Moira is unfamiliar with the waters of the north. She is swept up by the cold current near Icicle Isle, and cannot escape it until she is many miles east. The young nereid finds refuge in a cove, and curls into a rocky crevice to rest through the night.
When she wakes, dawn has turned the water around her to a soft grey that before she has seen only on her own skin. It is beautiful, and though it is far colder than her tropical home, the nereid spends some time swimming simply for the joy of it. Now and again she breaches the water, leaping into the air to feel the cold bite of autumn on her scales, then plunges back into the depths.
She cannot imagine the wondrous sight she makes, a glittering thing in the sunlit fog, young and strong and - when she is finally still enough to make out her features - impossibly beautiful. She knows only that this feels marvelous, and she is still laughing in delight when she sees the stranger on the shore.
Moira calls out to him, and her greeting is a few notes of a song, one that she knows might beckon him nearer. It’s a woman’s song, one that she’s still learning. By the autumn she will master it, Moira is sure.
She is not thinking of danger as she swims closer, but rather of the difficulty that terrestrial creatures can have in the water. Luring him into the depths might not be safe, so she comes to the shallows.
When the water laps at her chest she stands, four legs holding her weight rather than the tail and fins she’d had a moment before.
“Hello,” she says, a pair of notes in her siren song, one she uses lest her voice grate on ears above the water.
“Would you mind telling me where I am? I’m afraid I’ve gotten a little lost, and would appreciate your help. I’m trying to get back to Ischia?”
There is a snake coiled at his feet, Moira realizes. She calls out to it in the way of water things, but it is not an aquatic creature, and so only the minnows at her feet respond, nibbling gently at the gold and violet markings along her legs.
When she wakes, dawn has turned the water around her to a soft grey that before she has seen only on her own skin. It is beautiful, and though it is far colder than her tropical home, the nereid spends some time swimming simply for the joy of it. Now and again she breaches the water, leaping into the air to feel the cold bite of autumn on her scales, then plunges back into the depths.
She cannot imagine the wondrous sight she makes, a glittering thing in the sunlit fog, young and strong and - when she is finally still enough to make out her features - impossibly beautiful. She knows only that this feels marvelous, and she is still laughing in delight when she sees the stranger on the shore.
Moira calls out to him, and her greeting is a few notes of a song, one that she knows might beckon him nearer. It’s a woman’s song, one that she’s still learning. By the autumn she will master it, Moira is sure.
She is not thinking of danger as she swims closer, but rather of the difficulty that terrestrial creatures can have in the water. Luring him into the depths might not be safe, so she comes to the shallows.
When the water laps at her chest she stands, four legs holding her weight rather than the tail and fins she’d had a moment before.
“Hello,” she says, a pair of notes in her siren song, one she uses lest her voice grate on ears above the water.
“Would you mind telling me where I am? I’m afraid I’ve gotten a little lost, and would appreciate your help. I’m trying to get back to Ischia?”
There is a snake coiled at his feet, Moira realizes. She calls out to it in the way of water things, but it is not an aquatic creature, and so only the minnows at her feet respond, nibbling gently at the gold and violet markings along her legs.