Who: Moira and OTA
What: Beach episode!
When: Just Keep Swimming, Part 1
Where: Public spaces; in the water
Warnings: Nudity


Human Form

It's kind of funny now how scared she was to come here. After months on the Barge (and after the hellscape Shower Guy Hanna had unleased) any kind of upcoming change had felt like a whole new threat.

It still feels a little bit that way, which has Moira systematically exploring the new ship once she carefully stowed away her precious luggage. She's back to trying doorknobs to see where she's allowed and where she's locked out, though it's easier to tell which doors lead to cabins now that she knows more about boats and she doesn't bother with those ones. Her own cabin is down on Deck 1, but once she realizes all of it has a glass floor she delights in running barefoot across the glass floor in the public spaces where there's room to move, chasing the fish that dart below. She's also in and out of the dining rooms at random times of the day and night, requesting all manner of snacks from the chorebots once she's gotten over wanting to fight them.

The first time she goes for a swim, it doesn't even occur to her to wait and see if the ship will stop a while. Afraid to tip her hand, she goes to the wet dock in bare human skin when she thinks no one else will be there, shucking clothes and leaving them where they fall before taking a running cannonball into the water. Even in human form she's a strong swimmer and clearly at home in the water. She keeps an eye on the position of the ship and keeps swimming back to it as it moves--strong swimmer or not, she wouldn't survive being stranded in the wide ocean in human form.


Seal Form

Moira's glad, so glad, that she hadn't trusted the Admiral and left her seal pelt in her cabin back on the Barge. Both because it's stupid to trust someone, anyone with the safekeeping of her pelt and because this...this is almost like home, and she would have missed out. After a day or two spent keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the others, she's finding a rhythm for sneaking into the water unseen, and taking her pelt with her, stuffed into a backpack until it's time to don it at the water's edge.

Then it's clothes off, pelt on, and if she looked comfortable and confident swimming with gangly human legs, it's nothing compared to the gracefulness of her seal form in water. It's like an enormous weight has been lifted from her; she flies through the water, effortless little twitches of her flippers propelling her through dizzying twists and turns. She chases the strange local fish more for fun than for food, snapping playfully at their fins and bursting through schools of them. More than once she finds herself under the ship and turns big eyes upward to peer through the glass at the people inside before flitting away as fast as she can when anyone looks back down at her.

The water's warmer than she likes, so her antics are interrupted by breaks spent lolling at the surface with a front flipper extended upward to catch the breeze and cool her blood. There's something nice about that as well, though, like a lazy summer afternoon in childhood on one of those rare days when their bellies were full and comfort was their only concern.


[Notes: Please keep all nudity-related scenes non-sexual--Moira doesn't see it as anything inherently sexual and doesn't mean anything by flashing folks! Additionally, you can review her permissions here, including notes on her whole selkie deal.]