Cynn Ellime
Cynn woke up in her infirmary bed. She could tell she had been sleeping for a long time, but she still felt exhausted. She moved to sit up against the wall behind her cot and nearly fell out; her head weighed much more than she remembered. Reaching behind her head only confirmed the elf's worries. Her stark-white hair - it was now much more off-white - now came down past her shoulders in the back, and her bangs hung down like drapes in front of two almond-shaped and vaguely green windows.
She did not like this. Waking up in an empty infirmary room - no, an empty infirmary - made her feel all alone. Somewhere in her mind, in her subconscious, she knew it also meant something much more insidious, but she squashed that feeling with her overwhelming naïvitée.
It was that naïvitée that coerced her into standing up, very shakily, from her bed. The spasms in her long-unused muscles caused Cynn some concern, not to mention discomfort, but once they had passed she felt a new sense of pride. The trick to regaining strength was taking those first few steps, or so she reasoned, and so she did. After the first six or seven steps, she remembered (for lack of a better term) how to walk, more or less, and she began to make her to her room.
The walk was long, and the young wood elf really shouldn't have been trying to make it. She was weakened from the months of rest, and ought to have taken it slowly. In her eyes, however, she was making good progress. It was much-needed excercise, she told herself. Better to move quickly and get back to work as soon as possible. Still, the small voice cried to her to take her time, but her arrogance would not be conquered.
When she got to her chamber door, she ignored how her hands fumbled with the lock and key. She had been slowed slightly when she found her roommate to be absent: it was when her doubtful subconscious came closest to triumphing over her. But she soon regained her pace. No sense in being slowed in the absence of a person, she figured. If I do, I'll never be able to keep pace in their presence.
She propped herself against her sturdy oak bedfame as she changed out of the infirmary gowns, which she folded and placed on her bed for later return. No mind was paid to the sudden bouts of weakness in Cynn's knees, no attention given to her trouble in balancing on one leg long enough to put new underwear and trousers. It crossed her mind that she should probably take a shower, but she dismissed the thought. She would do that after she checked up with everyone who would no doubt be worrying about her. Friends were more important than getting cleaned up right now.
At least, that's what the elf told herself. In reality, she knew that she wasn't stable enough to even take a bath. She wouldn't be able to stand in the shower without slipping and falling, and she wouldn't have enough strength to pull herself up if she began to drift a bit too far under the surface should she try to bathe. This trend of weakness-as-confidence continued as she finished getting dressed, putting on her brown leather vest over a grey linen button-up, which, along with her dried-mud-colored trousers, made her look like quite the adventurer. She even topped it all off with her welding goggles, which she wore on the top of her head (once again, she ignored it when her hand brushed against her now much longer hair).
Cynn felt confident. She felt like she could lift a boulder, or unearth an ancient, buried city from the days before the War. Hell, she felt like maybe she hadn't been asleep that long, and she'd be welcomed back like a kid who had just finished being grounded and returned to her friends.
She walked (again, far too quickly) to the dining hall and threw open the doors with the gusto of the most popular student in the entire school. She didn't notice it, but her heart sunk slightly upon seeing that there was no one else there. No matter. She strutted up to her usual spot and sat down, taking a second to take in the familiarity of the room. Then, she set out to work.
Or, she would have set out to work, had she brought any of her materials with her. She reached for her book bag only to find it absent. In a panic, Cynn checked under the table and mentally kicked herself for doing something that foolish. Obviously, she hadn't brought the bag with her; it wasn't as if some imp or gremlin had merely hidden it, and in such a terrible spot, at that.
The young girl began to freak out. All her preperation, all her excercise, and this was what it culminated in? Her false confidence was exposed to her for the hologram it had been, at least partially. The panic attack was now in full swing, her pupils dialating and her skin getting hot and sweaty. She swiveled around numerous times, even re-checking under the table thrice. At the culmination of this event, she began to mumble to herself. "No, where is it," she began, but the tone quickly turned to, "You idiot! Why did you leave it?" She felt tears at the very back of her eyes, but before the panic could progress, someone tapped on the table in front of her.
Looking up, Cynn could tell it was one of the kitchen staff. She wore the uniform, after all. For a brief moment, the elf felt reassured; she knew everyone on the kitchen staff from her days of working at the table she now sat at. Her newfound warm reassurance turned to despair as her eyes moved to the worker's face. It was new, never seen before. To Cynn, it might of well have been covered in Dwarven runes, for all the good it did her. The woman asked her if she was alright, if she needed water, but all Cynn could do was stare at her face in terror. Frightened and panicking, she looked past this foreign face to the kitchen behind the counter, hoping to see at least one familiar face. All she was greeted with was more foreign, albeit worried, faces, none of which she'd ever seen before.
They looked at her like she was some ghost, though maybe that was just how she felt. How she felt; that's what had gotten her into this mess. She'd felt confident, progressive, safe, and this is where it had gotten her. And so, just like that, her subconscious took control with what it knew.
Cynn knew she was an awkward introvert. She knew she could barely life a patch of gravel, much less a boulder. She knew she wasn't strong or stable enough to walk sturdily; searching out and excavating ruins was out of the question.
Cynn knew she'd been asleep for much longer than she could fathom.
She cried. She had managed to bury her head in her arms before it started, but that only saved her a fraction of the shame of weeping in front of strangers. The girl who came to check on the young elf started walking away, judging by her unsure footsteps. Soon, the kitchen came back to life, abandoning Cynn to cry alone. She was so alone, so pathetic, so weak. How could she have been so stupid? She shouldn't have ever left the infirmary.
Then, the door closed. Funny, she hadn't heard it open, but she guessed that the sound of her crying and her internal self-loathing had trumped her Elven ears. She was still crying, but she tried to get it under control; what had been a thunderstorm became a sniffly drizzle, and she raised her head just enough to look at whoever it was who had just entered.