It took about an hour to get everything cleaned up and habitable, but once there was some air flow and they had wiped away most of the dust, it was a very tidy, cozy little home.
“I can sleep out here,” Florian said as they gathered in the sitting room again, gesturing toward the fireplace. “As long as there are extra blankets and pillows and stuff, I don’t mind.”
“No, no,” Koji said, shaking his head. “I’ll sleep out here. You take the room.”
“Rock, paper, scissors?” Florian offered, holding up his fist. Koji stared at him uncomprehendingly until Florian laughed nervously, lowering his hand. “Er, let’s flip a coin for it, then. Sounds fair?”
“Oh, I’ve got one,” Rune said, pulling a small golden coin from her pocket. “Heads for the winter king, tails for the dragon prince?”
Koji laughed. “Alright, flip it.”
Rune tossed the coin high in the hair, but before she could catch it, Florian snatched it and smacked it down onto the back of his opposite hand. “Hey!” she exclaimed, but didn’t move to take it back.
He revealed the coin: a single octopus-like tentacle was stamped on the side facing him, and he realized too late that he had no idea which side was supposed to be heads and which was supposed to be tails.
Rune peered down and laughed. “Tails!” she crowed. Koji sighed, and Florian grinned.
“Told you,” he said. “You slept on the couch in Coral Shores, so it’s only fair, anyway.”
“Alright, fair’s fair,” Koji sighed, and he picked up his bag. “I’ll bring you extra pillows.”
“Thanks,” Florian laughed, and he handed the coin back to Rune as Koji stepped into the bedroom.
“You didn’t even know what you were looking at,” she accused, pocketing the coin once more, and he grinned.
“Do I look that guilty?” he said. “But it was tails, right?”
She smirked. “Guess you’ll never know.”
Once they were settled in, Florian and Rune headed further north along the path to what she claimed was a more secluded beach. Before they’d left Koji behind, Rune had given each of them a necklace: a braided leather cord with a plain pendant that looked like some sort of shell, or maybe a bone.
“Wear these if you’re going to walk around the village,” she said. “It’s so the others know that you’re a guest. We can be a little wary of strangers, but as long as people can see you’re a guest of mine, no one should give you trouble.”
Obediently, they’d both put on the necklaces she gave them, and she nodded approvingly. “Koji, feel free to explore the village now that you have that. Florian and I should only be out for a few hours at most. We’ll be back for lunch.”
The pendant smacked against Florian’s chest with every step as they headed up the path, which sloped further upward before, Florian imagined, heading back downhill to another beach. Rune, who had been quite chatty most of the morning, was quietas they walked; the only sounds between them were the crunch of their footsteps, the whisper of the ocean breeze, and Florian’s panting breath in his ears as they climbed the hill. Briefly, he wondered what she was thinking about that had her so quiet, but his thoughts were mostly preoccupied with wondering and worrying about what the shift would be like.
His very first shift into his wolf form had been unpleasant in some ways, but mostly manageable—the canine instincts had taken over quickly when he let them, but overall, it hadn’t felt too different. Shifting into a dragon had been much more painful and harder to control—his body had felt far more alien when it became long and serpentine. But even that had been quick enough to figure out, and in the end it was just sort of like being a very long wolf—he still had two arms and two legs, even if the shape of them was pretty different.
He hadn’t even fully seen a kraken shifter, only the tentacles, and he wasn’t sure if those tentacles had been from one or many. He imagined they would have eight arms, like an octopus, and somehow the thought of doubling the amount of limbs he had felt much more foreign and intimidating than being able to fly. The rest of his body would be far different as well, and he wondered if he could adapt to being in such a different... shape. It made him nervous to think about, but it was hard to focus on anything else at this point.
Soon they reached the top of the hill, and Florian could see quite far from this small summit. About a quarter mile down, the path curved to the right onto a small pebble beach, partly hidden by a rocky outcropping that extended further into the ocean. When they’d first left the guest house, Florian had caught sight of some people out on the larger beach that the village was built around, but this beach was completely empty.
“That’s it,” Rune said, pointing down at it. “No one really comes here since it’s so rocky. You have to go pretty far arounda cliff to reach the underwater village from this beach, and it’s not great for fishing, either.” She smirked, laughing before she explained, “Mostly people come here to get up to all sorts of trouble. Not so much at this time of day, though. C’mon.”
She kept walking, and after taking in a deep breath, Florian followed. At least walking downhill was easier, though he never quite caught up to Rune.
When the dirt path gave way to the rocks and sand of the beach, she dropped her rucksack behind her carelessly and walked straight into the water, turning to look back at Florian with a smug grin.
“Ready, King Florian?” she said, holding her arms up as she walked backwards, the surf steadily rising until she was in the water to her waist. Carefully, Florian set down his own belongings and took a tentative step closer, still not quite in the water.
“Ready,” he said, though he still only mostly felt trepidation.
The dark, almost-black purple of her eyes flared, covering her with a deep violet glow. Her shape grew rapidly, splitting into eight long limbs, becoming larger and larger even as she moved further back into the water. Florian could feel his eyes boggling and his mouth hanging open, as he watched her form change completely, until what looked like a giant octopus was floating in the water before him.
Her size was immense, and the dark water hid half of her. She turned to look at him with one huge eye, easily bigger than his entire head. Her body was an earthy red, clay-like color; but her eye was the same dark purple, shining like obsidian. She might as well have been a whale for how miniscule he felt looking at her.
Florian was so caught up in her sheer size that he didn’t notice her tentacles moving through the surf toward him until one was wrapping around his ankle. He yelped, leaping back on instinct,but another had already wrapped around his waist, lifting him into the air and bringing him closer to her massive face.
