[open] from eden

[liet]

Liet listens to Moira contentedly, finding pleasure in the resistance the current of the river gives her swimming. She quite likes the way her body naturally slips into water, unlike when she once accidentally sprang into a bird and nearly killed herself trying to fly. Liet will never forget that kind of panic: the sensation of sitting lazily as a panther upon a tree branch ripped away by the size-change of a hawk. She had looked down, taut wings shivering nervously against her. When she fell, after being stuck to the branch and unable to shift for thirty minutes, the only thing that had saved her had been that shifting instinct woven into her DNA.

“I’ve never seen a seagrass meadow,” Liet admits, not thinking about what scenery she must have lived by if she is to continue maintaining her facade as a nereid. She glances back at Moira, quickly realizing she knows nothing of the sea but tries to imagine what life in the North would be like, anyway.

“The sea is rough and the cliffs are sharp.” She doesn’t elaborate, for all she thinks of after is how she imagines the Nerine sea to be drab and gray and—what if Moira were to ever actually take a look? The thought of Liet's new friend thinking she is a liar twists an ache into her gut. So she smiles prettily and glances back again. The gold in her eyes glimmers.

“Would you take me to Ischia? I want to see all the colorful coral.”