The woman had woken on the shores bedraggled but not bloody, soaked to the bone with familiar brine yet not broken. She had roused herself out of a stupor within hours of her return to the mainland and, bereft of any sense of appreciation for her state of living, began to roam. She had picked her way carelessly along the shore — even cast her eyes from atop a grand citadel of stones along the cliff side — so the woman knew she was no longer trapped alone upon the isle. So sorrowful was she that, when given a glimpse of the setting sun burning fiercely from the bluffs, she contemplated how long it would take for her body to drop upon the battered stones below. Too long, had been the verdict; the woman veered away after that, dragging heel in the manner of a walking corpse.

At this point she had made landfall precisely four days ago. It had been four days of mindless hell; a sore body accompanied by an empty mind insisting on survival, although her plummet from the island had been for anything but. She had not eaten. The only water to pass her lips had been salt-ridden and so cold that her body had refused it. The silvered woman had wasted away upon the isle and now continued to do so — she was desperate, but also at war with herself in that desperation. The end was all that she wanted and yet life, or whichever energy persisted within her and kept her from it, life found a way.

The woman was delirious by the time she entered the forest upon the bluff; the stench of the sea had not left the area nor had she managed to cleanse herself of it, fur hung loosely from a concave belly and tangled across her exposed spine in the manner of dried seaweed.

---

—- edó! Ti káneis apó to nisí sou?" voiced the stern-faced and pale Antiope, scowling from the crux of the dark grove as if her sister's survival was truly a curse upon them all. Behind her was a shadow; Parthenos wished to look beyond the figment of her sister but could not find it possible. The silver girl flashed her teeth at the darkness and insisted, Móno, ímoun mónos - írthan, pígan, mónoi tous akóma!

Epistréfete anepithýmita. Epistréfete éna fántasma! Pós tolmás, ótan eínai aftós pou eínai nekrós! Antiope's icy glare became white-hot and she seemed to shimmer on approach, sliding in to the intermittent light; the sea air was ripe around her, blustering, and her figure seemed to bluster with it — but when Parthenos looked upon her, those eyes were a flashing gold that did not match her sister's. As if dreaming, she overlooked this detail. 

lest the sea wish it]Poios eínai nekrós? Eínai mitéra? Den boreí na eínai — gia na min to thélei i thálassa, The silvered girl wasn't sure if she had spoken or if she had thought it, but perhaps they were the same. Perhaps sometimes her voice did sound and in others, when her tired tongue failed her, she merely imagined. Antiope began to laugh at her — it was like coins scattering upon stones more than true laughter — and soon Parthenos found herself weeping with the trees swaying around her. Akóma kai tóra arneítai! Theorísate ton eaftó sas periorisméno apó atýchima, adelfí? To énklimá sas ítan ypérocho! I Mitéra epélexe timoría - óti epiplíttetai san paidí, óchi ligótero.

No. No. Enklima? To ékana - den to ékana - but the world around her continued to shift with the saline wind, her sister continued to laugh, and that shadow behind her only grew and grew. Parthenos did not understand and soon enough she was faltering against the trees, trying to hold on to her sensibilities and pressing up against them like a bear might; the feeling of the bark upon her skin was solid, it wrought blood quickly, but she did not feel — and upon seeing the red as it was blotted by her salt-crusted pelt, she felt further lightheaded.

---

The world kept on spinning, and she murmured things to the growing dark that made little sense; her mother-tongue of Greek did not seem to agree with her any more than the events unfolding within her mind. She resisted. She fought and spasmed, but Parthenos would not die — not yet, not unless the Fates had another trial in store for her first — and soon she was staggering beneath her own meager weight (or perhaps the weight of her sister's admonishment) until she is faltering against the trees, awake but only just, and hardly in a rightful mind.

She got only a few steps before the collision echoed through the grove, but it wasn't until a calm had settled that Parthenos appeared to react. Her ears were already slanted back atop her head, but she swivelled at the sound of a voice and half expected to see the shadow flickering in to being again. The shadow, and the seafoam eddie her mind had cooked up, were both absent to her gaze. It was a creature borne of both: a thin cryptid thing that shuffled in its disorientation.

Parthenos did not know what to make of those sounds. She did not speak the same language and did not currently possess the faculties to muddle through. But upon seeing this creature which previously had been a flicker in the back of her mind, a figment in a delusion, she felt crippled. The silver woman was cowed by a heart-stuttering fear that melted her in to a messy cloud. Her legs felt weak and her skin felt as if it were set in fever — and then she was down, rolling, prostrating herself with an animal beg — please, she said with her body, I am weak but I am yours!

A part of her wished to be ended, surely. There was no other explanation for the distance the wolf had covered nor how close she was to marked lands, yet in this moment she was desperate enough to ask forgiveness — to give herself over to this stranger's whims.

There was no positive outcome from her bowing nor her begging, and soon enough the stranger had recovered from her run-in with the tree and pivoted to target Parthenos a second time. In her current state (and awkward posing on her back) there was little she could do to stop the relentless attacks; the black-and-white girl was voracious and Parthenos, weak and broken from her her previous toils, could only sit back and take it. She struggled of course — the way a mouse might struggle against the grip of a snake — as teeth caught in her flesh and soon her ragged pelt was further soiled by fresh blood.

Parthenos tried to roll to her feet and had to roll away in order to do so, staggering up to her meager height and would have been turning her back upon Wylla if the girl did not pursue her. The pack wolf did not miss another step though; Parthenos felt the meat of her cheek give way first, then an ear, and though she tried her best to fumble out of the girl's tenacious grip she could only do so much. The wolf gasped and keened a piteous sound, failing helplessly, but did not yet die. She caught herself against a mess of thin but prolific tree growth and fell haphazardly to the forest floor, at which point she began to kick and flail with desperation. 

A part of the siren wished that the plummet from the island had killed her; a part wished in similar fashion that the ill tide that swept her there in the first place had filled her lungs to drown her. Now, although she yearned for it all to be over, the body was in conflict with the rest of her — desiring life, and fighting for an escape.

The wild-eyed siren did not stop as she struggled against the chaos, and soon enough Ingram's quick strikes would draw blood. She did not feel the sting of his teeth because of all the adrenaline flooding her system, but if she survived the night she would wake in a state of ruin. One look from the slender girl - this wrathful thing - and her command filled the silvered woman's ears. She did not hear it, not really, but she was already staggering away from the copse of trees and out to the open air, where she could throw herself against the wind and forward, to freedom. A low call pushed from her throat as she ran, something close to a sob but more pitiful, as she crashed and bumbled along in search of a safe haven.