her liquid dark eyes still search his face, his figure, curiously and her ears fix on the sound of his voice as he speaks. Without hesitation she nods. The deep sleep that had overtaken her was all the cure she needed for her exhaustion. When her eyes stray from him next they turn to look back toward the sea. It churns endlessly, blue and green. She cannot stifle the shiver that creeps over her body then, a full bodied thing, at the thought of venturing out into its depths again. Her heart pangs desperately in that instant, fearful and childish, longing for the known and familiar.

The memory of water forcing her down, thrashing voilently against her, stirs up a terror in she had never known before. She shuts out the panic, tearing her widened eyes away and focuses on the sturdy form of rocks and land at the beachs edge. It is now she thinks maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for her twin to have travelled with her. Daphne wouldn’t be quiet and strange. She was friendly and bold.... but she stood alone, for the first time. she shivers again, another habit she had taken on from her mother, trying to stifle the anxiety that has bloomed in her soul, and finds her voice. i was swimming to the common.... dahlia is my name.

she knows she didn’t make her intended destination...she was lucky to have made land at all. She is sure he knows that too. It still doesn’t occur to her to be frightened of him, to fear being held captive here or worse. She has only set out looking for her mother, to get some space from the stifling dynamics of the prairie and her small life there. She has been too sheltered probably in that regard... she knows there are those on the islands that would harm others, those who do awful things... but her quest is as innocent as she is.