If the idea of breathing underwater was difficult for Feza to fully wrap her head around, the opposite was true for Echo.

Her life spent in the ocean, whether in certain depths farther than most could swim or near the surface where she could hear those birds, she was quite used to the idea of breathing water, and the protection it gave her. Peaking her head out was like stuffing it into an oven - everything was hotter, the sun beating down on her scales, and it was so loud, the sea's waves rolling around her, as they always did, but not protecting all of her.

And then it was all gone. She loved the sea, even when she was in it, and departing from it was so painful - even beyond the little underwater crash she had. Her body was doing remarkably well, though. Her brain's autonomic systems (words she didn't really know, but she could explain in different words, hypothetically) seemed to adapt immediately, and she had no effort with breathing as a whole. Her only problem was with what she was breathing in. So hot and stuffy, and there was this strange taste to it all, like something very rotten had happened - it almost burned, burned, burned away at her. It was so wrong that she felt like puking sometimes.

What a coincidence that two fellows with situations similarly centered around desperation would cross paths. Two ships in the night, as they say, though that phrase had much different connotations. It was also a shame that they wouldn't be able to share these thoughts with each other - if Echo were to actually have a voice, perhaps she would have enjoyed sharing her feelings. For once.

Said feelings included the pure and utter fright that comes right before you die.

Echo happened across the situation almost at the same time as Kiira did, and much like the other - whom she didn't know yet - didn't see Feza's little disguise until it was much to late. She may not have been the one to be jumped, being adjacent to the other two, but she damn well felt like she was - her body tensed up, her forepaws pressed into the ground, ready to start moving backwards as fast as possible, and if she could she absolutely would have screamed, screamed, until eventually whatever lurked up in the heavens woke up. But she didn't scream, she couldn't scream, nobody woke up, and it turns out she wasn't even in any danger. At least, if Kiira's reaction was any indication. Feza, the petite femme had said (after teleporting, which she did not have the brainpower to figure out right now), a name she had heard before. The name of the supposed repairperson Worm had talked to. Yes, this person, who played such a prank, was certainly more befitting a name with such pop.

These thoughts somehow managed to make it to the surface in her head, climbing valiantly through a sea of adrenaline and fear. Her turquoise fur was fully puffed out, and her pupils were narrowed in shock, but her jaw stayed closed, as she tried to figure out what to do. Should she do anything? There wasn't much to say, since only 3 words had been spoken so far.

She sat there, silent, waiting for something else to happen, so that the tides of terror besieging her head could still at last.

tags - "speech"

When it came to Wormwood and water, they sort of went together like Wormwood and Feza did – badly. Whether it be in his fiery colored lion form, meant for the skies above and the humid environments of the Sahara, or his undead hellhound form, fit for the fiery depths of the land deep down below and the unpleasantly wet and hot air of the swamp, neither of his ways of life were fit for water. That wasn't to say that he entirely hated it, or anything of that sort, it was just that it was difficult for him to really enjoy himself in it besides when he was doing something such as bathing. Worm seemed as though he was the embodiment of the sky above and the burning hot flames that existed in the world, so the cold dark depths that lurked within the waves? Those were the exact opposite of his home environment. That said, it was surprisingly fitting that Feza had acquired the ability to swim and breathe easily among the water now, since it added onto the number of reasons why she and Worm were like polar opposites. Hot and cold, fire and water, responsible and excitable... Wormwood wanted to repair their relationship, but it seemed as though with every day they were actually growing farther and farther apart from ever being true friends. Unfortunately, this particular little event probably wouldn't help out at all with this cause, since it just so happened that Feza had just managed to prank two of the people that Worm had begun to like, and both of them were particularly in a state of mind for scaring.

The lion had been moving slowly through camp when Feza decided to pull off her little diabolical scheme, moving in a slow trot that made it so that he wouldn't be one of the victims of her little prank. However, it did mean that he had a front row seat when it came to seeing the reactions of both Kiira and Echo. Kiira had always been an anxious and struggling mess lately, thanks to her still relatively recent return from the Pitt, along with the fact that she felt like nobody here truly cared for her, and Echo was still making a rather grand effort in order to fit in with the group, since she had only recently joined. Both of them were trying so hard just to live and get through their lives, and now along came Feza, scaring them out of their wits and immediately making Wormwood's blood pressure rise. The male felt his jaw clench as he saw Kiira teleport away, a terrified look on her face, along with the fact that Echo seemed to be just... frozen a few steps away, her eyes wide and her face considerably unsettles, despite the fact that she couldn't scream or say anything to express it. Part of him wanted to launch into some large rant that would no doubt make Feza feel like shit about what she had done by the end of it, but this time he decided it would be more fun to take a more... alternative route. Seeing that Feza was distracted with her little prank, along with the fearful expressions of both Kiira and Echo, the lion slowly moved up behind the water dragon, stepping forward and moving to press one of his massive paws on her tail, pinning the tiny water dragon between his massive claws as he leaned down, rumbling lowly in the lost intimidating and hungry sounding voice that he could manage, knowing full well how much he could scare his fellow chaser, "Boo."

If Wormwood was being honest, he had known that he was being a bit of a dick when he surprised Feza and echoed her "boo" back at her in the most menacing tone that he could manage. After all, he knew that Feza was terrified of him, and even thought to himself before about how much he hated that fact, and yet he was using it to his advantage? He wasn't proud of himself for it, but honestly he had just been fueled by anger over thr fact that she had terrified Kiira and startled Echo with her childish little prank. He had acted based purely on emotion, something he had been trying his hardest not to do lately. Internally he reprimanded himself, which seemed to be the same thing that Feza had been doing before he had stepped forward to scare the shit out of her with his comparatively huge size. Evidently it seemed as though she at least understood that her little "joke" hadn't actually made anybody happy, but had just struck fear in Kiira and Echo. As far as he knew from the extremely limited understanding he had of what Feza was actually after, she wasn't after fear or terrified resentment. Rather, she was after smiles and cheerful laughter, which there was certainly a rather disturbing lack of in this particular situation. Honestly, given how on edge Wormwood had been lately thanks to the capture of his son and the frequent attacks on them by The Pitt, Feza was extremely lucky that she hadn't actually surprised Worm himself, since the lion definitely would've immediately lashed out. Considering how small Feza was in her little dragon form, it was entirely possible that if he had lashed out at her in her current state, he probably could have easily killed her, or at least could have rather thoroughly wounded her to the point where she could have joined. So it could be considered lucky that she had scared Echo and Kiira rather than him, but honestly it probably would have been best for everyone if she just hadn't tried to pull off the poorly thought out prank in the first place.

He grinned almost maliciously down at Feza when she swung around to face him, unaware of the nightmares that plagued Feza commonly these days that this scene reminded her of. When she struggled beneath his claws, her expression turning to one of panic and fear, her body flailing between the sharp daggers that adorned his paws as she tried to get away, Worm found that he expected her to start babbling some nonsense over how she had just pulled the prank in order to bring joy to others, or something else like that. However, rather than babbling and stammering some poorly thought out excuse, her voice was actually curiously absent, the only noise being that of her frantic and terrified panting as she scrambled away from him. He waited a few seconds before he let her up, lifting his large paw off of her so that she could get away, watching her flail forward and nearly fall upon her face as she slammed herself forward, her eyes wide. Sitting back on his haunches, the chaser said as his tail lashed slowly from side to side, a grim and irritated expression on his face as he rested his paws against the dirt again, his claws sinking into it a bit, "What's the matter, Feza? I was just trying to show you how you properly scare someone, you know? It was just a joke, just like you pranking Echo and Kiira. There's no need to take it so seriously." Perhaps he was being cruel about the way that he was going about this, but he had to lay it on thick as hell for Feza to actually understand why what she had done was shitty, particularly when it came to scaring Kiira. At least Echo was an adult, even if she couldn't express her fear, but Kiira was just a small child who was already scared out of her wits just from day to day comings and goings.