--N..n.. yes.. the tunnel continues.. did something sparkle?! I I see some light.. just.. just a few more kicks.... this time I.. I have to make it.. I have to make it...--,
Pali thought again and again while her body shook vigorously in the water.
"M..mwgrhhbl.. glurbl..", the sound of escaping bubbles echoed into her ears tough, reflected by the slippery cave-walls and sharp rocks surrounding her.
--.. air.. n..no air.. no air...-- "glrubrl.. Ahah.. GLURBBL"
The bird's lungs - perfect for efficient long term flights but so inadequate for extended dives like this - screamed at her, rocking up and down within her chest in instinct-driven attempts to make their owner inhale, no matter what.
Nevertheless Pali kicked further against the natural current of water which persisted constantly inside this cave-system. --The treasure has to be down here.. and the necklace.. it has to.. it has...--
The girl's mind began to get groggy and her body followed her willpower's orders less and less when even the pain-driven adrenaline which had kept her alive, began to subside.
Her beak opened repeatedly and multiple times but every time she managed to redirect the swall of water to her stomach instead of her lungs. Every time that became harder though an the cost were more bubbles which burst from her nostrils.
Eventually she grabbed her neck - her own fingers clenching through her feathers at her throat - in a last attempt to keep the water from flooding her entirely.
However it was for no use. The urge to breathe would have made her scream; if she had anything to scream with, because her lungs were practically a vacuum by now.
--So d..dark... I.. I failed again...-- ... ...
Her eyes finally shut closed and with the last fraction of control, she curled her body and kicked a final time to turn herself onto her back. That was her only chance to survive when her consciousness faded and she was a toy of the current.
Water rushed into her throat but once more, the yellow avian was lucky. Her throat cramped shut barely in time to prevent the worst.
Something she had trained for, but which wasn't always reliable.
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A few minutes later - impossible to time that; it could be anywhere between one and ten minutes - a brightly pink beak breached the surface of the calm sea, not far away from a simple raft which apparently floats without an owner.
The beak belongs to Pali as she floats without any movement on her back. Still with closed eyes and a dark-blueish shade around her beak.
Seconds pass during which the wind blows air across her nostrils and edges of her hard beak. It does seem like this is how the brave girl's existence will fade.
Life and willpower is strong within the normally airborne creature though because eventually her beak opens wide and sudden.
"A..A.AHHhh... Agh.."
Her eyes widen large too, even if her vision remains blurry and her body goes into a fit of coughs and trembles, repeatedly sinking below the surface again in the helpless process. She is instinctively fighting for the thin thread connecting her with the world of the living and keep her oxygen-deprived body on this side.
Still her voice is recognizable through fragments of sentences soon after a few gasps:
"Damn.. I.. I haven't made it... it hurt too much.. I failed!!..", she cursed with tears in her eyes - partially from frustration but subconsciously surely out of joy that she survived having blacked-out... once more.
Like the many times before, it could easily have gone wrong. All it needed were some seaweed tangling around her claws or the currents resulting with her surfacing upside down - the beak underwater.
Her soaked body kept shaking hard, barely enabling her to kick towards her raft where she eventually curled weakly on top. She clutched her chest as every breath hurt while her eyes wandered briefly over the sketchy, old, pale photographs and the half ripped map which marked her point of desire. That was the point she was just right now - just at the surface instead of inside the cave!
"I.. won't give up.. Nev..." ... Suddenly Pali's eyes dropped shut mid sentence and she collapsed entirely again when the exhaustion caught up and overwhelmed her.
Now she was off to sleep for several hours; all alone, just being waved back and forth on the wooden raft.
Lately, many of her days ended like this...
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By the point Pali woke up again, it was deep night. Achingly she shuffled a bit, feeling how the sun had burned the little parts of her face which were not covered well enough by her feathers.
Pali just sighed though - something she instantly regretted as her lungs warned her with a sting that they couldn't hold any air properly anymore for a while. "I.. will try again...", she thinks but her inner voice wasn't as confident as it used to be in the beginning when she first found out about the legend of the magical necklace which turned their wearer into a true mermaid.
That was months ago by now and since then she had given up everything she had or wished. Just to search for this sacred artifact.
Since then she had many attempts and tried so many methods, including some probably no regular freediver would even consider.
That ranged from taping her beak shut to prevent loosing bubbles to using a bag on her head to re-breathe but nothing brought her to her goal.
The former made her lungs hurt just worse during the contractions and she almost didn't manage to remove the tape in time when she had to give up. And the second disoriented her too much, making swimming much more strenuous; not to mention the dizziness it lead to.
Somewhat more promising were the most modern advances in diving apparatuses but nothing was independently enough to allow a diver to get into such a long cave and the poor bird could not afford such equipment anyways even with years of work.
The only things she really had was just her body, the map and this small raft she used to fish and for dives at this secret spot as often as possible.
After a moment sunken in thoughts, Pali was abruptly alarmed by a different kind of sting besides her injured lungs - this time its origin was her abdomen instead.
Giving her own body a glance in the weak moonlight, she could see that she possessed quite a bit of a bulge within her lower body. It was her bladder.
The first few times she had survived the airless fate, she had always woken up in a puddle of her own urine on the raft, simply because her body could not store all the water she inevitably drank.
That had changed over time and the bulge was the result; just with the side-effect that she always woke up with a bursting urge to pee like now.
Again sighing but much more shallow this time, she casually flung her feet-claws onto the edge of the floating logs and spread her legs.
Just a moment later, a continuous splashing broke the silence of the night when a sparkling, golden stream erupted from her folds, arching directly into the water.
"A..ah..", she gave a light moan when the relief overwhelmed her and a smile finally returned briefly to her face again. Using a feathered wings she spread her folds briefly to make the release even easier.
A bit playfully she poked with the other wing at her abdomen, toying with the bulge, literally feeling what a volume she was still storing inside herself.
Eventually she closed her eyes though, just to relax - until a thought abruptly pulled her back!
Her eyes were suddenly wide and she smiled much brighter than before, now not even caring that the stream accidentally splashed onto her claws when she moved.
"I KNOW HOW TO DIVE LONGER!!", she yelped out into the night sky. Her vision blurred just a moment later though and she collapsed a second time on her back. Obviously she had not recovered entirely yet, but the main cause this time was excitement and she slept in bliss till the early morning.
---------
An entire new month had passed since the described night when she had the inspiration. It had been a tough time as she had put herself through even more training - just of a different kind now - but at the same time a greatly rewarding period.
Pali had always trained her lung-capacity only and pretty much reached the physical limit her species could posses. Sadly that wasn't very impressive as she technically belonged into the air.
Now however it seemed like she had discovered a true talent and that involved a different kind of capacity: The one of her bladder.
To improve that further, she denied herself any leakages for entire nights and days, forcing herself to the bursting point whenever she could. Multiple times she had embarrassing moments in town when the final moment hit her unexpectedly or she had to run around with a wing firmly within her crotch.
Yet soon the suffering paid out. She was able to hold an entire pitcher of liquid at once without spilling more than a drop or two even whilst moving or swimming.
Still this was only a first part of her newly contemplated plan.
The second part involved to easily access her bladder's contents whenever needed. This turned out trickier than she thought because her body skills weren't the only limiting factor. She needed something like a flexible pipe - Thin enough that it could fit inside her but more than three foot long - as well as something to pump air.
Eventually she remembered her researches on the expensive, yet barely working diving apparatus constructors in the town were offering. It costed her practically all the fish she had caught those weeks but eventually she had been given a small tube which was a spare part, and a tiny, otherwise useless, manual pump. Both made of a newly found material their civilization possessed. They called it "rubber".
The tube was a bit thicker than intended but she was grateful nevertheless.
In the meantime she had also trained to take sufficiently thick objects into her small urine hole. She used thin, elongated stones and cone-shaped shells she had found in the sea. Doubtlessly a painful process, but once she had acquired the tube, she managed almost instantly to slip it in until she could feel it push past her sphincter, right into her bladder.
This resulted in quite a fountain to splash from the tube, not stopping until her bladder had emptied but this just drew a bright smile onto the birdie's beak. That was the moment she knew that she was ready. Ready to finally reach her goal!
She almost wanted to rush onto the open sea instantly but knew that she had to wait one last time because it might be her last and only chance.
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A day and an afternoon later Pali was now out on her raft.
A rubber tube was tied around her waist and she was kneeling firmly in the middle with one wing between her legs while the other held the map open. She was focused on checking her position a last time.
Quivers went regularly down her spine. Partially due to the cool, salty sea wind waving through her feathers but mainly because of waves of urge rippling through her abdomen.
The young bird had not given her bladder a real break at all during the last few weeks and her last relief had been just yesterday morning after she tested the tube for the first time.
Since then she had drunk as much water as she could because the fuller she was, the stretchier her abdomen would be. Furthermore the larger the volume she could hold down there, the more air she would have later during the dive!
"N...nghh.. too much.. I.. I'm leaking...", she muttered to herself when she pulled the map away, needing both her wings on her crotch now. Yet it barely helped because her abdominal bulge was rock-hard and the pressure unbearable.
With clenched eyes she rolled onto her back, trying to find the most comfortable position under those circumstances. Pali was not quite up to give up yet and so another quarter hour of squirming had to pass until she inevitably felt the first spurt of warm liquid seeping through her feathers.
She didn't want to soak herself completely but couldn't move much either anymore and so she just remained on her back and only spread her legs.
"O..OOooh..."
A loud moan of relief waved across the open sea when the young bird released her own little, golden sea. It made her blush a lot even if she knew that she was - gladly - alone out here for miles.
With a blissful expression she listened to the hissing and splashing of her own urine while she relaxed further, basking in the relief.
She also aided emptying her bladder by pressing onto her abdomen until the bulge eventually disappeared.
Once she had finished she remained sprawled another few seconds, taking long breaths to recover, calming her heartbeat again.
A minute later, Pali reached for the tube with the pump. She had to start the final preparations.
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The female avian spread her legs further and did the same with her folds until much of her pink flesh inside, as well as the two holes down there were revealed to the cool sea air. A shudder went through her body.
Nevertheless she barely hesitated to point the tip of the rubber hose at the smaller, upper hole just like she had done that a day ago - and also with several objects the last few weeks.
Still she couldn't prevent twitches and twinges when the tube rubbed against her inner skin, parting her peehole. "A..ah.. ouch.. mww.. just another inch..", she muttered to herself when the tube pressed right against her sphincter separating her urethra from her bladder.
This was the most painful moment but not comparable to other tortures she went through and so she eventually felt a 'plop' and the tube slipped in.
Since her bladder was not pressurized anymore, nothing was flowing now and that was good because the girl quickly grabbed the pump at the other end of the tube.
With it in a wing she sat half up, kneeling with one leg, right before she squeezed the pump for the first time. Immediately her eyes widened at the strange feeling. She felt vibrations within her abdomen and was fairly sure to also hear a weak bubbling when air seeped through the small amount of urine which inevitably had remained inside her bladder.
With a determined look she squeezed the pump again and again until the pressure began to build up, making her feel just like she had to pee again.
Of course she didn't stop though, even when she began to squirm on the spot again. She just relaxed and sighed in between a few times until the pressure was barely bearable. She believed that she had pressured the air at least to twice the natural atmospheric pressure since air was luckily much better compressible compared to water.
Pali knew that she had to stop eventually or she would not be able to swim properly anymore and burn oxygen too fast.
---------
Before she could finally start her dive, Pali had to remove the tube and pump though. That was a critical moment since she would loose the air much faster than if it were only liquid. So she clenched her legs firmly even if it hurt to feel the thick tube inside her urethra.
She began to pull it out step by step until it had passed her sphincter again. For a moment it felt like she was peeing because her natural valve which had been forced open for so long, couldn't close right away.
Luckily the tube was still plugging her urethra well enough and gave her the occasion to recover.
With her free wing she rubbed slowly over her abdomen, feeling the bulge which was quite a bit different from when it had been filled with liquid. It was bumpier and reminded her just of an air balloon.
If not every stronger press would have resulted in a pained yelp, she would surely have played with it.
Eventually she felt strong enough and pulled the tube out entirely.
Her wing flung to her crotch, squeezing into her folds in case anything dared to escape but luckily that didn't happen.
She smiled with a relaxed sigh and stood up properly now, standing by the edge of her raft.
Her knees were quivering a bit and she tugged her legs slightly together but she was in control for now.
Pali's situation worsened considerably when she began taking long, deep breaths to prepare her lungs. Whenever she inhaled deeply, the pressure on her abdomen practically doubled. "N.,.nghh.. I.. I cannot give up now.. This time.. it has to work", she says to herself and clenches her fists.
Eventually she got used to the pressure enough to focus again on the preparations by speeding up her gasps.
This technique similar to hyperventilation helps purging as much CO2 from her bloodstream possible.
After a final, especially deep breath, Pali closed her eyes and swiftly jumped wings ahead into the water.
Thanks to the years of training, the naturally airborne creature had learned swimming and diving well.
So she knew how to hold her body in a streamlined position and kick the water forcefully. For diving deeper, she covered her nostrils with a wing and blew forcefully until her inner ears equalized pressure.
This way she descended down towards a massive cliff which towered at this spot on the much deeper seabed which was not even visible to Pali.
The cliff was her goal anyways though since a few feet below its peak, one could see a large, dark hole - the entrance to a cave!
With this in front of her eyes which had got used to the water by now, the avian just kicked harder, equalizing a second time until she was finally by the entrance.
---------
Floating on the spot, she halted for a split second. Her muscles needed some brief rest. Nevertheless she turned around first, glancing at the fairly distant surface.
In this calm moment, the pressure of her abdomen caught up with her again. The water-pressure was helping with it a bit but since the air inside was already pressurized, it didn't really compress this inner balloon significantly more. Therefore her sphincter began to feel sore, urging Pali to cover her crotch with her wing.
"I have to continue...", she thinks when a first tingle within her chest reminds her of the fact that she is an air-breather.
Ignoring this feeling, she immediately begins to kick again, now into the dark, skewed cave behind her. The walls are smooth, yet some rocks protrude from them, not allowing her to swim very fast without risking to bump into them. Additionally she has to swim against the constant current but that isn't something new to her either.
Seconds pass and the feeling which had been just a tingle turned into a tightness by now, soon followed by a burning.
Small bubbles trickle from Pali's beak when she has to fight the spasms from setting in. Like always she knows they are inevitable and so she keeps moving forward through the apparently endless cave.
The way splits from time to time but the girl had been down here often enough and has memorized the map well. So she knows that she approaches the point she had never managed to pass yet.
When her chest heaves hard, Pali instinctively grabs her neck but cannot prevent a small burst of compressed bubbles from seeping out of her beak. "I.. I cannot stay controlled much longer.. N..need to do it now!", she thought shakily and immediately reached for her waist to untie the tube she had brought.
With it in a wing, she curls her body slightly, trying not to become a play ball for the water currents.
Pali's chest spasms a second time and her mouth fills with water. This tells her that she has to hurry quickly. Yet she cannot risk to get a lungful of her own piss - which her body produced in the meantime - and choke. She would drown inevitably.
So she spreads her legs slightly while she floats on her back - in a position where her crotch is the deepest point of her body - and slowly begins to relax. She can barely speed that up after she had focused all the time to stay sealed down there.
Eventually she feels how her peehole starts to let go and a warm spurt flows over her haunches.
With dreamy eyes she stares at her own crotch, seeing how a vaguely cone-shaped cloud seeps from between her legs. It colors the water yellowish while it disperses and dissolves quickly. It does leave a trail behind the avian though when she occasionally kicks to keep moving.
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"M..mrbl.."
The relaxation together with the need to breathe forced more bubbles out of Pali's lungs but suddenly there was a second source of bubbles: Pali's pee-hole!
Instantly her eyes widened and before she even attempted to stop the flow with her muscles, she pushed the tip of the tube she still held in a wing, right against her tight urethra.
That was when Pali realized that she had never tried to insert the tube while holding her breath!
The result was a cloud of bubbles from her beak, forcing her to clamp it shut with her free wing to avoid instantly inhaling water.
Her body shakes as she fights the agony from her chest together with the sting between her legs. "j..just.. just a bit deeper.. then.. then I can breathe!!", she thinks in despair.
That apparently helped though because just a second later, she felt the 'pop' just like earlier when the tube entered her bladder.
Immediately she reached with both wings for the free end of the tube which was already gushing bubbles.
Not able to hesitate in any way, Pali pushed the tube into her beak, swallowed all the water which had entered and then finally began to inhale hard.
The air was rushing just slowly as the tube was multiple feet long and not that wide. It was worse than trying to breathe through a straw. So her cheeks bent inwards as she practically sucked on the air.
Yet it was clearly more than nothing and her freediving training helped her to maintain just enough control not to gasp on the water still surrounding her, until her lungs felt a little bit relief.
Her feathering wing still clutched at her neck and then she rubbed her chest frantically but at the same time her mind was in bliss. "It is working! It is working!", she thought, also increasingly overwhelmed by the relief than she could finally 'pee' or at least relieve her bladder as she wasn't sure she could call this peeing.
The pressure within her abdomen decreased in every case and her sore chest calmed slightly. This gave her the strength to finally aim for her goal again!
---------
Since she had ceased swimming properly the last few seconds, the current had pushed her slightly back but she quickly caught up with strong kicks once she had secured that the tube was not slipping from her beak.
Soon she passed her last record distance, ending up in parts of the cave she had not seen before except for on the map.
Pali was more than confident that this time it would work out!
Suddenly she realized that something was changing though - the water current faded.
She immediately knew what that meant: If she would pass out now, the water wouldn't bring her back towards the surface. She would end up here. Forever.
This thought made her suck just harder on the tube and that brought her to the second disillusionment: Her bladder was practically empty.
Instinctively she began exhaling to reach a rhythm of rebreathing the little air she had. This was almost as tough sucking the air in and certainly felt strange to feel the pressure within her abdomone fluctuating like that.
The female birdie held on. Kick by kick by kick even when the air felt stale and her chest began spasming with growing vigor again.
Bubbles seeped from her nostrils every time but nothing could stop the girl anymore. "So close.. so close.."
Eventually after an imperceivable amount of she suddenly saw golden flicker in the distance. Although the probability that it was just an hallucination induced by he deprivation of oxygen, her eyes widened hard and she sucked on the tube once more, now only rewarded with a spurt of salty liquid on her tongue. Yet she didn't care anymore when she dashed onwards as fast as she could.
Pali's eyes had not been wrong. Once she kicked by another corner, she found herself right in a huge, sphere-shaped cave filled feet high with gold coins, gems, jewelry and smaller, open treasure chests.
The avian stopped breathing - and moving - entirely at this unbelievable sight. Yet this was not in shock due to the wealth she saw, because her eyes were still moving! She was looking for something very certain and quickly spotted it: A real-sized statue of a mermaid just on the other side of the cave. Its tail was embedded in the gold coins and an beautiful necklace with large, teal gem was on its neck.
Pali's heart was pounding harder than ever before surely a last attempt to keep her alive slightly long. But it sufficed for her to reach the necklace.
Her body went into a fit of shakes and coughs when her lungs finally gave in. She felt the water in her throat and the tube also dropped from her beak but she managed to pull the necklace from the statue.
While her vision narrowed, on the verge of falling unconscious she pulled it over her own head. The same moment her limbs went limp.
Suddenly she saw light. Flaming, bright, white light. Her eyes burned worse than due to the saltwater alone - it was almost as if she were staring right into the sun.
At the same time, all other pains - the ones from her flooded lungs and over-strained muscles - had fade and when she looked down at herself, she noticed that it was her own body which emitted this overwhelming light.
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EPILOGUE (3rd image):
- A few days later -
The water is calm and clear and the sun sends it rays down to the sea-bottom between the colorful corals and stones.
This place is full of life but one life form is more noticeable than the rest. With a beak, small feathers as well as blue and green fins, Pali is sitting calmly on a rock. Her tail slowly waves in the water current and her scales gleam beautifully in the sunlight.
The mermaid-bird is a serene appearance, matching to the smile on her lips.
She is a truly fulfilled being now... A mermaid.
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The first two pages are an AMAZING commission by the extremely talented \r\n\t\t\t\t\t
| \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDifetra\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t | \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
I was downright astounded when he was even up for this very.. uh.. unusual topic ^w^
Once more, thank you so much!
The mermaid-pin up - the result of her adventure - is by the great Bakakitty