She's not afraid.

The first time this happened, there was an attempt to be afraid; she didn't know what was going on, why she was hyperfixating on the grin on Plundering Fang's face, the tilt of the sky as she turned on her axis, the tautness of her muscles as her heels left the ground, the wetness of her own half-open mouth, the nails digging into her side. But it was submerged beneath the genetic need to [i]understand[/i], to remember, to be able to explain how she was defeated. Part of training is learning how to survive during the Adaption Instinct, and that's why the recruit is barraged with new experiences during their training-- and that's why a Ceronian never forgets the experiences of being trained and initiated into the pack. All of [i]those[/i] memories are more vivid in her head than the faint mist of whatever happened before she joined the Silver Divers.

So she swims. She knows well enough how to avoid the sludgewater, and, it's the oddest thing, but the current's working against them. As she swims out and down, all those toxic clouds are swept back up towards the beach, and the current's with her, pulling her downwards like a riptide as the clouds fade away like dying jellyfish, spat back up out of the mouth of the water. The water pulls, but it's comforting, it holds her tight as if to say that she is safe here.

So she follows. Out she sweeps, kicking her legs together like a mermaid, past the reef, downwards to where the light begins to falter and her instincts tell her that she should be relying on scent. She doesn't need to breathe, not yet. Above, the dragon still follows after her, but she is moving fast, and the current is unpredictable, and it pulls her deep; she has a decent chance of losing it on her way to...

Wherever she is going. She's headed perpendicular to the route she should be headed, out towards the current Silver Divers camp (for the daughters of Ceron move their location regularly to baffle their foes). But the sea is insistent, and little Ember trusts it. It is like being rushed along by many faint hands, urging her forward, inviting her down deepwards, and if she closes her eyes, she can see the faint throb of a riot of colors, a memory so old that it comes without names or a sense of self, just joy and speed and discovery. So she swims. So she lets the hunt fall behind her. So she braves the unknown again.

[[b]15[/b] on Overcoming the peril of the sludgewater.]