I'd been taken to the lake. I'd graduated from the tank and was allowed to finally try out my new body. They didn't want me going too far at first. Aggie cautioned me that my body may not be fully morphed and I could drown.

In the tank, they could monitor me. Out in the open, they had a considerably harder time of it. I still went back into the tank at night but during the day I took my first tentative swims to the depth of the lake.

Adam joined me sometimes. Adam was the first survivor of the water type. He seemed to have changed a bit, personality-wise, since I'd last seen him on the boat with his two idiot friends. I learned that of the idiot trio Adam was the only one to fall to the plague.

His nose was still crooked and his hair was still blonde. His physical appearance hadn't changed as much as mine. I had silver-white roots where my hair was growing out and my eyes had lost most of their color. They'd gone an odd shade, not grey not blue while at the same time being both. Without any other water type, it was hard to guess which one of us was the abnormality. Perhaps when Filmore was allowed to join us we would find out.

He was able to get into a wheelchair as of a week ago and had been able to visit his child and wife. I was happy for Marcy. She'd been so worried about him.

I hadn't met up with him as of yet since most of my time was now taken by being in the lake.

When I mentioned Filmore to Adam he gave all the correct responses but something about his manner made me slightly uneasy. Eventually, I decided it was because Filmore was a lord. Lord Filmore Cooperwrite. I only really knew him as Marcy's husband. He was a flashy man but deeply loved his wife.

Adam didn't have any titles. He was from a well off merchant family but nothing close to being part of the peerage. He'd had all the best schooling and bragged about all the important people he knew. He did a lot of bragging. Aggie assured me that he was just insecure around me and a lot of young men fell to that vice when insecure.

It was disconcerting when she told me that because of my mother's windfall I was actually at a higher social order than Adam. Because I hadn't had the grace to be educated in the manners of people with money I'd honestly had no idea. I was just me, me with more money, but still me with a new whale tail.

I skipped a day at the lake at the beginning of the week so Aggie could teach me all about social order. Where she found charts and demonstrational lineage maps I do not know. I found out that even though I was new money, and the money really couldn't get any newer, I was technically still of the lower order.

However, because I'd invested it, bought real estate, and formed my own business I'd risen in ranking. It wasn't necessarily having money that gave you status it was what you did with it, land is what gave a person status. When you combined land with lineage that's how you got into the upper orders.

The fact that I was a single young lady of means with my own money also meant I was quite the 'catch' socially speaking. To Adam who was just fresh out of school, didn't actually own anything other than what his family had, and wasn't set to inherit land or business since he was the fourth son. I was a cut or two above him. So he bragged, a lot.

Marcy and Filmore along with Janette and Gregory were so high on the social list I'd been surprised. I recalled the ball and the dinner. Both couples had been placed in seats of honor. Those same seats had been deemed worthy of a prince.

Marcy hadn't actually been married to Filmore when we first became friends so at the time I was still socially acceptable. Marcy and Filmore's match had been exceedingly odd from a social standpoint. Janette's marriage was just as odd though she'd married for completely different reasons.

It was only because my two friends were on the odd duck scale of socialization that they befriended Maize and me. Any other ladies of their standing wouldn't even bother. Or at least they wouldn't have before I had money. Now that I did, I was a bit more palatable as a companion.

That's the way Aggie put it. "Palatable as a Companion." I felt like a nicely aged cheese. Next thing I knew I'd have to start taking deportment lessons. I was a fish now surely I didn't need to know the proper way to hold a hankie in order to dissuade unwanted gentlemen?

I had better things to worry about. My mother, being a fish, and working out how this new magic thing worked was a priority.

I'd always imagined having magic would make life so much easier. I'd be able to heat my own water, turn on the magic lamps, blow up Goblin Crabs on the beach if they got too full of themselves and attacked. It was nothing like that. I had magic but no clue on how to get it to work.

Aggie gave me books, brought in instructors, tried showing me how her own earth-based healing magic worked. My goal, turning on a lamp.

That damned lamp. It sat on a table beside my tank mocking me. I'd begun to call it Bastard just out of frustration. That Bastard lamp. I was reminded that it wasn't very ladylike to be calling inanimate objects derogatory names by one of my instructors and I retaliated by splashing him with my tail. Bastard.

I got scolded by Aggie later but damned if it wasn't frustrating. It was a lamp. People used them every day. So why the hell was it so hard? It wasn't like I was trying to learn a magic skill. I knew that took time. Just pushing out enough magic to light a lamp was the first step in magic. You didn't have to have any sort of elemental associations for it to work. You just had to have at least 1 Exp of magic in you.

Children could do this. Children did do this. It was the poor children of most towns that turned on the street lamps every night. It was literally a child's job and I couldn't manage it. Bastard lamps.

When I got overly frustrated I took to the lake or the nursery. There was just something about babies that cheered people up. Perhaps it was the smell, the way their little hands gripped your finger, or the fact that while they were in the nursery you weren't the one responsible for changing them.

I even played with the potato babies, as Maize had taken to calling them. There were only two left as one of them had been sent up to the forest to be planted. In a way, playing with them helped me with my mother.

As I couldn't go up to the forest, my only interactions with a rooted earth type was through the babies. It was easier to understand what it was my mother was going through when you saw the white roots sticking out of the babies. Once they started sprouting it was time to be planted. It was heartbreaking knowing that these babies were essentially being buried alive. In order for their survival, it was necessary.

Survival. It took on a completely new meaning after the plague. Were you still a survivor if you turned into a mindless tree with no sentience? Was it considered survival if you had your body but lost your mind to mental corruption? Survival. I personally thought it was a term used too liberally.

Had I survived? I was of sound mind and I technically had a sound body. I'd probably consider myself a survivor but for someone like Janette or my mom? No. I wouldn't consider that survival at all.

I sank down deeper running my hand through the water weeds. If I moved around too much near the bottom of the lake a lot of silt and debris got stirred up. Getting sand in your gills itched and you had to get to some cleaner water to 'cough' out the sand. It was, for this reason, I preferred the rockier and weedy areas of the lake rather than the smooth sandy ones.

Adam had said that these weeds were edible, but the ones with the purple spines were not. Seemed as though he'd been getting a much different educational experience than me. He was learning all about survival in the water. I was learning how not to offend by wearing the wrong sort of hat at a dance party, useless information.

I picked at the tip of one of the weeds. Then licked it. Tasted like water. I popped it into my mouth and chewed. It was crunchy and tasted like lake water. That was it. It would probably be better with a bit of lemon but there wasn't any way to get lemon down here. I could take the weeds to the top but why do that when there was better food to be had?

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I did find that boiled eggs held up well underwater and I often brought some down with me for snacking. Pickles and apples held up decently too. I didn't think I'd ever be able to live off just what I found in the water.

Adam had other ideas. He'd recently decided he wanted to learn to fish. Netting seemed to work best. His first tries with a handmade spear had failed. I would have thought he'd go back up top to cook and eat the fish. I was wrong. He'd decided the best sort of fish was a raw fish. I watched him at this game of his once and decided it wasn't for me. I wanted my food cooked, thank you.

There was a slight ripple in the water. Then a greater ripple. Small waves pushed against me.

Just as I was wondering what was going on the water around me gave a great pulse. Suddenly, a current was flowing pulling me away. I had difficulty fighting it. I was tossed about and a few times hit bottom. Then the current reversed direction and I was swept up in a surge.

I reached out in vain for something to hold on to. I was smashed into a rocky area and my hands scrambled for purchase. I was thrown against a large boulder. By pure luck, I was able to wedge myself against it and the ground. I held on for all I was worthwhile the current changed direction a third time. A fourth, a little less damaging. Then finally settled into ripples again.

Debris filled the water making it murky. I was having a hell of a time breathing or whatever it was I was doing with the gills behind my ears. They were plugged up with sand, dirt, and all sorts of crud. I swiped behind my ears in hopes of clearing some of the gunk away. I couldn't breathe.

Desperate I pushed up from the bottom and broke the surface. I took a great breath of air and shot water out of my gills in hopes of dislodging the particles. It was as if I had the worse hayfever and I gave the greatest of sneezes. Mucus and all manner of small lake debris dripped down my neck. I submerged for a second to wash off. Hell, I was pretty certain all my etiquette lessons would frown upon snot laden necks.

My gills still itched and it was making my eyes water and nose run. I tried 'blowing' my gills again this time underwater. It helped but there was so much silt stirred up it wasn't much good.

I looked about, realized I still had my secondary eyelid down and fixed that. The attendant that had been waiting for me to finish was flat against the ground. He made eye contact with me as I turned to look at him.

"Earthquake," he shouted from the shore.

"It's a mess down here. I need to come in," I called back.

He nodded and got to his feet. He operated the crane that allowed me to get out of the lake and into my chair.

"That one was a bad one," he commented.

"They've happened before?"

"Twice to my knowledge though nothing as strong as to knock you off your feet before. Some jars or books might fall off shelves that's it." He stood behind me and pushed me up the path to the building where the water types were housed.

"I'm going to need to flush my gills when we get in. There was so much muck kicked up down there I actually couldn't breathe for a bit."

"That is concerning," he commented. Then quickened his pace. "You're bleeding from your shoulder and your shirt is ripped up."

"I got tossed around against the rocks. I'll probably be very sore in a few hours, but I think I'm relatively fine. Perhaps, send Aggie in to try and heal up what she can? I wouldn't ask but I took a bit of a beating."

"Yes, miss. She'll see to it that you'll get what you need. I'm glad there were no broken bones and that you were able to get to the surface in time."

"Silly if you think of it. A water type drowning. I didn't think it possible but it looks like it is." I tried to laugh off the near-miss I'd had.

"I'm not sure if it would be considered drowning, more suffocation I would think. If my mouth and nose were covered it'd be suffocation. So if your gills were covered I think it would be the same."

"Hadn't thought of it like that."

"It was just a stray thought miss. I think I'm in shock. I took a bit of a hit to the head when I fell. Banged it on the crane."

"Are you alright?" I turned in my chair and looked at him. His brows were furrowed in what I'd thought was concentration but could have been pain.

"I think so. I'll get you back to base." He'd slowed down his pace but at these words, he redoubled his efforts.

I turned and looked at him again and caught sight of the mountain behind his shoulder. It wasn't a mountain, of course, but a volcano. One that was reportedly very active.

"Was it an earthquake?" I asked myself quietly. The attendant thought I was talking to him.

"Yes, miss, I can assure you it was."

"No, I mean it wasn't an eruption?"

"The volcano? It most likely stemmed from that but it wasn't an eruption. You'd see ash in the air. Ashy air is how we can tell if it's going to erupt. That and all the monsters head for the water."

"What do you do if it does erupt?" I asked.

"There is an evacuation plan in place. There are emergency boats stashed in the caves along the cove. Then there are the larger boats we all came in. We will have some warning if it does happen, but Mr. Rience assures us that it won't happen for a while yet. I guess volcanoes work on a sort of eruption schedule and this one isn't due quite yet."

"I didn't know that about volcanoes."

"Not many volcanoes in this part of the world to test, but in the south, in the Onyx Republic, there are volcanoes everywhere. In the Islands, and onshore.

"They are able to set off their volcanoes periodically so that there isn't a massive build-up. A dozen triggered small eruptions is better than one catastrophic one.

The building as we neared it seemed to have suffered a bit. The wall facing the entrance had a huge crack going from corner to corner. The door scraped something as it was opened. Plants that had been hung in the entranceway had crashed to the floor in broken bits of earth, pottery, and plant matter. There was another large crack in the floor of the hall leading to my room. I saw a lot of construction work being done in the future.

"Here we are. I'll fetch Aggie and tell her about the water and the healing. Get well soon, miss."

"And you," I called after him.

The window in my room had broken. While it wasn't shattered the window had cracks running all over. It was only one door slam away from being sharp floor glitter. My tank seemed intact and that was the important part. I'd get healed up, clear my gills, and clean the lake debris still sticking to me off. I was glad that I the levers for draining and refilling my tank were manual and not magical.

I adjusted myself to line up with the lift that would get me into my tank. I shimmed into the lift chair and waited for Aggie to show up to operate the crank. I was heavier than I'd ever been. The tail was nearly the total weight I had been. In the water, the huge muscled tailed propelled me through the water. On land, it was nothing but a dead weight. I needed the lifts to get me in and out of water.

My back twinged a lot as I used my arms to pull myself onto the lift chair. Once positioned I saw that I'd left my wheelchair a mess. It would have to be cleaned. Blood, diluted by water, had formed a spot on the back of the seat. Damn. Would they be able to get that much blood out?

"Oh, my dear!" Aggie came rushing into the room.

"Do you mind if I get into the tank before you start healing? I've got so much gunk in my gills it's driving me to distraction. I used the end of my ruined shirt to wipe at the gill mucus dripping down my neck. Ugg, this was worse than a runny nose.

"Of course, dear. Of course. Let me get this for you." She began to manipulate the levers that turned the crank than lifted me into the air. When I was high enough to clear the edge of the tank she pulled me over the tank and then used the levers to lower me.

Once in the water, I slipped off the chair and scooted to the side as the chair was lifted back out.

I took off my shirt as this was happening I submerged and used the shirt to wipe at my gills as I flushed clean water through them. The wet shirt helped dislodge some of the larger bits. I rolled the shirt into a ball tossing it into a trash can that had been placed near my tank for my use. No saving it, it was ruined.

Aggie had me stay submerged as she healed my back. I felt her heal something that had gone wrong in my hip too. I'd been so distracted by my gills and my back I failed to notice the dull throbbing pain in my hip until it was gone. I'd been more banged up than I thought. I would probably have been better off on land during the earthquake than in the water, but it wasn't as though we could predict things like that.

Aggie gave me a pot of mild soap. I used it to wash the sand out of my hair and to scrub off the dirt that still clung to my scraped up bits. I was feeling a lot better by the time I drained my tank. Filling it up was the issue. No water came out from the tap. I twisted the handles a few times thinking that would miraculously fix the problem. Damn.

"Something must have happened to the pipes. Sit tight dear. I'll go see what can be done," Aggie had bundled up my wet soggy trash and rushed out of the room. After some time had passed and I had begun to feel a bit chill. Aggie came back with three people. Two men and a woman.

I did what I could to cover my chest. Aggie had forgotten to give me another shirt. I often didn't wear them when I slept in my tank since the loose fabric had a tendency to float up around me. But males weren't often in my room so it hadn't been an issue.

"Oh, dear!" Aggie exclaimed and turned to push the two males back out of the room. She told them to wait a moment and she got me a clean shirt from the cupboard.

Safely clothes the three people came up to the sides of the tank and proceeded to use water magic to fill it. As more water filled the tank I began to relax. I was so tense.

It took a lot longer for magic to fill the tank than it would have if the pipes were running. On top of that, the water was cold. There wasn't any adjusting of temperature with water magic or if they could they didn't bother. Coldwater didn't bother me but I did prefer my tank to be a bit warmer than freezing.

Later, after I'd napped but before dinner. A crew of workmen came to replace my window. I was told that when I went out to the lake tomorrow they'd work on the plumbing for my tank. Though it may take a little longer than I usually would stay out so if there was any other activities I wished to do they'd appreciate it if I did them while they were working.

After dinner, I practiced with the Bastard lamp again. I didn't make any progress. Aggie seemed to have an overwhelming abundance of patience since she calmly explained the theory to me again. I had magic now I should be able to use it.

I went to bed thoroughly frustrated and angry at myself for being such a complete failure at something so simple.