AirPods dropped in water, now they won’t connect

hello! I’ve been using these AirPods for a really long time now, almost 5 years.

I should add, I’ve only got 1 AirPod, which is the left. The right one got lost somewhere haha

very recently, the left airpod got dropped in water. I had taken it out quickly, and tested to see if it still worked; which it did, sound was muffled at first but after drying it played normally.

i gave it to my friend, who left it in my purse instead of the case, and I’m guessing it ran out of battery because of that.

now, that all leads to here; I’ve been trying to get my AirPods to connect, but it keeps telling me to ‘make sure they’re on, ect ect’

At first, the light blinked orange, so I reconnected the case to my phone, which worked! It said the AirPods were connected on the Bluetooth page, except my home screen said it was still connected to my speakers. I was confused at first, thinking maybe “hey, they’re actually broken, maybe the water damaged something.” So, I disconnected the AirPods-but that’s when I heard the soundcue of them disconnecting play through the speaker.

I’ve been unable to get them to reconnect again, and the light on my case is blinking green. Anybody know what this means, how to fix this, or am I gonna have to spend another 400 rebuying a new set? Ahah