The Cove Kuliltu

outfit
On the errrrbody side

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She was back?

Turned out she was pretty not into swimming outside. Bugs and shit. As long as explodey-lady didn't bust in here trying to overshadow her, so. Anyway.

Zareen decided she wanted to practice this thing that seemed to happen to her anyway. Webbed fingers (and toes!) and whatever else was happening. Silver-eyed, she swam with ease through the calm pool, using not only this weird shift of her body but also her own grasp of water to propel her.

And then she decided to... dip underwater completely. Holding her breath, of course, but. Long slits appeared in the sides of her ribs, not painful but in twinges that she didn't quite notice in the momemt. She propelled herself in laps, but before she knew it she realized she had no more breath to hold. It had passed through her, and she wasn't drowning for it.

Because Zareen was breathing underwater.

Holy shit. She resurfaced and gasped in air sharply through her mouth, and now she did feel overwhelmed! Her head tingled with some sort of overstimulus of air quality.

The slits in her ribs disappeared as her lungs took over again.

Grace was watching.

It was her job. Keeping an eye on people swimming, looking out for the nearly silent signs of someone unable to keep their shit together in the water. The pool was quiet, but there was one oddball she had her eyes on.

Some kind of Olympic swimmer over here, going under and staying under for a long time. When she finally rolled back up, chick looked a little choked out. Grace leaned forward on her little tower, whistled with two fingers instead of the whistle around her neck. There was a little shimmer here, when she checked, but it was hard to tell with rippling water. Pools were not the easiest place to pick out fellow supes.

"You alright?" she asked, looking for some sign that Goth Bathing Suit couldn't answer and ready to hop off the chair accordingly.

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outfit (them's shorts)

The whistle was sharp. It grabbed her attention even as she coughed her way back to mammalian respiration (and fuck did that feel weird), and she realized there was a lifeguard here.

Ew. Embarrassing.

"I'm fine," she answered curtly with a bit of a roll to her eyes. "Just inhaled the wrong way."

Or... the right way?

Reowr. (That was the pissy cat sound.)

Grace rest her ass back down, giving a thumbs up and a single "Cool."

People got embarrassed when they got lifeguarded. Grace knew this well by now. But she had seen something in that moment of stillness. Definitely some psychic wiggly line bullshit.

For now she took her spot again, but she was watching close, trying to figure out the trick here.

And making sure no one else drowned, either.

At least she minded her own fucking business. Good. Point in this place's favor after last time's disaster.

Anyway. She looked back at the water and just... considered it again. Maybe there was something weird about the water here that was making all this stuff happen to her.

She looked at her hands beneath the surface, the milky and thin webbing between her fingers.

Weird.

Zareen went to swimming again, and laps, and eventually submerging again. This time she paid attention to what was happening. Ran her fingertips gently against her ribs when she felt the twinges.

Freaked. The fuck. Out.

Blasted herself up out of the water high enough for the gills to be seen even as they began to seal. "The- fuck!"

Goth was a good swimmer. Grace watched with narrowed eyes, flitting to the few other occupants and then back to this one.

Eventually, though, it was all repetitive enough that she stopped scrutinizing. Did vampires use pools? Shifters? Psychics did, obviously. But whatever.

Back to chill until that shriek, and then she about launched herself off the tower to slap bare feet against the floor. She could see it from here, weird fucked up cuts in the side of this girl. What the fuck, indeed.

"Whoa whoa- you cut yourself?" she asked, making it to the closest edge of the pool at a swift pace.

What the fuck had she sliced herself on?!

Coughing, buoying, treading, feeling so fucking weird. Thin air rasping as she strained back for air. "I— don't—?!" she answered, wading webbed hands and kicking webbed feet towards the pool's edge. She gripped it, and maybe the woman would see her fingers.

But by then, the lines in her ribs were sealing shut. She watched the last of them.

"I was breathing?!" she answered breathlessly. "Under the fucking- I—"

Was this a thing the water here caused?!

Ooookay. Grace's first real what the fuck emergency here. Goth was able to get to the edge pretty quick, at least. Swam pretty good for someone panicking!

She made her way to the edge, reached a hand out and then reeled back without meaning to because this chick's fingers were fucking webbed. And the weird slits were going away, something Grace only noticed because fish lady was watching them.

"Alright let's get you the fuck outta the water first," she said. "You need help out?"

She offered a hand out again, though very reluctantly, to be truthful.

Was this a goddamn shifter?!

The reeling back was a thing noticed from the corner of her consciousness, but not very intensely.

Instead she nodded after watching her side smooth out again. Truthfully, all that water manipulation was a bit exhausting, and she reached out her hand.

It was perhaps disconcerting that the webbing was beginning to disappear from these, too, now that they were out of water.

What the fuck. Grace did her best to hold the chick mostly by the wrists, heel of palm to heel of palm. The attitude from before seemed to depart or at least take a break. Maybe this was more freaky than embarrassing, now.

"Onetwothree up," she said, and then she was pulling Goth up and out, if the chick had the strength not to be simply dragged.

A fucking shifter in the pool. Or something. A fish shifter?

That had to suck.

Strength she had. Perhaps... some additional effort of water to buoy her upwards as well and get her (also now de-webbing) feet to reach the edge.

Up.

Zareen wasn't one for thanks, so she didn't say it.

"Does that happen to people here often," she frowned preemptively instead.

Up and fucking away.

Grace let go of her pretty quick, glanced down at her own hand light it mighta been webbed. Now would have been a good time to wear that silver ring, but wearing jewelry at this job really wasn't her thing.

"Literally never," she said, then frowned with some sense of protectiveness over the pool. It was her fuckin' domain as long as she was working. "You a shifter?"

Accusation met accusation, and it wasn't she hadn't considered herself, but it did make her snippy. Because no, she wasn't a fucking vampire. Trust her, she'd tried to be.

"Yeah, totally, just let me get my fucking teeth out," she huffed. "If I was a shifter do you think I'd be asking??"

Bitch gonna be a bitch. Grace cooled, hands falling to her hips. Definitely some bullshit going on here but she didn't know what.

Whatever. Customer fucking service.

"I don't know, I don't know what else gets fish hands and-"

HOLY FUCK THEY WERE GILLS.

"Gills in my pool."

Not vampires, as far as she imagined. Not psychics. So.

Fish hands and gills.

Zareen scowled, turned to the water, and rose a lengthy ribbon of it out with a flick of her hand. Her human hands, thanks.

"I'm a fucking psychic," she insisted in her display. "Not a fucking shifter. This shit never happened to me before I came here."

Fine, then. A fish psychic. Grace saw a second of the trick and understood enough, her eyes moving past Goth to glance at other pool occupants.

"Okay," she said. Gills and fish hands only here, huh. "You tried other pools?"

Didn't seem likely that rich person pool water was any more magical than any other pool. Maybe less piss. (Maybe.)

Shit. It was the other woman's wandering eye that made her look around too, and...

She had not really even noticed that there were other people here at all. Fucking dumb move, Zareen. She let the water flop uselessly because she wasn't here to be a circus act.

"Yeah," she lied, bristling. Didn't really matter if she had, right. And then just decided to walk towards her towel because she was fucking tenfold embarrassed.

Cool.

That was that, then. Grace watched her go, curious but also put way the fuck out by this. Anyone with that kind of starter attitude probably wasn't pact material, but Grace was always eager to get her hands into this kinda fucking mess.

Gills? Web fingers? Was this like, step one of turning into a shifter? Grace didn't fucking know.

"I can help you try to figure it out if you want. Just also on the clock," she said, voice falling some as she began to back her way up toward the tower.

"Sure."

That was the kind of answer that was more along the lines of "leave her alone."

She was done here and now she was getting stared at so cool cool cool Zareen really this time don't ever come back.

One more try. Just one more. If only because this bitch could grow gills.

"Dude. It's a fuckin' sick power. Psychic shit is my thing. I bet we could figure it out."

A big shrug, and if the chick kept walking, that was that.

Honestly? Little too late to flip the switch on the approach. Maybe if she hadn't come at her accusing her of being a shifter off the bat.

Zareen kept walking, fueled by the accusing eyes of the other people she'd failed to notice.