#elsewhere

She gasps, coming to her senses, and the gill slits on her neck flap in alarm. She was in the water. She was! Where is she now? Without the comfort of the waves?

The Little Countess has been sent to the room with... instruction?

Presumably, check on her, keep her company in her convalescence. The poor dear was injured! Between the lines... there has been all this talk lately, rumour of discord in the waters. Perhaps she must play the game of politics here that the taller countess plays on other fields!

"Hola?"

She blinks a few times - it looks more like a filmy lid slides across her wide and deep, dark eyes for a moment, and the intent to respond reminds her that she must breathe. Gills clap tightly shut, and she inhales with a quick wheeze, then responds.

Her first reply is something... sibilant and guttural at the same time - it's just... sounds! Then she repeats, in Spanish to match Ellie's own, though with a most unusual accent.

"Where am I? Is this a dirtwalker prison?"

The little girl stands up straighter. "This is a guest room, for guests of the barony. A prison is far more dank. Why? Do you think you should be in prison?"

A few blinks. "No." She straightens up, though she is a bit wobbly, wiggling her toes. "It is a great honor to fall in battle to protect our seas. To be captured... is not." She sniffs the air.

"You do not look like a bleedwater. You do not smell like one."

"What is a bleedwater?"

"I am certain that you are not a captive. Unless you are an enemy. Do you serve the Fell?"

She draws herself up in affronted dignity! "I am (untranslatable), Ruthless Child of the Murderous Seas, soul of Mako the swift-finned, House of Lorelei, Hunter of the dark-dwelling murdhuacha! I do not serve the fell, lest they be served upon my teeth!"

Ellie smiles, and it is as brilliant as the sun scintillating off the sea. "Then you are a friend, not a captive!"

A few blinks, and she gives a hesitant smile back, though hers has many, many more teeth. "A patrol was sent to check the western quadrant. I am mighty enough to join the warriors, and thought to prove it by following... but when they came upon the intruders, they spilled blood off their very skins without wound, and muddied the waters... I remember..."

She winces a bit, and touches her head. There's a bit of a bump there. "A frenzy, and then... I woke here."

"Well, I don't know what those intruders were. But Countess Yessica is sworn to defend all of Fenix. If they were Dark Kin, our people may have come to aid, and found you wounded?"

"Do you still hurt?"

"They did not fight with honor!" She shakes her head, but... "I feel awfully dry. How do you stand it?" She swallows, and her gills flutter a bit.

"I am not a Mer. So I do okay. But I know a place you will feel better! Come!" She grabs the other girl's hand.

She looks SHOCKED. "You would lay hands on me?" A little offended, but also, incredulous. The audacity?!

"It's called holding hands. Don't the mer do that? Come!" A gentle tug. "You will like this!"

"Of course, but you are not of the First-Dreamed of Vatea..." She trails off as she follows, WIDE EYED at the surroundings. The Mer girl does not move very fast - for all that she looks nimble and sleek, she stumbles on unfamiliar feet at first.

Hooves tapping in the halls

"I am a Countess of the Beaumayn, the Dream-seers, the Dark-Star, and the Foes of the Fell."

She leads the newcomer to the springs, and greets the door before they reach it with a cry of "PANTS!"

"You have land-merrow, I know that much." She insists, not wanting to appear ignorant. "If you are of those that fight them, then we are..." She hesitates - sisters? Surely not, this dirt- this land-walker has not even a proper apsarae... "Then we may be comrades in battle." She settles on.

A very tired inaminaeis in the waters, but he has pants.

"That sounds nice. I am Eleanor Hyacinth de Violette. You may call me Ellie."

And Ariel peeks in "OH you're awake! " The horned girl bounces on hooves

(Ondine?)

(Ondine, sorry) Fontaine looks up "A mer? Come in, you must be parched"

"An inland sea! Well, a puddle." She is surprised, but doesn't need to be asked twice before she plunges in.

Her legs blessedly rejoin into a smooth/sandpapery sleek blue-grey colored skin with a prominent fin on her lower back.

There is a magic to the 'puddle' , it's soothing, the bump on her head dwindles.

"Eleanor Hyacinth de Violette, of... the Dark-Star, Fell-foe..." She tries to remember it all. "I have not been given a warrior's name." She says, a little stiffly, hiding embarrassment at her lack. "I do not think you can say my nereid-name in air."

Ariel waves "And I'm Ariel, do you know Cire?"

It takes a moment for her to place the name. "Of Melusine. Dolphin-apsarae. He squeaks endlessly of his own importance."

"That's HIM" Ariel says delighted then "You look a litttle different from him, he's dolphin asparagus, you're ..shark?"

She blows a little spray of water at Ariel! "Apsarae. It is the spirit of the sea with which we are bonded."

She grins, toothily, pleased to have been recognized.

"Apsaray" She tries it, sure she's getting it wrong "What kind of shark? I love the ocean, even if my hooves aren't good for it"

She swishes her tail fin. Ellie may notice that when Ariel joined, the shark girl switched to English to match - apparently she is at least learned in a few land languages. "We are called Mako in dirtwalker tongues."

"Wow, " She looks at Ellie though speaks to both "Ellie, that's like the fastest shark there is I think"

"I like your tail. You do look VERY fast." She switches to english, too!

"If your name can't be said in the air, maybe we can give you a use-name?"

She considers this, doing small laps in the pool. She never seems to stop moving, even at a lazy pace.

“It would not be official in mother’s court….” She considers, clearly tempted though. “But it would be a kind gesture to let you call me a name since you can’t speak properly.”

“Do you have a use-name that is befitting a great warrior? I am fast, and fierce!”

"Oh, oh, oh, si!"

"Oh warrior names"

“I lost my trident, though.” She sighs.

"Like Luisa! Luisa means warrior."

"Like Triton's trident?"

""Oooo was it magical?"

“It stabs things and makes them die! That is a fine magic!”