This appears to have been slightly unwise of her.  Probably she was not expecting to find herself rapidly approaching a mirror, and it approaching her equally quickly.

That's not good. She uses one baton to bank hard to the side to try to dodge it in the few feet left before impact, and with the other shapes an airblade ahead of herself just in case.

No, that's not going to cut it; it chases her, and in the last few moments she can see that it's attached to some sort of scaly tail.

She doesn't splat or even bonk on it though, just keeps falling.  In the moment she passes through it, the evening light disappears and is replaced by bright shining noon, all the more stunning (literally) for the way it's insistingly glinting into her eyes off the large body of water she's directly above.

It appears to be near a harbor; she won't have to worry about being stranded in the middle of an ocean or similar, but she should probably take care not to crash into any of these ships.

What. Mirror portal? That chased her? What.

No time for freaking out about that, she has falling to do. She restrains a sigh as she recognizes the water below her. Really? Couldn't she have buildings to skim off of or even just ground to gust against, instead of a splashdown?

She flares a pair of broad windblades out beside her as fins, guiding her descent and bleeding momentum as she aims for a clear patch of water.

She's not going to make it to land before she hits the water, no, but she can successfully maneuver over to an area out a ways from a beach and a safe distance from all boats.

It's not what one would really call a safe distance from that shadow below the surface,  but luckily whatever it is manages to avoid her as she collides with the water.  It surfaces a moment later, and turns out to be -

- a person, who looks concerned and asks her something completely incomprehensible.

(She also doesn't seem to be wearing any sort of top, if Hailey looks down.)

Hailey splutters as she emerges from the water — first just from the water itself, and then from aaaaa topless pretty girl. Enough so that she's unsure whether she misheard what was said, or if it was legitimately unrecognizable.

Blushing fiercely, she says, "Come again? I don't think I heard you right."

She blinks, dives back under, and - freezes there a moment, eyes locked on Hailey's legs.  She recovers and looks up at her from under the water.  Hailey hears her say, {Apologies, your prismaticality, but could you repeat that?}

The voice sounds clearer than it should be from underwater but has a strange echo to it.  It doesn't feel like it's coming from inside her head but it also definitely wasn't out loud; the girl didn't even move her lips to say it.  And aside from the more obvious differences, it's in a completely different tone than whatever she said first.

Hailey glances at her own legs, wondering what's so interesting. Is there a hole in one of the stockings? Also, what's going on with this weird underwater talking thing? And the title?

"I said that I didn't understand you, and asked you to repeat yourself, funnily enough. Why're you calling me 'your prismaticality', by the way?"

{Are you not - mm.  I asked if you were alright.}

"I'm a bit more waterlogged than I typically like, and rather confused about where I am (and how you're talking to me underwater or staying under that long), but otherwise I'm fine. I haven't jumped from quite that high for fun before, but that's only due to not having access to anything that tall."

She tilts her head a bit, though still keeps her gaze pointedly on her questioner's eyes. "Am I not what?"

{Nereids can do that.  I - don't know what you're not, because you could still be nearly any of the pieces of what I thought you were, just not the whole, and I wouldn't want to presume.  May I ask - what you are?  And how I should address you?}

"I suppose 'Miss' is fine if you're being formal, though I prefer to avoid formality when I can help it at all. And I'm a human. Nothing particularly special, honestly."

{I haven't heard of humans, miss.}

"Well, then apparently I'm on an adventure, because where I come from, humans are the only kind of people at all. I assume you're a nereid? What's that like?"

She shouldn't let this girl assume she's worth this formality. She isn't worth formality. She definitely shouldn't like it.

"Also, you don't have to be so formal. You can just call me by my name, Hailey. What should I call you?"

The girl's expression shifts from deferent to very neutral.  {Okay, Hailey.  Calling me 'Relmiande Tielemvi' is probably safest.}  The name doesn't have meaning accompanying it the way the rest of her speech has, although it sounds like the first part might be some sort of title or descriptor.

{Nereids can live in saltwater, although many prefer not to.  We have some affordances to allow us to communicate underwater the way people do above it, with bonuses included; if you're from somewhere secluded enough you don't speak any of the languages here I'm one of the only people you'll be able to talk to unless you get a translation effect cast on you.}

Neutral face. That's... a thing. Hailey wonders if she's made some kind of misstep. "Are titles... important, here? Is it some kind of mistake or breach of etiquette not to be using one?"

And with an intrigued headtilt, "Nereids sound very interesting. And likely quite helpful, as this is the only language I know at all."

{Titles are very important, but mostly in addressing others by the correct ones; what you choose to go by is your own business, Hailey.  I don't see nereids as being particularly interesting but I suppose that if you've only ever met one type of person before they would probably seem that way.  - I don't mean to contradict you, Hailey.}

That—"Wha— if you're just going to use it like a title anyway, you might as well say 'miss'. It's the formality at all I'm not used to, not any particular title." Hailey has ever heard people talk to nobles, and this speech pattern is familiar. And undeserved.

"Can you help me figure out how to get my bearings in this world, and perhaps a translation effect?" And isn't that weird, there being active translation magic. Great, but weird. "And maybe I can tell you some of what I can do, so you can suggest how I might acquire food, shelter, and the other trappings of normalcy here"

{Yes, miss.  - In this world?  Miss?}

"Well, all parts of the world in which my home country is located are mapped and known. And we don't have teleportation. Or any sapient life other than humans. And I was going for a rather vigorous run, in the evening, and dove over a ledge only to find a mirror mid-air that might've been attached to something snake-like, which chased me when I tried to dodge it. And rather than an impact I passed through it smoothly to find myself in the air directly above us at a completely different time of day and in a place that does not have room to fit anywhere on my thoroughly mapped world, speaking languages that don't exist in my world, and with types of people that don't exist in my world who've never heard of humans."

"Does that sound like I landed in a different world to you, Relmiande Tielemvi?"

{Yes miss.}

There are frequent and unusually-long pauses in her speech.  {Apologies. I had assumed - that humans were a people I hadn't heard of, who lived in isolated communities, still on this world.  I can introduce you to my refraction, my - sponsor, my host - Lord Akelir.  He has many resources at his disposal and I imagine he will not object to using some of them to help you get acclimated and pursue your goals in our world.}

"My goals. I don't have goals yet. The closest thing I ever have to goals are to help people as best I can. And you don't need to apologize to me. I'm no one special. Just a girl who wishes she could be normal."

She doesn't deserve all this deference. She couldn't possibly deserve this deference. She hasn't even started living up to her parents' legacy — hasn't made a difference at all.

{I only meant - whatever goals you may end up acquiring, miss.}

{I imagine falling out of the sky and having to tread water when you're not of a species built for that and finding yourself in an entirely different world is very tiring and stressful.  Would you like to go back to my refraction's place and have - drinkable water and food and a place to sit down, and the translation spell, and work out how to proceed from there.}

"Yes, those sound like very good things. I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you. I'm just very confused." And having feelings about it, but she's just gonna stop that train right there.

{Of course.  Is there anything you'd like to say before we lose the underwater translation?}

"Thank you for helping me, and don't worry about the gust of wind when we get out of the water; it's just to dry me off."

{How could I not?  And thank you for the warning.  - Would you like me to pull you to shore?  Nereids are faster swimmers than most.}

"Oh, yes please, if you don't mind. I'm not a great swimmer, honestly." She blushes a bit at this. Certainly she's not still blushing about the pretty topless girl offering to do her a favor.

{Alright, hold on.}  She clasps Hailey's hand and makes for the beach.  She's indeed quite fast, probably keeping pace with or surpassing the quickest humans even with the weight and drag of another person behind her.

Once they reach the shore, she waves over another person, muscular, furred, and with the head of a dog, and incomprehensibly explains something to him.

(She doesn't seem at all self-conscious about being bare-chested out of the water or in front of a man, either.  She does, apparently, have form-fitting swimming shorts on, at least.)

Whoa. Fast.

And then while this discussion takes place, Hailey unclips one baton from her back and swishes it lightly toward the ground, creating a tight whirlwind around herself, gradually airdrying in the process. Her hair floofs into her usual messy curls. Then she clips the baton back.

She pauses the conversation for a moment to watch this, but doesn't hop back in the water to comment on it or anything.

After a bit more talking, she dons a pair of sandals handed to her by the dog person and they start walking further inland, gesturing for Hailey to follow.

They climb up to a city, full of unfamiliar architecture and unfamiliar people.  It's uncomfortably hot, but they don't have to walk very far before they arrive at their destination, an opulent-looking but strange house with, thankfully, some sort of climate control inside.

Hailey gets pointed to a chair to wait in while Lord Akelir is reported to.

Hailey sits patiently in the opulent-and-strange house. And possibly cheats the heat a tiny bit on the way there by adding a bit of unnatural airflow.

She's brought a tray of fancy snacks, delicious and meant to accommodate a range of potential diets, after a while.  They seem to be labeled, not that that's particularly helpful to her.

Eventually Relmiande Tielemvi returns, dressed in fine but casual clothes, and with a man who has his arm wrapped around her.  She introduces them: "Miss Hailey," something something "Akelir," something something something something.

He gives what is probably a polite greeting, from context and tone.

Hailey guesses at the snacks by look and smell and general assumption that her tastes can stretch broad enough. And when the new person shows up, she stands, gives a sketchy approximation of a curtsy she'd use with a noble whose opinion she cared about, and smiles with a helpless shrug and a gesture at her ears.