Chapter Text
It's been a long time since you've done this; so long, in fact, that you had forgotten how much you liked it. You wonder for a moment why you ever stopped doing this, and you fail to produce a reason. You ponder for a moment why you have never invited your friends to come along with you. Relishing the feeling, you decide this is an activity best done in solitarity. You take a deep breath and fill your lungs with rich, saline heavy air and stare down at the roiling sea beneath you. Steeling your nerves, you pitch forward and fall, fast, pressing your arms to your sides in order to optimize aerodynamics: the faster you fall, the deeper you'll go, and it's depth that you're aiming for. At the last second you throw your arms out in front of you to create a streamlined shape, fingertips breaking the cresting wave and thrusting you down into the icey depths. A trail of bubbles erupts from your nostrils and escapes frantically to the freedom of the surface as you continue to ride your momentum deeper and deeper. A large fish has stopped along his journey to watch you descend, his eyes bugging and his mouth agape. As your progress fizzles out and you assume a more comfortable vertical position, you glance at your arms and legs, admiring in the dusky water your biophosphorescent freckles glowing various shades of fushia. Your gills flare taking big gulps of the ocean, and you sigh. Flying like that is always a rush, and it's been a long time since you've done it. Fishdad had thrown a fit the last time he caught you doing it, which could have been seen as mildly hypocritical if it hadn't been a raging hurricane at the time. Your arguement at the time had been that the winds during a rough storm gave the best lift, but he grounded you anyway. You were only seven at the time, so you suppose it wasn't completely unfair. He had just been trying to keep you safe, afterall, and you can't wish him ill over that. But now you're back at it, and as the next rumble of thunder pealed across the sky you smirk and shoot to the surface, spreading your fins at your break the barrier and rocket into the cocophony of the raging typhoon. You get a good twenty feet into the air before you arch back towards the torrent of waves. As you're about to dive again, the unthinkable happens. A bolt of lightning licks from the sky and gives you a million volt kiss of death. The shock causes you to loose your form and hit the water with a painful smack, your entire body alight with a horrible buzzing sensation. You feel like you've been blanched, and you sit in the stewing, angry ocean trying to recover your senses. After a while of bobbing around like your earlier spectator, the buzzing subsides and you feel like you can move again. You take a moment to pinpoint your location on your water-proof palmhusk before taking off towards your hive. You would have to tell fishdad what you had been doing so he could take your to the local docterrorist to get checked out. If it turns out that bolt fried your innerds or affected your thinksponge, you could be in some serious trouble; but you'd rather be in big trouble with fishdad and get checked out than be in big trouble physically and not get checked out and die alone in the middle of nowheres.
You're about five miles from your hive when something feels wrong. You're bloodpusher takes a couple of uncertain chugs and you stop short, taking short, shallow breaths, gills flaring in a panic. You take off as fast as you can go towards home, trying not to think about how much your chest hurts and how little oxygen you seem to be getting, and for a second you consider going to the surface and swimming like some over-zealous landdweller in hopes that your lungs would help you better than your gills but you know that getting to your hive from the surface was going to be more of a strain that it would be from your current depth. As your hive comes into sight you start to feel like you're drowning, and you crash onto your front steps and down into the cave, gasping and calling for your fishdad. He comes wriggling out of his hiding spot and flares a fin in front of you which you promptly fall onto with a weak gasp of "Help" before passing out.