The same moment I was awake the next day, I was already out the door and halfway to the Ayfel. Whiplash has nothing on me. Nevermind the fact that it was still rather dark out. I didn’t care, all I wanted was that illusion.
I was fairly certain that Aymiae didn’t want me to come get it right away, but I was fine with waiting at the Ayfel if I had to. I just didn’t want to wait a second longer than necessary. As predicted, Aymiae was woken up by my pounding but still somehow seemed amused at my actions. She brought me inside without a second thought and had me make breakfast for the two of us while she put the finishing touches on the illusion.
I hummed happily as I stirred the pot, occasionally adding a spice or two to the porridge and glancing at the diced fruit. I couldn’t ruin the whole thing by adding them too early after all…
I was probably making a bit too much, but cooking in the ayfel was really weird. It felt like I should be making food for over a dozen little girls instead of just me and Aymi. For the first time in a while, I let myself feel the pang of sadness at that unique loss.
The front door opened and I glanced toward it, blinking. I didn’t think that Aymiae had anyone else coming so-
Hivren blinked back at me. “Oh! Eliax! Great to see you. Is… is Aymiae here?”
I nodded, and after plopping the fruit bits into the concoction, I mixed the porridge extra hard for a second and set down the spoon. “She’s just back here, did you need something from her?”
Hivren nodded, gesturing toward the basket he held under one arm, “She asked me to get her some alchemical ingredients.”
I examined the basket idly for a moment and decided I needed to look into alchemy one of these days. I opened the door for him and followed behind as we set about locating Aymiae. Hivren seemed to know where she would be though, and before I knew it, we found our way to Lady Raia’s old study, apparently repurposed for the various magical disciplines that Aymi dabbled in.
Honestly it boggled my mind how many different types of magic she was proficient in. Illusionism, alchemy apparently, I was pretty sure she had an air magic affinity somewhere, and she always had been interested in Yeran magic.
When I walked into her workshop to see a gun mounted on one of the walls I decided she’d definitely gotten into Yeran stuff. Perhaps a bit too far.
She glanced up when we entered and brightened at the load of ingredients before taking them from Hivren and setting them beside a shelf of potions for later sorting. “Thank you, thank you! Is breakfast ready yet?”
I scrunched up my face, “Mostly.”
Aymi picked up the necklace she’d been working on and gingerly handed it to me, “There you are, to activate the illusion you just put it on, It should only work on you. Just add some power to it every day or so after hard use and you’re golden. If anything weird happens with it, let me know immediately!” She glanced at Hivren, “Ah, try it out later and if it doesn’t work as expected then contact me.”
I nodded and pocketed the simple chain, following as the other two migrated back to the kitchen, Aymiae stirred the contents and glanced at our companion, “Do you want some breakfast Hivren? It seems we’ve got too much.” She sent me a knowing look but didn’t give me time to apologize.
--
I stood in a particularly obscure corner of the abandoned palace half an hour later, staring at the chain and gripping a newly-purchased mirror in one hand.
This had better work. I didn’t know what I would do if it didn’t.
Taking a deep breath, I unlatched the chain and brought it across my neck to clip in the back, watching my arm as a faint buzz of magic passed across my skin. I hesitantly looked into the mirror once the effect was over.
My magesight could detect the faintest bit of a difference in the magical aura that surrounded me, but if I hadn’t known it intimately already, I would have no idea that this was an illusion.
My hair had always been stark white, as with most Tuvei, but with the illusion on it seemed less vibrant, more dull. My eyes were mostly the same, if anything they seemed less out of place now. My exoskeleton was more scruffed, and there was a long scar across my chin that apparently Aymiae had taken liberties with as I’d never had such a scar before.
I stared at that reflection for a long long moment.
“Foralen Dei Imal.” I whispered, “The Hero of Melor.”
All in all, the face was familiar, it looked just like how I remembered it albeit a couple of decades older. When I spoke the voice that came out was more mature and level than I’d expected, but it also felt right.
It seemed like this might be who I was underneath the skin, even without the youth I enjoyed; this was how old my soul was.
I stood up straighter and tied up my hair into a tail before bunching it up to make a tight bun where only a few strands were allowed to fly free in order to give it personality, I changed my clothing and tucked it inside Eliax’s bag, sitting down in the alcove and taking out the tools I’d bought weeks ago but never used. Makeup. Eliax would never wear makeup, it wasn’t who she was, but right now, I wasn’t aiming to be Eliax.
To my relief the illusion took it in full grace, I wasn’t quite sure how it worked, but most magic needed an element of belief from the user, if I believed hard enough that the makeup would work then I figured it probably would. I was right on that front.
I stared at the mirror for a long moment, my inner artist searching for flaws to correct. When I got to the long scar on my chin I contemplated covering it, but Aymiae had put it there for a reason, it was another thing that separated Eliax from Foralen.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
So I hesitantly coaxed it into the light, making it stand out more, I was Foralen dei Imal, I was a woman who survived a war, a woman who had…been in hiding for the last twenty-two years, a woman who was well versed in dimensionalism and soul magic.
I would not be ashamed of a scar, even if I wasn’t sure what it would have been from.
I put away the makeup and the mirror, tucking Eliax’s bag into the alcove and forcing myself to relax. Foralen holds herself confidently. She seeks attention and doesn’t think before speaking. She’s powerful enough to go toe to toe with a dragon and almost win out of sheer spite. Ah, perhaps that’s where I got the scar. That feels right.
I exited the palace, teleporting to the other side of the wall a decent way off, behind a bend in the hills so the wall guard would assume I had just arrived. Presumably Foralen wouldn’t really know that the capitol had been moved to a different city, besides, she was from Reiaran so there was no reason for her to appear anywhere else.
I approached the wall, kind of doubting that there was anyone I remembered that might vouch for me when entering. Occasionally when about in the city I would see a face I recognised, but everyone I’d really been close to was either dead or no longer in the city.
One of the guards glanced down at me from the wall as I approached the closed gate, looking distinctly unimpressed. “Who are ya?” He asked loudly, picking up a pen of some sort and tapping it against the city records.
I frowned up at him, wondering how I should make this seem. Demanding? Show off some power? Make them respect me? That’s probably what they expected from the Hero and it would definitely get the Queen’s attention.
“You don’t know?” I asked calmly, giving him the most dragoncrap-less look I could muster, unimpressed. I let my magical aura flare and if he had any kind of senses he would feel it. I might not have graduated from Starsbane, but I sure had excelled and my aura reflected that after a night of getting it in order post silvi-barrier incident.
He blinked slowly and I heard some papers rustling. They probably had some portraits of relatively important people just to avoid offending anyone by not knowing. “Ah…nope. Can’t say I do. There’s no way in the lowest depths of Aeinar can I let you in without a name, ma’am. It’s for the records ya see?”
I bent the space around me and stepped through the distortion so I was perched on the wall next to him. I stared down at him and hopped off the battlement so we were level. I leaned closer as I felt his terror suddenly spike. “Guess then.”
The other members of the wall guard were certifiably freaking out, a strange dimensionalist appears, refusing to state who she is but demanding to be let in? I was clearly important though, I had to be. The poor guy squeaked and shrank lower under my stare. Sparks, why did it still feel so wrong to look someone in the eyes?
“I don’t know ma’am! I swear!” he glanced at his comrades with wide, pleading eyes and one of the more reasonable looking ones came closer, presumably trying to defuse this.
“I understand your annoyance at my friend here. Why don’t you tell me who you are and we can put him through a couple months of intense training to be sure he never does this again?”
Hah, that was actually rather decent persuasion skills there. I tilted my head sharply, remembering the way Jeref had done it to make it as disconcerting as possible, “Have I really been gone so long that no one can even guess.”
“Ma’am I-”
“Really I’m disappointed in this queen of yours then, she’s not even educating common soldiers in how to speak to someone who gave her so much.” Sparks, this was starting to make me sick. Buy into the propaganda already, I know you read it… I mean, they have to have read it, right?
The more sensible one swallowed and laughed nervously, “Unless you’re the Hero herself I’m still going to have to ask you to tell me who you are.”
I grinned widely, “Ah, finally a guess. Took you long enough. You’re no fun though, it’s more entertaining when people aren’t right the first time.” I took an exaggerated step away from the idiot from earlier, giving him a somewhat apologetic look and bowing extravagantly to everyone else. “I am Foralen dei Imal.” I made another spatial distortion and popped through it back to the ground below. “I’m still requesting that you open the gate, though I can always blow it off its hinges if you don’t want to do the sensible thing.”
--- HIVREN ---
He was becoming more and more sure of it by the day, but when Eliax bought an illusion from Aymiae, it all sort of clicked for him.
Hivren had tried to ignore the signs at first, Eliax was his friend! She had a lot of flaws but none of them were nefarious enough to be worrisome. He didn’t know why she hated Foralen so much, he didn’t know why she seemed convinced she’d had a past life that needed to be uncovered.
What Hivren did know was that she went about at weird times, disappeared often for several days at a time, wasn’t really good at treating people like people, and she was a dimensionalist. He knew she was a dimensionalist, even though she hadn’t really done much in front of him. It was just the same vibe as some of the people his uncle Harrel brought over for dinner sometimes, a bit of a careless attitude, and the way she often acted as if nothing could hurt her.
All this together convinced Hivren that Eliax was doing something, and that something was probably highly illegal. So, like any good friend, hivren resolved to talk to Eliax about this alone at the soonest possible time.
And he would have.
He sat at Nightwind early in the day, Raendus’s brother across from him, Jiuhen next to him, Givei on the empath’s other side. He’d been wondering how best to bring up Eliax to break the stark silence at the table when someone burst through the doors with a great clatter, and took a moment to catch his breath just inside.
He wore the uniform of the wall guard, which seemed a bit odd until he began to speak.
“The Captain…Larien, of the Wall guard-” He stopped for air for a second. “-has requested that everyone stay seated, we have a very important person coming this way and she-she’s not in a great mood I think! Do not engage her! Stay seated!”
The man sat there and breathed for a second before running out the door, presumably to either spread the word or run back to his duties.
A moment later another wall guard burst through, also panting, “She’s back! She’s back! No one panic, stay here everyone and don’t insult her!”
By now the owner of the tavern was peeking out from the kitchens with a frown, “What’s all this fuss?”
The soldier glanced at him, breathless, “Sir! We have reason to believe that the Hero herself is approaching this building at this very moment! We’re clearing the streets!”
The man balked, “What!? Fari? She’s alive?”
Hivren stood up, staring at the soldier with eyes wide, “Do you have this confirmed by someone who knew her?”
The soldier blinked at Hivren and bolted out the door, presumably to get that checked. The tavern owner rushed back into his kitchen, muttering something about drunks dancing on tables. There was a great clattering from within as he hastily prepared something.
Hivren sat down in a daze, his mind racing and his mouth dry. He patted his pockets but he didn’t have any paper on him. He glanced at his companions who seemed to expect the question. “Jiuhen…can I borrow that notebook?”