Digit, Female Fairy

Digit awoke to feel the warmth of sunshine on her skin. Even in her sleepy state, the absence of her usual wake-up routine was noted. And while she would never lament the lack of her demonic dorm matron bellowing her lethargic ass to breakfast while the moon still reigned in the sky, she struggled to rest easy as long as the question of why hung over her.

Despite the insistent sense of unease pawing at the back of her mind, the desire to milk this opportunity for every possible minute of snoozetime managed to prevail for the moment. She squirmed, trying to get into a more comfortable position... her head must have somehow wandered from her pillow... had her duvet fallen on the floor...? And her mattress... no wait, she must have fallen onto the floor!

With her bearings utterly confounded, she reluctantly opened her bleary eyes... and the soft paws of unease revealed their claws!

She jolted upright, eyes wide, and took in her surroundings. Far from the dorm room she had expected, she instead found herself entirely surrounded by lush, verdant forest. She was sat in the dirt beneath a colossal tree, though even the nearby dandelions were tall enough to loom over her tiny fairy body. Across the clearing, she could see a large elk grazing peacefully, but otherwise the area seemed entirely devoid of sentient life.

The gears were turning frantically in her head, adrenaline acting as the lubricant to get them going from their sleepy stasis. She looked down to see that she was naked, her charcoal-grey skin exposed to the world. This didn't surprise her too much, since she generally slept naked, but it meant that whoever had moved her had rather rudely not had the decency to dress her before dropping her out here!

Who had moved her here though? And why? Only one possibility was presenting itself so far: that this was some sort of surprise test. She wouldn't put it past her college to do something like this. It was probably that one teacher's idea... the weasely guy, Professor... huh. She couldn't remember his name.

...She couldn't remember any teacher's name.

Or that of any of her classmates.

Or dormmates.

Or friends! Family?! Even her own surname was... what??

She wrenched open drawer after drawer of her mind's filing system, yanking out folders of memories only to find they each contained nothing more than a few sketchy outlines.

She clutched at her head, groaning quietly. Calm down, Digit. Panic is the enemy... think rationally!

Her mind was scrambled, but that could easily be another part of the test, if test was indeed what her current predicament amounted to. If she accepted that assumption for the time being, then she could tie the remaining whys of the puzzle around it.

Assuming the whole class is undergoing this test at the same time... muddling with our memories would prevent us from knowing who our friends are. This is probably their way of preventing collusion. We need to solve this on our own.

But what did solving "this" even mean? Being alone in a forest presented two immediately obvious victory conditions: escape, or survival.

Was her school spartan enough to kill off students? She couldn't remember. Yet more justification for the memory-tampering, undoubtedly.

Well, on the off-chance that her college was that malicious, she should first make survival her top priority. Escape could be considered later, once she'd had time to gain a better understanding of her surroundings.

She stood up, brushing the dirt from her body, and considered her options. They weren't great. She had no experience surviving in the wilderness, and her tiny form could easily fall prey to a vast array of predators. She shivered at the thought, trying to block the more graphic parts out of her imagination with little success.

So, when faced with a task she was ill-equipped to handle, what should she do? Defer to the experts, of course. Her gaze panned back to the elk, still calmly grazing across the clearing. It presumably lived here. It avoided predators every day. It knew where clean water was. It might even have its own place of shelter. The only area it mightn't be much help in was in the food department, as Digit definitely did not share its enthusiasm for grass. Nevertheless, it was an ideal ally for now, one she would likely be best-off relying on for the time being.

The trick then would be in getting close to it without spooking it off. If she darted straight for it, it would probably flee. If she slowly approached it with an intense gaze, she might be mistaken for a predator preparing to pounce, and it would flee. She needed to approach it nonchalantly. Indifferently. Not giving signs that she was trying to ignore its presence, but genuinely seeming to all the world as if the creature's existence simply did not register with her.

In other words, she would approach it in the same way she had dealt with every bully she'd ever needed to pass in the halls. With a beat of her wings, she lifted off into a hover just slightly above the elk's eye-level. Unfocusing her gaze towards the middle distance beyond the elk, she slowly, but not too slowly, fluttered towards the beast, aiming to gently come to rest on its antlers as if they were any other branch in the forest.

(1 action point: approach the elk)