FNG [Party, Dustin]

[Dustin]

"Woohoo!" Dustin yelled as they broke the surface. He would be lying if he said it was the funnest thing he had ever done, or even the strangest, but it was definitely high on his list.

After they sank back down again, Dustin slipped from the crocodile's back so Suji would be able to demorph. While he waited, he scanned the water for Adrian. He wanted to answer his swimming lessons question. Somehow.

When he spotted the shark-boy, he casually swam over to him. While doing the front float, into the water he said, "I can give you lessons. Yes." Dustin was pretty sure it would sound gargley, and he didn't know how well sharks could understand human speech, but he could always repeat himself after Adrian demorphed if need be.

[Adrian]

When Adrian got to just below the bright silver barrier between air and water he stopped and did the shark equivalent of taking a deep breath. He didn't know if he'd be able to swim exceptionally well in between morphs and he didn't want to drown. Then he began his demorph, this time he concentrated on legs and the first thing to happen was that his tail split in two as if it had been cut. It began to form into legs as the rest of him began to change. As he lost the shark's skin he realized how much it had protected him from the cold.

He kicked his newly formed legs, trying to stay close to the surface, as his air started to run out. His head was still mostly shark and his arms were just barely making an appearance. Water morphing was turning out to present a lot more complications than he'd thought it would. He wasn't capable of holding his breath for the full three minutes and his lungs still hooked up to gills but they didn't seem to be functioning mid-transition.

He needed his own head and lungs back and he desperately concentrated on them as he broke the surface and tried to breath in through a mouth still filled with teeth. For a few seconds nothing happened and then he was gasping in air as the morph finished.

He coughed and shook water out of his eyes, looking up at Dustin. He hadn't heard a word of what he'd said and, at the moment, he was trying hard to regain his equilibrium. "Maybe we should practice more with water morphs," he said after a moment of treading water and coughing. "We didn't really get a chance to here and it sounds like they'll be necessary."

[Suji]

Suji was human again in time to watch Adrian struggle through the rest of his morph. Though she watched with a critical eye, her face didn't betray what she was thinking: I've never had to do that. Suji had learned to control her breathing and her body's smaller lung capacity than the croc's, but not having a water-breathing morph had meant that she'd never had to experience the gill-to-lung transformation. That worried her, especially as she watched Adrian sputter. If she didn't know how to do something, or at least had never tried it, she couldn't really expect her factionmates to.

"Agreed," she answered when Adrian mentioned practicing water morphs. "We'll have to find a good spot for it." She'd be damned if some kid was going to die from something like drowning in an alien war on her watch. "I'm sure we could all use the practice just swimming anyway. Speaking of which, though, it's pretty cold. Want to get out now?" Suji mostly addressed the question to Dustin: he looked the most likely to want to stay, and the cold didn't seem to be affecting him as much. It was obvious that if there was a natural swimmer among them, it was him.

[Dustin]

Dustin swam around as the other two demorphed, ready to assist if needed. It looked like he might have to a couple times, but in the end both Adrian and Suji seemed to manage just fine. He was feeling a little left out again with everyone changing shapes but him. Especially since they were in the water, where he used to spend a lot of his free time growing up. He would definitely need to get a water morph soon.

"I don't care if we get out or stay in," Dustin said in response to Suji's question. "It's a little chilly, but I don't think I'll freeze to death." His wetsuit-morphing suit was keeping most of his body warm enough. Just his fingers, toes, and most of his face were really feeling the effects, but he could ignore the numbness if he had to.

"Actually, maybe we should go warm up a bit." He wasn't sure if Suji and Adrian's morphing suits would do as well against the cold. He didn't want either of them catching hypothermia or something. It was probably healable through morphing, but why take the chance? Dustin started heading toward the edge of the pool.

[Adrian]

Adrian gratefully turned towards the edge. He was freezing now that he was back in his human form. He didn't think Suji's morphing suit protected her from much at this point but at least it covered most of her body. His swimming shorts were just enough to keep him from being shy. At least they had been though this cold would do nothing to help him in that department. He'd have to hide behind a towel for a bit for the sake of his own dignity.

Adrian reached the side of the pool and leveraged himself out of the water. It ran from his skin and he was glad he'd avoided the larger swimming trunks he saw many of the other men wearing. He'd always thought they were impracticable since they did nothing but drag at the water inside of a pool and carry what seemed like half the pool inside of them once you got out. He often saw the poor guys who wore them ringing out their shorts like skirts. When the water was this cold he was grateful he did not have to worry about getting it out of his clothing.

He grabbed one of the towels that they'd left on the side and quickly dried himself off with quick, rough strokes before wrapping the towel around his waist.

[Suji]

Suji followed them out; she didn't say much, because she was certain that her teeth would clatter. Without much effort, she pushed herself up and out of the pool. At one time she realized that the effort might have been tiring; back when she was fifteen or so and would swim in her parent's in-ground, heated pool. I'm probably in the best shape of my life, she thought with a small sigh. All it took was an apocalypse.

Though her morphing suit had long sleeves and pant legs, it had already clung tightly to her body before, and now it seemed to accentuate every shiver. She imagined that you could see the gooseflesh on her arms if you looked close enough, along with all the other visible signs of the chill. Before anyone so much as had the opportunity, however, she quickly moved to pick up the remaining towel. She made an effort to slick some of the water off of her morphing suit with it, then wrung her hair out with it. Finally, with that flurry of movement done, she wrapped the towel, cape-like, around her shoulders.

"What are the chances they've got hot chocolate over there?" She asked with a smile, when she was reasonably sure her lips weren't trembling.

[Dustin]

Dustin ran his towel through his hair a few times and wiped the excess water off of his extremities before flinging the towel over one of his shoulders. He was still wet, and cold in places, but it felt good to have gotten the chance to swim again. Back when he was living on the run, he didn't get the chance too often. And when he did, it was usually just a midnight dip in the ocean to wash the grime off himself. Nothing too fun.

"Hot chocolate? Probably not," Dustin said in reply to Suji's question. "You would probably be lucky if they have regular chocolate. But maybe they'll have soup of some other kind of hot food to warm you up. I could go for something hot right about now too, actually. Shall we?" Dustin took a few steps toward the snack table line.

[Adrian]

"Well actually," Adrian said with a smile, "I may be able to help there. If you don't think it would be too scandalous," and, unfortunately a scandal was completely possible in the current environment on the Bladeship, "to be seen going back to my room, I have some brandy, which is warming, and some of those hot chocolate powder packets that you can mix with water you know." He didn't have much brandy but he had at least half a flask of it left, enough to mix into hot chocolate if they wanted.

Adrian did his best not to wrap his arms around himself but he was still pretty cold and he wanted to go back to his room and pull on some warmer clothing. Which reminded him of something he and his friends had done as children after swimming. "And for that matter, I have a hot shower. Nothing warms you up faster." His shower wasn't huge but it would fit all of them if they were just sitting down and not moving too much. It had been more acceptable as children to sit around in bathing suits under hot water and just chat. After all, children were expected to do odd things, but Adrian had never lost a taste for it. He loved hot water and soft beds and beautiful women. Good food, good drinks, and good conversation. He was a hedonist at heart and he liked to enjoy those things when they were available.

"Suits required of course," he said with a charming smile.