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WHO: Erik Lehnsherr
WHERE: Somewhere along the river
WHEN: May 19
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Near drowning

Now that the weather is taking a turn for the warmer, Erik is spending more time outside. He's not just spending more time working outside. More of the limited free time he has is also being spent outside. Maybe it's because of his decade spent in an underground prison. He hadn't even gotten the one hour per day of fresh air given to even the most maximum security of prisoners. All he'd gotten was a pentagon-shaped cell to pace from wall to wall. Now he's got all the freedom he wants to wander, to breathe. And with the recent change in scenery, there's a lot more room to do that wandering in.

Along with the increase in temperature comes an increase in water temperature, which means no more freezing while bathing, or even going near water of any kind. He's all for that.

He's got a little extra time today, so decided that he could spend a little more time in the river than he has lately. It can't be all work all the time, right? In the interest of modesty, he's still wearing his scrub pants, but the rest of his clothes are piled neatly on the shoreline. He starts with some long strokes, which really is about all he knows how to do, not having a lot of opportunities to learn in his younger years, or a lot of need to as an adult. He stays close to the shore, since he's not really swimming anyway.

There's no warning when it happens. On land, walking or sitting or sleeping, the leg cramp would be little more than an inconvenience. In the water, it's different. It's unexpected, and it distracts him. He ducks his head under the water, bent in half to grab his toes to stretch the cramp out. But he's under water and it doesn't work like he hoped it would. Before he realizes what's happening, he has a mouthful of water instead of air. He can't get back up to the surface; he doesn't know where the surface is. Breathing isn't working.

Then there's a strange sensation on his neck and a sudden rush of oxygen to his brain. A few strokes and he's breaking the surface, back to the air and the light. Back to life. He pulls himself up onto the shore, coughing and sputtering, trying to catch his breath. He reaches up to neck, the spot where he felt the strange sensation. Where he feels something else strange.

Are those gills?

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Claire doesn't blame Erik for wanting to spend more time outside now that it's getting warmer. In fact, she is pretty sure that most everyone is spending more and more time in the outdoors though she does know that Erik has reasons that go deeper than just the change in weather. It's one of those things that they don't talk about much but she has figured out enough in their time together to put a couple things together.

She also enjoys being outdoors and often finds herself looking for him by midday just to see how he is holding up. Also, it's just to keep confirming that he is still around and hasn't been stolen away somehow. Yes, she is paranoid but she figures no one can blame her at this point.

So she is near the water when she first spies him, a smile crossing her lips as she slows down to give herself some time just to enjoy the view. She isn't even all that worried when he first goes under. She does frown a bit because it seems a bit sudden but the concern doesn't really kick in until she realizes that he isn't coming back up.

Suddenly the fear is real as she rushes forward, not even thinking about her scrubs or anything else as she hits the water with every intention of diving in after him. It doesn't matter that it could be dangerous, especially since she has no idea why he went under in the first place but it doesn't matter. She merely pushes forward until the water is up to her waist, taking half a second to pull in some air before...

Erik suddenly pops up just a few feet from her, startling her. "Erik!"

He coughs once more, his lungs now trying to take back over from the sudden gills, before he manages to catch his breath enough to speak. "I think that's enough of that for the day." He had been just about ready to be done anyway, but he knows that he really shouldn't continue with a cramp like that.

He makes his way up to the shore, making sure to grab her hand to bring her along with him. He hasn't got a towel, so he just stretches himself out to dry in the sun. "It's just a nice day to be out here."

"What happened?" Claire doesn't try to hide the concern in her voice or the fact that she might be a little freaked out as she grabs his hand at the same time he reaches for her. Following him out, she frowns as she checks him over.

She remains standing when he lays down then, having let go of his hand in favor of placing her hands on her hips while she continues to stare at him. "Erik, you went under for a long time. I was just jumping in to try and save you..."

He does seem strangely calm about this. At least now that he's safely out of the situation, anyway. Which is how it often is with him. Rarely under much of a real threat because he can deflect them or push them away.

He sits up, bends his knees, rests his forearms on them. "It was a leg cramp." So at least it was just his own body doing this to him. "But then I could breathe underwater."

Claire looks concerned again as she sinks to her knees in front of him, her hands sliding over his arms as she glances briefly at his legs and then back to his face again. She knows how bad leg cramps can be for most people and how dangerous they can be in the water. The idea of that happening to him makes her heart trip as she draws in a breath...and then stops to blink at him.

"Like, actually breathe? How?" She asks, tilting her head to the side.

He shakes his head. He's not exactly sure, but he has an idea. "It felt like gills." Which would explain a lot. And yet, explain nothing at the same time.

"I've seen it before. I knew someone who could, as he put it, 'adapt to survive.'" Although even that ability had only taken him so far. Even mutants aren't invincible.

Even with her ability, when it actually works, Claire can't adapt to save herself like that. Shifting her weight to the side, she leans over to study the side of his neck before easing back again. "I don't see them now."

Not that she doubts him because that isn't really something he would make up. That and she had seen him disappear before popping up rather suddenly again.

"How the hell did that happen?" She asks, glancing behind her at the river. "Do you think it's the water? Or something in it?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. I haven't heard of the water doing anything like that before, but there have been a lot of changes around here recently. That could be changing too." No one seems to know anything, and so much has happened already. Why not something like that?

"It's not really a theory I want to test though." In case it was a one-time thing.

Usually when someone thrashes and goes still in the water, that's the end of it--Owen's pace slows a bit from the speed he'd put on upon hearing the commotion and identifying the source--but then the man starts moving again, making for the shore.

Who fucking knows what the rules are, anymore. Who knows what the dangers are and aren't, when snakes come with wings and their bites turn a man blind. When reptiles trail behind on four legs like dogs. Kero makes it to the man first, dancing around his sputtering form as Owen catches up, ready to lend a hand. "Give him some space," he gripes, voice sharpening just enough to bow the little creature out of the man's orbit.

"You alright," is his first question, his good hand landing on a shoulder, then moving back to hit a few times between the man's shoulders as he coughs. The second, an afterthought that captures his imagination: "Did you slip, something try to pull you under?"

He shakes his head as he coughs some more to try and catch his breath. Of course it's a valid question around here, and he dislikes that it has to be. He had tried to find a spot along the river that had better water access and seemed less slippery, with the hope that those wouldn't be an issue. But there was nothing he could do about the creatures that seem to be popping up all around here. So he's glad it wasn't one of those.

"Cramp," is what he finally manages to say, still bent over, once he can breathe normally again. Something he hadn't thought he needed to make a point of avoiding.

His hand twitches once at the man's shoulder, discomfort in a flash of--seeing things, probably. Mind playing tricks in a stressful moment, thinking something's wrong with the line of the man's throat. Owen takes a step back to give him some proper space, taking his hand back and holding it palm-out to the creature behind him. The universal stay.

Before the expedition, he might not have asked. Might have assumed the river and lake were safe enough, but only time will tell. Odd as Kero looks, his kind seem friendly. Owen isn't the only one with a scaled shadow.

He shouldn't have named it, but--human nature, he supposes. "Why don't you sit down for a moment," he asks, indicating the open stretch of shore.

Owen doesn't have to make that suggestion twice. Erik slogs out of the last few inches of water remaining between him and dry land and drops onto the shore. His hand returns to his neck, where he thought he felt gills, but they've faded away by now. When he moves his arm, there are flashes of a tattoo on it, what appears to be a series of numbers.

Whatever reaction Owen makes when he touches Erik, Erik doesn't notice it.

He does notice the strange creature hanging around though. "What the hell is that?"

For all Owen knows, the tattoo is self-imposed; old wars sit somewhat erased with the new, all the stories secondhand, the movies and many of the books burned away when more than half the world died with its stories. Certain factions might mark their members within a zone, or criminals might be indicated in a way to stratify the distribution of resources even further. Fireflies carry their markers, but a tattoo had always been too obvious, too easy to persecute for.

Anyone smart cut or burned their signifiers, soon as they got out of a zone. Better to be nothing at all, than be something in the wrong place.

The numbers at least don't disappear; they're as real as the ugly reptile trying to butt past his legs, nudged aside with his knee. "Not sure what we're calling them, collectively," he answers, dropping a hand to the top of its head. "Started following me around awhile back, helped me a bit on the lichen run. Makes a decent canary in the mine the rest of the time."

"That's something." Not that there isn't a potential threat around every corner anyway, but he sees that it could be useful to have a way of knowing about them before stumbling on them when it's too late to do anything about them. "Sounds a bit like a dog then." Except reptilian, and he doesn't actually know much about dogs, since he never had one himself.

"I suppose that's one of the less strange things that has showed up around here."

Owen looks down at Kero, lips thinning as he sucks the back of his teeth. "I don't know, makes me weirdly uncomfortable, calling that a dog." Close enough, but far enough yet, to sit in the uncanny valley. Given enough thought, he might imagine the cordyceps spread to animals, and the reptilian creatures close enough to what that might look like, give or take an exploding fungal growth for a head.

"It's friendlier than the badger," Owen has to agree, however ugly the things might be.

"How's the cramp?"

He had actually missed most of the fuss with the badger, but he had heard plenty about it, and seen the aftermath. So he knows enough to know that he's glad he wasn't in the middle of it.

"The badger reminds me of some people I've known." And that's not an exaggeration, even if some people might think it is.

"It's better."

"I suppose it isn't the first to put me through a roof," he agrees, though the previous had been in a severe state of disrepair. The schoolhouse, to his knowledge, still had a new skylight, and quite a bit of firewood stacked nearby.

Kero hasn't unceremoniously shoved him through a wall yet, so he's hopeful for a working relationship.

Owen crouches on the shale of the riverbank, picking through smooth stones while the man rests. A glint catches his eye, and he flicks away enough pebbles to pull a dull arrowhead up from the mud. Common enough along streams and dry riverbeds up north, even this new context doesn't make it much of a novelty to him. "I don't mind lifeguard duty, if you wanted more of a swim."

He shakes his head. "I think I'm good." The water does feel nice, but he's had one close call already. That's enough for one day.

"Did anyone ever figure out why the badger was more badger-like than usual?" It was like something had taken all the bad parts of a badger and turned them up to eleven, and he hopes it's not going to be a regular occurrence.

From what he'd been told, recovering at the clinic, someone had all but punted the badger out of the village after being bitten by the same green, glassy ants that had covered its fur. It didn't make any sense then, and it doesn't make any more sense now.

"Unfortunately, something to do with the bite of some local ants. Green, a bit bigger than usual. Sounds like the kind of problem we'll run into more than once."

Badgers, in his experience, don't stop for poison bites or bee stings, for heights or rivers. "On the other hand, if it's something we can use for ourselves, we might not want to run out and destroy the nest."

"I hope that if we ever decide we need some biting green ants, that we have figured out a way to keep them from doing to us what they did to that badger." Or they could have some real problems. "At least we'll know to avoid them until we decide what to do about the ants."

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