look alive sunshine [eve]

[Nico Dahl]

"UGGGGGH HOW CAN ANYONE BE UP THIS EARLY?!" Ah, yes. The whiny call of the average highschooler (the ones born without a preternatural talent for waking up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6 AM, anyway) - was there anything more wonderful than encountering it in the morning? Oh, probably a root canal. Maybe having your leg sawn off with a rusty swiss army knife.

To make matters worse, it was CHILLY at 8:30 AM (... 50 degrees? Come on kid, grow a set), and Nin found himself hunched over in his hoodie for warmth. He'd tossed his hair back into a haphazard ponytail and had thrown on a pair of (awful) plaid shorts; the former having been a wise move given training, the latter rather stupid on account of the dew apparently being only a few degrees upwards of FREEZING OH GOD. His mother would have been ashamed of him shivering like a Dickensian orphan when he used to run around in the snow back home - here he was, at the end of MAY of all times, bitching that it was a little overcast? Honestly? Regardless of how he was letting his Canadian heritage down by being a wuss about the weather, Nin found himself dearly wishing that he was pyrokinetic. Because Nin plus fire is totally a splendid idea.

Eventually flopping into a sit on the ground, the student crossed his arms around his legs. Nico had always been a fidgety boy and now was no exception; he found himself fiddling with the laces of his shoes and glancing up every few seconds in hopes that whoever his assigned trainer was, they'd show up before his feet froze to the ground or whatever. Because that was soooooooooooooo going to happen in May. Right.

Don't mind him Evie, he's just a melodramatic baby. He'll probably start quoting lines from the end of Titanic in like five minutes.

[Eve Delacroix]

About the time the Second Ice Age was going down, Eve was slowly discovering that, contrary to what people said when they said 'it's just down the road, can't miss it', you could, indeed, miss it. 'Just down the road', as the oh-so-friendly local had put it, turned out to be quite inaccurate, unless that was code for 'well, you'll need to walk a quarter mile before you see the next sign, and then do a forty-five degree turn to the right, take ten paces while clucking like a chicken, and then, if your traveller soul has pleased the Gods That Be, maybe a truck will drive by and tell you the proper way back home'.

There was probably a shorter name for this phenomenon, but Evie was too late to think about it.

Note to self: never go on an exploratory hiking trip at six in the morning. Six in the morning was a world-renowned, altogether BAD TIME to go on an exploratory hiking trip. Nobody was up at six in the morning, for a start, other than Evie and people who lived on the other side of the world (although in their case, it would actually be 'ten at night').

Needless to say, the redhead was just running a little bit tardy, since she'd stopped by her house to scrape off the produce of a brisk walk amid the Natural Photo-perfect Settings, which were much better in photos than in real life. Crisply attired in fresh clothing, though eschewing the sane choice of a jacket, hoodie, parka, or even just a ragged old blanket to slap about her shoulders, Evie walked out of her house, and stopped to ascertain her reflection in the windshield of Xander's car.

The scoop-necked shirt was just on the right side of low, but she'd taken precautions and worn a secondary shirt underneath that, black, to set off the deep, soft colour of the royal blue of the upper shirt. Her jogging bottoms were a bit well-worn, but it was only training... And they weren't likely to fall off, which was what Evie looked for, mainly, in a pair of trousers.

Ah, well. Too late to change now.

She took the road to Hammel at a jog, shaved five minutes off her personal record, and was in an okay mood by the time a Second Friendly Local pointed her in the direction of her young charge. Not quite trusting said young local's words (well, the first time hadn't gone so well), Evie approached the boy with caution.

Not that he was likely to explode or anything, but Evie wasn't all that good with children.

"Are you Nico Dahl, by any remote stroke of luck?" she asked, a small smile curving her lips, "it seems I've a habit of going the wrong direction today, so I'm not at all certain you're my student."

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