[B]Cynn Ellime[/B]
Cynn awoke.

It felt like it had been months since she'd last done so, and as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes, she smiled. If she had to guess, she'd say about four. Still, she was awake now, and it felt [i]so good[/i] to finally be back at what she loved to do. She coudln't help feeling like it would be all uphill from here.

She rolled over and stared at the empty wall behind the bed across the room. The girl who slept there was never there when Cynn woke in the morning. Still, she was always there when Cynn returned to the room at night, so at least the elf's awkward demeanor hadn't put her off.

Anna...well, whatever her name was, was the closest thing to a friend in the student body that Cynn had. Sitting up and shaking out her short, white hair, she reconsidered. The Ssarak fellow was nice enough, judging by the few times she'd bumped into him. He was very...stiff, but it was kind of cute. She had a feeling that he'd make a good friend.

Standing up and donning...well, quite frankly, whatever was on the top of the piles in her drawers, she checked how it had turned out in the mirror in the washroom. White. It was all white. Cynn chuckled at this ironic clothing situation. [i]They'll think I'm some sort of priest,[/i] she thought. Still, it didn't look too bad, so she decided to move on out the door and start her day right.

Cynn had a habit. Whenever she could, the wood elf would wander down the paths in the woods. She'd grown accustomed to the twists and turns, and she could find her way around with ease. However, she had one spot in particular that she prefered the most. There was a small clearing with an assortment of stones on which she could practice her Geomancy.

And so, it was in this clearing that Cynn found herself deep in thought, lifting one of the medium sized stones. She was thinking about just what she would do here at the College. Staying forever and being a teacher was not a thought she reveled in. But without any other plan for the future, it was difficult for the elf to decide what she wanted to learn here.

Unfortunately, Cynn was so deep in thought that she didn't hear the person approaching, nor the breathing of something less human, her from behind. It was the cold touch of steel on her neck that snapped her out of her trance.

She gasped, an action which was greeted with a shush and a low snarl.

"Listen here, girly," a tenor voice whispered, breath hot against her ear. "You're going to tell us how to get into the college unseen, and you're going to help us with a little something. Any questions?"

Cynn tried to look up at the man who held her life in his hands at this point in time, but she couldn't make out more than the fact that his eyes were blue. [i]Well, I suppose I should answer him, then,[/i] Cynn thought, and summoned all her courage to deliver her line in the most badass fashion she could come up with.

"Just one," said the seemingly terrified Cynn Ellime. She allowed time for the man to become properly curious.

"How badly does this hurt?"

It was at that point that the fifty pound rock that had slowly been rising since the wood elf first felt steel at her neck came crashing down onto the left foot of her captor, staining the back of her pants leg a deep red. Cynn took off running, amidst the scream, navigating the maze of forest with expert speed, feeling that...that thing close on her heels.

She was coming up onto the exit into the courtyard now, It was sure bright out...

[b]Locas Jule[/b]

Locas heard a scream. He'd merely been walking the perimeter of the courtyard when it came. He knew that screams weren't given often, and never were they given lightly. The tall, dark-haired human froze, scanning the trees in the direction where the scream had come from.

White.

It had only been a flash of the color, but it had definitely been there. Locas scanned in the direction it had been going, and caught enough glimpses to know whatever it was would soon emerge. He picked up a branch and prepared to confront whoever - or whatever - came out of that path.

Moments later, an elf with white hair and dressed all in garments of the same color, save for the back of her left leg and her neck, came flying out of the woods. Locas and the girl made eye contact, and he managed to see her mouth, "Help," before a larger, darker thing followed her.

In all his time in the worst parts of the realm, Locas Jule had never seen anything so primal and terrible before. The closest known thing to what lay before him, apparently attacking this girl, was a bear, only if that bear had been mangled in some accident and then grown to eight times its normal size.

It was enough to make Locas hesitate, but he wasn't one to ignore a call for help. "RUN," he shouted to the girl, who promptly complied. Locas then jumped, aided by his aeromancy, and brought the branch down on the bear-thing's spine.

The branch snapped and splintered, and didn't quite manage to inflict the same damage to the creature's spine. In fact, it was so far from doing so that Locas thought it might spontaneously reassemble out of pity. However, no such thing happened, and the human was left defenseless in the face of a monster.

He managed to jump around for a while. His added speed kept him out of reach, and for a moment he thought he might even best the...whatever it was. But it was smart, far too smart for a bear. The second Locas went in to get what remained of his weapon, he was met with claws in his stomach and teeth in his right leg. He was thrown onto the ground, and as the bear-thing loomed above him, he could have sworn he heard someone shouting.

Locas Jule then proceeded to black out.

[b]Cynn Ellime[/b]

Cynn ran and ran and ran some more, but it was getting harder to breath. She rounded a corner of the college and stumbled. She tried to get back up, but it took way more effort than she'd thought it would. And for some reason she was sweating a lot around the neck. She lifted two fingers to her neck instictively, and was greeted not with sweat, but with something much more sticky.

Looking down, the first thing the elf saw was the bib of red that had seeped onto her shirt. She then turned her attention to the fingers she'd reached up to her neck.

The knife must have scraped her during her escape. Cynn tried to shout, but all she managed was a croaked, "Help...please." She saw a familiar feminine figure round the corner in front of her, and immediately pick up pace.

Cynn Ellime then proceeded to black out.