The next day, I woke up feeling different. It had been a while since I'd felt anything other than a woman. A part of me thought that maybe my change had fixed that broken thing inside me. It wasn't normal to feel this way, that much I was certain. So when I hadn't had any days since my change where I felt male I thought that maybe my change had fixed me.

Apparently, I was wrong. That familiar feeling of not feeling right in my own body washed over me. I felt crooked. I was a corner that didn't quite fit into the box of shapes.

I floated in my tank watching my brown hair floating around me. My roots were white. The male me was disgusted that I'd let it go this long. I looked ridiculous and it needed to be fixed now. Maize had sorted herself out right away. Her hair looked like a fluffy blue cloud.

My hair wasn't curly like Maize's. It did have some wave to it but with it being wet all the time it just looked like a limp brown mess. No, something needed to be done. This side of me wouldn't settle down until I'd done something. An itchy feeling in my chest.

I was able to talk Aggie into cutting it, though she wasn't very good at it. There were still patches where my hair grew unevenly and the white roots hadn't grown out as far. Aggie had been reluctant to cut it all off saying the hair wasn't even. I thought it looked even more ridiculous leaving the brown tips than to have it be uneven. Aggie finally gave up and went to get someone who was better at cutting hair.

A man came in and sighed when he looked at me.

"I wish you would have gotten me first. Now I have nothing to work with," He muttered as he ran his hands through my hair. "It will be short, very short," He cautioned me.

"That's fine, I want the brown gone."

"Very well."

When he was done I was left with a very short hair cut indeed. It was a bit longer than most men's cuts but decidedly unfeminine. My hair was only about an inch and a half long. There was a spot near the front that no matter what the man did the hair sort of stood up. His solution was to sweep the hair all over to one side. That didn't work. So he tried the other side. That didn't work either. Swept-back, nothing. Finally, he decided the best solution was just to let it be. If one area of my hair wanted to look a mess the rest of it should too. So he basically ran his hands into my hair and intentionally made it look like I'd just rolled out of bed.

Oddly enough it worked. The damp hair seemed to like just being wherever it wanted willy nilly. So that's the style I was left with. Eventually, it would grow out and be a bit more manageable, but until then, this wasn't bad.

The itchy feeling in my chest subsided and I was finally able to start the day. I'd taken up so much time with my hair that I would have to skip breakfast in order to meet Maize at the lake on time. I'd had Aggie fetch extra food so that I could take into the water with me. I could eat once out in the water.

We were still running a bit behind schedule but I wasn't that late as some of the extermination team showed up after me. If you weren't the last one there you weren't technically late, was something my mother liked to say.

Adam wasn't searching with us today. The terse woman who was always yelling at people got even more pinched faced than normal when I mentioned him. She said he wasn't feeling well and not to worry.

I doubted Adam was actually sick. I had the feeling that he was being punished instead. If asked to explain why I thought that, I couldn't really give a definitive answer. He had swum off on his own, but that wasn't the only red flag. Aggie and I ran into Adam's caretaker on the way to the lake.

He looked like hell. Then there was the way that Aggie tsked at him as we passed. It was odd behavior for Aggie who was usually very friendly to everyone. I would have asked her what it was about but just at that moment, more people filled the hall. Those people also seemed to treat Adam's caretaker rather coolly.

Did Adam do something that would cause his caretaker to be shunned? Swimming off on his own wasn't that bad, was it? It was a combination of these things that made me suspect that Adam was in trouble for something rather than being sick.

Maize and I were present while the mean pinched faced woman told the extermination squads what to do. I wasn't allowed into the water until she'd finished everything she'd had to say. Apparently, she'd figured out that as long as I was on land I was forced to listen to her and I couldn't just swim away.

Her instructions were dull and boring. There was a lot of name dropping, Mr. Rience this and Mr. Rience that. She even droned on about the best ways to kill Goblin Crabs. I felt sort of bad for the extermination squads. They had to sit through this nonsense too. Telling someone who kills monsters for a living how to kill a Goblin Crab was like trying to teach a grandmother to suck eggs.

It was obvious that the woman had even less experience in killing monsters than me, and here she was giving a lecture on the subject. When I gathered materials for my soap I would sometimes run into Goblin Crabs and have to fight them off. If I managed to kill one, great, extra food and income for us, but it's not like I went out of my way to hunt them. These men knew what they were doing and still had to listen to the woman.

The only good thing about having to sit there was that I could eat my breakfast. Aggie had packed foods that would be good in the water, boiled eggs, hard cheese, veggie sticks, and apples. I bit into a carrot stick with a loud crunch. I earned a very dirty look from the woman she signaled that I should put it away. I ignored her and finished eating. If I had to listen to this nonsense I wasn't going to do it hungry.

We were informed that the crabs had been swarming over and eating another dead Goblin Crab. An exceptionally large one according to the extermination squad leader. There were still no signs of Filmore.

The tone of the search was certainly shifting. It had gone from search and rescue to find the body. Logically I knew this was right, but there was a part of me that didn't want to give up hope. Until a body was found there was always hope that he was alive somewhere. This feeling, it must be hell for Marcy.

"She wants us to do what we need to do," Maize told me after we were both in the water and I'd told her what I'd been thinking.

"When did you see her?"

"Last night. I went to the nursery and talked to her. She's odd," Maize paused a second and then continued. "It's as if she's gone cold."

"What do you mean?"

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"She just sat there, cold. It's like Marcy wasn't the one who was there."

"She's probably in shock," I commented.

"Yes, I think so, but it's more than that. Anger. There was a lot of anger just under the surface."

"Anger. I guess I'd be upset and pissed about all of this too if I was her," I waved around me to indicate all the circumstances.

"I told her about our lucky friend," Maize looked around casually. Though I knew her glance was anything but casual. She was making certain no one was listening. "She wants us to do what we need to do." Maize gave me a look.

"She wants us to not..." I didn't know how to finish the thought.

"She said, 'Gone, he's gone. I know he's gone. Do what you need to do to make things right.'"

"So today then?" I asked Maize.

"I don't think we'll be lucky enough to be by ourselves again. That male might show up and tag along next time."

"Adam," I corrected her automatically. "You are probably right about that."

"Then it's decided," Maize nodded. "Today we go missing."

"Missing?"

"I'll explain later. Here's my bag," She waved to a guy offshore and he tossed in a second buoy with a bag tied to it. The bag and buoy popped up and Maize swam to fetch it.

"What's this?" I asked her.

"Supplies," Maize said. She glanced at the shore and the woman who was marching up the bank to the man who'd just tossed in the bag. "We'd better go before we have to answer questions."

Pulling two heavily laden buoys was difficult, but I put everything I had into getting away from shore before too many questions were asked. That second buoy and bag weren't approved by Miss Pinched Faced Know It All and I gathered that if we were caught and questioned about it things could get sticky for Maize.

"By the way, I like your hair," Maize commented as we stopped in the water. We were floating near the entrance of the cave.

"What did you mean by missing and what's in the bag?" I'd swam directly to the cave and a compliment was not the first thing on my mind.

"Supplies. The black uniform the guards wear, lockpicks, food, weapons..." Maize was ticking things off.

"So we really are doing this now?"

"Yes," Maize looked at me as if I was slow.

"That doesn't explain everything. What did you mean by missing?"

"I don't know how long it will take, or even if I can get in during the day. So we will go 'missing'," Maize used air quotes. "Our story is that we found a cave and thought that Filmore might be in it. So we went in to look. We got a bit turned around and it took us longer than we thought to search it and get out again. Before we knew it night had fallen and we didn't want to risk swimming back in the dark with Goblin Crabs. So we camped out in the cave overnight. Tomorrow morning we will show up and get yelled at accordingly."

"They won't let us out again. Besides I'm not sure they will buy it. I can see in the dark." I sighed. She was right that now was a good time to do it, but I still didn't like the idea of the consequences.

"There's one more issue," Maize pointed at me. "I can't breathe underwater."

"Shit," I muttered. I hadn't thought of how to get around that problem. The cave had spots where it was entirely underwater. Nothing for too long, but it made me worried about how long she could hold her breath.

"You can breathe for me," Maize said. Then gave me a look I couldn't figure out.

"Huh?" I was feeling sort of dumb. I didn't understand what she meant even though she was looking at me like she expected something.

"We need to practice. I don't want to get stuck down there and it having been our first run. I don't plan on dying today."

I still didn't get it. "I don't understand," I said finally admitting I wasn't keeping up.

"You breathe for me. You can breathe underwater and I can't. So all you have to do is give me air."

"Huh?"

"You breathe air into me when I need it."

It finally clicked. She wanted me to do breathe air into her... My face, I couldn't help it, turned an ugly shade of red. Gods Above. Did she know that today was a male day? Not that I wouldn't be any less embarrassed on a female day.

I guess you'd say my first kiss was Chance's, but it wasn't as if I was used to that sort of thing.

"Alright let's start," Maize dove underwater and I had no choice but to follow.

Maize swam down to the entrance of the cave. She didn't enter, instead she held onto a rock to keep herself from floating back to the surface. She waited until I was beside her then expelled all her air in a gust of bubbles. Then she waved to me.

I got closer and without thinking about it pushed the air that would have normally gone into my lungs out my mouth and into hers. Some of the air escaped from my nose, and I started to choke. When the air was going out the wrong direction it meant water getting in. I coughed a lot and cleared myself out, then glanced at Maize.

She seemed fine. She was looking at me with some concern though. Then she waved at me to do it again. Hell, this was unpleasant. The choking part, not the Maize part. Heck, it would probably be a rather pleasant excuse to kiss a girl in any other circumstances. There was none of the soft fire that had been left behind with Chance. It was just me trying not to choke while breathing for Maize.

Maize finally had enough and we both surfaced so that we could talk.

"You ok?" Maize asked.

"It's unpleasant. It feels like I'm the one drowning when I do it, but I'm able to recover quickly enough. We should be ok doing it this way right?"

"It seems like you can give me pure air. It makes me feel a bit lightheaded but I don't see why we couldn't keep it up for a while. We were down there for about fifteen minutes. We could probably go longer, but you looked like you were having issues."

"There aren't any sections underwater that take that long," I said rubbing my gills. They were a bit irritated. Sort of how your sinuses feel after accidentally breathing in some water.

"But we won't be just floating there. We will be trying to push ourselves through the cave. I might have to have more air if I'm exerting myself more."

"It's unpleasant, but it works and I don't think I'll die doing it. As long as I get some time to sort myself out after."

"It should be fine," Maize nodded.

So we entered the cave.

I think Maize actually had an easier time of it than I did. In the dry areas, she could get up and walk while I had to pull myself through. Even though it was dark Maize didn't complain and she didn't have an issue with running into things either. My worry about having to guide her through was meaningless. It was obvious that I wasn't the only one who could see in the dark.

We decided to eat an early lunch in the cave. It was right before we dove down into the water to surface to the other side where the cave with the boats were. We didn't know what we'd find on the other side so eating now was a good idea in case we had to hide. Well, it was mostly in case Maize had to hide and didn't have time to eat while skulking about.

There was no one in the cave with the boats. Just like last time. Maize had me swim her out into the ocean a bit to show her the magic on the cave entrance. I made certain to show her the whirlpools. I even took her underwater and showed her using the end of the buoy rope.

"You really can't see them from the surface," she said balancing herself on the buoy as waves rose up and pushed us back into the cave.

"No, and it's dangerous. Weather like this wouldn't be an issue but it the tides were changing or if there was a storm I think those whirlpools would become stronger."

"You've lived by the sea all your life, I think I'll take your word for it."

"I'm not an expert," I offered.

"But I don't think you're wrong. If you are in a boat it would just seem like you were fighting the regular current to get out rather than a weak series of whirlpools."

"They aren't weak," I protested.

"Not once you get about ten feet below the surface, but you have to admit that they are weak on the top. It's odd, I don't think I've heard of whirlpools doing that before."

"It's the way the water is rushing into the cave and those rocks down there that cause it. Or at least I think that's it," I nodded at the cave.

"You can't see the rocks from the surface and they are deep enough down that boats wouldn't have to worry about crashing into them. So I can see how it was missed. Still..." She trailed off thinking. "Part of me wants to warn them and then another part of me doesn't want to get caught."

"I feel the same," I sighed. "The chances that it will become an issue are small though and certain boats will probably have people with water magic so it should be fine."

"Using water magic to propel out of danger is something sailors do right?"

"Every vessel has one or two skilled water magic users. I've heard stories where they were able to save a ship because of it."

"Then we won't concern ourselves with it. For all we know, they do know about the whirlpools and have planned accordingly." Maize turned and began to swim back into the cave.

"Right," I followed after her pulling the buoys and the bag along.