The nereid makes an offer

With an unsteady hand, Lux wipes water from her eyes. The adrenaline of her latest escape fading, she finds herself shivering – with cold, the air against her wet skin, and with sheer weakness. Still, for a while she doesn’t dare move; she continues staring down the nereid, who has so far also stayed put.

Only when she’s got her breath back, and there’s no sign of attack, does she lets herself relax a little. Carefully she sits down alongside the pilfered backpack, and wraps her arms around herself, the sodden shawl still clutched in her hand. She and the nereid watch each other silently.

After the earlier frenzy, the stand-off makes things eerily still. Birds sing in the branches overhead. The river’s current babbles merrily by. Minn watches on with characteristic boredom.

Finally, one imperative wins out over Lux’s dazed torpor. Leaning over, she digs her free hand down into the backpack beside her, rummaging. She doesn’t remember if the mites fed her – perhaps that’s a mercy. All she knows is that she’s hungry. There has to be something in here…

It’s not easy, not while she keeps the nereid fully in view. Frayed nerves fizzing in a fog of exhaustion. But finally, pushing through layers of clinking glass, Lux’s hand closes on a small wax-paper bundle. Maybe…?

After a bit of a struggle, some muttered swearing, she manages to unwrap it one-handed. Some kind of dry field ration – it doesn’t smell of much, but Lux is ravenous. She takes a bite of its crumbly blandness. Fucking delicious, in the circumstances—

“Are you just going to sit there and eat that?” Minn chimes in.

Lux shrugs and keeps eating. Her hand still shakes. Running on the dregs of her strength.

“She’ll do whatever you want,” Minn says again. “Anything. Remember? Ask her!”

The nereid nods eagerly. Lux just sighs.

“I don’t want anything from her,” she mumbles through a mouthful of her meal.

“But that’s not faaaair!” the nereid whines.

“Fair?” Lux almost chokes getting the word out. “You were gonna drown me! Is that fair?”

“Maybe not,” the nereid concedes. “But is it hot? Yes!”

Minn nods. “She makes a good point.”

“I’d be dead,” Lux hisses.

The nereid shrugs. “So? You mortals die all the time. That’s what ‘mortal’ means.”

“Yeah, she’s got your number there,” Minn chimes in.

“Gah!” Lux draws back her arm and flings the shawl down the slope towards the water. “Here! Just leave me the fuck alone!”

The nereid scrambles to seize the shawl, eyes wide with urgency. She clutches it to her chest before diving back below, out of sight.

Silence. Lux swallows down the last of her ration.

Slowly the top of the nereid’s head rises again into view. Lux groans and tenses herself to move – but the fey stays put, simply watching.

After a while, she raises her mouth above water to ask, “Why?”

“Because what’s the point?” Lux throws her arms wide. “All I want is a way out of th-this fucking Valley. Back to my world. And you don’t have that.”

“Hmm.” The nereid tilts her head, a spark of mischief in her eyes. “Mayyyybe I do know a way.” She grins broadly. “But you’ll have to trust meeee…”

“I’m n-not letting you d-drown me,” Lux growls.

“I’m not gonna drown you.” The nereid has the audacity to sound almost hurt. “I promise – you’ll be fiiiine!”

Lux glances at Minn. “Is she gonna drown me?”

“She won’t break her promise,” Minn says. “I mean, not the exact words. Beyond that, who knows?”

“Who knows.” Lux stares down at the inscrutably mischievous expression of the water fey. There’s no way, right? There’s no way this is a good idea.

But what other choice is there? She isn’t sure she can survive much longer out in the open. Cold and exposed, too weak for any kind of fight. She has nowhere else to turn…