“…Ugh.”
Xena sighed, turning around and glancing over her shoulder at the mirror. She’d… really hoped this swimsuit had been the one.
It was cute, sure, but… she didn’t feel like it really looked all that great on her. Frustratingly, it was just one in a long line of swimsuits she’d felt this way about just this summer alone… but, at least she was actually at the pool this time?
She could… just stay under the water. Or something.
Sigh.
The locker room was fairly cold, a nice respite from the hot summer afternoon outside. The air conditioner was humming so loud she could barely hear anything else… except…?
Sqrk!
Xena blinked.
The door to the locker room opened, and in waddled a little orange figure – a pooltoy otter, lifeguard goggles around their neck, giving an exaggerated “yawning” expression.
“Uh.”
The toy skidded to a stop, eyes wide as they blinked at the drakkai at the mirror, before tilting their head to the side slightly.
…They seemed familiar. Where did Xena know them from…?
Oh. The mascot! They’re… not a suit or something? Drift, right?
Ignoring the drakkai’s confusion, Drift wandered over, giving the swimsuit’s bikini bottom a poke, and then gesturing out, past the door to the pool. Why aren’t you swimming?
“Oh, I… I don’t like how I look in it,” Xena admitted, face flushing a little, embarrassed. “Sorry. Sounds silly, made it all the way to the pool and won’t swim.”
Drift looked thoughtful, tapping their chin for a second. They wiggle a paw in a “hang on” gesture, before producing a little notebook from inside their scarf, flipping through it surprisingly easily for someone with plastic paws. They keep glancing back up at Xena, almost reading her as the flipping slows, before nodding, once.
In a flash, a sticker has been pulled from the paper, and Drift smacks! it against the drakkai’s thigh with a loud sqrk of protesting plastic.
Bewildered, Xena glanced down at the sticker. It’s a small… white posed figure.
A mannequin?
Instantly, before her eyes, she began to stiffen – scales and skin smoothing out into off-white plastic.
“WAH.”
The drakkai stared in amazement as her feet and claws reshaped into rough imitations, smoothing away anything more than hints at shape and form – her new plastic thighs showing off the swimsuit perfectly, as the changes crept ever higher, arms and legs becoming jointed for posing.
Her bust neatly filled out the swimsuit’s bra, perky and flattering, as her snout began to feel stiff, freezing in place in an almost cocky grin…
…and, an instant later, the former drakkai was a vaguely draconic mannequin, dressed for the pool!
Drift did a little bow, stuffing their sticker book back into their scarf… and trying to tug the mannequin, hoping to move it to the waterpark’s gift shop.
Hm. A bit too heavy for me, I think.