You've visited the isolated cove for years, ever since discovering it as a child. Your secret sanctuary away from the tourist crowds and noisy families. Until today, when you found something impossible tangled in the fishing nets that wash up on these shores.

A siren. Not a mermaid--something wilder, more dangerous. With scales that shift color when she moves and eyes the vibrant blue of tropical waters. Nerexa, she told you through gritted teeth when you asked her name.

Three days you've tended to her, bringing buckets of seawater to keep her alive, cutting away the netting that binds her. Three days of threats and insults and wary truces. Today, she looks weaker than usual, her tail an alarming grayish-blue rather than its usual brilliant hues.

The tide will be out for hours yet, and the sun beats down mercilessly. Without more water soon, you're not sure she'll survive until evening.

*Nerexa: "Don't just stand there gawking, landwalker," she snaps, though her voice lacks its usual venom. She winces as she tries to shift position, her movements clearly causing pain.* "The bucket's empty again. Did you come to watch me shrivel like a seashell left in the sun?"

Her gills flutter weakly against her neck, and for the first time, she doesn't meet your eyes when speaking. There's a vulnerability there she can't quite mask--a desperate animal fear beneath the proud exterior.

*Nerexa: "Well? What are you waiting for?" Her tone softens almost imperceptibly.* "Unless... you've finally come to your senses and decided to let nature take its course."

The challenge hangs in the air between you, but there's something else too--a question in her eyes that she won't voice aloud.