An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
It had been quite the amount of time since Imogen last had sand in her shoes.
She isn’t given much time to dwell on it; Ms Laudna coming into clarity as Imogen approaches, hunched forward with her arm further than elbow-deep in one of the rockpools.
“I see you took the opportunity for a swim.” She states matter-of-factly, inspecting a pebble in her hand before placing it on the same swatch of cloth that had lent itself for the oyster spread.
“A-yeah, sorry about that - kinda happened without thinkin’.” Probably a bit too candid, and it gets a momentarily raised brow from the woman sat at the rockpool, before her attention returns to the miscellaneous selection of stones by her side.
“I am sure it did you good, and your wound? How is that looking?”
“Oh, fine, thank you. I was in there long enough it’s already stitchin’ together again.”
“Your intuition served you well then.”
Imogen can only assume that the compliment weighs so much because she regards the Lady as so worldly - and not only because of her age.
Maybe it’s because she doesn’t know, hasn’t taken that look behind the curtain for herself; rendering the woman and her behaviour even more mystifying and esoteric, the leading suggestions behind her statements as well as the knowledge eagerly shared.
Regardless of the rumours.
The selection of rocks and oyster shells on the embroidered cloth, now dirtied with splotches of wet sand and a curl of seaweed like a stray hair.
“What’re you collectin’?” Imogen hopes that it’s a feasible and polite-enough question.
“Whatever interests me – it’s quite a renowned stretch of coast, you know.”
Imogen wants to ask how closely related these stories are to the lake’s, but she isn’t sure if that would break her own personally-set parameters.
Ms Laudna retrieves one of the pebbles from her side; a larger and more flat one in comparison to the rest of the bunch. She sits back; resting on the palm of one of her hands, the other holding the stone aloft for Imogen to inspect, expectant and notably casual - as she had been at the base of the statue in her garden.
Imogen steps to meet her, taking the stone into her own hands and bringing it to eye-level.
At first it looks as though its surface is imprinted with the weave of a wicker basket, but as Imogen tilts the rock in the sunlight she sees that these impressions are actually in relief, swelling outwards, dividing and complex
Like the gnarled scars that cover her hands from fingertip to mid-palm
She wants to touch the surface with her bare fingers, wonders if she can excuse herself for a trip down to the ocean once again.
Imogen is sure that the Lady has not seen her hands, and yet the timing, the curation
Perhaps she is thinking too much from her own perspective. It is not the view she has had to grow accustomed to.
“Oh, it has a pattern an’ a texture.”
“Isn’t it beautiful? I admit I had to get my notebook out to remember the name of this one.”
She thinks it’s beautiful.
“Yes dear, it’s a fossil. A Pentacrinites crinoid.”
Imogen doesn’t call the Lady out on her incorrect addressing, allows the word to soothe a scar she carries that is much older than the fresh cut on her fingertip.
“I’m not even gonna try t’say that.”
“They’re often called sea lilies - but they’re actually related to starfish - not a plant.”
“Is the sea filled with alotta animals that look like other things?”
lilies, glace cherries, stars, jellies, monsters constructed of hornwort and cats’ eyes and seashell and fishbone teeth
Ms Laudna giggles agreeingly
“Until we grow gills or construct a ship that can be airtight when it dives, I suppose we have to use our imaginations – or look at what washes up on the shores.”
Imogen can easily recall that gurgle, the leathery petrified cadaver that followed.
“Is this one of the lake’s stories?”
“Well, there are seahorses-”
A saddled horse with dorsal fins instead of a mane, opalescent scales, a tail like a mermaid-
“About as literal as you can picture them compared to everything else you have seen-” a reality a little crushing, though swiftly soothed by Ms Laudna’s head throwing back with the weight behind her laugh, birds scattering in flight and cawing in the distance - yet Imogen doesn’t feel patronised; though maybe she has endeared herself to her and it is a fine line, and one of Ms Laudna’s hands cradles her stomach as if pained by the exertion, her other resting on Imogen's forearm, gentle, intimate
A squawk calls from close by that is distinctly different to the caw of the gulls, and this gives both Imogen and her Lady pause, her hand removing contact from Imogen’s arm as she turns to the black-feathered bird that skips along the knobbly rocks and around the pools of water to walk towards her.
Fittingly bizarre; outfitted in all black for a summer’s day on the beach.
It tilts its head and taps its beak on the weathered porous rock, Ms Laudna watching it closely before she takes a deep breath, throwing over the last uneaten oyster from its shell and at the crow’s feet.
“I suppose we better head back; Sorcha is a growing girl and I will not allow for her to miss a meal.”
Imogen nods, eyes darting between the Lady’s and the crow, as it tilts its own head back, forcing unchewed flesh down its throat.
“I would like for you to keep the fossil, if you would take it.”
Ms Laudna moves to stand, and Imogen hurries to offer her her free hand, to be in her grasp again.
“I did, so see it as a keepsake, if you will - should your cut not form a scar.”