Water, water, nothing but rushing, flowing, speeding water, moving past her scales erratically, sending her spinning, pulling her in all different directions. Her world was upside down, tossing, turning, spinning, like she was caught in a turbine. The sea was turbulent here, she always knew that, it was dangerous, and she had been warned as such, but it was too late now. She got too close, got sucked into a riptide, and now she was falling up and down all at once, flipping in the water like a gymnast out of control, and then there was the sea floor right in front of her eyes and -

Then she was asleep. Her mind raced, much like the waters that had stolen her away, away from her home. Thoughts came, of her family, of if they would even miss her at all. She didn't think they would, from how they treated her. She wondered if she would miss them either, from wherever she ended up, whatever punishment the powers that be decided to hand to her next, after she never woke up.

Would they even find her body? Or would she just be lost to the seas, to be eaten by some shark almost as dumb as her, straying into the forbidden waters?

It didn't matter, she supposed. She wouldn't wake up anyways, so why bother thinking about it. Why bother indeed.

And then she woke up.

There was sand beneath her, dry and rough, and air above her, and inside her, a howling sea - a sea which came spilling out of her in a few short coughs, her body forcefully expelling the salty solution. Normally water didn't do this much to her, but something was different - was wrong. Her body was so warm, and she felt heavy. She was wet, but it wasn't a good kind of wet, it wasn't the cold embrace of the sea, the only home she knew. It was heavy, like a storm, like blood spilling out from you, like when she learned she could never sing a song again.

She stood, shakily, on legs that were suddenly covered in fur, legs which were so different. Something had happened, she knew. Perhaps the sea had changed her, in its ultimate wisdom. Quietly, Echo - for that was her name, even if it would likely never pass from her lips - lifted a paw forward, stepping into the sand. She was still blue, a cool teal color, like seafoam, but she was so... hairy. That was what it was, to her knowledge. She saw a dog with it once, in one of the ships they sank, back when she was still allowed to hunt.

Offering a quick glance around her surroundings, she opened her mouth to call for help, hoping that maybe the sea had some ounce of Mercy in it, that she would be able to call for help.

But there was no Mercy in the sea, as she had learned time and time again, and all that left her mouth was a coarse whisper, a promise of speech that could never be fulfilled.

tags - "speech"

It really was ridiculous just how much of Tanglewood had issues with their family. Wormwood had obviously never had a good relationship with either his Father or his Mother, and now he didn't have one anymore with his brother, and he was far from the only one. Roy had no family save for Worm himself, Red showed no sign of having a family or even missing one, and Beck didn't seem as though he liked speaking about his family from the past at all, and those were far from all of the examples that the clan was full of. Perhaps that was the point of Tanglewood, since they were sort of a "band of misfits", and it made sense that most of them were outcasts from their own families. Crow and Selby seemed like the only ones who had a decent family relationship besides he and Roy, although even that seemed like it got challenged occasionally, at least when Crow was being an asshole and Selby told him off. At the very least it seemed as though everyone in Tanglewood had bonded together to become sort of a found family that would protect each other to the very end – although he sometimes questioned how much Beck would really sacrifice for any of them. Perhaps Echo would end up becoming a member of this little found family as well, if things went right.

Wormwood had been out for a walk around the territory when he happened upon Echo, finding himself pausing when he saw somebody dragging themselves from the water, looking disheveled and confused, a look that was uncomfortably familiar on the face of several other joiners. Taking a deep breath, the male noted the fact that Echo had opened her mouth, but it seemed that nothing had come out, no words displacing the air between them. Echo was probably lucky that Worm had come upon her, since it seemed that she couldn't exactly call out for anyone right now... and he found himself wondering if she had ever been able to. Moving over to the edge of the water, the lion rumbled softly as he kept his one eye trained on the strange sea colored female that had emerged from the sea,  "Hey there... you alright? I don't think I've seen anybody coming up from the shore before. Usually they just choose to come to the edge of the woods... " He tried not to make light of her situation, since it was obvious that she was disoriented and upset, but at the very least he could try joking around with her to try and make her feel alright. Tilting his head to one side, the golden and red large feline questioned with a little frown, not sure if Echo could actually answer him or not, "Do you know how you ended up here? This is Tanglewood..."

Her senses were dulled after awakening, it seemed, her eyes suddenly snapping to a presence that she didn't think was there before. It was huge, whatever it was, much bigger than this body, but it seemed to be... talking to her. She didn't think anything could talk other than sirens. Was this thing a siren? Were there land sirens? She would never get answers to those questions, though, things that she wanted to say, but couldn't. Not unless they said it.

She looked up, craning her neck to gaze at the warm colored Thing before her, which seemed so oddly gentle. It was colored like a reef, like one of those shelled creatures that lurked near the ocean floor, like the wreath of fire from a peak she had been told was deadly to go near. It looked like everything that was rare in the sea, and it startled her, as much as it amazed her.

Red was rarely a color of good signs, after all.

He - she decided that the Thing was a he, since it seemed to be able to talk, like the sirens back home - had said some things, but nothing exceptionally useful to her. She shook her head when he asked if she was alright, a harsh action that took a lot out of her, before listening and waiting intently. There had to be something she could ask, right?

"This is Tanglewood." She said, except the voice that came out of her throat was that of the fire-wreathed thing in front of her, a copy too identical to be attempted. When she said it in the voice that wasn't hers, though, she said it with a quirk of her head, tilted to indicate confusion - hopefully he would understand what was going on, to some degree. At the very least, hopefully he would ask questions, questions she could echo back.

For the sea, in its providence, took everything but the gift of the siren song from her, all those ages ago.

tags - "speech"

When the newcomer looked up at him, Wormwood couldn't help but pause at the sense of amazement that slowly entered her gaze, just openly staring at him and taking in every aspect of his large form, along with the fiery colors that adorned him. Her gaze was so intense that Wormwood almost felt as if he was being inspected, being judged to see if he was good enough for whatever the standards of this odd new stranger were. She seemed vaguely startled and frozen in her amazement, and for a moment Wormwood opened his muzzle to question whether or not she was alright, or if he had said something wrong, but he was interrupted by the sight of her finally tearing her gaze away from him. She seemed to observe more of her surroundings for a moment before she turned her attention back to him, her mouth opening and words finally tumbling out, but they were not the words that he was expecting. They were not introductions, or explanations, or even really questions directed towards him, but rather his own strong and deep voice, the rumble of a lion leaving the much smaller female's mouth and catching him so off guard that he almost stumbled back, his paws displacing a bit of sand as he recoiled. His blue eyes were wide and stunned for a moment, before he finally took a deep breath in, deciding that he had seen stranger things in his life. Hell, he had experienced stranger things in his life than this.

Given the way that Echo was looking at him, it was pretty clear that, despite the fact that she was parroting his own words back at him, she didn't actually really mean them, and meant them as more of a question than the way that his own had been a statement. He hesitated for a moment before rumbling softly, glancing back behind him and wondering if anyone else would come to his aid, "Oh, you... you talk back to people, with their voices...? Uhm, ah, I guess that's not important right now... but yes, this is Tanglewood. We're a group of many that lives together here in the swamp. We protect each other, and live as friends. I'm a member here, a chaser actually, my name is Wormwood." Figuring put rather quickly that none of what he had just said would be too useful to Echo for the purposes of talking back to him, he glanced down awkwardly before clearing his throat, mumbling with a slightly pained chuckle, "This is... weird. I've never talked to anybody before that couldn't talk without somebody else's words to speak... not to say that you're weird! I guess I just... I've never seen anything like this. Hmm... what's your name, and where are you from? Did you get lost, and that's why you ended up washing up here? Like I said, we don't usually get people coming in from the shore... is that where you're from? The sea?' He didn't want to immediately overwhelm Echo with his questions, but at the same time he was sure that the more words he said, the more words Echo would be able to say.

He spoke. A lot.

It reminded her of the currents that brought her here, a whirlwind, a storm, something that spun her head around. But it was just words. Just so, so many words, an unprecedented amount, from her experience. Nobody ever gave her enough attention to speak that much after they knew of her quirk. And here the fire-crowned one was, giving her enough ammunition to theoretically let her write her own paragraph. If only she could mix and match, if only she had learned how.

Why was he being so polite, she wondered? And what was he? Was he dangerous? Venomous? Or were his colors purely aesthetic? So many questions to ask with words that hadn't been breathed yet.
You talk back to people with their voices? Fervently, she shook her head yes, so excited he caught on easily that when she stopped nodding, the world was spinning.
Did you get lost? She nodded her head, once, less violently, and less assuredly, like she was thinking about it.
Is that where you're from? The sea? One more nod.

And he asked the hardest question of all to answer. What's your name?

She thought for a bit. Her name was Echo, but he didn't say it. How could she? How did one describe a phenomenon such as that without the word being said, or without a demonstration? She scrunched her face and tried to remember the words he said, sifting through them, trying to find what could be useful.

"Your name... a chaser actually... talk back to people with their voices?" His voice was released from her once more, after a bout of concentration between each phrase. Tides, it was hard to speak back fragments, to remember the souls of the words. Echo needed practice, and desperately, especially if she wanted help, or even to tell people her name.

Perhaps she could learn how to write, if she stayed with these people for long enough?

And it was people - there was another, now, tall and lanky, wearing black glass - obsidian, maybe, like what came from the fiery mountains; how appropriate that he would follow his corona of a friend - and with equally dark limbs folded to his side. They looked like flippers, or maybe wings. She hadn't seen too many birds, but they seemed similar enough, and those seemed like feathers.

"What's your name?" She asked, once more in Wormwood's voice. A name to remember, for sure, and though she didn't understand what it meant, she understood that the essence of the name didn't quite fit him. She hoped that this bird-cat-blubber-thing would have a name more suited to him.

tags - "speech"

When Crowley came up beside him, pointing out that he was overdoing it a bit with his rapid fire questions, Worm felt a faint blush come up beneath his fur, smiling sheepishly over at the demon. He really did often end up talking more than anyone else, though it wasn't exactly intentional. He had just been deprived of common socialize often when he had been just a cub, and as a result he had ended up often talking to people longer than most others would. That was part of the reason that he had gotten to know Kamara so well before anyone else, although now he supposed it didn't matter, since Kamara had left so recently after being yelled at. The thought of the female made him frown a bit, a familiar feeling of aggravation gripping him. He didn't regret yelling at her, even if he hadn't really been in control of himself when he attacked Roman – they had been in the right, and Kamara hadn't known what she was talking about. Still, it was hard to see anybody leave Tanglewood, even if she had been only a visitor in their group. Thankfully, it seemed as though anybody who had left was being replaced with new fresh faced members, such as Echo, right in front of him.

When she spoke back to him with bis own voice again, he felt his ears pin back a little at the strangeness of it all. He really wasn't used to be spoken back to in the exact same voice that he spoke to others with, but he could get used to it if Echo did end up joining. When she questioned him about talking back to others, he blinked in confusion for a moment before his gaze widened in realization. She couldn't say her name without him saying it first. That made him pause for a long moment, since he wasn't sure how to say her name without knowing it first, and he finally turned to Crowley, questioning the other as he shifted his wings upon his golden back, "How am I supposed to say her name when I don't know it? I guess I never considered trying to talk to somebody who can only echo your words..." Luckiky for the chaser, in his confused questioning of the fallen angel, he had actually said Echo's name on accident. It was sort of an interesting irony of the universe that Echo's name was something to describe what she did in terms of speaking, or perhaps that was intentional. After all, Wormwood had no idea what Echo's past had been before arriving on this shore, and he wasn't aware of who possibly could have named her. After all, she came from the sea. He didn't even know what really lived beneath the sea, besides things that he had read about that were theoretically beneath the sea.

"Echo."

If she could shout it she would, by the expression on her face, suddenly beaming even more than she was. Like a child on their birthday, she was given the gift of a name, and now that one person knew it, they could tell everyone else too, and suddenly it was a chain reaction. She feared being called "the mute" or "the parrot" or something to that effect, as she had back Home, but now? Now it was going to be fine.

She didn't really notice when she started thinking about staying here, wherever here was.

"Echo, Echo, Echo." Echo tested the sound of it, something that hadn't left her lips in a long time, a name given to her at birth that proved tragic in life, and a name she could finally use again. Being named, for some, was equivalent to being dominated, having power stripped from you; for sirens it was the opposite, with saying their names giving them more power; for Echo, though, it just brought her the simple joy of being known as a someone. Not a thing, or a nuisance, but a person, who lived and breathed and ate, even if she didn't talk. It was a really good feeling, frankly, and she wished it could have come sooner in her life.

Crowley had offered his own name, too, before asking five different questions, and his name was different from Wormwood's. It seemed... older, but newer, like something that had existed for a long time but only let out very recently. It wasn't some name that invoked a putrid sensation, like the Corona by his side, but something that had been fitted for him. It was grey, and it seemed a little... unpleasant, perhaps? But it was very him, in a way she couldn't quite prove, due to a lack of talking mixed with a lack of knowing him.

And then Crowley began making the Offer - it was probably rude to disregard someone so completely in a conversation, but she couldn't exactly regard him directly anyways, so what did it matter? - and she was left to catch her proverbial breath.

Do you want to?

That was a yes/no question with a thousand concurrent answers. Did she want to? If she did, what would happen? Was this body change permanent? A thousand answers, a thousand questions, but ultimately there was no choice to make here. She couldn't exactly live very well on her own, after all.

"Stay here... Tanglewood." She said, at first in the voice of the New Man, and then backpedalling to what Corona had said, a long pause between the two for her to remember what the words were, and what they meant. Stay here... Tanglewood. It was a strange name for a place, and these were strange fellows, but they were so welcoming. It was hard not to want to go just to see how long it would keep up.

She would come back to the sea soon, though. She could feel that much in her heart.

tags - "speech"

Wormwood got a rather unsatisfactory answer back from Crowley, and he opened his mouth to explain exactly why he couldn't just say random names until he stumbled upon the right one, when all of a sudden Echo was piping up, her loud and excited voice startling the chaser from his thoughts. He looked over at her for a moment, confusion written clearly on his face, before a grin replaced his formerly bewildered expression. Oh, it seemed as though he had, in fact, just stumbled upon the girl's name. It was an amazing coincidence really, and he silently thanked whenever had named her for giving her a name that matched her gimmick with such cruel irony, because it made things far easier for him and Crowley. He hadn't exactly been enthused at the thought of sitting with the demon and just calling out random common names until one of them stuck – besides, she had come from the sea. Who knew how sea people named their kids? Thankfully, it seemed as though they were saved, and Echo was proudly reclaiming her old name, ironically echoing it over and over back at him in his own voice. Chuckling warmly, the large lion dipped his head and said in a soft rumble, half to Crowley and half as a reassurance to Echo that he had heard her, "Well, it seems as though her name is Echo. Pretty lucky, huh?"

It then seemed as though Echo was contemplating one of the first questions out of Crowley's mouth: did she want to join Tanglewood, or not? She seemed to struggle with this question for a moment, and he could only imagine that it was a mixture between actually figuring out her answer, and then trying to figure out how to communicate said answer back to them with their own words. It seemed as though eventually she did, however, when she eventually parroted back at them with a mixture of both their voices – something that pressed Wormwood firmly into uncanny valley territory. Shaking off the fact that he had just been asked to join by his own voice, with a healthy dose of Crowley's, Worm nodded and said softly, his tail flicking from side to side as he gestured with a paw back at Tanglewood's territory, "Well, it's very nice to welcome you here into Tanglewood, Echo. Like I said, my mama's Wormwood. You need a tour around? I cant imagine how much of a shift it must be, going from the sea to here in the swamp..." He spared a glanced back at Crowley and gave him a bit of a smile, nodding his head as if to say that he had done good in offering her a way to join. After all, if she couldn't go back to the sea at the moment, why couldn't she stay here? It wasn't as if she was a threat, she was just a bit odd.