Diving Under The Influence 2

"Nyaa! Nyaa nyaa nyaa!"

Aarie's energy was limitless. She burst through the ocean with the force of a rocket, nyaaing with every gurgle from her reg. Her fins were a blur as she blew apart schools of fish, who watched on dumbfounded. As poor as their knowledge of the creatures that lived above ground was, they were pretty sure that they never acted like this.

Aarie stopped suddenly, frozen in place in front of a single fish. She started to wave a hand in a greeting motion towards it, leaving the poor thing even more confused. Pulling out her reg for a second, Aarie introduced herself as best she could.

"Hi, nyaa! I'm Aarie!"

Replacing the reg, she outstreched her hand as if expecting a handshake in return. The fish looked at the hand for a moment, then - after making sure it wasn't trying to grab it - darted off into the distance. Aarie watched him disappear, frowning.

"Nyaa..."

Apparently the fish didn't want to be her friend. What had she done so wrong to it?

Well, I guess I must have eaten someone he knew somewhere down the line...

Swimming away hastily, Aarie looked for another fish to befriend. Seeing one separated from its school, she swam up to it and waved again. The fish stared at her blankly, and for a moment Aarie wasn't exactly sure what it was trying to do.

Oh...I get it, he wants a staring contest!

Nodding to show she had accepted the challenge, Aarie looked straight into the fish's eyes. It continued to look on, unfazed by Aarie's challenge, and there was a tense atmosphere between the two. It took a minute for the slippery customer to outdo Aarie.

"Mmm...mmm...nyaaa..."

She lost outright, her opponent not even fazed in the slightest. Impressed she put out her hand for a congratulatory handshake, but once again her intended partner swam away uninterested. Why were these fish so uninterested in handshakes, anyway?

Maybe I should find something else to do...

Her eyes darted about the seafloor, looking for something fun, but besides the fish there really wasn't much to see around here-

"Nyaa?"

She caught it in the corner of her eye - a small green ball sinking from above. This alone was enough to catch her interest, and she dashed towards it ready to grab it. Only when she was inches away did she stop - so she could look with awe at the most wonderful plaything she could have possibly found. It was a ball of yarn, presumably dropped by some cruiser that had passed, but Aarie didn't care about the details. She didn't even care about the schools of fish that were passing by her, begging to be eaten. Right now, Aarie's inner cat was screaming for some exercise, and it wasn't taking no for an answer.

"NYAAAAAAAAA!"

Pouncing on the ball, Aarie quickly grabbed it and dove down to the floor, dropping it in place. Raising one hand, she poked the ball to the side, leaving what would be the start of a trail of yarn. She giggled childishly, doing it again and again, battering the poor defenseless ball around in an environment it didn't recognise. The ball grew smaller and smaller with each roll, and eventually it dimished into nothing more than a long green thread - but not long before Aarie had had her fun.

Looking at her own work - a trail of green, strewn some distance across the ground - Aarie was disappointed. She hadn't expected the ball to be that small - she was hoping for a little more fun out of it. Guess it was time to move onto something else-

"B-blub?!"

Nyaa? Who's that?

Reacting to a gurgle she heard in the distance, Aarie quickly rose and burst to the source of the sound. It seemed like it was moving towards her, in some soft of zig-zag pattern at least. Finally she found the cause of the gurgling - it was Flora, though not in her usual state.

The first obvious sign of change was the bashful, slightly idiotic expression on her face. Then there was the blushing under her cheeks, and the semi-closed eyes. The eyes were slightly more obvious now, since she wasn't wearing her mask - it was hanging in her left hand, shattered from impact.

Not that any of this reached Aarie, anyway. For some reason her mind wasn't working slowly enough to comprehend silly things like that right now, and she just saw Flora as she usually was.

"Nyaa! Nyaa nyaa!"

She waved cheerfully at Flora, hoping that this time she'd finally get a favourable response from someone. Flora looked at the hand, giggled, and repaid in kind. Another detail Aarie missed was the look in Flora's eyes - cheerful, but with something hidden behind that.

Flora tried to swim towards her friend after that, but for reasons she wouldn't have been able to explain herself her path was slanted ever so slightly to the right. Or at least, that was what she thought at the time - any bystander would replace 'ever so slightly' with 'in a totally different direction' and 'to the right' with 'straight into a rock'.

"B-blub?!"

She smacked her forehead into the rock, causing her to recoil and rub her head in pain. Aarie was puzzled - was this some new game that Flora had invented or something? Maybe she should give it a shot.

Sure enough, Aarie didn't disappoint, colliding forcefully with the stone surface. Her mask came apart with ease, and the sea water stung her eyes for a moment or two before she re-accustomed to it. Looking at what was left of her own equipment, she checked the condition of Flora's mask by quickly grabbing it from the hand that wasn't being used to rub her forehead. Sure enough, Aarie's was worse off, which probably made her the winner of the game. She smiled to herself, giving her hand out for another friendly shake. She was a good sport, after all.

Flora looked down at Aarie's gesture and tried to match it, but her hand swung a few inches under Aarie's. Clearly her hand-eye co-ordination wasn't up to scratch right now, so Aarie made it easier for her by coming closer. After a few minutes Aarie noticed that Flora wasn't looking at the hand anymore - she was looking Aarie straight in the eyes, with an expression she wasn't able to quantify at that point in time. There was a longing in those eyes, a desire, but it went unnoticed by Aarie.

It was easier for her to notice the arms wrapping around her, holding her longingly.

"Nyaa?"

Flora had engulfed Aarie in a tender hug, running her hands down Aarie's back. If she were fully aware of herself right now this'd be enough to raise panic bells, and the blushing in Flora's face and her frenzied breathing would confirm for sure that this was more than a friendly hug. But unsurprisingly this wasn't the case, and Aarie returned the favour in a more friendly (if energetic) manner.

Flora's hands continued to work their way down Aarie's back, tracing the edge of her tank and finally stopping barely above the bottom of her bikini. One hand stayed there, Aarie still unable to understand exactly what was going on, while Flora pulled the other one in front of her face. Taking a deep breath, she pulled out her reg and threw it to the side, looking Aarie dead-on. The nervous expression in her eyes showed that there was something she wanted to do, but she was struggling to find the will to do it.

Ooh, another game! Is it a breathholding contest?

Eager to join in, Aarie sucked in all the air she could and discarded her reg in a similar fashion. She kept one hand around Flora's waist, staring with a proud determination. Flora's hand started to work its way up Aarie's back again, running up until eventually it reached her neck. She was pulling her face closer to Aarie's, probably in an attempt to psych her out. Aarie, unfazed, copied her friend's odd behaviour, until their foreheads were nearly touching.

Then, finally, Flora bit the bullet and pulled Aarie in with both hands, engaging in a full lip-lock.

"Mmph?!?!"

For a moment Aarie flailed against Flora's advance, the last shards of rational thought in her system crying out in defiance. Slowly, though, she stopped attempting to escape and accepted the embrace, holding onto Flora in a similar manner. She'd felt Flora breathing her air into her own lungs - her way of saying 'I can give you some of my air and still win'. Refusing to surrender Aarie kept the kiss going, blowing the air back to Flora.

Their clutches on each other grew tighter, and it turned into a contest of who could keep the kiss going the longest. Aarie was doing it solely to win, not considering what exactly this looked like to passers-by, while Flora was clearly drawing her own personal pleasure from the experience, letting off a quiet moan.

The end of the contest came suddenly, as both girls pulled away at once to take breaths from their tanks. They'd shared that air for at least a minute, and from the looks in their eyes round 2 was on the cards.

Unfortunately, a minute is a long time to leave a tank spewing bubbles, and the pair recoiled in unison as they found themselves trying to suck air out of empty tanks.

"M-mmh, mmh!"

Aarie clutched at her chest, feeling her lungs cry out for attention. Flora simply let her expression do the talking, afraid as the bubbles started to burst out of her mouth. They were nowhere near the surface, and neither of them could hold off inhaling for more than ten seconds in this state. They were going to die down here.

As they managed to realise this, they looked each other in the eyes once again, this time with fear and horror. They nodded in unison and grabbed each other again, gurgling away the last of their oxygen in each other's arms. Maybe they'd find their bodies together like this, holding onto each other for dear life as the water crashed into their lungs, eventually stopping the tender embrace flat-

"Mmh, gluuub- nyaa?"

Something was in her mouth. There was air in it. That was enough for her not to care, and she started gasping for breath as best she could. Whoever'd given her that was quickly doing the same to Flora, so apparently all of Aarie's fantasies of her own death were totally unnecessary.

"Wow, I didn't expect you guys to cut it so close! I mean, if it hadn't been for me, you'd be done for!"

A voice that rang a bell somewhere in the back of Aarie's head. Looking to the person who'd saved her, she tried to match a name to the face - pink hair, red eyes, pointy things sticking out behind her ears, suddenly made Aarie incredibly hungry-

Momo?

Yeah, that was it. For some reason Aarie's mind felt sharper and sharper with every breath. It was more than recovering from oxygen deprivation - it was like this air was somehow different from what she'd been breathing before.

Flora was clearly experiencing the same thing, and was the first to point out Momo's tail. The mermaid shrugged.

"Uh, I guess I thought the hissing from the tank would get me spotted by one of you two, and I didn't want to interrupt when you guys were...y'know."

Momo started to realise that the cats probably hadn't been aware of what they'd been doing. She gave them a moment to observe themselves and the pose they were in.

That was enough time for the pair of them to break off and gurgle out in unison.

"NYAAAAAAAAAAAA?!"

---

"Ow, ow, ow! Uncle! Uncle!"

Aarie was in the middle of giving Momo the longest noogie in recorded history while Flora directed the boat back to shore. They'd heard the full story from Momo herself - about how their supplies had been spiked, their reactions to the catnip, why they'd been hugging when she turned up with the rebreathers - and needless to say they weren't best pleased.

"Owwie, owwie, owwie! I-It was just a test, that's all! I didn't expect you two to react so strongly to it!"

That wasn't what Aarie wanted to hear, and she ever-so-slightly upped the intensity of the noogie. Technically she was helping her out with her research right now, since this was undoubtedly the first time Momo'd ever experienced it. Better than reading about it in a book, right?

Flora was silent, looking away with a blazing blush on her face. What she'd done down there was inexcusable on every level - not only had she kissed a girl, but she'd enjoyed it. True, she wasn't in control of herself at the time, but she could still feel Aarie's lips pressing against her own, and it scared her that it wasn't a feeling that totally disgusted her. Did she really have that kind of interest in...?

"Alright, one thing I want to say before we reach shore."

Aarie knocked Flora out of her panicking as she let Momo recover from her ordeal. The 'human' girl rubbed her head gently, pouting.

"For all intents and purposes, this trip never happened. Anyone asks, it was alright but nothing out of the ordinary. Any objections?"

Flora did nothing. If Aarie was willing to forget about this, then so was she. Momo semi-lifted her hand in an attempt to object, but a fist floating above her head was enough to convince her to keep quiet. A mischievous grin appeared on Aarie's face.

"Okay, then. Calling a vote for throwing Momo overboard as punishment."

Two hands went up almost instantly (no points for guessing whose). Momo, caught by surprise, couldn't stop Aarie sweeping her up and carrying her to the edge of the boat.

"2 votes for, 1 against. Guess someone's swimming back to sho~ore!"

With a mighty throw, Aarie heaved Momo into the sea beneath them, leaving a stream of bubbles where she landed. It was a few hundred metres to the shore from here - enough work for Momo to think about what she'd done here, hopefully. For a brief period at least, Aarie was alone with Flora. There was a nervous silence which took everything Flora had to break.

"U-um, I n-need to apologise for what I did to you down there. It was unfair and demeaning and-"

"Don't worry about it."

Flora jolted up, caught totally by surprise by this answer. She'd been expecting a grunt or a muffled 'Sure, fine', but not something so honest. Aarie smiled, looking out to the rapidly-approaching land.

"Remember, today's been okay but nothing out of the ordinary, right?"