She is a creature of salt and tide, born from the movement of waves, and she just wanted to see what existed beyond the shore, to touch trees that grew upward instead of swaying. So THEY gave her passage. A ribbon, tied to her wrist, stretching back to the sea, a lifeline and a promise. "You can explore. You can wander. But you can always come home."

She walked into the forest, marveling at moss and ferns, at waters that pooled instead of crashing and receding, at plants that grew without salt, at light filtered through canopy instead of depths. And then something she didn't see, something she'll never know cut the ribbon. One moment, the thread back home. The next, just frayed bond leading nowhere, connecting to nothing, severed.

Will she become a limniad? A spirit of these gentle, landlocked pools that will never taste of salt, never know the pull of moon on tide? Or will she simply dissipate, fade into mist and memory, a nereid too far from the sea to survive, consumed by the rules that bind her existence, the laws that say creatures like her cannot stray too far from their origin without consequence?

She's trying to believe that if she's trapped here, if she can never go home, then maybe the exploration was worth it, that seeing the forest, touching the moss, might be enough payment for everything she's lost.

But she doesn't know.

Will she ever see the ocean again? Will she feel waves against her form, taste salt in the water, hear the familiar crash and pull that shaped her into being? Or is this it, self consuming into a new form that might not remember what it was to be born from tide?

She's a nereid, separated from the sea, trying to find serenity in exile, trying to hold hope, trying to believe that even if she never goes home, even if she transforms into something new or fades entirely, the wanting to see beyond the shore, the courage to walk away from waves, the choice to explore even knowing the risks, has to be worth something. Maybe that will be enough to keep her whole, or at least keep her from disappearing completely into the unknown.

Mizuyokaii, 2026

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