Cynn EllimeShe never really liked feasts.
Cynn had heard about the planned feast very soon after she left the infirmary, when she headed to the dining hall to grab something to eat. She'd overheard the workers in the kitchen planning out what they'd need to do for the feast later that day, and figured it was a good thing, then, that she was eating now, so she could avoid all the loud voices and awkward encounters that would ensue should she actually attend the thing.
And, yet, here she was a few hours later, alone in her room, hungry. The feast had started two hours ago, and she had been in the room for three, reading, transcribing, fiddling with her machines, et cetera. The white-haired elf did not wish to leave her room, as she dreaded running into someone who was saying something that wasn't correct; or, worse yet, Annabeth.
What had she done so wrong? It was a normal question to ask, wasn't it? All she wanted to know was if the human girl had any siblings and if her parents were any nicer than Cynn's own, and suddenly
she was the bad one! Annabeth had totally overreacted, and just stormed out! What right did she think she had to treat the forest elf so terribly? Everyone had demons, after all.
Especially Khan, Cynn thought to herself. She chuckled at her joke, as much as it didn't really fit the analogy. Soon enough, however, her anger returned, and she suddenly remembered something she'd been told by a friend a long while ago. "Whenever you get pissed off at something," Cynn said under her breath, as if to remind herself of her revelation. "Stab something."
Walking over to her bed and kneeling down, she reached under the bed frame, producing a long box that wasn't very wide. Opening the two latches on the front, she flipped the lid up and took out her
rapier. Turning to the wall, she quickly went to work, her months without practice being apparent. Cynn found her inadequacy frustrating, as she'd not been this bad with a sword since a few months after first picking one up.
The elf threw her sword down, with a growl of anger. Apparently, stabbing something hadn't gone too well in that regard. Suddenly, she was feeling very warm; hot, even. She pulled off her shirt and threw it across the room. Proceeding to do the same with her trousers, she plopped down onto the floor, limbs bent in whichever way they decided to fall. In just her undergarments, she was able to more effectively feel the coolness of the breeze from the open windows, and she very quickly started to calm down and retreat into her rational state of mind.
That was when she noticed something. Cynn had never opened the windows. Tilting her head back, she saw that, in fact, they weren't open. She had just enough time to tilt her head back up to look at the door when she heard a familiar voice at the door and saw the doorknob start to twist.
Locas JuleIt had taken Locas a good while longer to be released from the infirmary, and the feast was well under way when he finally left it's stone walls. His wounds still ached, but they weren't as painful as when he'd gotten into that little spat with Alaira. The fact that his nose wasn't disfigured and his shoulder still worked made Locas think that a Vitamancer had gotten their hands on him, but he couldn't be certain. He had no clue what kind of medicine that woman had shot him full of.
Now, Locas had one mission in mind. He was going to find Alaira at the feast and talk with her, in the most neutral and normal way he knew how. As he walked down the hallway that lead to the dining room, however, he couldn't think of any way to do that. Entering the dining hall, he scanned the room for the elf in question, figuring he would figure it out as he went along.
It wasn't hard to find her. She sat mostly alone at a long table, with several seats between her and the next person at the table. He supposed that she wasn't the most approachable of people, but he'd been wrong about her a lot today. Maybe she had just politely asked everyone to give her some space to eat. As he was walking towards the front of the room to get food, still focused on her, he ran straight into another girl.
They both fell to the ground, which was quite surprising, as, from his instinctual head-raise, Locas quickly gathered that she was very physically apt. She wasn't extremely muscular, but he could tell this girl was not one who would fall so easily. It was possible that the human man wasn't paying attention to his speed, and had begun to speed up to the point where his impact might have caught her off guard. This was a worrying thought. Had he been so entranced in his goal to talk to Alaira that he'd become dangerous? If so, that would be the second time today that he'd done something stupid...
Sitting up all the way, he recognized the girl. Her long red hair, blue eyes, and pale skin took a moment to place, but, after around five seconds, he got it. This was the girl who had saved him from that man-bear thing. Luckily, it wasn't too embarrassing, as there were so many people in the room that no one really noticed, but he did notice that her skirt hadn't really...survived the fall. He jerked his gaze away from the region the moment he realized it, and willed a small gust to push the cloth back into a less compromising position. Standing, he offered her a hand, smiling kindly.
"I'm terribly sorry about that," he said, placing his other hand on the back of his head in a show of mild embarrassment. "I wasn't really watching my step. Say, aren't you the woman who saved me earlier?" She looked confused, so he lifted his shirt to show the gauze wrapped around his midsection. That seemed to clear it up. "Thanks for that, Miss...?"