Template:Featured Articles/49-2023
 Anatomically impossible or not, Sharon discovered Namor's wings had one unambiguously effective quality: speed. Falling she had been prepared for. She'd fallen many times, and from many things. This, she quickly discovered, was an entirely different experience than plunging into a lake at high speed while hanging from the waist of a stranger like a complaining fanny pack. Sharon let go. The ability to twist your own skin to get all four feet aligned with the ground had limited utility when there was no ground to land on. The end result was Sharon's first experience with both a large body of water and performing the feline equivalent of a belly flop. Illyana, on the other hand, wasn't going to take a chance with missing her own portal. Or worse, ending up falling from some height into the dust of Limbo because she wasn't focused enough. Water, at this point, was probably inevitable. "Will not yield," she finally replied. Her voice was resolute, and she hooked her legs and arms more securely around Namor. "Will take you down with me, Majesty." "Wrahhhh," Namor elegantly bellowed as the other two hit the water. If anyone was paying close attention, they might notice that his neck flexed to expose a set of gills that sighed with their own relieved breath of air. The water immediately moisturized his skin, whitened his teeth, and cleared Namor's cloudy disposition in an instant. There were, of course, other things going on. Illyana shrieked into Namor's ear just before they hit the water, clinging to him like a limpet as the water surrounded them. It was partially fear, since she couldn't swim at all, but that just meant she wasn't shy about digging fingers and nails into flesh as her hair floated out of the very loose ponytail she'd thrown it into. Sharon's head broke the surface of the lake, her yowl of outrage already fully loaded. "Wet!" Sharon shrieked, arms flailing as she speedran the process of discovering the mechanics of the dog paddle. "You have made me wet!" Her hindlegs got the memo and engaged, leaving her tail to thrash to and fro, arcing lakewater across the sky. Namor emerged, bright and refreshed, flipping his hair back behind him in a glorious, cinematic spray of water. "Wet," he concurred. "Wet," Illyana groused. "You okay, Sharon? That did not look like fun fall." Funny, and the only reason she hadn't ended up laughing was the speed at which she ended up in the water herself. Speaking of... she poked Namor in the abs. "Cannot swim, please take to shallow area," she requested politely. "Will get you back for this, one day." There was a burbling wrrrowllll from Sharon, who had managed to synchronize all four legs and was paddling for the shore as they spoke. She was using her tail as a rudder in a way that somehow managed to convey deep personal offense. Soaked and stinking with lake-water, Sharon crawled to shore and glared at Namor as he came stroking up behind her with Illyana in tow. "I am a cat," she said in the same accusing tones one might say 'you punched a baby'. Sharon started to shake, then did a double-take as she noticed the gill slits around Namor's neck. "You have branchiae also?" she squawked. "Avian and aquatic adaptations? That is it. Jail! Jail for illogical fish man! Jail for one thousand years!" Turns out it is remarkably easy to beat a cat to shore when one has wings. Illyana was deposited extremely gently on the shore, having been fished out of the water quickly upon her request. Those illogical, fluttering wings continued beating in soft, rhythmic mockery as the fish man landed nimbly near Sharon. "We were in suspended animation in near five thousand of your years, Cat." Namor, completely nonplused by any of Sharon's accusations, ran a hand through his hair to shake off any water. "No human jail would be able to hold me." |
