Follow the bubbles

Koa led them up out of the black basin with its glowing starfish and freaky big other fish and the light slowly began to filter down into the water around them again. There was the glow of the plankton washing through the currents, but also a faintly paler tinge to the water above them (now that they had figured out which way was up) and Tal would have hugged the other man if they hadn't been swimming.

They followed the light, and though the sun was getting low in the west enough of its rays still filled the upper levels of the ocean to illuminate the reef that they came to next. Colors were vivid in the shallower waters, and the fish that darted past them were, for the most part, smaller and less toothy than the Basin's denizens. Tal paused his tired dog paddling to float for a moment above a particularly weird lump of coral that was nearly as big across as he was tall.

It looked like a brain, vivid pink and covered in whorls and wrinkles laid down in the hard, brittle stuff that was like and unlike stone.

He was blissfully oblivious - for now - of the coincidence that placed it directly in the cracked open skull of some ancient oceanic behemoth. The vast skeleton stretched out beneath and around them, mostly hidden beneath various clumps of coral and seagrass that at least looked prettier and more harmless than what they'd left behind.

That probably made it safe, right? Which might have been why the courier reached fascinated fingers towards the soft, noodly-looking fronds of a big green lump attached to one side of the brain coral, waving gently in the current.

Well thank all of fuck they're done with that. Now back to our usually scheduled programing!

The return of light and color and visibility has Koa feeling far less like he's staring down the barrel of his imminent demise. This is the underwater world he's come to enjoy: bright! Vibrant! Full of strange skeletons and brain coral and fish who would benefit from extensive dental work! He's thoroughly enjoying one such creature (a pink-and-teal parrotfish with a remarkable underbite) when he turns to point it out to Tal, only to find his friend about to touch a lumpy green frond and nope, absolutely not.

If there's one thing Koa has a great deal of fear respect for, it's the dangers of unknown plants.

Burbling inaudibly, Koa reaches out to grab Tal's ankle and hopefully grab him back from the lump - just as it begins to faintly quiver, then burst into a cloud of thick black ink.

Technically it's an animal, Koa... but really only on a technicality. Tal was similarly blissfully oblivious to the scientific minutiae of anemones or any other underwater life that wasn't a fish, really, and he was just lucky that Koa had fast reflexes. A hand closed on his ankle and the courier instinctively tried to kick and twist away from what he thought might have been a kraken tentacle grabbing him, so he was thoroughly distracted away from touching the cnidarian with its thousands of nematocysts.

But he sure didn't miss the explosion of ink that caught him in mid-turn, coating the right side of his body and face in a dark dye that stuck and clung.

It was definitely not water soluble. In fact, it was kind of like... black snot??

Tal froze, tense with shock, while his Goggle-protected eyes found Koa's gaze. There was the faintest tremble of his lip before he swallowed down the yowl of disgust that would only come out as an unsatisfying blorp. He looked ridiculous - half-inked, black on brown skin - and he knew it.

The surrounding fish had darted away at the release of ink into the water, but they were slowly returning to investigate and Tal batted away a curious parrotfish before pointing towards the surface with a finger that only shook a little.

Oh, nope. Absolutely gross. If he hadn't already been thrown off by Tal's thrashing, Koa would have immediately relinquished his friend at the eruption of goopy, inky black that settled on the courier like undersea smog. Unable to hide his alarm or disgust, the Dragoon looks, aghast, at Talyson... who, while now two-toned and inky, at least doesn't seem to be in any pain.

A level of luck that quite frankly, Koa is perfectly happy not to find the end of.

Nodding vigorously at Tal's suggestion, Koa snatches his friend's raised hand before kicking off toward the surface. As interesting as it's been, this has been quite enough underwater adventure. He's ready to feel solid land, and to sit, and to be dry. The underwater world is still cool as shit, but so, he's decided, is land.

The dragoon didn't need to worry about his reaction; Tal felt the same way, and the alarm and disgust on Koa's face was a mirror to the expression on the courier's own as they came to terms with what had just happened. The why might never be fully understood by either of them, but the what was currently plastered over half of Tal and he was quite frankly done with the ocean and all of its myriad weirdnesses. He was more than happy to leave Koa to future explorations of the world beneath the waves, and he would happily listen to them afterwards, but at the moment Tal just wanted to leave the water behind and never go swimming in anything deeper than a bathtub ever again.

Luckily the soldier either got the memo or had also hit his fill for the day. Tal went momentarily limp in relief as Koa grabbed his hand, then started kicking to assist his friend. With the other man providing the direction and a little bit of momentum, he managed to keep up and even shed some of the clinging ink with the help of water resistance.

Their heads broke the surface and even though their manta stones had let them breathe underwater without a problem Tal still sucked in a gasping breath. "As soon as we get t'land, drinks are on me!" he promised his pal fervently.

~Fin