“Oh, those sound like wonderful places!” said Natola, the cobalt-haired nymph. She sighed. “Kalrend and New Babins. Are they as exciting as they sound?”
The side of Penlyn’s mouth ticked up slightly. “From what I saw of Kalrend, it was cute for a small town, if not particularly exciting. New Babins has its perks, though,” she said with a wink.
Natola giggled, actually giggled, hiding her mouth demurely behind her hand. The pastel hues of her skin shifted with the movement, like the inside of a shell. It was a bit mesmerizing.
No, not mesmerizing, Leanna chided herself. It was distracting, and…and…dangerous. Enthralling. No, wait.
“Do you travel often?” asked Edolade, her voice softened with curiosity.
“As much as I can,” Penlyn replied. “I like seeing new places, meeting new people. Staying in one place too long doesn’t fit me well.”
Natola sighed. “I wish I could travel to Kalrend and New Babins.”
“Can’t you?”
Edolade shook her head, yellow hair shifting across her delicate pearlescent shoulders. “We are limited to our waterway. There is an underground river system among these caves where our friends and families live, small in number as we are, but we cannot move on land or be in sunlight for longer than a few moments.”
Penlyn’s eyebrows drew together in sympathy. “Oh. Well, what is your underground home like?” She shifted closer to the water, cloak still wrapped tightly around her and exposing only her head and hands.
Leanna listened as the women chatted back and forth, trading stories about underwater cave communities and exotic aquatic life for descriptions of cities, farms, and even libraries. She watched as Penlyn visibly loosened, relaxing around the water nymphs and easing into the flow of conversation, charming them and making them giggle. Skills that Leanna had never been able to nurture in herself.
Whatever. Leanna could be on guard for both of them.
“So what’s your story?” asked a voice directly below Leanna. The sorcerer jumped so badly that she almost fell over. At some point, Myri, the turquoise-haired nymph, had found her way over to Leanna’s side while the others had drifted closer to Penlyn.
Myri smirked with her overly wide mouth. “A bit tense, aren’t you?”
“No,” Leanna said, her shoulders bunched up around her ears.
“Oh, well, my mistake,” she said, amusement curling around the edges of her words. “You don’t want to join in the conversation?”
“I’m fine with listening.”
The nymph hummed. “A shame. I have a feeling that you have quite interesting things to say.” Myri was looking at her so intensely with that ice-white gaze that Leanna’s stomach flipped. She pointedly turned back to watch Penlyn and the other nymphs.
Natola was studying Penlyn’s features with playful, heated eyes. “Even with fewer teeth than us, you have a rather beautiful mouth.”
“And your skin,” Edolade said, running a finger across the back of Penlyn’s hand. “I’ve never felt anything like it. So different from our scales.”
Penlyn’s heavy-lidded gaze drifted between the two women, color high in her freckled cheeks. With a lopsided smile she said, “Oh, please, the two of you put me to shame. I’m shocked that people aren’t lining up across the forest to visit you both.”
Right on cue, the pair let out a chorus of giggles.
Leanna averted her eyes, her stomach tightening.
“So that’s how it is,” Myri murmured, her pale eyes sparkling with mirth.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing you won’t figure out soon enough,” she said lightly, arms crossed under her chin on the edge of the pool.
“Okay, enough,” Leanna said. She walked over to pull Penlyn away from the water, although she was careful not to jostle the cloak too much, and settled them both near the fire.
“What?” Penlyn said. “I was in the middle of a conversation.”
“We don’t know these women, Penlyn. They could be dangerous.”
“They seem fine to me.”
Leanna scoffed. “Said the lamb about the flirtatious lion.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Leanna picked up Penlyn’s discarded clothes and handed them over unceremoniously. “It means that you should probably get dressed.”
Penlyn frowned, a frustrated line appearing between her dark eyebrows. “Fine.” But then she turned back to the water nymphs with a remorseful smile on her face. “Sorry, ladies, but it looks like we are going to have to cut this evening short. My companion gets irredeemably rude when she skips her allotted nap time.”
Leanna stiffened as the nymphs chittered.
Despite their expressed disappointment, the nymphs exchanged amicable goodbyes with Penlyn, then with a final couple of hair flips—and a smirk from Myri—they flicked their long, silver-finned tails and disappeared beneath the dark water.
Leanna stoked the fire with averted eyes as Penlyn changed back into her clothes, the air between them silent and tense. When Penlyn handed back the cloak, Leanna spread it out as much as she could next to the fire to dry. Then she watched with a confusing mix of emotions in her stomach as the other woman curled up on her side in one of the thicker patches of moss and closed her eyes.
Although Leanna didn’t necessarily believe she was wrong in her mistrust of the nymphs, she knew that she had spoken harshly to Penlyn. And Leanna did not enjoy speaking harshly to anyone. At least, not without a well thought-out purpose.
More than anything, Leanna was uncomfortable with the emotional impulsivity that had spurred her actions. Apparently, she felt strangely protective over this woman, and although she didn’t exactly understand why, she knew that she needed to get a grip on that foolish notion. This woman—this stranger—was not hers to protect; Penlyn was an adult, and a smart, emotionally capable one at that, if their discussions in the cave passageways were any indication. She did not need Leanna trying to pull her about and make decisions for her, and she clearly wouldn’t stand for it anyway. So what Leanna needed to do now was get some sleep and then, hopefully, get a grip.
Leanna barely heard the grumbling of Penlyn’s stomach over the sound of her exhaustion-addled thoughts.
After a moment of deliberation, Leanna dug into one of the many pockets of her robes and pulled out the last of her bread and cheese, splitting them both in half. She walked over and held it out for Penlyn.
“Hungry?” she said.
Penlyn opened one eye. “No,” she said. This declaration was immediately followed by another round of stomach grumbling, a rather raucous sound that could easily have come from a disgruntled humpback whale.
“In that case,” Leanna said, “I’ll just leave it here, for if you wake up hungry later.” She set half of the food down on a handkerchief which she had procured from another pocket of her robes. “Also, I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you earlier. I was rude, and it won’t happen again.”
“Well, I’m not sure you can promise that,” Penlyn muttered. But when Leanna looked down, the woman was smirking.
After eating her portion of the food and settling in to sleep, Leanna heard the distinct sound of tearing bread from the other side of the fire.
Leanna’s final thought before she drifted off to sleep was that, after tomorrow, she probably would never see this woman ever again.
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