Diana

The pier in question was in reality nothing more than a walkway of planks suspended over the lake water. The wooden pillars that reached into the lake was dirty with grime and Arthur worried about the structural integrity of the construct just by looking at it. The wooden boards looked old and weathered, like they could crumble into dust at any moment.

Arthur was worried on the girl's behalf, what if the pier suddenly decided it was unable to support her weight anymore and tip her into the murky water. Arthur suspected the lake was deeper than it looked and it would be very dangerous if the little girl fell into it.

"Little girl, what are you doing over there? Come back to the shore, the pier is too dangerous." Arthur called out from a distance. He stood on dry ground and when the girl turned around, he waved for her to join him.

The girl looked to be around 5 and she was cute and innocent, her hair was black, almost as black as the brackish water underneath her. She looked at Arthur with caution and surprise as if she was not expecting anyone to show up at Blue Lake.

The little girl didn't respond to Arthur in any way. Arthur assumed it was because she was afraid of him. After all, he did show up without any announcement. Perhaps she was also one of those kids who really listened to their parent's advice of not interacting with any strangers.

Arthur tried his best to endear himself to the girl. "Little girl, come here, big brother is not going to harm you. Are you lost, do you need help getting home?" Then, Arthur realized how much he sounded like those child kidnapper in the movies. He couldn't blame the girl for not trusting him.

Arthur took one step forward. Perhaps he could get the girl's confidence if he got closer to her by giving her physical comfort.

It had the completely opposite effect. The girl moved her body closer to the edge and continued to look at Arthur with an alert gaze. It seemed like she would not hesitate to jump into the lake if Arthur took another step towards her.

'Am I that scary?' Arthur thought to himself. 'The girl rather jumps into the lake rather than be in my close proximity. Wait a minute... Children usually return to their safe space when they feel threatened. Normally, it would be their home, into their parents' embrace but the girl's first reaction was to jump into the lake.

'And the legend did say that Blue Lake's guardian spirit commonly takes on the shape of a little girl! So can she be the lake spirit?'

Arthur wanted to kick himself for not noticing that sooner. He should have considered this possibility when he saw the girl at Blue Lake without parental supervision.

That introduced a huge change to the relationship dynamic. If the girl was the lake spirit, she did not seem like the aggressive type, after all, her first reaction wasn't to attack Arthur but to escape. However, at the end of the day, she was a mythical beast. Arthur had no idea what kind of weapon she was hiding. When push comes to shove, she might summon the lake water to swallow Arthur as a means of protecting herself. Arthur eyed the disgusting lake water and he could come up with multiple better ways to die.

In any case, the first thing Arthur needed to do then was to confirm the girl's identity. He took a closer look at the girl and how she was dressed. As mentioned above, she had an innocent and cute face. Her face was impassive because she was eyeing Arthur with alert. From a closer look, the girl's black hair had a shiny sheen to it that reminded Arthur of the shining layer on the surface of the lake. Perhaps the girl had just taken a dip in the lake but Arthur found that to be quite unlikely.

If the girl had some sort of mythical connection to the lake, then perhaps the condition of the lake might reflect on her appearance, that was an explanation Arthur could get behind.

Arthur thought about asking, 'Are you Blue Lake's guardian spirit' directly but that sounded so preposterous in his mind. If she wasn't, he would be treated like some kind of mad person and if she was, then she might turned to the offense to protect her secret. In situation like this, subtlety was required.

Arthur didn't take any more steps towards the girl, he kept a safe distance between them out of deference to her and out of concern to his own safety. Arthur asked a seemingly harmless question, "Little girl, are you from one of the nearby villages? Do you need big brother's help to bring you back home?"

If she could provide the name of an actual village, then Arthur would believe she was a girl who got unfortunately lost.

The girl studied Arthur for so long that the young man assumed she was deaf or mute. Just as he thought he should come up with another angle to approach this issue, the little girl opened her lips to say, "No, thank you. This is my home."

Provided the girl wasn't lying, this confirmed Arthur's speculation that she was the guardian spirit that called Blue Lake home.

In any case, since she was willing to answer Arthur's question, it meant that the girl wasn't that cautious around him anymore. Perhaps she had warmed up to the young man or she didn't see him as a threat after feeling him out.

Regardless, this was a positive progress for Arthur and he followed it up with yet another question, "Can you tell me what's your name?"

"It's Diana."

'Diana... Diana... That doesn't sound particularly mythical. If anything, it sounds like a normal human name. Is she really not the lake spirit and just a normal girl? Then again, how can I be sure Diana is even her real name?'