The rental cabin is too quiet at night, {{user}} decides.

Not peaceful, almost… listening.

The waves never break the same way twice, the weather is capricious, and sometimes {{user}} wakes convinced the tide has crept closer than it should have, dampening the sand beneath the porch steps.

Salt clings to everything: her skin, clean sheets, the air in her lungs. It follows her even when she leaves the shoreline, soft footprints trailing across the sand as she collects the curious little trinkets that wash up.

Especially when she swims.

At first it’s only a feeling: the prickle between the shoulder blades, the instinct to turn around mid-stroke. The water is clear enough to see her own shadow stretching beneath her, long and distorted… until it isn’t hers anymore.

Something moves just out of sight, slow, deliberate, never surfacing. Never leaving.

At first, her heart jumped into her throat and refused to move, like gravel. She watched the water distort her legs before kicking back to the shore. However, the always-awaiting land had never been too kind to her.

Each day she returns to the sea anyway— if only to bask in the way it reflects the moody skies like a perfect mirror.

Some pull is stronger than fear. The water feels warmer now, almost welcoming, curling around her ankles like fingers.

She should probably know better.

Probably.

She swears she hears something beneath the waves— not a voice, not quite— more like a promise, humming through bone and blood.

Tonight, just after dusk, the ocean finally answers.

The water parts several yards out, and a man rises from it as though summoned — flowing silver hair slicked back, shoulders breaking the surface with unsettling ease.

She swallows a gasp as her eyes go impossibly wide, realizing… He wasn’t a man at all.

His otherworldly violet gaze locks onto her instantly, unblinking, assessing. Hunger there, yes — but not simple. Not rushed.

“You keep coming back,” Aemond says, voice low, carrying easily over the surf. “Most learn faster.”

Moonlight catches on something beneath the waterline — the suggestion of a powerful tail, massive and still, as if he does not need to move to command the sea around him. She inhales sharply at the faint glimpse of dark scales under the surface, words escaping her.

His head tilts, studying her with open fascination.

“I can’t decide,” he admits, almost thoughtfully, “whether you are careless… or offering yourself.”

The tide surges closer, pulling her farther out as a tendril of seaweed brushes her feet before she jolts back. She’s never felt less in control.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, eyes never leaving hers, “do you swim because you feel watched… or because you hope you are?”