Wheeling Gull Isle it must be that old evil spirit; so deep down in your ground
lions & men
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All Welcome 
floating, baseless. something has seized whatever she is out of her broken body and held it aloft. there she hangs, unwilling to shift, to think, to dismantle whatever delicate framework keeps her here. to do so would be to fall back into her body, which burns with fever and wounds too many to count, to feel at once. and so she does not deign to think, to wonder, but the dreams come all the same. 

in her ear, close and clear, stories. the words are clear, cohesive, and she understands perfectly and yet not at all. stories which her mind can not understand, whispered in her mother's voice. someone calls, interrupting now and again the inexorable flow of words, droning on heedlessly. on the edges of whatever plane she waits in stalks a shadow, familiar and drifting, and while she dares not glance into its eyes she knows what she will see there; the great expanse of everything and nothing set into that skull. 

bloodied, broken, the body has dragged itself to the stream's edge. dislocated forelimb drags in the current, little eddies swirling around it. muzzle dangles a few inches above the surface, the rest of the body strewn over the bank. dew peppers the bloodied ruff, and flies swarm over bloodied gash across its chest. chest rises and falls barely, infused with an unnatural warmth. 
@Huā
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Beside the water lay something, stench of blood rising and bugs swarming like a plague. Huā feared to find a corpse, but getting closer, perhaps this was worse- something half dead, a zombie. She eyed the girl, keeping her distance though, gaze picking her apart in it's own way. Pathetic. Not a Yuèlóng wolf, and yet bloodied and dragged inland, much like Strand had been- What happen to you? Huā questioned, trying to mask the mild disgust the weaseled its way into her voice. She squinted down at the girl, finding her a mixture of gross and pitiful- but figuring any injuries dealt by Yuèlóng warriors to her were likely well-deserved. She was here, on their island, after all.
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she plummets. 

warps and tenses as she is confronted with the violence of consciousness, spends a long moment fumbling in the dark. and then her eyes fly open, and she recoils, away from the crimson edged fangs, the shadow. "do not touch me." she hisses, low and raspy. grunting in pain as she leans on the left forelimb still angling away from her body in and angle that is entirely wrong.

she sways, barely discernable. "who are you?" the words are blurred as if her tongue had slipped on the edges of the syllables. she's only got a finite number of legs, and she can not afford to have this interaction go as poorly as those previous.
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Do not touch me, The child hisses. Huā's gaze falls thoughtfully to the broken limb, and rises back to her face. I would not try. I do not hurt without reason. She drawls, tail flicking impatiently. Her question went answered, and a new one was flung at her. For the moment, Huā would ignore it, repeating, What happen to you, 俘虏? Come on. You are injure, might as well answer me, save yourself from more hurt. The threat was not spoken like one, and was likely empty anyway considering Huā rarely fought unless driven by the need to defend, or backup warriors- but the underlying message was clear: Huā had the power here. It was a good idea to keep her satisfied, if she wished to be treated with respect any time soon.
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assurances, then, that she would not. the mistrust does not fade, but some of the tension does, alleviating some small degree of pain. this woman's words are odd, clipped, infused with a word she thought at first to have misunderstood and then realizes in entirely foreign. 

"the sea. something—a current." she pauses, gaze shuttering a moment as pain lances through her left shoulder. fangs gritted, she continues. "ended up here. orochi attacked me, dragged me here. another woman - black, scarred. knew I hurt orochi when I was a whelp, did this." stiffly, she gestures at the limb that is bloodied and raw, skimming over the exposed sinew, the way it dangles, with detached horror, hatred. her sides heave, talking takes energy she does not have. gaze returns to the woman, glazed and dull. "are you going to kill me?" words are detached, as if leaking from another muzzle. she does not want to die, the sudden terror of the thought would be terrifying should pain not have overwhelmed almost all capacity for thought. but if she will, on this miserable island, she wants to know it.
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The sea, the current. Orochi- whom she mentions, she had hurt as a whelp, and Huā's brow quirks upward- noting she must ask the boy about it later. And a description that could only match Minori (whom Huā still didn't realize was related to Orochi!) A gesture to the limb; the empress' gaze follows, squinting with mild pity, not wishing to imagine the pain the girl was in.

The next question throws her off guard, and her eyes widen. A moment of pause, to collect her thoughts. No. If anything, I would like to bring you doctor- but she may have to touch you. Huā warned, the ghost of a smirk gracing her features momentarily. She settled onto her haunches casually, scooting just slightly forward. I am Huā, huángdì here- empress. This place call Yuèlóng. If you stuck here, maybe we help nurse you back to health- and you pay us simple favor, as you healing. It was just a little suggestion, though the mermaid knew Hela's options were quite limited now. And púrén- as the rank was called, did mean servant, after all. Being at the bottom of any hierarchy sucked, but the empress thought it much better to recieve help and a temporary home in exchange for work, than be left stranded in the forest as a living punching bag.
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her breath comes fast, darkness beckoning at her vision again. she fades, the edges of her being beginning to fray, unable to sustain consciousness long in this broken body. low, keening sound as the mere pressure of being aware tugs at wounds and fuels the ever-burning hurt. 

but she is not going to die, at least not at this woman's hand. favour. she manages to pick out of from the woman's words, and her gaze slits open again, painfully. "favour," she breathes, a question even though the intonation is lacking. she has not been constrained like this in her life, and though she would rage at the notion should she have had the chance, the brokenness of her and the sea of pain she struggles to stay afloat in are far too pressing. if she stopped to consider anything else, she would slip beneath the surface. 

"yes." she's no idea what she's agreeing too, but this is not a question or a compromise; it is the only way she'll live.
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The girl's breathing was rough, her words coming shortly as if she barely knew what was she was saying. But agreement came. Very good, Huā breathed in a whisper. The doctor call Daiyu. She is small dark girl, with mismatch eyes, not much older than you. When you see her, let her help you... please. Huā was not sure how completely her words were reaching Hela's mind, if at all, but she would keep trying. The other people, one who hurt you- I can not always control them, but when I see them again, I try to tell them to stay away. Okay? You are like guest here, almost. No favors yet- maybe once you are little better. A moment of quiet from the empress, a sigh- she loved Orochi and Monori both, trusted them, was glad to see their passion to defend. But coming across the victim like this struck a chord in her soul, touching that nonviolent part of her which demanded that conflict could be solved with words. Keeping a short-term servant did not feel so wrong, servants had been quite regular for the high classes in 海龙泻湖。But here things were different, it seemed, and Huā prayed this beaten girl would keep her grudges individual to those that wronged her directly- rather than Yuèlóng, as a whole. And hoped that employing a servant was not a crime in the eyes of the locals.
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acknowledgment, a dip of her muzzle. back already she is fading back into the fever, the heat of it rising to her skin. the healer will come, eventually, and she will bear the pain of having her limb forced back into her body, the sting of the healing herbs. but she can do little more than bear it, confined within her own mind as her body stitches itself together. gradually, slowly, she will strengthen, but not today. darkness erodes away at her vision, and in a few moments more she's slipped into unconsciousness, and the island's leader takes her leave.