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It doesn’t happen right away, okay?
And the thing is, it’s usually not something Scott has to worry about with the Life games, compared to the longer and more involved series-worlds he’s been involved in, where the storytelling has so much more time to build up and exert influence on the physical form.
Sure, sometimes things change. Joel’s never really lost the wolfy canines he picked up back in Third Life. But for the most part, Scott doesn’t usually actively set out to do lore in the Life games as much as he sets out to win, and he knows these sorts of things are unpredictable, but he’d counted himself, absentmindedly, pretty much safe.
Which is why it’s such a surprise when, two days into the second week, he jumps into the warm coral reef water, and finds that he all at once can’t feel his legs.
His first thought, disorganized and confused, is that he’s been stuck by a pufferfish- he’s pretty sure paralysis is a symptom sometimes, at least, even if it’s weird he can still feel the top half of his body just fine. His second thought is that more than one thing must be wrong, because his arms feel weird too, and his neck, and there’s something itchy like a rash crawling across his face.
His third thought is that he’s underwater, and not moving, and sinking. Martyn just moved in. If Scott dies this way, barely five blocks from their house, he’ll literally never hear the end of it.
He tries to swim for the surface, but his body seems heavier than it feels like it shoud be and just his arms aren’t getting himself much of anywhere, and he’s not even going to try and diagnose what’s wrong with his legs at the bottom of the ocean.
It could be worse- at least if he drowns here he only loses an hour, he reminds himself. Not the worst outcome, but still one he’d prefer to avoid, if possible.
He eyes the sparkle of sunlight on the water’s surface, and pointedly doesn’t check how much air he’s got left. It’s not that far; the bay is shallow. He still can’t feel his legs, but he tries, pulls at whatever numb muscles he feels like would normally make him kick.
And just like that, in a blur of motion, his head breaks the surface.
He blinks. Then, very purposefully, before he can even start to think about whatever just happened, he pulls himself over to the dirt edge of the island and starts levering himself out of the water.
He stalls when he notices the scales.
Well, first of all, his pants have apparently been unexpectedly and violently converted into shorts. Secondly and more importantly- past the torn denim, there’s a shifting expanse of scales, sky blue, the color of the warm reef waters and of his hair, shimmering lightly with green iridescence.
It would really be very pretty if it wasn’t where his legs were supposed to be.
He reaches down to touch with the arm not anchoring him to the side of the island, and it’s then that he notices everything else: patches of scales papering his arms, fragile fins stretching up from his elbows.
He remembers, brings the hand up to feel at his neck next, finds slits like half-healed cuts that feel strange when he pokes at them. Well. Good to know he didn’t have to worry about drowning, at least. He just has to worry about- all of this, instead.
Ugh. At least he’s already set up to live in the bay.
He finally hauls himself the rest of the way out of the ocean and up to sit on the edge of the island. It’s several times harder than it should be, with what feels like a hundred pounds of fish tail in place of infinitely more convenient legs, but he manages, eventually, and finds a somewhat comfortable sitting position, tail skimming back and forth across the surface of the water.
Maybe he should warn Martyn. Or maybe Martyn’s not lived here for long enough yet, or maybe it won’t hit him at all. These sorts of things are fickle. Scott’s got claws, he notices, blunt and thick on the ends of his fingers, seemingly meant more for digging into seafloor rock than anything.
He sighs, and is treated to the novel and not really pleasant feeling of his new gills fluttering with the exhale.
Although…
He considers the water, lapping gently against the dirt short of their little man-made island. It does look terribly inviting. And now that he knows he (probably) won’t drown… well.
On an impulse, he pushes off the edge of the island again and into the ocean.
The water is sun-warm, pleasant, almost soft, and he sinks into it gladly.
It takes a moment to get the hang of breathing. It’s a different kind of inhale, and it shoves against something deep and instinctual in his brain, but it only takes a minute or five before he can stop consciously forcing himself through the motions.
It works, though, and when he blinks his eyes open again he’s sitting on the ocean floor, breathing easy and comfortable, the water around him softly lit by sea pickles and bright with crags of coral. He can’t tell if his eyes are adjusting better to the lack of light now or if he just has more time to look around than he’s used to.
Either way, it’s not bad. He’s already thinking about an underwater base, dug into the sea floor- the most inconvenient part of those has always been creating air pockets, so if he doesn’t have to worry about that…
Yeah, he can make this work.
“So, fair warning, you might get fins,” Scott says, when Martyn steps through the door. “Just in case you want to rethink the whole roommate situation.”
There’s a noticeable pause. Scott doesn’t look up to see Martyn’s expression, partly because he’s busy cutting a few more pairs of pants into shorts, partly because after getting his legs back after ten minutes or so out of water he’d started seeing a good deal more humor in the situation, and he’s trying to smother his grin.
“If you want to get rid of me that badly, you could’ve just said so,” Martyn eventually says, dropping down to sit next to him and poke shamelessly at the nearest patch of scales. Scott elbows him.
“Think of this more like a disclosure,” Scott says. “You know, before you sign the lease.”
“Fishclosure,” Martyn mutters under his breath, and then, louder, “Can’t be worse that what I got stuck with last time.” When Scott glances over at him, he’s cringing, probably at residual memories of decay and rotting skin.
Scott raises his eyebrows, a little mocking. “Soulmate material already, am I?”
Martyn pushes him into the water, which is fair.
Scott waits just under the shadow of the island until Martyn gets concerned enough to learn over the edge and squint down to look for him, and then pulls him in after, which he would argue is also fair.