“Oh, fuck this,” he groaned, terror filling him as he hovered high over the ocean. She brought him close to one of her eyes, and he swore he could see her smirk widening.
Her gaze flickered down to where she was holding him, and he realized with a start that he was gripping her tentacle hard. It was slippery and fleshy under his fingers, making him wince—it felt entirely too much like his childhood memories of petting manta rays at the aquarium. But he understood her gesture: all he needed was to touch her, so now he could try shifting himself. His heart leapt up into his throat all over again as she started to lower him into the water.
“Fuck!” he yelped as she plunged him into the icy ocean below. The cold shock made it easier to ignore his nerves, though. He struggled to swim further away, even as Rune sank lower down into the water, giving him more space.
This was it. He took in a shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and imagined the feel of the kraken tentacle under his hand, the shape and enormity of her. Then he pushed his magic through his body, the way he had with his other shifts, and pain exploded through every inch of him. He shouted, but the words were instantly lost in a gurgle, saltwater flooding his mouth.
For what felt like an eternity, Florian had no spatial awareness of himself or his surroundings. It was as if he became everything and nothing all at once—only the cool water splashing on him, and the gritty sand beneath kept him grounded. Everything felt so much smaller, but some part of him recognized that, in reality, he’d just gotten bigger—much bigger. And his field of vision was completely different, making him disoriented. How was he supposed to function like this? He couldn’t move, couldn’t think—could he even breathe?
Vaguely, he became aware of a voice—a woman’s voice—murmuring gently in his ear. Did he have ears? Was it in his head?
“See, you’re alright,” it was saying. It was in his head, once he could focus on it. “The first shift is the hardest. You’re doing great. I know it feels strange. You get used to it really fast, I promise. See? You’re already figuring this out, aren’t you?”
“Rune?” he said, but somehow the utterance came from his mind, not his mouth. He sensed her smiling, and when he focused, he could see her; she was on his left, one eye looking at him, now appearing much smaller than before. “I… I don’t like this.”
He had the sense of her laughing. “The first shift is horrible, to be honest. Everything after this is going to be easier. We don’t have to stay like this for long. I couldn’t stay shifted for more than a few minutes the first time, and I was seasick right after, too. It’s... different. It’s a hard adjustment. But you’re doing really well. You’re already getting a hold of yourself, see?”
Carefully, Florian looked around. They had floated a bit further out to sea, but he could still make out the rocky, secluded beach with their backpacks on the shore. He didn’t think they were very far, but it was hard to tell with the kraken’s size and senses. The water that had been frigid when Rune pulled him in now felt cool, but not uncomfortable—more like a swimming pool than the ocean.
Nervously, he tried moving his arms, and felt several appendages moving all at once.
“What the fuck?” he groaned, trying to control just one arm to look at his hand—not that he had arms or hands anymore. Instead, his two right-most tentacles rose up out of the water, their narrow tips hovering near his eye. The tentacles were jet black and smooth on the top, but as he slowly turned them, he could see that the underside was a pale purplish-pink, coveredin suction cups. When he thought about it, he could flex them all slightly, though they had nothing to grip onto. Shuddering, he plunged them back into the water. They were his tentacles, but his body now felt so alien, he thought he might be sick if he had to keep looking at them.
“Just give it a few more minutes,” Rune encouraged him, sounding kinder in that moment than she had in the entire day Florian had known her. “You really do start to get the hang of it quickly, I promise.”
Florian grimly tried to nod, but the movement made his vision swim, so he stopped. Instead of focusing on how strange and out-of-control everything felt, he tried to think about how it was they were communicating. It seemed to be telepathy, the same way he spoke to Koji in their dragon forms, or even Kade when they were both wolves, but far more sophisticated and nuanced. Their wolf forms had only basic communication, and that was more body language and scent than actual telepathy, Florian thought. As a dragon, he and Koji had exchanged short, simple thoughts and phrases; but nothing as complicated as what Rune was saying to him now. Her thoughts were as clear as if she were speaking them aloud.
Florian didn’t know much about krakens, but he did know that they were supposed to be unfathomably large and they featured in all sorts of cosmic horror. Maybe they had become that way because krakens could communicate telepathically, even to other kinds of shifters—even humans, Florian imagined, if any shifted krakens had been sucked through a curtain onto Earth. It seemed possible, though the thought made him feel supremely unsettled.
Just like she said, the more he moved, the less alien his body felt. Trying to move like a human made two of his tentacles move in tandem, as if they made up each limb: his outer tentacles matching his legs, and the more inner tentacles actingas his arms. But if he concentrated, he could move each one independently, which felt strange at first.
“I think I’ve got it,” he said tentatively, still not quite sure how he was speaking.
“Let’s swim out a little further,” Rune said, starting to dip further into the water and swim away from him. “We don’t need to go into the village yet or anything, but swimming like this feels pretty different from swimming when you’re not shifted.”
Florian nodded, or at least attempted to—his head wasn’t really attached to anything but his limbs now, so he only accomplished a sort of head-dip further down into the water. Then he tried to follow her out further to the open ocean; his tentacles flailed, and he barely moved. He could feel Rune laugh, watching him struggle.
“Breathe in some water,” she encouraged. “It’ll help keep you from floating so much.”
Florian eyed the water with uncertainty. It made sense that he could breathe in the water, but every instinct he had was telling him that he absolutely should not be breathing it. He remembered breathing water using his magic when they’d been sucked into the ocean through the curtain, but that had been a panicked decision, and getting out of it had been quite unpleasant. Would it be the same when he shifted back?
“You’ll be okay,” Rune said again, as if she could sense his fear—he wondered how much of his thoughts were out loud now, if maybe she could hear exactly what he was thinking.
He would have to do it eventually, so he dipped his face further into the water and breathed in. His nose and mouth weren’t in precisely the same place, of course, so even breathing felt strange, but the water rushing into his lungs—gills?—didn’t burn the way he had feared. It felt thicker in his chest than air; but otherwise, there was no discernable difference from what he could tell, which was a relief. He took a few more experimentalbreaths, then tried to swim again. This time he could sink down further into the water; and by moving his tentacles in a sort of doggy paddle, he managed to catch up to Rune.
"Look at you!” she laughed, one tentacle reaching out to pat the top of his head. “You’re a fast learner. C’mon, let’s go out a ways then come back, and that’ll be it for today. Alright?”
“I think I can do that,” Florian replied resolutely. Rune swam out further, and although his movements were clumsy and slow, Florian followed. Below the surface, he could see that there was a sharp drop-off where the water got significantly deeper, and Rune was heading down into the depths. That made him nervous; but the whole reason he was here was so that he’d be able to make it to the two Arrows nearest the kraken kingdom, and swimming in deep water was certainly going to be part of that.
Steeling himself, Florian peered over the edge of the sandy drop-off. His vision in the water was quite clear, much more so than he would have expected; so he could see the steep descent become a more sloping decline the further down it went, but that, too, eventually disappeared into darkness.
“Come on,” Rune called. “I know where we’re going. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” he replied quickly, feeling her chuckle back. He wasn’t sure if he could blush in this form, but it felt like his face was getting hot at how defensive he sounded, even to himself. “Sorry.”
“No need,” she said, swimming closer. He watched her move, trying to figure out how she was using her tentacles to propel herself, and how he could mimic the movement. “I’ll go slower.”
She moved deeper into the water again, and this time Florian tried to make the same movements—spreading his appendages wide at first, then closing them together quickly, the force sending him forward. It took some conscious effort to keephimself from starting to swim as if he still had four limbs instead of eight. He could see more as they descended, though, and soon all sorts of little fish appeared like strange moving clouds. Rune was motionless, waiting for Florian to catch up, so they were swarming around her to investigate; but as soon as Florian approached, they all darted away again, making him laugh.
He could make out kelp and other plants growing from the bottom of the ocean, swaying with the currents that he and Rune created as they passed overhead. Lurking in the fronds, he could even make out the shape of what he thought was a shark, watching them warily from a distance.
They swam on. After a little while, it sort of felt like snorkeling, as they watched the sea life going about their business far below them. Florian’s movements stopped feeling so stilted and became more natural, and soon he could keep up with Rune with just a bit of effort. It didn’t come nearly as easily to him as his wolf form had, or even his dragon form, but he was getting the hang of this body.
“Good job,” Rune said, as Florian realized they were coming up to shallower waters once again. “Let’s head back up.”
