(2022-05-07) Retaken Identity

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Author:	Jessa
Summary:	Remilea heads home. Or else.
Rating:	T for Teen

Remilea left the supply shop, recounting the runes to make sure she hadn't been cheated. Not that the shopkeeper would cheat a mage, but Remi couldn't shake the feeling that he had be reluctant to part with a full set; certainly the price was increasing. Or perhaps the demand for travel had.

She stumbled, toes snagging on something hard. One rune leapt to freedom from the jostled bag, it's oval shape making a bid for safety by rolling down the grass carpeted hill into a side alley.

Which it absolutely shouldn't have done. Remi slid her wand out of tiny hole in reality near her hip as she stepped cautiously in its path and out of public sight.

A gnome she didn't recognize was holding the rune in her palm. "Remilea."

But the voice wasn't the light lilt of a female gnome. It was deeper. Resonant. Perhaps emotionless, if one didn't know the speaker.

Remi closed the distance in two long strides, her red-and-gold robes hissing across the grass. "Are you mad?" she whispered, glaring at the gnome, glaring past her eyes at the mentor who lurked behind them.

"No. Merely desperate. You must return home immediately."

"Must? Is it safe?"

"No," he said. "It is not. Nevertheless."

"Why, then, must I return?"

His tone turned harder. "Remilea, I cannot take the time to explain now. Return home. I must leave before I cause damage to this unwitting child."

She shook her head to settle her mental confusion. "Of course. Do I return as… as Remilea?"

"All our choices are against us now. I leave the matter to you. Go. You have three seconds until I release her."

Snatching the rune, Remilea turned and hurried back to the path. She heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting from the alley behind her, and stopped under the shade of a tree to compose herself. Think. She had to think before she acted.

She had to go, so she would go. There was no portal, though she could get herself a little closer. A gryphon would have to suffice, and the flight would give her time unobserved to shed her mentor's illusion. Was there anything in her room she dared not leave behind? No. She had the amulet, and anything else identifying or incriminating was tucked into her little pocket dimension.

Remilea Monroe cast a portal, stepping out into Ironforge to purchase a flight.

In Southshore, a red-haired girl with delicate, patrician features, clad in the robes of the Kirin Tor, landed. Borrowing a horse from the livery, she set off toward the distant purple dome of Dalaran.