Marina pinched the bridge of her nose to find some relief from the migraine of looking up at the sunny sky. Lying down clearly wasn't doing her any favors. Her back was starting to hurt, too. She rolled onto her side and felt better almost immediately, though there was a lingering soreness just below her shoulder blades. She reached back to rub it and her fingertips collided with a solid, flat mass. She gasped in surprise when she realized she could also feel her fingers FROM the mass. Something new was growing.
She sat up, her tail curling instinctively to cushion her butt with more dexterity than normal legs could manage. She threw her other hand behind her and used both to trace the edge of the thing on her back. It was growing by the second. It felt vaguely triangular and stuck out from her spine, angling downward to a rounded point. Swinging her head around and pulling her hair away, Marina could just barely see it at the edge of her vision. It was exactly what she thought it was: a dorsal fin.
She sighed, trying to think of a new resting position that wouldn't cramp her fin or tail. She used her arms and hips to hop sideways along the planks to the edge of the dock and swung around so her tail dangled halfway off. This was better. Plus, looking out at the ocean always had a calming effect on her.
She checked herself over for more changes. There didn't seem to be anything else, at least for now. She checked her collar. It was still fused to her neck but she could feel the slight bump where the suit ended.
She took a closer look at her suit. Herself. There didn't seem to be much of a difference anymore. Half an hour ago she was wearing neoprene and a carbon fiber monofin. Now she wasn't sure she was "wearing" anything at all. When things first started happening, she thought the suit was taking over her body, but the more it changed, the more it felt like the opposite. She slid her webbed hands over the front of her tail and felt sensitive nerves prickle her brain. It was like an extension of her own skin.
But it was definitely not skin as she knew it. The texture didn't feel exactly like neoprene anymore, but it was still tough. It seemed to allow a little more flexibility for movement, and the material/skin/whichever didn't bunch up into so many folds when she bent her arms or tail. Though it had the sensitivity of skin, it still seemed to be insulating her from the air like a suit would. She could feel the gentle sea breeze more clearly on her face than anywhere else. It was keeping her pleasantly warm and somehow was able to breathe so as not to stifle her. She was surprised to realize that for all her thrashing in the water and baking in the sun, she didn't feel gross and sweaty underneath it all.
Latching onto this rare comforting thought, she waggled her tail and watched it flap back and forth in the air. What had been her monofin had given up its rigidity to blend perfectly with the suit to make for a much more rubbery but still impressively strong fin. It had retained its loosely crescent shape and was still fully opaque.
Marina smiled. Bizarre as it was, she found the look kind of beautiful. It made her think of dolphins. She had a wonderful time swimming with a pod once. But dolphins were grey. They didn't have bold wetsuit colors or perfectly manufactured geometric stripes that accented the shape of their bodies. They certainly didn't sport logos for a swimwear company... Actually, that was odd. The logos seemed to be gone. She lifted the medallion to find the one that should have been printed on her chest. Nothing.
Wait a minute. The medallion! In all the chaos she had completely forgotten about it. Or gotten used to it. She fumbled with it, trying to pinch the small piece of metal in her slippery fingers. She peered at the unintelligible writing again. The last time she looked at this she heard a voice. What had it said? Something about nature? Outside and inside? At the time, she believed she had really heard a voice, and now she was convinced. This had to be the reason she was stuck like this. Maybe if she took it off...?
She pulled the silver chain over her head. It got caught in her hair, which was unexpected. She was used to pulling things through her long hair but this time it seemed she had to fight with it a bit. Ultimately, she got it loose, and closed her fist around the chain. She tried to ignore the silly mess of crumpled webbing that stuck out between each finger as she dangled the medallion in front of her eyes.
"Can you...talk?" she asked aloud.