(Blume)
I followed the crocodiles for...
Longer than I thought it would take to reach water.
At night, they vacuum air in large amounts, probably to extract some water from it as they filter the flow. I can't do that!
My roots, well, briars, can plunge into the ground rather deep and extract a little what's below. But there isn't much, and it takes more time for me to feed and drink that way.
I dried and wrinkled my skin like a raisin.
Until we reached a sea. The sun is rising above it, so I can guess I'm somewhere along the eastern coastline of this continent. The red sea, or the indian ocean. I can't tell how long it took me to arrive, and thus if I ended up close or very far away from Gizah.
I befriended one of the three tails crocodiles, though it doesn't talk much.
They all played in the sea water for half a day, and I did as well.
My whole body absorbed that sea water, to become all soft and bouncy again.
Crocodiles and Pflanzenteufel both like water. Even if non salty water would be far more enjoyable, and not make us sick, at least we live.
My digestive system is still young and inexperienced. It's still unable to extract much nor build feces like she did. It's mostly liquids and chunks, and it hurts. I'll get better in time.
Walking along the shoreline, feet in water, I notice something. One of my tentacles stabs the shallow water and pierces a fish that was there. I grab it, and swallow it whole, before my friend comes to try and snatch it away from me. We're all hungry.
It was already running at me, but stops as I gobbled my catch before it.
I laugh at it as it annoyingly starts to look for something else to catch. It splashes water at me with one of its tails in retaliation.
Another day goes. The next morning, I wake up as the crocodile I'm sleeping against begins to move.
I see them entering the sea together. My friend stood behind to say goodbye to me. I think. They're not exactly speaking, but I can understand some of their thoughts.
He's telling me that he's going south, to eat something I don't understand.
Flying black snakes from the moon, or something. I didn't get that part.
They're migrating, where there's more food I guess.
As I was about to say that I'd like to tag along, he refused.
He told me that was not where I should go.
That there were other flowers for me to attend.
He said, or expressed the idea rather, of flowers of the world, that I should go and help bloom instead.
I don't think he meant Rose, but it struck me a little nonetheless.
The world has other flowers to bloom.
And the ones in the south are theirs. Well... I'm not sure all got all that right, and I didn't know what to say.
So I watched my friend swimming into the sea, and disappear after its tribe over the horizon.
I wondered if I should swim across a sea as well. I could adapt my body...
To fly would ask for too much energy from what I can still breathe, from around here and the other world.
It's doable, but it's such a waste.
To swim however, that could be a more efficient way to go, and a new one to me. Maybe I could...
So I walk along the coastline until I find enough materials. An abandoned factory with drums of organic solvents, and even a few trees outside. That will do.
I throw all of that into a hole, making a pool of ketonic fluids and chopped off trees.
I unlock my invisible brain a little. All my body becomes softer, more fluid and easier to transform. My mind steps back from the flesh to oversee that.
I absorb and ingest the sludge like a monster, becoming grotesque for a while, with an enormous tummy. I slowly reconfigure all that materials, into a way that fishes and crocodiles can relate to. Everything I don't need I will shed in the form of seeds of various plants and flowers. I sweat them, discarding materials randomly.
Things sprout without pattern around my chrysalis.
~
The next day, my transformed body is ready. I kept myself mostly the same so it didn't take too long to work it out. I even kept my legs entirely, so that going back onto land later on can be easy as well. What I did is covering them with another skin, and a fin, like a mermaid.
My fish tail is oozing lubricant and is filled with waves. The rest of my body also has a layer of the new second skin.
Then my lungs will be able to shunt, but I didn't go as far as making me able to breathe in water. Too much of a hassle and work.
I hop ridiculously, then just crawl and slide my way to the sea with my lumpy body. And then, I swim.
I mean, swim.
I swim so fast. It feels so nice.
My eyes adapt to the water along the way.
I dive and I swim away joyfully.
I discover the sea and its depths are more alive and varied than I would have thought while living on lands.
Like the smells of air, its lights, its winds; everything is always changing as you travel.
And so it is the same under water. There warmth, flows, colours, tastes.
And living neighbours as well. There aren't that many fishes, jellyfishes and other things, but they still are rather common occurrences.
I like the taste and consistency of jellyfishes, which I mainly eat as I'm out in the middle of nowhere now. They're easy to gobble as you go and easier to digest.
I can't see any shore. I can't see nor reach the bottom of the sea. It feels odd and refreshing, being lost like that between water and sky, since I mostly swim near the surface between the two.
I sail roughly east for a few days, and still not seeing any shore, I began heading north, just as roughly.
One week or so in the sea will be sufficiently long for this first swim around.
Though swimming aside the fishes is really fun.
Diving, swimming, speeding up, shifting. Jumping above the surface as far and high as you can, and diving back.
Like in flight, you can play with the flow, the wind, buoyancy and gravity, in order to speed up rapidly and roll along with the elements. Playing with rheology, hydrodynamics, gravity and Archimeda's pull... It's all really fun!
I find land one day. It took many more days than I expected, but it's hard for me to judge my speed.
Where I land, I know not. Not yet.
I swim to it with long jumps over the surface. I'm cheerful.
I crash land over the beach in fun. Some kind of ghastly skinny dog saw me and ran away in terror. I don't care. I'm happy.
I unlock some metabolic processes inside my tissues, and the fat over my legs begins to melt. I shed my skin. I soon leave a gooey mess behind me as I stand up on my two legs again.
I keep my fish leather though, as meagre clothing. I look mostly human after all.
And so I set foot and walk onto a new land, without a care in the world.
~