Chapter Text
Prologue
Matilda Bradbury had always been used to pain. From a very young age, her limbs never sat right in their place, dancing in and out of where they were supposed to be. No sport was kind to her, the song between her ligaments intensifying in those circumstances, disabling her from pursuing most activities.
But despite it all, when the winds grew cold around Whitestone, and snow covered everything, bringing a quiet respite to all things living, and when the lakes around the town freezed over, Matilda sneaked away in the dead of night with a pair of old ice skates, and glided across the ice, heart full of joy. On those nights she let the wind embrace her in its frigid arms like a best friend she never had, skating on top of the lake to the music of her own body, and for a short time she could forget that outside of these times the rhythm inside her veins ground into her bones.
When she wasn’t on the ice, she studied how professional athletes moved, filing away every bit of information she could gather, and when the stars freckled the sky in their silvery light, she practiced. It wasn’t perfect, but every time she fell, her soul soared, because she was able to do this. She wasn’t weird or weak here, not with the speed of her skates and the wind on her cheeks.
And whenever the weather turned, and she had to bid farewell to skating for three seasons, she continued collecting knowledge, and sometimes she would reenact the choreography she saw in videos on land, to prepare for the time when she got back on the ice once again.
She spent the first half of her teenage years like this, until one winter night a woman found her skating spot and watched her while she danced on the ice. The next day she appeared at the Bradbury house, asking for Matilda.
So she gained a mentor, and a formal contract to Whitestone’s official sports club, the Grey Hunt, and the career she only dared to dream of started taking roots. Through training and sweat - and a little bit of blood -, it quickly evolved into national competitions, which brought her into competing in international events all across Tal’dorei.
She didn’t stop when her parents died in a car crash, rather, she dedicated her every move to them, only crumbling when she arrived at her room in the orphanage. She fell apart, but every morning she gathered herself back together, practicing every time she wasn’t in school - and sometimes even if she should have been there.
When at nineteen years old she sat on a plane to fly to Aeshanadoor and compete in the Winter Olympics, her heart wanted to burst from excitement, so much so, she felt dizzy.
She met Imogen Temult on the ice skating rink she was told she could practice on. She was younger, maybe sixteen, and though she was alone, her movements indicated a missing person from next to her. She joined her on the ice, and soon she found herself exchanging tips and jokes with her, enamored by her southern drawl and soft kindness, and for the first time in her life, Matilda made a friend. They talked all afternoon, only stopping when Delilah found them and put her back on the ice, making her repeat her performance until her knee started to weaken, and eventually gave up, only her reflexes saving her from taking too much damage.
That night, as she got herself through her room’s door with creaking joints and aching limbs, she found a small piece of paper neatly folded on the floor. As she opened it, it contained Imogen’s name and her number written in a charming messy handwriting, and a small heart on the bottom left corner. Tucking it away into her diary, Matilda immediately started the conversation, and from then, every late afternoon they chatted, first about skating, but soon it was about everything and nothing at all, until their competing day.
And then everything burned away in a blink of an eye.
Her heart pounded beneath her ribcage as she was announced, skating into the middle of the rink and assuming her starting position. She let herself be absorbed by the motions, channeling her focus into perfect movements.
She felt her joints creak with every move, swallowing winces after sharp stabs of pain during particularly taxing motions. Pain started to cloud over the joy, the familiar slide of blades on ice trembling ever so slightly from exertion.
Matilda felt a wash of anxiety as the hardest part of her choreography lumbered closer and closer, and when it was time to go all in and leap, her center of gravity shifted too far back too soon, and the backflip she attempted to execute became too flat to safely finish.
She fell in an awkward angle, meeting the ice with her neck and shoulder first in a painful crash, the rest of her body following soon after. She felt her right leg going numb, before black fully swallowed her vision.
Recovery was slow and painful, especially without anyone to turn to as Delilah pulled back from her, denying she had anything to do with the disaster, deceiving the press into thinking it was only Matilda’s own hubris to try and do a backflip, and not something she demanded the girl to do under the threat of kicking her out of the Grey Hunt. Matilda knew that going back to how it was before wasn’t an option, and so she obeyed, but when it came with an extreme price, it happened anyway.
So she picked herself up through grit teeth and shaking limbs, fleeing far away from the prying eyes of Whitestone the moment she could. Pain clung to her like a sickness she couldn’t shake, and she learned to live with it. She bought crutches which helped lighten the intensity on worse days, and she flew to Marquet to start again, burying Matilda Bradbury next to the headstones of her parents.
That’s how she arrived in Gelvaan multiple years later, coming for an accounting job on a ranch, but really staying for the lavender haired girl she met after one week of being there.
Imogen held her like she was a ghost that came back to life, and Laudna tucked the moment away in her memories fondly. She never realised how much she missed the girl she was friends with for maybe a week before everything happened.
When Imogen confessed to her that she needed to get away from Gelvaan, it wasn’t even a question for Laudna to go with her, only where they were going.
Jrusar was a bustling place, far from the quiet serenity of the Taloned Highlands, but Laudna knew Imogen fell in love with it exactly because of that. Continuing her passion, her friend joined the Jrusar SC, coming home with a wide smile and mesmerising flushed cheeks after meeting the team she was going to be training with.
Laudna found herself a job in an eccentric shop of various items, called Gilmore’s Glorious Goods, a few blocks away from the apartment she and Imogen shared. Next to her job, she always made sure to attend every competition Imogen participated in, cheering her best friend on from outside of the rink.
When she submitted the paperwork to change her name, Imogen was there with her, holding her hands and soothing her nerves until the answer arrived months later of the court’s approval. When they got the news, Imogen flew out of her seat next to Laudna, declaring that they needed a celebratory dinner. They ordered takeout, and while they waited for it to arrive, Imogen melted chocolate in the microwave and pulled out a box of strawberries from the pantry - “As an appetiser.” she claimed in that charming drawl of hers.
Laudna cried then and there, her happiness and bliss flowing over her cheeks, Imogen’s arms quickly finding their way around her in a firm embrace.
Pain has always been constant for Laudna, especially after her recovery, but the warmth of Imogen’s love soothed any ache she had.