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The water lapped around his ankles, cool and inviting.
He could turn around. He could leave, and none would be the wiser.
Light reflected off the surface of the ocean from the moon overhead, more than half full. It watched him serenely, his only company.
His shirt was still on. He was still dry. Sausage had remained fast asleep as he slipped out of bed, brushing some of their long hair back out of his face.
Jimmy had to admit to himself, he didn’t think this would be so… scary.
Exciting, sure. Weird, definitely. But scary? Jimmy didn’t expect to be terrified by the prospect of finally being able to swim and not need to wear a shirt or any kind of coverings. It’s what he’d wanted all his life, after all.
And now, now that he could , now that the awakened sea magic within him allowed him to shift into a more aquiline form, his true deep sea god form, and he didn’t need to wear anything at all, let alone a shirt, and he just stood there.
He didn’t shiver. He couldn't feel the cold anymore, not with the memories of the icy depth and water so frozen ice grew on his scales with every breath swirling in his mind.
The sea seemed to invite him in, shimmering excitedly. It missed him, it wanted its lovely god back where he belonged, in his true form like he was always meant to be, not the human form he had foolishly shoved himself into thousands of years past, to follow his sister onto the land of the mortals.
He hadn’t known what gender was then. He did now, unfortunately. He knew all too well the curse of gender.
fWhip would laugh at that, he thought idly. ‘Curse of gender’ like it was a secret amulet hidden inside a tomb waiting for someone to put it on and get cursed with the wrong body.
The water rose around his legs, and he froze as it went almost to his knees, but then it slid back down again, merely a large swell hitting the shore. It crashed quietly behind him, echoing through the empty air stretching from the field of sand to the silent huts set well back from the water.
He’d lose nothing if he didn’t try. But he’d gain nothing if he didn’t.
“Oh, what the hell,” he said aloud, and dove.
He shed his shirt as he shifted, letting the water around him remind him of how he was truly meant to be, remind him of the scales and teeth and fins and power .
He weaved easily around rocks and coral as he swam deeper, pushing even as he felt the pressure gather in his ears, and then it dissipated as the magic swirled around him and took away the danger.
A trench came up, and with a silent grin to himself, bubbles from the last of his surface air escaping through his teeth, he twisted and sank right into it, down, down, down into the void.
Settling on the bottom of the trench, he sensed more than felt the comfortable pressure around him, pressure that would easily crush a human like a bone between one of the swamp dog’s teeth.
It was too dark to see with a mortal’s vision, but to his eyes, the area around him was awash in the glow of magic, the sea welcoming him with open arms. The rock shone with its harsh, rough light, the sand underneath him a pearly glow, the small creatures that existed this deep wriggling around and nosing at his toes curiously.
He was home. And his body had never felt more right.