It was the middle of the day when I got back to the Inn and business was booming. The Innkeeper asked me for a performance but I refused, politely, stating my appointment with my patroness as the reason.
"I will recommend your fine Inn to her, however." I assured him. "I would like to reserve a room, on her behalf, if I may?"
"A fine Lady staying here? It would be a great honour."
"She can be difficult," I warned him. "She is an elf, you see, and they are very particular about their accommodations."
That was not exactly true, I mean how fussy can someone who grew up living in a tree really be?
"An elf? Mercy me, I have never had the pleasure of meeting one of them before."
"Do you ever get centaurs around here?" I asked out of curiosity.
"Used to, but not since they started bringing in those new laws. It is a shame really, they make good door guards. Still have to move with the times if you want to stay out of trouble."
"Indeed you do," I agreed. "I doubt the centaurs intended to get into trouble though."
"Oh, I know what you mean. Fine, law abiding, folk were most of the ones I have met."
"As are those I have met. It is a shame that our people treat them so poorly after they have been exiled from their own homelands."
"Aye. That it is. If I may say so, Mistress Lora, I would not go sharing such opinions with too many people if I were you."
"Thank you for the advice. Good fortune to you."
"And to you."
So not everyone hates centaurs. That can only be a good thing.
I resolved to remember his name, just in case.
Upon my return to my room, it took only a short time for me to pack my things. I looked around the room, thinking upon the things that I had learned while staying in it. It was a good thing, I decided, that I had come here first as Lora of Sandar because she had learned things that no one would tell to an Elven Lady. As I looked around the room, a melancholy thought crossed my mind.
Lora is not really me.
I had not thought about it until then but she was just a part I was playing, as much as the person I was, in public, in my youth was just a part I played - as much as 'Lady Leanni' would be a part I was playing.
I wondered if I would ever find the one person who loved me for who I really was.
Pushing aside those thoughts, I concerned myself with the immediate future and left the Inn.
The bright light, and the happy atmosphere it created, dispelled my concerns; of course I was Lora, and Leanni, and even Lady Lheora Yhanni Nikaria. They were all part of me even if they were not the whole of who I was.
On the way to the village that was my destination, I mused upon the fact that meeting people who could do useful things for you was a definite advantage of being a traveling performer.
I arranged for the carriage to be here at this particular time before I even arrived in the city. Previous encounters with the human bureaucracy caused me to plan ahead; as it turned out, I needed to use the disguise of Lady Leanni.
I booked the carriage myself and used a complex memory adaptation spell that would have the drivers convinced that they had brought Lady Leanni from a border village to the city.
All that was left before it arrived was for me to assume the appearance of Leanni; she was shorter than I am, with dark chestnut colored hair and pale purple eyes. I actually based her appearance, very loosely, on my own mothers coloring and bone structure - I altered my own for this disguise, so I would not simply look like myself with different shading.
Unlike my disguise as Lora, where I simply used an illusion to cover my true appearance, I used illusion followed by a full shape shift to complete my change from Lora to Leanni. The disguise was now impenetrable, or so I hoped.
All that was left, for the moment, was to wait for the carriage to stop at the entrance of this village; something I had already asked the drivers to do. As far as they knew, it was Lady Leanni's servant they were collecting.