Penlyn swam frantically towards the edge of the pond. Leanna brought her feet out of the water and crouched at the edge. She held her arm out to Penlyn, ready to haul her out of the water, and as she watched, quiet ripples in the water were followed by two more pale pairs of eyes emerging out of the water behind the first.

Adrenaline surged through Leanna’s previously lethargic limbs as she grabbed hold of Penlyn’s hand. She frantically flipped through the pages of her mental spellbook, wracking her brain for a defensive spell that could work in water. No fire or electricity, but maybe—

“Oh, Natola, look what you’ve done. You’ve terrified them. I told you we should have announced ourselves,” said a slightly gurgling, yet surprisingly pleasant voice.

In response came a chittering, somewhat bubbly noise that may have been a sigh. “I know, I’m sorry, I just got so excited. We hardly ever have visitors.”

Without looking, Leanna helped Penlyn climb out of the water, then quickly unclasped her cloak from around her neck and wrapped it around her unclothed frame.

“Maybe because you scare the living daylights out of the ones we do have,” grumbled a third gurgling voice.

Leanna and Penlyn glanced at each other with equal expressions of perplexity, having frozen in place crouched a couple feet from the edge of the pool.

Slowly, the figures drifted through the inky blackness of the water into a brighter patch of moonlight, revealing the faces of three women. 

Well, to call them women was a stretch, considering each of them had pale pastel-hued skin so thin you could make out the outline of dark blue veins. Leanna caught a glimpse of feathered gills along the sides of their necks when their jewel-toned hair shifted in the water. Each figure had slit-pupil eyes with irises so pale they were almost white, and full-lipped mouths that seemed just a bit too wide for their faces. The three women were disconcerting and unlike anyone Leanna had ever met, and also, somehow, incredibly and ethereally beautiful.  

“Hello,” said the middle figure, tucking her cobalt hair behind one pointed ear. “I’m sorry we frightened you. We mean you no harm. My name is Natola, and this is Edolade and Myri,” she continued, pointing in turn to the dandelion-haired woman and their companion with thick curls so turquoise they were practically fluorescent.

Penlyn and Leanna glanced at each other again, eyes wide but slightly less panicked.

“Well, um, it’s nice to meet you, I guess,” Penlyn said. “I’m—”

Leanna shushed her swiftly, throwing a hand up in front of Penlyn’s mouth. Empress help them, Penlyn was going to get them killed. 

There was all manner of non-human creatures in this world, and for many of them, names were a dangerous currency. Leanna had studied beings who could strip you of your identity and take it as their own, or siphon away your agency and turn you into a glorified meat puppet, and all they needed was your full name and a reason. Leanna wouldn’t give these women either of those things until she knew exactly what she was dealing with.

“Who are you?” Leanna asked, putting as much steel and warning into her voice as she was capable of. Based on the amount fear that that voice summoned from others in the past, she was capable of putting in quite a lot. “Are you sirens? What do you want?”

The aquatic creatures all chittered in that bubbling way that made them sound as if they were underwater. “Oh, no, sirens are a sister branch of our evolutionary tree,” said the one with the dandelion colored hair, Edolade. “We don’t associate with them. All that drowning-of-men business is so tacky and macabre.” She shivered haughtily.

“They give us water nymphs such a bad rap,” said Myri. “Does real damage to after-dark type socialization, if you know what I mean.”

Edolade hissed at her companion. “Manners, Myri, these are guests. “

“Sorry, boss,” Myri responded, sounding very unapologetic.

“We don’t want anything, really,” said Natola, wrapping one strand of cobalt hair around a fine-boned finger. “Just to talk, introduce ourselves. We so rarely get visitors. Where are you two from?” 

Before Leanna could stop her, Penlyn anwered, “I can’t speak for my friend here, but I grew up in New Babins. We were on our way out from a small town called Kalrend, maybe you know it, when we ran into some, um, navigational difficulties and found ourselves here.”

Leanna frowned, but said nothing. 

Water nymphs, if that’s what these women were, didn’t have a reputation for violence, despite their heritage. Not much was known about them, mostly because they tended to live in relatively isolated waterways and generally stayed out of everyone’s way. These women matched in appearance to the sparse descriptions that Leanna had read about their species, but she wasn’t ready to let her guard down quite yet. Hopefully, Penlyn would continue to follow suit.