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"Everywhere you can imagine," Emelyn said, then swam towards the middle of the small lake with a hearty backstroke. She didn't know what she- or they- were doing... whether they were actually conversing, or being coquettish- or even if they were being curt with each other for darker reasons. But whatever it was, somehow it suited the situation. ...She didn't even know his name.

She didn't stop to look at him, just continued her stroke- now, at a more leisurely pace, to match her words.

"And I don't dig aquatic men." There was a pause as she put her hand down to her side- checking to see if her knife had fallen from her bikini. ...It hadn't.

"...No," she said, after the interim, "I care. I've even stopped accepting Moreau's ...blood charity. I've not lived in the village, or taken anything from him since Christmas."

"I tend not to tell strange men where I live... before I even know their name," she said- the inflection of her voice not clear... even to herself, "but suffice it to say, somewhere up on the mountain."

"Notice," she said, in between strokes, "I haven't asked for it. And yeah, something like that. The mountain is riddled with caves. They do well enough for me. ...Better than living in Moreau's hypocritical little 'civilization' that he's already made very clear that he can take away at his whim." She noted that he was swimming towards the shore... and wondered if their bizarre 'conversation' was drawing to an end.

"Hmn," was all she said- a noncommital sound that would have been accompanied with a shrug of her shoulders, were she not implementing them in her strokes. "I feel less like a dog on a leash... when I don't take food from the man who's holding the other end."

She kept her eyes to the water until he'd clothed himself- more out of a cursory, automatic gesture of respect than to be embarassed that a naked, deformed man was so near to her. ...Who was Emelyn to remark on deformity, after all. This place was, if not simply Moreau's cruel, crowning achievement- at least a possibility for Dr. Frankenstein's greatest wet dream. What a place, where a man with tentacles eking from his sides, that bluish tint looking not unlike the dead flesh of a man who had floated several days in a river... could be normal. Even attractive.

It was a strange, strange world.

"Maybe one of these days the dogs will bite back," she said, looking over at the man with what she knew must be an unreadable expression on her face. She herself didn't even know what emotions were stewing beneath the surface.

"Thanks for the offer," Emelyn said, an unbidden smile crawling to her lips, "but I don't plan on stepping foot in the village unless they make me. ...And I don't drink." She wondered what the offers really meant. If anything. Her mind was at a curious stall.

She tipped herself forward in the water, falling into an eased tread. One palm eclipsed out of the water, exposed to the wrist, and she folded her hand down upon itself twice.

"Goodbye, Duplex Thirty-Three." Then she silenced her legs, and let herself sink leisurely beneath the water.