He was tall, and his skin was brown and sun-freckled in the summer heat. His hair was short, neatly framing his pointed ears. He was, for some reason, fully clothed, even though the water came up to his waist. He held his satchel above his head to keep it dry. He looked confused.“I’m fine,” Doric replied carefully. “How are you?”“Yes, I was aware of that before I came in,” the boy said.
Someone else might have asked him why, but Doric wasn’t really interested in conversation. She’d come to the pond to refill her waterskin, but now she didn’t want to. She had no idea how long he’d been standing there, and the pond wasn’t that big.“Doric,” Doric said, because even though she’d never met one, she’d heard that it always paid to be polite to sorcerers.A long pause stretched between them. Simon’s bag was still above his head.“It’s two hours after noon,” Doric said.“No,” Doric said.
It wasn’t like she couldn’t refill her waterskin in the river. It was just more likely she’d get wet that way. She figured she had about two hours of water left if she was careful. She liked to hold some in reserve just in case, so she could probably make it farther, but there was no need to be incautious just because she’d met a strange boy in a pond.He started wading out of the pool, clothes cartoonishly ballooned and dripping with water.