The water had never felt so...fluid.
That wasn't the best way to describe it, but Marina didn't know what was. Either she didn't have a word for it, or she was too distracted by how fast she was swimming to care.
Despite being robbed of her ability to paddle with two alternating legs, she was threading through the ocean with unknown speed. She couldn't help but smile as water rushed past her face. She could feel her new dorsal fin cutting across the surface. She felt the air sliding across it while the rest of her soaked in the sea.
With a sweep of her arms, she angled upward and breached the surface. She took a deep breath in and dropped, kicking her tail with all her might and flaring her webbed fingers to their widest. She dove down five meters. Ten. Fifteen. She felt the ocean pushing in. Her natural buoyancy fought her. She suddenly realized she didn't have heavy tanks to weigh her down. It was just her. And her suit. A suit that begged to be pushed to its limits.
She leveled out around twenty meters and looked around. She was surprised she could barely see the bottom. She swung herself around and saw how far she had already traveled from the beach. An instinctual panic gripped her. This far out, the current would sweep her out to sea and her boat was back at the dock!
She slapped herself on the forehead, which took a full extra second with the water resistance. She knew she was fine. The way she was swimming, she had nothing to worry about. She hummed a chuckle. Calming down, she eyed the fish swimming about her. She watched them shake their tails as they glided by, feeling a newfound kinship with them. With a flap of her own tail, she bounded back toward shore. She kept her head down to watch the sea floor rise as she moved inland. She reached down with a webbed hand and dragged her fingers through the coarse sediment. She internally cursed as she had to pull her hand away to avoid cutting it on a broken beer bottle sticking halfway out of the sand and gravel.
She glanced ahead. It was close now. She could see the bottom of the boat lumbering in the distance. She had to swing upward, closer to the surface, as the ground kept rising.
Surface? Surface!
Marina turned up sharply and broke through. A cascade of water and foam accompanied her as she almost shot completely out of the water. Her mouth opened wide, gasping. She landed with a flop on the surface. She settled into a gentle treading motion, her head and shoulders above water. Her chest stung a bit and heaved as she got her breathing under control.
She had completely forgotten she wasn't wearing her tank. How long had she been holding her breath? It felt like she was underwater for at least five minutes... and yet, it wasn't until those last seconds that it took any effort at all to hold it in.
She puzzled through all this as she brushed strands of wet hair that clung persistently to her face. With everything else to think about, it wasn't until a full minute later that she realized something else wasn't right. Her hair was blue!
Marina swung her head this way and that. Her hair floated around her in rich, flowing waves. There was much more than she was supposed to have, and it was all an unnatural teal color. It coordinated well with the colors of her wetsuit and lended an even more exotic tone to her quasi-mermaid form.
She tried brushing some strands over her ear, but she hit something. Letting the hair flop back down, she used her fingers to probe this strange triangle that was sticking out of the side of her head. The very distinct rubbing sound she could hear told her it WAS her ear. She brought her other hand up to feel its counterpart. Her ears had grown out a few inches to form points. And she wasn't sure, but they didn't feel like her natural skin anymore.
Her hands dropped to her neck. She could feel the wetsuit's collar a couple inches below her chin, where it had been all this time. She slid her hands sideways and frowned as her fingertips traced the lip of the suit making a sudden upward arc, skimming the back of her jaw, and reaching the new elongated ears. It felt like it had completely covered the back of her neck, too. She lost track of the material under her hair and couldn't tell where it ended...if it had an "end." It seemed her face was still normal, though. But would it be that way for long?
She took one last look over herself. A hint of pride glimmered in her mind. She couldn't say she didn't find her new additions attractive. But the lingering unknowns tampered her excitement. Maybe it was time to stop playing around and do something about this suit.