Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rachel slipped out of her apartment, as quietly as she could, squeezing through the doorway with a slight grunt. It had been a few days since her change, and she was wearing an oversized the dress the labs had sent her. She was loathe to put it on at first, as well as the rest of the clothes she had been given, as she couldn't believe that she actually had to wear things that size now. But being stuck in her duplex because of lack of other clothes did not sit well with her, particularly when she couldn't get food...or bathe.

She had discovered shortly after her change, that she really couldn't fit well in her tub/shower anymore, and while it wasn't bad if she skipped a day once in a while, three or four days just didn't work. So now, she was trying to make her way to the lake, without anyone seeing her, hoping she could bathe there.

The whalegirl hurried through the village as quickly as her large body would carry her, cursing every second she was out in the open. She didn't want anyone to see her like this. She knew it would happen eventually and that Thom already had, but it was her goal to keep anyone else seeing her as long as possible.

Finally, she made it there, a bit out of breath, and scanned the lake for any activity. Not seeing anything, Rachel breathed a sigh of relief and set her towel on a rock near the water's edge, before slipping off her sandals. With another furtive glance revealing no one, Rachel quickly slipped off the dress and tossed it next to her towel, to reveal a bikini, which unfortunately didn't cover a great deal. She would have preferred a one-piece, of course, but her tail prevented any possibility of that. Finally, Rachel grabbed her shampoo bottle and hurried into the water, glad that she had the lake to herself for the time being.

Rachel had her eyes closed under the water, as she rinsed out the second shampooing of her hair, so it wasn't until she was done and lifted her head out of the water that she noticed the strange shape in the water not far from her. Was that white hair? And maybe a face?

She stood and stared nervously at it for a moment, wondering how someone had snuck up on her. Had they seen her before she got in? Were they seeing her now under the water?

"Hello?" Rachel asked the face, uncertainly.

The word hit her like a slap across the face and Rachel took a step back as if she had actually been struck. Before, she had always been told she was too skinny, even if she had never believed it. Now her worst fears had come true, and to rub it in, the first person she had seen since her change, aside from Thom, was calling her fatty, even before saying hello.

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked timidly, not sure how to deal with this new form of verbal torment. She didn't want to show how much his words had already affected her, but her voice had probably already exposed her. She had no idea that getting herself clean in the lake might be bothering him.

Tears sprung to the corners of Rachel's eyes at this purple man's harsh words and she took another step back, almost afraid. He was intimidating, obviously angry, and she wasn't sure what he would do. It didn't even occur to her that she was probably much larger than him.

"I- I'm sorry...." she said, her voice wavering as she searched for the words to defend herself. "I-I didn't know there was anyone here. I just...wanted to get clean. Since my change, I can't fit in my shower..." Rachel lowered her eyes in shame, even though she couldn't control what had happened to her.

"Well what am I supposed to do then?" Rachel asked defensibly, her voice rising in volume and pitch. "I can't help what they've done to me. I'm turning into a water animal too. You gonna start telling me I can't swim in here?"

The comment about being crippled after a change left Rachel worried, however. Would she become crippled too? There didn't seem to be much use for legs underwater, when you had fins and a tail...

Rachel, of course, was not happy about the shouting. But unless she left, and gave up defending her right to stay there, she figured it wasn't going to end anytime soon. And his comments about her weight were continuing to be brutal.

"Why are you picking on the way I look every other sentence?" Rachel asked, her voice angry and hurt, unable to hold back on that topic any longer. "They made me look like this! I don't have a choice in the matter! You want me to start making fun of how you look? I already said I was sorry for bothering you. What else do you want me to do? And who made you boss of the lake anyways? Seems that it should belong to everyone, and not just to you."

Rachel was sick of his accusations of "crappin'" and "pissin'" all over his lake. As something she had a bad habit of doing when she was frustrated or angry, Rachel threw something, which happened to be the shampoo bottle already in her hand. She sent it sailing for the water to the octopus' left side, but because of her poor aim, it was going to be a bit closer than she'd intended. Unless he moved, he would probably be grazed by the mostly full bottle.

"Nothing? Nothing?!?!" Rachel asked in irritation. "You think calling me those horrible names, and acting as if I caused you a personal offence, when I didn't mean to do anything wrong is nothing?"