Smoke and Mirrors

The contents of somebody's backpack can tell you a lot about them as a person.
This particular backpack was being carried on the back of what looked like an orc just past the cusp of her prime. She was hardly a crone, but her face was beginning to show the first crowsfeet of age. She had few scars adorning it - a particularly dominant one slunk its way across the bridge of her nose, ridging up where the scar tissue had formed, but otherwise her face was clear. There were no cuts on her arms, but there were some on her hands, criss-crossing across the flesh; a life of skilled labour, then, rather than combat or heavier manual labour. She was slouched forwards slightly under the heavy backpack, her shoulders rolled forwards and her head bowed slightly. Gingery-red hair was left loose, hanging long over her shoulders, knotted and unkempt.
She nodded wearily at the guards flanking Windrider Master Vlagga Freyfeather. The wyverns here were hardy; they needed to be. Hellfire Peninsula was a harsh environment, and one that few people wanted to remain in for long; the atmosphere tasted of dust and Nether, the skies rent open to the nether-chained night no matter the time. Freyfeather had been here, stationed by the constant roar of the Dark Portal, for months now - she'd grown used to it. Some of her customers hadn't, though. The middle-aged orc in front of her was clearly new to it. The ginger-haired woman glanced up at the sky, then at the Windrider.
"Stonebreaker Hold, in Terokkar - does it still exist?" She spoke with a high-pitched voice, a slight Frostwolf accent creeping in at the edges. Enough to get noticed, but not enough as to raise comment. She sounded tentative.
"Aye," grunted the Windrider.
She breathed a sigh of relief. "I'd like to go there, then," smiled the middle-aged Orc apologetically. "If possible."
"Nine silver, seventy copper," said Vlagga shortly. The other orc fumbled in a bright green pouch suspended from her belt, then handed over the amount.
"That should be enough." In fact, it was ten silver, but the Windrider wasn't complaining.
"Just get yourself strapped in. Takes about twenty minutes, so get comfy." Vlagga snorted, then went back to tending one of her wyverns as the orc did what she was told. "And send my regards to Kerna."
Once she was on her way, the backpack came off the middle-aged orc's back and was fitted onto her front, instead, so she could reach its contents without it falling off the wyvern. Another shirt came out. It went over her head. The old one came off from under and got tucked into the bag. In thirty seconds and after a series of smooth, practiced, flawless manouvers, the she was sat atop the wyvern wearing a completely different outfit - one that she had produced from the confines of the backpack. She swapped her belt over as well, giving her a new set of distinctive belt pouches and an entirely different set of weapons - just ornate enough to draw attention to them. She would melt down and sell on the scrap metal from the old ones later.
"What are you doing?" asked the wyvern.
"Keep your eyes on the route, please," grinned the orc on her back.
"Hah, alright. Just try not to fall off."
"I'm strapped in. It's fine."
More calmly, she reached into a pocket on the front of her backpack and took out a small case with a simple catch at one end. She had to commend the Elves on one thing - they made excellent makeup. She opened the catch and removed a rag and a vial, resting the case back in the top of the backpack for now. She soaked the end of the rag in the contents of the vial and used it to remove the makeup from her face. The scars all came off, all the concealer - leaving the orc looking quite a lot older. In her mid to late forties, probably; coming out of the tail end of middle-aged and onto the cusp of old. She folded the rag back up, putting it and the vial back in the case, before taking out some thin brushes and a pot of paint. Carefully, and in a practiced manouver not deterred by the jerky movement the wyvern's wings produced, she began to draw on her face.
She held up the mirror on the inside of the case to admire her handiwork before grunting, taking out a much larger brush and some powder, and dusting it over select locations on her face. That was better.
She snapped the case shut and put it back in its pocket on the front of the backpack, then dug in there for something else. She couldn't do much with her hair in such a short amount of time, and without a source of water, so she just swept it back into two clumps and tied it with the strips of leather she'd removed. That would have to do - she ran her fingers through her hair a few times, neatening it up. She also took her piercings out - there was one in the nose and two in each ear. For now, she decided to take them all out, tucking them into tiny pockets sewn into the inside of the larger one.
The last step was that she took another backpack out of the first. It was a vividly different colour - the normal black colour had been replaced by a very light tan, almost grey. The pockets on the front were different designs to the first as well, with supposedly personal affects - faked letters, potentially significant pendants, and the like - hidden in some.
By the time she landed in Terokkar, she was etirely unrecognisable as the orc who had taken off. Her hair, clothes, face, piercings, apparent age, stature, accent - all had changed. There was a new distinctive scar marring her face now - one that ran down the side of her cheek from top to bottom, looking like it had only narrowly missed her eye. Only her eyes remained constant, in fact; she couldn't do much about those, but at least they weren't blue. She unbuckled herself from the saddle of the wyvern and was careful to stay out of its line of sight as it was lead back around to the water-troughs before it took off back to Hellfire.
She stood up straight and breathed in the forest air. It was much better here. This was her favourite place, as much as she hated to admit that she took favourites. Shoulders back and a confidence in her stride, she approached Windrider Kerna.
"Vlagga Freyfeather sends her regards," she said. Her voice was strong, deep, and with a neutral Orgrimmar accent. Nothing to note on there. She looked about sixty, but her presence seemed confident despite her age - or perhaps because of it. With that sort of age came respect.
"As you say," said Kerna with a brief smile. "On your way, now."
As Kruga Otterbiter approached the inn to negotiate lodgings, she wondered what pseudonym she was going to use this week.
Category:Story