Big Salmon Lake s y m p h o n y

she dared to breath more than the shallow breaths she'd allowed herself, and the sylph drew into her lungs the scent of him, thick and cloying with rot and metal. the cold wet of the lake shore was beginning to soak into her skin, her spine, and sandwiched between the cold earth and the beast, the woman considered her options. she could run, but he would catch her. she could lie here, but there was the looming possibility that she should err and the simple-minded beast would take offense and harm her where she lay. 

her gaze moved to the water. she could swim - yet to move into the lake would be to risk him pursuing her into deeper waters, where the beasts that caused the ripples surely lay. "not dead." pick. chose. quickly, now, before she faltered. "thirsty."  she withdrew and carefully, slowly, made to stand, not daring yet to move and instead waiting to see how he would accept this first motion.