s my boss. People I loved have died defending her. And to you, she’s your aunt.”
The thinly veiled mention of Will and Derrig is sobering. She’s well-accustomed to the sound of melancholy floating from Orym’s head when he thinks of him. This time they’ve spent chasing the Paragon’s Call has made it ever-present in his mind, as had Laudna’s death. As used to it as she is, however, she often forgets the role Keyleth played. She hadn’t been at fault, of course, but it was her that Will and Derrig had gone down fighting on behalf of.
She was someone people died to protect, and to Imogen, she was the woman who taught her what each of the flowers in the castle’s garden was.
“That’s a fair point,” she admits, soft.
Orym smiles, almost placating. “It’s not a bad thing,” he says. “Considering everything that’s just happened, bad is the last thing I would call it. But it’s not the experience most people have. You’ve spent your life surrounded by people who could, and have, changed the face of Exandria— people who love you and would do so much just to help you. There’s power in that. For most of the rest of us, right here, right now? This is the most power we’ve ever had, with all of us together.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it like that,” Imogen replies. “I… it was normal to me, growing up. Everyone I knew around my age were my siblings, or children of other people with… status. I didn’t really have a lot of friends in town. And I’ve been away from home so long that I just felt— almost divorced from it, you know? The longer I spent away from home, the more I started to feel like Imogen Temult, not Imogen de Rolo.”
“And that makes a lot of sense,” Orym says. “But you still knew it was here, you still had all of it, and the rest of us had little to no idea. It’s an adjustment.”
“Yeah.”
He must be able to sense the anxiety starting to prickle at her, because he continues. “There’s nothing wrong with it, and there’s absolutely no judgment. It’s just that it’s not normal for us in the way that it is for you, and—”
There’s a splash from behind them that cuts him off, followed by the thick silence that only follows something unexpected. Imogen and Orym whirl around to see Chetney sitting flat on his ass in the pool in front of the altar. It’s only a foot and a half deep, but that’s a lot for Chet’s gnomish frame. The way he’s leaned back means that the water almost comes up to his chest, and only the tips of his knees poke up from the surface.
All of the other Hells are gathered around, but it’s clear from the poorly concealed grin on Ashton’s face that they’re responsible for whatever just happened. Chet glares up at them as he tries to wipe his face dry.
“Really, Ashton?” Imogen asks, as Orym says: “Real mature, guys.” That only seems to amuse Ashton more, and a few snickers slip out.
Imogen opens her mouth to add something, probably a few scolding words, but then— Laudna laughs. It’s a quiet at first, just a few giggles, but the sound of it stops her dead in her tracks. The others go still at the same time, save for Chetney, who grumbles as he tries to climb to his feet.
Tries being the operative word. He’s halfway up when he grabs the side of the pool to push himself the rest of the way, and his hand slips. There’s a moment where he scrabbles for purchase before he loses it completely and falls again, sending another splash of water spilling over the edge.
The rest of them crack. Laudna breaks out in full on laughter, and most of them follow. Before too long, Ashton is doubled over while Laudna and Fearne lean into each other to stay upright. Orym snorts, shaking his head despite the smile that crosses his face, and Imogen finds herself doing the same. It’s contagious.
This is a holy site, the back of her brain reminds her. Most people wouldn’t consider this a place to mess around— they’d be pulling Chetney out of the pool, or at least insisting that he get up. Instead, Imogen is standing over him and laughing.
She decides it doesn’t matter. A god doesn’t need to be involved for her to know that this is holy, too.
—
Imogen shuffles them back to Whitestone proper once they get Chetney out, promising them that the late afternoon sunshine has driven many of the morning folk away from the shopping center of town. It takes them a while to backtrack down the trail, but Imogen doesn’t risk taking them through the rest of Greyfield to make it shorter.
Now that the weather’s warmed up, many of the city’s early risers have made back to the cool shade offered by their homes by the time the Hells get . There are still people shuffling about, but nothing that compares to the rush the market would have seen earlier. Most importantly, all of the various vendors and shops are still open, although a few are preparing to close within a few hours— the stalls that sell meat or produce see most of their business by the time the sun is high in the sky, and they don’t stay open much longer than that.
They’re all still a bit subdued, but the mood is lighter now than it had been before. Ashton grumbles about the few people who offer them strange looks out of the corner of their eyes, and Orym tugs Fearne away from a vendor’s stall when she spends too long eyeing a couple of trinkets laid out on the table top. Chetney trudges along with his arms folded, clearly bitter about the remainder of the water in his pants they weren’t able to prestidigitate. Nobody presses Imogen on anything, including what happened with her mother when they all left the room, but Fresh Cut Grass does catch her eye when nobody else looking and points to the ‘supportive’ face on his emotional expression chart.
It’s nice. They’ve been through hell the past week, but it’s comforting that they’re all still them after it.
The lower the sun starts to sink, though, the closer dinner draws near. With dinner comes, of course, the castle and all it’s ghosts. Imogen starts to itch with worry at the thought of it, and she can see that same nervous energy reflected in Laudna; her smiles start to become plastic at the edges the more time passes.
When the evening bell rings, there’s no more time to put it off— they have to start heading to the castle now in time to make it for dinner.
Imogen stalls in place anyway. The others, still caught up in their own conversations despite the loud chime that sounds out across the center of Whitestone, don’t notice. Only Laudna, whose hand is still wrapped tight in one of Imogen’s own, catches it.
She uses the chance to tug Laudna a few feet away from the rest of the group, an attempt to gain some modicum of privacy. “We don’t have to go,” she says, voice lowered. “We can leave now, if you want.”
That cracked open look Laudna’d worn earlier starts to come back. “I… it’s dinner with your family.”
“They’d understand.”
“It’s been two years.”
“I saw some of them today,” Imogen replies. “And, after— you shouldn’t have to go back there.”
Laudna shakes her head. “Imogen, darling,” she says. “I would be lying if I said I desired to stay here any longer than we had to, at least after everything that’s happened. But I would hate to drag you away from here before you got the chance to see your family.”
“I could see—”
“We wouldn’t. Wherever we go from here, we’ll be just as busy as we were before, and they’ll always be a reason not to make time for it. But you’re here now.”
She’s right, but it doesn’t do much to make Imogen feel placated. “You don’t have to go,” she tries again. “Some of us could go ourselves, or just me.”
“Imogen,” Laudna says, placing her hand on the other woman’s shoulder. She stills at the contact, calmed far more than she’d like to admit by it. “I would rather go with you than stay behind, and it would make me feel dreadful if I was the reason you missed time with your family. Let’s just… go to dinner.”
Despite the peace that Laudna’s touch brings, her stomach still churns. When she searches Laudna’s face for any hesitation, though, she doesn’t find it. There’s warmth, sure, and plenty of vulnerability, but no doubt.
“Okay,” Imogen says, and it comes out like a sigh. “Let’s go to dinner.”
—
If she had thought the walk up to the castle was long when they’d been carrying Laudna’s body up with them, it does not compare to how it feels with Laudna walking up alongside them. Imogen wouldn’t trade having her back for anything, but it had been different knowing that she wasn’t aware of what’s happening. Now, hand in hand and her head alive with thought, Imogen can taste every nerve that wafts off of her.
As much as Whitestone Castle was home to her, as much as she knows her various trinkets and well-worn books still litter her bedroom upstairs, she can’t find it within herself to see the place as anything but the site of Laudna’s slaughter.
The rest of their party does their best to ease the tension, carrying on with a conversation that is obviously forced in how light it is. It doesn’t do much to soothe Imogen— or Laudna, for that matter— but at least she can pretend that everyone isn’t watching the two of them shove down whatever heavy emotions are swirling inside their chests.
After a ten minute walk more akin to something of a grueling journey, they reach the front gates. The guards all offer the same respect in greeting as they had upon Imogen’s first arrival, but unlike before, allow them to pass without any formal escort. Her parents must have given the all clear for them to come in unimpeded— a show of trust from her father, no matter how small it might seem to the outside eye.
A shiver ripples through Laudna’s body as the heavy wooden doors part open before them, allowing her a first look inside the castle after thirty odd years. Imogen squeezes the hand in hers. “Are you okay?” She asks.
Laudna nods, but it’s shaky. “I’m okay,” she says. “I will be.”
“Do you want to turn back?”
“Absolutely not.”
It doesn’t feel honest, but there’s a layer of resolve painted over the anxiety across Laudna’s face. Imogen studies her for a moment, waiting to see if she changes her mind, before taking her first step across the threshold.
Laudna follows at the point they’re still joined, crossing from the cobblestone path to the smooth stone of the foyer floor. A soft noise, half gasp and half sigh, slips out as she does, but she doesn’t falter. As Imogen takes a few steps inside, Laudna follows, and each foot inside seems to eat away some of the tension in her spindly frame.
The others spill in around them, some to the sides and some behind— a flank, covering every point of space around them that Laudna can’t see. The physical presence surrounding her seems to calm her further, and she relaxes into a stance that’s almost normal.
“We all okay here?” Orym asks, from Laudna’s right.
“We’re okay,” she replies. “I’m okay.”
Everyone pauses for a moment, before the silent agreement not to push Laudna settles over them.
“I know I said it before Imogen, but fuck,” Ashton says, filling the void of silence before it can get awkward. “I cannot believe you grew up in a fucking castle.”
F.C.G. hums, a little mechanical sound. “You have a very lovely home Imogen.”
“So lovely,” Fearne agrees. “And I’m sure there’s plenty of things in here that your parents won’t miss too much—”
The words seem to die in Fearne’s throat as soft footsteps come into the foyer, and Imogen’s mother appears. Her hunting clothes from earlier have been replaced with a dark blue dress that’s rather casual for the Lady of Whitestone to wear, but far nicer than anything the Hells have on them.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she says, with a note of cool formality that reminds Imogen of the way her mother spoke to foreign nobles she hadn’t known well— not unkind, but layered with unfamiliarity.
“It’s no bother, Lady de Rolo,” Orym replies. “Thank you for having us.”
“Of course, it’s our pleasure,” she says, offering him a polite smile, before she turns to her daughter. “Imogen, if you would like, your siblings have asked if it would be possible to see you before dinner.”
The suggestion gives her pause, and Imogen feels herself stiffening before she can stop it. Judging by the way her mother’s neutral expression twitches, she’s caught it, too.
It makes sense— they’re all about to be corralled into seats around the same dinner table, surrounded by strangers they’ve never met. Out of all her siblings, Imogen only had a chance to speak to two of them, and a formal dining room isn’t the best place for reunions. Not to mention that the last time most of them saw her, she was standing over a dead body and screaming at her father.
But Laudna is here, standing in Whitestone Castle for the first time since the Briarwoods had control of it. To her, these walls lack the laughter and magic of Imogen’s childhood. All they stand for is untimely death and lives cut short.
When she opens her mouth to decline her mother’s offer, though, the hand still holding hers squeezes. She turns to see Laudna is fixing her with a look. It’s the kind that she needs no words to understand, spoken aloud or otherwise.
“This is… we’re in the Castle,” she says, answering the prompt Laudna’s eyes are giving her. “We’re going to dinner, I don’t want to leave you alone.”
She expects her words to change the placating expression on Laudna’s face, but it doesn’t budge. Laudna’s lips curl into a small, soft smile. “I’ll be fine,” she replies. “You should go, see your siblings. I’ll be fine until dinner.”
“We’ll take good care of her,” Ashton adds. “Promise.”
When Imogen doesn’t budge, Chetney knocks his elbow against her thigh with more force than it really needs. “Go,” he insists.
“We’ll see you at dinner,” Orym adds.
Imogen’s gaze flicks between them all before settling on Laudna once more. The other woman is smiling, quiet and wry.
“I’ll be okay,” she says. “Go see your siblings.”
Laudna squeezes her hand a final time before letting go and drifting a few feet away to plant herself between Fearne and Ashton. Even the few feet of distance sends a pang of anxiety racing up Imogen’s spine, but she forces herself to swallow it down. Instead, she crosses the room to meet her mother and take the arm that’s being offered to her.
“They’re just down in your aunt Cassandra’s parlor,” her mother says as she leads her from the foyer, resolute in ignoring the way her daughter glances over her shoulder to watch Laudna disappear from view. “She sends her regards– she’s desperately sorry to miss you visiting, but she’s off on business is Syngorn, and they would not take kindly to her stepping out on meetings.”
“They wouldn’t,” Imogen agrees, voice soft. Her memories of Syngorn are old and faded, but she can remember how cold the place had seemed. The elves there had stared at her, and even now, she hasn’t forgotten how they stared at the small points of her ears with something she now understands to be contempt.
As a kid born to the royal family of Whitestone, it was the first time she had ever felt like there was something other about her.
“She’ll be home in a little less than a week’s time,” Imogen’s mother continues. “But I imagine you will be gone by then.”
Imogen hums. “Probably.”
The pair of them turn the last corner on their path. Down the hallway, Imogen can see the doors of the parlor are thrown wide open, and an orange glow spills out onto the floor. Without approval, she feels her feet stutter to a stop beneath her.
As she freezes in place, her mother stops, too. Neither of them speak for a long moment, but the look on Imogen’s face must give away what she’s thinking, because–
“They’re not mad at you,” her mother assures.
“Won’t they be?” Imogen replies. “Father is. You are.”
Her mother hesitates for a long second, like she’s chewing over her words. “I will admit that I still feel frustrated by the amount of things you have kept from your father and I,” she says. “And that I wish, at the very least, that you would have trusted me enough to be honest. But I cannot wholly blame you for the reasoning that led you to make the choices you have.”
At some point in her mother’s speech, Imogen turns away, but a hand comes up to cup her cheek and keep her in place as her mother tilts to meet her eyes.
“At the end of the day, you are always my daughter,” she adds. “I will always love you. And that will always come before everything, even when you frustrate me. And it will still come before everything, no matter what anybody else thinks of your decisions– your father included.”
The emotions well, that complicated mix she’s been carrying in the center of her chest for days. “I love you, Mom,” Imogen says, because it’s the only thing her brain can think to say.
Her mother smiles, eyes heavy with quiet affection. “I love you, too,” she says, bending to press a kiss to the crown of her daughter’s head. “I will see you at dinner, darling.”
“I’ll see you at dinner,” Imogen echoes, and her mother squeezes her arm once before she lets go, taking her leave back the way they’d came.
Now alone, Imogen makes her way further down the hall to the parlor. As she gets closer, the soft hum of their voices reach out to greet her. When she reaches the doorway– a fifteen second walk that feels like it takes minutes– she’s greeted by the sight of them.
All five of her siblings are gathered in the center of the room, standing despite the couches and chairs dotted along the wall. Each of them speaks in hushed tones, or as close as they can manage; Gwen’s voice laps over the others by a significant margin.
“You guys are being weirder about this than you should be,” she insists, her whisper carrying over to where Imogen still stands in the doorway. “It’s just Imogen and dad.”
Wolfe’s face is the only one Imogen can actually see from this angle. She watches as his lips twist into a frown. “Gwen, it’s complicated—”
“You keep saying that, but none of you will say why! I’m not a baby anymore, I’m almost fourteen years old! Why are you guys always keeping things from me!”
The others hesitate, before Dan clears his throat. “Nobody is trying to keep anything from you—”
“No, she’s right,” Leona interrupts. Unlike Gwen and her brothers, she seems to understand the concept of whispering, because Imogen has to actually listen to hear what she’s saying. “She deserves to know things, too. It would be unfair of us to keep insisting she has to think something is weird but not tell her what it is.”
“So what happened?” Gwen asks.
“Father and Imogen had a fight,” Leona replies, as matter-of-fact as ever. “Imogen wanted him to help her with something, and he thought what she was asking of him was dangerous, so he said no. That made Imogen upset, and they had an argument. They were both really angry.”
“If it was so dangerous, why would Imogen want to do it?”
It’s Vesper that answers, reaching out to place a hand on the back of her youngest sister’s shoulder. “Sometimes, when you really care about people, you’ll do a lot of things to help them,” she says. “And sometimes, those things are dangerous.”
Gwen turns toward Vesper, giving Imogen a generous view of her side profile. The line of her eyebrows are drawn in concern, and the line of her jaw moves in a way Imogen recognizes from herself— Gwen is chewing at the inside of her cheek.
“Is Imogen okay?” She asks.
Before any of them can reply, Imogen clears her throat; she'd rather introduce herself now than listen to whatever dissection of her emotional state the others might get into. “I feel okay,” she answers.
At the sound of her voice, five heads snap to look at her. Save for Vesper, they all wear matching expressions caught somewhere between surprise and disbelief. For the first time in two years, all six de Rolo siblings are standing in the same room, and none of them seem able to move.
“I missed you guys,” Imogen says, finally, and it breaks the spell. Like strips of metal to a magnet, all five of Imogen’s siblings snap to her side as if they’ve been waiting for years.
(After all, they have.)