Jojen Reed One Shots

The Girl In the water

I ran even if I struggled. I had been cooped up in my bedroom for so long now the feeling of the wind in my hair of the mud on my feet felt like the sweetest of treats. 

"Jojen! don't go too far now!" my father called from the keep but I ignored him just wanting to run feeling the wonderful joy of being able to go outside again. jumping over marshy mud puddles, across wooden planks set up around the pools and dark water, between the tall thin trees, doing my best to stay away from the little houses and tracks for the people who surrounded grey water watch. I reached the north river one of the large bodies of water in the marshes aside from the green fork that still runs through. I stopped a moment to catch my breath not an easy task in the post of greywater fever. I caught my breath and looked in the water I noticed in the reflection of the water it was of... a girl.

But she was different from most girls in the marshes well... dressed like my sister. in much the same as the boys did half the time, you struggle to tell the difference between the two. This girl was different and Immediately I was captivated by her. she was giggling as she jumped from wooden walkway to wooden walkway leaping like a beautiful cat effortlessly from place to place. she was barefoot without any mud or dirt on then somehow. she had these sweet little legs bare often poking out from her dress. she wore this long green dress with cut-outs for her legs to often poke out when she jumped, a little brown corset around her waist holding the dress together, this long intricate braid of sweet Y/H/C hair, a wooden circlet in her hair. she was giggling as she ran. 

she saw me looking and blushed a little at me giving me a little wave.

I waved back at her making her giggle more continuing on through the trees. 

I looked up from the water trying to find her but... I couldn't I looked around at all the walkways all the pathways but no one was around for miles and yet in the water, she was as clear as day. as real a reflection as my own. I chased her reflection running along after her. hearing her sweet giggles and catching her little smiles, trying to see if I could catch her and see her.

 I ran through doing my best to keep up with the reflection hoping I'd turn a corner and find her there somehow hidden in the tree meaning I had only seen her reflection. we ran for miles together through all the little places and cut thoughts only Cragmen of the marshes know.

And I admit I liked her. her sweet little giggles made me feel so happy. she even blew me little kisses which I admit I blew back to her. 

She rushed off fast this time so I did my best to keep up with her,

until I took a turn and that was it. no reflection. the water was still but there was no reflection at all. 

where did she go? 

I heard the sound of water. and I saw ripples in the water as if something had moved. I assumed it was a lizard lion or maybe a fish or something. 

Where is she? where did the pretty girl go?

I looked into the water again hoping to either see her reflection again or see a creature who had made the sound .... but I didn't

I saw her.

The girl I had seen in the reflection. 

She was there in the dark grey water, Her clothes spread wide and mermaid-like about her. her hair danced in the waters about her. her face white and lifeless, mouth open but her lips blue, dark rings around her white eyes and mossy green across her cheek The sweet dresses were heavy with the weight of their drink deserving to pull her into the darkness into the mud and madness of the world below into muddy death.

For a moment in all my panic, I wanted to jump into the water, to save her!

my thoughts she had been running and jumping along with me and fallen into the murky marsh but even then I knew, by the colours of her face, by the moss against her skin. 

she was long dead before I arrived. 

One of her legs missing and not even bleeding as she floated along, she must have been dead for days. 

But as I watched her float away I... I couldn't leave her. 

I used a stick from the tree to twist around the fabric of her dress pulling her close and slowly begin able to pull her up onto the walkway. 

And it was then I felt someone else on the walkway, I looked up and saw my father who had clearly come looking for me. 

He saw me with this girl in my arms and panic set about across his face. "Jojen-"

"I.... I found her.. floating in the water" I told him trying not to cry not to panic all the while confused by how I had heard her voice, how I had seen her reflection, how she blew me kisses how... was that possible. 

He called for help and men came carrying her back to the keep of greywater watch laying her down on the wooden walkway people came to see her and panic set about the keep. 

A woman came and... broke down into sounds I had never heard. Wails and screams of horror and desperation tears flooding from her eyes. A man trying to hold her back from the girl. 

I learnt from the people about the keep, that it was this woman's only daughter. Her only child. her husband had come to the greywater fever only weeks before I got sick of it myself. this girl. she had gone missing on a walk in the marshes over a month ago. And many men agreed she had been dead for at least three weeks. drowned. or so they said. The woman thanked me, praised me and hugged me for finding her daughter and for bringing her home to her. 

all the while I was still also confused how I had seen her reflection in the water.