I'll forget what I was (when the tide comes home): My own version of the beginning of c3e103, a look into Laudna and Delilah, and how difficult it is to extract one from the other. A little bit selfish of me, wishing Delilah was not a problem so easily solved. 1467 words. Also on ao3.
“This world is full of two kinds of people: those that get hurt and accept it, and those that get hurt and retaliate. Who are you? Who are we?”
“I’m just Matilda.”
“Matilda’s dead. You are something more.”
In a way, the first and second times you were made after the unmaking were kinder than this - in those, you got to wake up. The act of waking up means that something preceded it - darkness, nothing, bliss, death - it was kinder.
There was horror, sure - Matilda, dead, Matilda, hanging in a noose, airways crushed, screaming silently (no way for air to get in or out of her, not for such a long time, where bits of her were broken again and cracked back into place, no longer Matilda, never Matilda again) for her parents who were already gone - Laudna, dead, stabbed through the chest, torn away from Imogen, relief at not having to see her die on the same blade, your blood (what little of it there was - is) pooling around you, her name the last word on your lips - but then: nothing. Darkness. Delilah. Nothing. Delilah.
Delilah? There was before, too - intertwined with your darkness - a woman hunted down like a dog trying to escape, severed arm bleeding and you could have been my daughter to a woman who looks just like Laudna before being pierced through with a rapier, the sizzle and popping of acid melting melting melting - two pops through the head, a kissing pair of lethal, killing wounds, dealt by a pair of lovers whose love differed from yours, pulled in different directions - away from demons, away from the sick, and for what? a boring life making a clock when they could have been so godly if only they understood, if only they had the ambition - darkness, then: you.
You.
Now: this.
Her - Laudna’s - Delilah’s - your hound, vacated, your chest cracked open, hovering for all to see, and they are digging around in there and you are burning burning burning - you pulled yourself apart for this, gave them your consent, told them - her - you wouldn’t trust anyone else - but:
What are you doing?
You need me.
And she’s right - of course she is, she’s always been - how easy had it become, through thirty years? To slip back, Matilda dead, long gone, and to slip back, a little less Laudna, let her control, a little more Delilah - you have always had a hunger with no end. Laudna ran from farmers that drove her away for looking like herself, ran and ran and starved, and when it became too much to bear: Delilah.
It wouldn’t be so easy for the two of you to switch who steers if you were extremely different.
Just like old times, Laudna. Others come and go, but I am always here. Just you and me, always.
How many little scraps had you struggled for? An enchanted necklace here, a lovers’ ring there, all consumed for her - for you. When Delilah was in charge, you weren’t hungry anymore. There were bodies left behind, but, you were an amalgamation of bodies left behind: choked and dissolved and shot and stabbed and stabbed - it is only fair that you should leave some extras scattered behind in the name of keeping yours going if this is the life (or lack thereof) that has been assigned to you. (Matilda - you wish she had been left behind. You wish she could have rested with her parents, remained a little girl with kind, soft hands, who buried birds in her backyard - but instead, you march on with your own dead bird following behind, and you are sorry sorry sorry but you cannot articulate what it is you are sorry for.)
You are burning, burning, and falling to the side, falling into a void within your mind - Delilah sits up as Orym approaches you. “Seedling-” you gasp out, barely able to piece words together as electricity runs throughout your nervous system, shocking out from the burning within your chest.
“...you have more love in your heart than Delilah has ever had in her long, cursed history.” He replies, and oh, neither of you like that - a flash comes to you, a well-meant peace offering of a dagger that had carved its way through you, accompanied by: “It’s his to do with as he chooses. He’s lost more than we have.” Who was in control then? Was it Laudna or Delilah who stabbed you in the chest and absorbed power and sobbed? Was it Laudna or Delilah who built a golden cage around you?
The answer doesn’t matter. It never has.
Do not speak to me about loss ever again do not speak to me about loss ever again do not speak to me about loss ever again-
More flashes - a lover’s smile under a red moon, glowing with power - the excitement of sharing a secret kiss - the anticipation of growing more powerful, more capable, all to protect the one you - she - you love.
You know you saved my life, right? If you hadn’t come when you did, I don’t know how long I would’ve lasted. These last few years have been everything. I love you, and I’m here. I love you more than anything.
The memory is soft, it’s lovely; if only you could remember whose voice those words were delivered by. Imogen or Sylas, Sylas or Imogen: a love you would give every piece of yourself for - perhaps it doesn’t matter who said it; the feeling is the same.
Why did you stab yourself?
It must be done. For you. For us. The fate of the world. What else do I have to give, except for myself? I love you.
I don’t think I’m going to survive this. Is this my thought or yours? Same as it always is - it’s ours.
Why are you ripping yourself in half?
You lock eyes with the spectral form of Delilah, resisting the urge to spare Imogen a glance. You’re full of ghosts, full of hunger and wants and what-could-have-beens, full of Laudna and the ghost of Matilda and full of Delilah, of love for Imogen and love for Sylas and an overwhelming, powerful need for them both, but: you are full of ghosts. There’s a twinned scar on your chest, a stab from a rapier and a stab from the summit blade, her first death, Laudna’s first (Matilda’s shell’s second) death, both yours, and your fear and your power pulses out from them: you release Matilda’s ghosts at Delilah.
It must be done.
You have been burning, purple fire radiating out from your chest; it’s only after you empty some of yourself that the fire expands through all of you: your mouth, your eyes, everything is alight.
Then, all at once, the burning ends, replaced by electricity stemming from the back of your neck (from the scar, always the scar) through your fingertips; this slows, fizzles, and it, too, ends. Your fingertips are a bit numb, but they are yours.
You look inward: Delilah bangs her fists against the crystal that glows within the center of you, so enraged she has forgotten she was a wizard for the ages: she is yours.
Imogen grabs your hands, trying to feel for signs of life that have never been yours, and you don’t acknowledge that her grip revives the tingling that came with the loss of Delilah - you are, for the first time that you have been you, alone. She can’t see through your eyes. You try to slip back, and find there is nowhere to go; you are alone.
You smile at Imogen, wrap your numb arms around her (don’t think about the broad shoulders, the cold skin your arms once wrapped around, that it is harder to feel the difference between them now-), try not to press at the fault lines between Laudna and Delilah, try not to reawaken the burning that has cleared you out into what you are now.
There are some seeds that cannot sprout unless they are first burned.
You touched a tree, once, in the sunlight of a city that had healed, and dreamed you could be something new.
You were tethered to a tree, once, in the dark, sending a message that wasn’t for you, and you became something more.
Perhaps now, finally, the seeds are burned in a purple hateful fire, and you will grow.
Imogen has stepped away, laughing at the antics of the others as they turn their faces towards what lies ahead, and she glows lilac in the fire from the hearth. You catch her eye and her smile softens. It is a gaze that has only ever been for you.
I would break the world for you. Is this my thought or yours? Same as it always is - it’s ours.
