“Whether something is good or bad often depends entirely on what you make out of it.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

“Huh, color me surprised. If it weren’t for the fact that you hadn’t dyed her hair yet I wouldn’t have noticed that it’s Kino even if she walked right in front of me,” commented Aideen as she checked Kino’s disguised appearance after the latter learnt some tricks from Yliz. At a glance, Kino completely looked like a different person, someone who looked so average that it would have slipped right past most people’s attention.

It was only her rather rare wine-colored hair and fur that made Aideen notice her in the end.

“I’d likely have missed it too,” admitted Eilonwy as she looked at Kino’s disguised figure with some envy. As Kino was someone with sparse amounts of therian blood, there were many places where she could sneak into as an agent. Eilonwy on the other hand was far too obviously of elven heritage, something that would be near impossible to hide. That in turn limited the places where she could be sent to.

Yliz had been teaching Kino various ways to make herself look different of late, because everyone noticed right away that Kino being pretty with relatively rare hair and fur color meant that she was memorable and unlikely to slip through people’s attention easily. As such, Yliz had taught her how to alter her looks through use of cosmetics and the like to make herself easily ignorable.

Her hair could similarly be hidden using dyes, so it would greatly help her when one day she wished or needed to head somewhere without attracting too much attention to herself. The sort of disguise Yliz focused on teaching her was more of someone unassuming and ignorable, the sort of person you could find most anywhere and thus unlikely to cause suspicion.

“You know, Yliz, I think her natural face and hair color also has its advantages. She can use them to make herself memorable when she wants to, like forging an alibi for example,” commented Aideen after a while. Aideen herself had some experience with disguising herself to reduce the amount of attention she received, as well as times where she leveraged her more easily noticeable features to ensure that she wasn’t ignored. “Could also use them to throw off pursuers and the like, though she would need prior setup for that. People would remember if someone like her passed by.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“That’s a good point, actually. She could then combine both methods to pretend to be at one place while she was elsewhere doing something else, clever,” noted Yliz with a nod. The elvish woman was quite open-minded to suggestions, and besides, Aidees was technically her senior to begin with. “Oh, I know. We could further ramp it up by using a third identity where she’d conceal herself completely with her clothes!”

“Only one problem with the disguise, teacher,” said Kino with an unusually stifled voice as she raised her hand and cut Yliz’s word short. The girl was looking somewhat uncomfortable at the moment, with her face twitching from time to time even as she continued her words. “I don’t know what’s with these cosmetics, but they keep making me want to sneeze, but I found myself unable to sneeze. It’s really annoying.”

“Huh. Maybe you have some allergies to the ingredients these ones used, then,” said Yliz with a surprised voice. “Let me get these off you for now really quick, hold your breath…” she continued as she used a piece of cloth moistened with an alchemical solution to clean the disguise off Kino’s face within moments, after which the girl finally breathed out a sigh in relief. “Better?”

“Yeah, the annoying feeling disappeared after you wiped it clean,” said Kino with a nod.

In many ways, Aideen felt that going with her natural looks while posing as a bard would probably be the best way for Kino to disguise herself. Bards were known to often dress in colorful clothes, and such clothes would help distract attention from Kino’s face and unusual hair color. The girl would definitely attract attention that way, but that was something that could be made use of as well.

“Looks like you’ll need to find alternatives if she is to use a disguise,” commented Aideen to Yliz. The elven woman looked somewhat annoyed that the cosmetics they commonly used couldn’t be used by Kino, but nodded to Aideen’s words. There was nothing to be done when it came to issues like allergies after all. “What about her physicals, by the way? It’s been a few months.”

“She’s improving quickly, but still can’t catch up with Eilonwy yet,” replied Yliz honestly. After Kino regained some of her previous physical fitness, she started to be able to match or exceed some of the younger trainees, though Eilonwy was still ahead of her even then. “It would take her another year to catch up I guess? That’s the soonest I can see it happen.”

“And here I thought having therian blood meant I could take it easy on the physical stuff,” muttered Kino under her breath, though it was still loud enough for the others to hear. “I guess that’s one lesson learned.”

“I think anyone who slacked off on their training for a couple decades would grow soft and flabby too, honestly, no matter what sort of bloodline they got,” said Eilonwy from the side. “It’s probably why moms kept insisting that us three keep up with our training even during quiet times.”

“Hey! I’m not flabby!” yelled Kino with some mock outrage in her voice.

“Okay, I’ll give you that, but you’ve definitely gone soft after those decades,” pointed Eilonwy out as she pinched the side of Kino’s waist, eliciting a surprised yelp from the girl. “If I were to do that to Aunt Aideen, I wouldn’t even be able to pinch anything. She’s been keeping up her training for centuries so all it feels like was like trying to pinch a rock. You though? You’re still a bit soft.”