#wardstart

Elena snuck off to the back of the hall, the rush of escape warming her senses. Going out of the party was prohibited, but they would not even notice her gone, she thought. Elena stopped by the mirror, deciding to undo her bun in an attempt to conceal her face. Best for anyone not to notice her when she would gallivant around the woods, especially at a night like this. Long, dark locks tumbled over her shoulders as a shadow passed by, unbeknownst to Elena. Freedom might just not be fate’s plan for the young witch.

    Bruised shins and bloody knees are hardly befitting of a queen, but there she sits outside of the Library of Magical Works with crimson oozing from lacerations on rapidly-darkening skin. Funnily enough, her main concern is whether or not the injuries will leave some sort of scar -- - after all, the physical pain is much less significant than the inconvenience of it all. 

      A damp handkerchief stained with crimson is pressed from one knee to the next, the tide of blood turns into little more than a trickle. With a class coming up and frustrations mounting, she swallows her hubris and addresses the person nearest to her. 

      ❝ Excuse me? ❞ Polite -- - Morrigan Balfour is always polite - -- and quiet, she indicates her knees and tries to smile beyond something tight-lipped and embarrassed. Try as she might, the feat is impossible and she averts her gaze behind a cascade of dark hair. All she manages is a breath before she’s tugging a strand of hair, pushing the rest out of her field of vision.  ❝ Do you have a bandage? Or a clean tissue? ❞

This sort of thing only ever happened to Cece. Her sisters hadn’t had to deal with it, they’d gotten to be headgirl in their last years. Cece was facing the prospect of spending her last year being dragged around various ‘safe’ places (though she wondered how safe they could really be if they had to keep their guard up at all times). Though perhaps the fact that they might get driven out of Lake Placid was a silver lining. It would at least, Cece thought, provide an escape from the Americans.

Not, of course, that they’d be able to escape if the enchantments preventing the lake from crashing down on their heads failed. Sure the administration had given them all an emergency water breathing charm but that wouldn’t exactly ward them against the impact of the water crashing down around them.

“What do you think would happen if the enchantments broke? Somehow I feel drowning would be the least of our worries.”

He chose to use today to retreat from said sun and said American teenagers by setting up his history classroom. There had been a few desks and books scattered about for his short summer class but many of his teaching materials hadn’t been properly unpacked yet. Partly, he was sure, due to the fact that he was still half hoping that they’d be told that this was a giant mistake and they were going back immediately.

“Is there any place on campus not crawling with British kids? This is ridiculous.”