i. wandering aimlessly
Gilia has no sense of this place. It is not home, it is not anywhere she knows, and no building in it makes sense to her. But as time goes on, and she calls and calls and calls for her brothers and sisters, her fathers, and then at last to the Sea-Father himself, she begins to realize, no one is answering her. There is no one at all that she knows.

So then she must swallow propriety and the deep dislike of talking to people to whom she has not been introduced too and with a light touch get their attention. Turning her eyes on them - though she is an imposing woman of herself, not that she would ever think so. Dressed in plain colours and her hair tightly wrapped back, she is a stiff-looking woman, holding her skirts in one hand as she speaks so very softly.

"I do not mean to intrude upon your space. Or speak to you out of turn, but I am quite without hope or reason - please, I am looking for my family? I cannot find them. They would not have left me, and I do not know how I wandered so far from them."

ii. by water's edge
Of course, it becomes apparent, no one knows where her family is, and she is left right back where she started, hours later. Now hungry and lost. But she can't ask for help twice, that would simply be too much.

There is a lake, however, and that means she isn't totally helpless. It's unseemly, but she doesn't have much of an option unless she wants to wade in her heavy silk and wool gown, so instead she sheds it down to her thin white undergarments. Taking stockings off after it, folding them all neatly so she could retrieve them afterwards. Her wimple and veil done away with the reveal her half-wild hair. Unbound curls that spiral in every direction. Shivering against the cool air, she has everything set up, she turns to the water and begins to wade in.

Up to her knees and then a little bit further as she lowers the rest of her body. Letting the water lap up her body as she swirls her fingers into it, her shift clings to her thin frame, the water ripples in dark circles and with a shift in the air. Gilia closes her eyes and curls her fingers up. Lifting her palms skyward.

With her, pockets of water rise. Bubbles of water that suspend themselves aloft. Gilia pants to hold them, and the purpose of them is plain: inside one or two of them, is a fish. A healthy trout by the look of it.

She tries her hardest to keep it, but she has control of the water - not the fish. They are obviously terrified, and thrash about and in one flick of their tail - "No! No, stop! I just want one! No! Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please - just one - !"

The fish throws itself out of the water bubble and back into the lake. Her control breaks and all the pockets of water suspended in the air lose their hold and splash back down. She knew she should have learnt to do this as well as Nikolai did. She knew it.

Covering her face to get her bearings, this time, she lowers herself down again and sinks lower, like she might get a better grip on the water itself to hold it.

iii. resting
When all is said and done, if she has eaten and if she hasn't, she goes back to land in her shivering thin dress and goes about making a fire. That she can do far easier. The maids couldn't always be up earlier enough for her and she'd never ask them too, so she had learned that well enough. Gilia builds it to something as well as she can and sits in front of it, letting it dry off her clothes and hair.

And in turn, she never would think to take a house for her own, just not her nature. Instead, she finds home is best when it is near to the water, regardless, and going further away from the water now that she can't find her family, seems terrifying.

So by the fire, near the lake edge, feet half in the water still, curled up against plants and her clothes, half sodden, she makes do. Curling up on her side, dress underneath her, she lays there saying her nightly prayers. "Father, please hear me, take me back home. I am your servant, I am your daughter, take pity on my lowly state, and return me home. I am lost without you. I long to lay in the salt of your embrace."

iv. wildcard
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