Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===Goodbye, Remilia===


That evening, Remilia packed the last of her bags into the aircar for shipping to Alanaster’s dorm.  She closed the trunk as the autopilot accepted the coordinates the driver was punching in, and stepped back from the car to look at the Dorn manor one more time.  “All right…this is it,” she said to herself.

Her mother stood next to the car, looking down at her daughter with worry on her face.  “Now…you stay safe and write when you get there, all right?” she asked.

“Sure will,” Remilia said.  The driver stepped out of the vehicle, since, at Remilia’s specific request, she would be keeping the car for a time upon arrival.  As he nodded his farewells, Olivia leaned down to hug her daughter.

“I love you, Remilia,” she said quietly.  “You go have fun.”

“Thanks, Mom.”  Remilia hugged her back.  “Say Hi to Dad when he gets back, okay?”

“I will,” Olivia promised.

“All right.”  Remilia grabbed her slate from the butler.  “Thanks, Warren.”  She checked the charge – full.  “Welp.  I gotta seven hour flight ahead of me.  I’ll head out now.  Bye, Mom.”

Olivia waved as Remilia started the aircar and sat down behind the controls with the chair all the way back for comfort.  She watched as the yellow car rose into the sky and took off into the sunset.

Remilia settled into the chair and braced herself as the car accelerated, rising to its cruising altitude.  The car took off for Alanaster like a shot, as Remilia switched on her slate to watch a movie on the flight.

Within minutes, she had switched it off.  As she raced over the hives of Terra, she looked down at the shimmering metal skins below, and her mind wandered.

She thought about the way she had spiraled down after Morticia had been shot.  She thought about lying in bed at Freya’s, shattered, and how a stranger and a cousin – sister – had helped her out.  She thought about a trip to a planet of volcanoes and dragons, and how crime could turn even the hardiest people against each other.

Remilia leaned back in her seat, staring through the skylight.  She couldn’t see Mars, and couldn’t see the Iron Tide docked in orbit around it, but she could imagine it well.  She thought about the grit and ash of Nocturne, and the snows of Fenris melting in her boots, and the feeling of basalt grinding in her hands.

The blond soccer player flattened her seat out and lay down, snuggled under a jacket she had draped over herself.  She thought about how inspired she had been at the boys, Alex and Jake, both mere mortals, bouncing back so thoroughly from things that could have ruined them.  She made a point of not thinking in what Miranda called ‘The Eternal Mindset,’ that ever-present knowledge that she and her cousins were genetically-engineered superwomen, with the kinds of lifespans and sex appeal that no mortal womb could birth.  It was still there, though, at the back of every day and every thought, quiet and half-forgotten, until something brought it up.

She closed her eyes and tried to relax.  She thought of Chuck Kines, and the way his professional smile of greeting gave way to a bashful but honest smile of attraction.  She remembered the way he had never forgotten her favorite drink, even once, and the soft feeling of his hair against her cheek when he fell asleep on her shoulder.

Remilia smiled to herself as the lights of the day faded under cloud, then came back brighter as she flew into the sun faster than the earth could hide it.  She remembered the way Chuck had looked at her arms and her pale skin and her freckles and her uneven haircut as they lay down to make love, and the way he had run his hands over her body and called her beautiful.  She remembered the way she had shivered with nerves and anticipation as he replied in the affirmative to her clumsy attempts to invite him to her room, and the funny feeling of pressure in her stomach as he had appeared at her door.

She remembered the looks her cousins had given her the next morning, and the sudden fear when Haarlan had decided to interfere, and the sorrow she had suppressed when she had said goodbye for the last time.

Remilia lifted her slate to capture a picture of the hive skins for Jake, then lay back down, her mind wandering.  She thought about the way it had surprised her to see her mother admit she loved her, and the way it felt to hear Miranda give her a clean bill of soul health.  She reflected on how much fishing on Fenris had made her long for Inwit’s frozen oceans and twilight-shrouded hills, and the jealousy she had felt when she saw Freya reduced to tears by the strength of her feeling of belonging in the Fang.

She switched the slate off after sending her message to Jake.  What, she wondered, would she have to do to make herself as comfortable at Alanaster as she had become on the trip?  At Imperator, she had been one of the Royal Daughters that were least reliant on her status to get what she wanted, but would she have a chance to change that?  Or even a reason?

She thought of Michael, who had just been born next to Angela.  She remembered how Alex had introduced himself to Freya by noting that she had a cute butt after a wrestling match, and how Jake had been the shy kid in the corner until Hana and Farah had taken pity on him.

No, she decided, she didn’t need to change her approach.  Remilia straightened up her seatback and watched as she flew into the west, over trillions of people who would never know her privilege or influence.  This had to be her story, not her father’s story.  Maybe there was something to his philosophy of strength through pain…but he had abandoned it for a reason.  The only chance she would have to write her own story, she knew at that moment, would be to go and find out who and what she could be, on her own…and if another person became a part of that, more’s the better.

Remilia settled back into her seat and switched her slate back on.  She had a seven-hour flight ahead of her.  Philosophy and discovery could wait.  For now, she had a season’s backlogged holos to watch.