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One Last Job (Part 1)

Alyssa finishes packing the rest of the clothes she’ll need for the trip, stuffing her back pack as full as she can with carefully rolled dresses, and basic essentials. She’s hoping to travel light, some of what she needs can be acquired when they get to their destination after all. She stops, looking at herself in the mirror in her room at the Recluse. Riding pants tailored for her, a comfortable tunic, traveling boots. Her fiery red hair done up in a bun to keep it out of the way. The young woman takes a slow breath, everything about this job, what little she knows about it, seems like a bad idea. A trip to Silvermoon, illusions to hide their identities, bribes and intimidation. If she felt like she had any choice in the last thing she did for Clyde to win back her life, it certainly wouldn’t be this. A deal is a deal though.

She emerges from the Inn, stopping to lean against a light post and wait. Tracker made it clear a man would be meeting her to guide the way, and before long at all, one does. He calls himself Mover, identifies himself to the Gilnean woman, and tells her it’s time to go. There’s little formality, little even congeniality. The man, simple though he is, is all business, and so Alyssa treats it as such.

He lead her to a back alley where a relatively well appointed carriage awaited. The ride, he says, will be long, but at the very least Alyssa is to be afforded comfort for the trip. It’s a surprise, that for so long a travel she’s given this extravagance, but really it brings no cause to complain. Before long she’s settled into the comfortable interior, the horses are rumbling along the streets of Stormwind and out into Elwynn, and Alyssa has fallen into a comfortable nap, lulled by the ride.

Aly jars awake at a thump on the top of the Carriage as it starts to slow. The man above warning her as they go to pass through a checkpoint. Horses come to a stop, and muffled voices are heard beyond as Mover negotiates with the guards. A few moments later a knock on the door of the carriage and it opens.

“Miss, we’ll be needin’ to see your papers.” The guard looks...not as bored as she’s used to when she travels.

Alyssa rubs sleep from her eyes as she tries to process his accent. Redridge maybe, that would make sense. “Yeah, yeah o’course.” She digs into her backpack, coming up with the sheaf of paperwork that states her identity. Using it isn’t an entirely foreign concept, she has reason enough after all to travel up to Hillsbrad on occasion.

“Ma’am, are you aware you and your driver may be wanted for crimes against the crown?” He stands comfortably at attention but she realizes his hand rests on the hilt of his sword.

“M’sorry?” That wakes her up right quickly. “If you’ll just ‘ave a look at m’papers, you’ll see m’not any trouble. M’driver is just takin’ me up t’illsbrad. You can see I own property there, I’d like t’check in on it and do some repairs.” She finds at least that calm comes naturally, it helps that even with the actual activities they are up to, she’s got legitimate reasons to travel.

The guard looks over her paperwork, and calls another over, “Just wait in the carriage Miss.” She sighs and sits back as they walk away to discuss. It feels like forever passes, and she’s almost starting to drift again before the men return, passing it back. “It looks like everythin’ is in order ma’am. Sorry for the delay.”

It isn’t until the carriage door is closed and the horses are moving again that she finds herself breathing a sigh of relief.

“Why’re we bein’ stopped at every checkpoint.” Alyssa asks, a few days later. The scene repeats, again and again as they pass through Alliance held lands. Not once has she been stopped like this before. She gracelessly drops to one of the logs around the fire Mover has built, and gets not but a shrug in reply.

“This’ll be on m’records now. Like as not every time in the future I want t’travel North it’ll come up that I’ve been stopped. Just another way o’tightenin’ the noose and makin’ it ‘ard t’get m’life back?” Another shrug, and she makes an exasperated sound. They haven’t even reached Silvermoon, and already every moment of this trip has been a series of regrets.

Arathi is beautiful, even when it’s dreary. Alyssa’s elbows rest on the sill of the carriage window, chin on folded arms as she watches the green rolling hills pass by. They’ve made it far enough north that she feels a bit more like home. Hillsbrad isn’t so far away, and already the weather is turning to the familiar. Beyond that, Gilneas. It makes her sad that they’ll be passing all that by, heading up through the ruins of Alterac on their way North instead.

It’s a few moments to reflect on how bad off this whole part of the world is. She’s not the only one to have lost her home. Gilneas. Hillsbrad. Stromgarde. Alterac. Lorderon. So many kingdoms with so much to offer the world, snuffed out over the course of her all too short lifetime. Any one of those would have made a fine home that felt more fitting to who she is and the places she wants to be. Instead there’s Stormwind, last bastion of Humanity in so many ways.

She sighs, closing her eyes, and falls sleep again to the movement of the carriage and the first drops of rain pattering on the roof.

The orb swirls with unsettling blues. Mover stares at her as it sits between them. She shivers a bit, even with the heavy coat she wears and the fire they sit near. Northern Alterac is cold, there’s still snow on the ground up here. It’s easy to find reasons to stall, as the horses paw and snort in the chill.

“Right. I’ll touch it. ‘ow bad could it be?” The orb is meant to create the illusion that’s supposed to last her the next week or so. She’s been warned it would be painful. Can’t be worse than her affliction. Alyssa places a firm hand on the orb, grasping it tightly, and immediately doubles over, gritting teeth but refusing to cry out.

It feels not unlike being burned by felfire, or at least what she must imagine it feels like. She’s only inflicted it, never endured it. The burning starts behind her eyes, feeling like it’s searing through her head. Still, pain is something Alyssa finds at times to be a comfort, she bites lip hard enough to draw blood as she endures, short sharp breaths from her nose, tremors in her shoulders.

Then as quickly as it began, it’s ended. The pain gone, and Alyssa slowly draws hands off of the orb, studying her now more dainty digits. She was already pretty, relatively slim, well cared for. Things feel different now, and she touches sharper cheekbones, and traces hands up long pointed ears. “Ow...” she offers quietly, marveling at the depth of the illusion.

Days later, the carriage comes to a stop in the main drag of Silvermoon City. The door is open, and Alyssa steps out, her fiery red hair now tumbling down over shapely slim shoulders, and framing an angular face. Her hazel eyed gaze replaced with a wicked fel green all too fitting for the young warlock. She’s dressed in the Sin’dorei style, a gown of reds and golds befitting her supposed standing for the false identity she’s been given.

“Cousin! How was the lodge Alyreia?” The familiar voice greets her, the man she knows as Tracker. He kisses each of her cheeks in greeting. “Welcome to Silvermoon.”

Welcome to Silvermoon. One leg of this job down, so very very far, she fears, yet to go.

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