Gale's Storm

CHAPTER 6

Lillian felt the water seep through her clothes as she waded into the deeper part of the ocean. It felt odd to her, but today she was going to try and swim in her human form without having to save herself with her shapeshift. She waded deeper and saw a wave coming that she couldn't just wait out.

"Lillian-" but before her mom could finish, she dove under the wave and resurfaced in moments. "I got this, Mom," Lillian said as she waded even deeper.

"Try swimming," she heard her say again.

Lillian let herself float up and started stroking her arms how her dad had shown her how to a few years ago. Just as she started swimming another wave came and she had to dive down again. She stayed underwater for a few moments before resurfacing just to dive down again as yet another wave came.

"Watch out for the riptide, I heard there was one near here," her mom warned.

"I won't fall into the riptide, I know what one looks like," Lillian reassured her.

She started swimming further out, enjoying this more than she thought she would. She continued on swimming out further and diving under waves for almost an hour when her mom had told her she had to come back. She swam confidently back, diving under when she felt a wave coming.

"That was very good Lillian, you could have fooled even the humans!" her mom said excitedly as she hugged her wet daughter.

"Thanks mom, let's go back to camp," Lillian said as she slipped back into the water. "You got as far as the coral reef," her mom said as she shifted into a parrot fish.

"Really? I felt further," Lillian said from underwater in Shifter's Tongue.

Lillian swam ahead of her mom, her shapeshift just being faster and bigger than her mom's. Her eyes flicked around and she snapped a fish up in her jaws. She carried it back to their camp and she put it in the food store.

"How did it go Lillian?" Kelp, her friend, asked. "Great! I swam to the reef!" Lillian boasted.

Kelp's jaw dropped and she said; "only a few people in the history of Reef Colony have swam that far in human form,." This flabbergasted her and she answered back, "What?! I swam that far and was going to go further if my mom didn't call me back,"

"Wait a sec," Kelp said as she went back up for air.

Lillian waited for Kelp to come back down. This got annoying sometimes, but Kelp's shapeshift was an otter, so she still had lungs. Lillian swam in circles to keep the oxygen flowing strongly through her gills and stopped when Kelp came back.

"As I was saying, you were a bit past halfway to setting a new record for 'farthest swam in human form'! And since you said you could have swam farther, you could probably set a new record if you tried again. You, Lillian, might be the strongest swimmer in human form out of all the people who have swam in their human shapeshift!" Kelp said excitedly.

"We need to tell Commander Riptide!" the two girls said in unison. Lillain swam very quickly toward their commander's cave before she had to wait for Kelp to catch up. They called in for Riptide and he swam out to greet them.

"Good morning you two, what is it you wanted to tell me?" he said in the low growling he had. "I swam as far as the reef in human form!" Lillian told him excitedly.

Surprise flickered in his eyes as he said; "Well done, were you asked to come back or could you have gone farther?" She answered him excitedly once again; "I wanted to go further, but my mom called me back,"

"Well then, we should see how far you can go on your own, no limit," Riptide said with a slight smile on his shark face.

Lillian did a backflip before she said she would do it. Commander Riptide swam out and told her mom and dad what they were doing. Her mom and dad wanted to come and watch her to see her success, and so did her other friends.

They all went to the beach where she was given instructions by her commander, "you may start whenever you would like, Sand will be swimming underneath you to know how far you've gone."

Lillian took a deep breath and started to wade into the cold water. She took a moment to make sure she was not going to swim into a riptide. Once she was sure she wasn't going to get caught in one, she waded deeper into the Vitreus Ocean.

She waded deeper and deeper, going under waves as she went until she was shoulder deep. She started to swim and kept going on for the longest time, her limbs never getting tired. She had been swimming so long that she lost track of time.

When she was tired enough, she shifted back into her bull shark form and started to swim back. But when she turned around she could barely see the land of Nemus. She had swam very far past the reef. By the time she had made it back to shore, it was almost dusk.

Everyone was looking at her with wide eyes and dropped jaws.

"Sand, how far did I swim?" Lillian said before Riptide could ask him. They said in awe; "You swam twenty-four miles out from shore,"

"Twenty-four?!?" Kelp said loudly with a flabbergasted tone. "Wow, you swam four times further than the furthest swimmer," Riptide said, clearly impressed.

"Woah!" Lillian said, stunned at her own ability.

Before everyone (except Riptide) could pull her into a tight group hug, two people walked out of the forest. The two stopped talking as they realized there was a large group of people on the beach. Riptide made a low grumbling sound as he glared at them.