It was time for Rhinestone to try swimming once again. He had been avoiding the activity, ever since he had taken up his current new form. He wasn't sure how the water would interacted with his eyes and the condition that they were in, and he didn't want to risk something going horribly wrong so soon after his return. Unfortunately, one of Rhine's strongest skills was his ability to hunt underwater prey. He had always prided himself on it, and he didn't want to give it up, especially since things seemed to be warming a little as of late. He wanted to catch as much aquatic prey as he could before any of the water potentially froze over again, or huge ice chunks emerged to get in his way. So, after a little while of hyping himself up, the serval had slipped out of camp and headed towards the ocean. For once, the male found himself hesitating at the shoreline, black eyes focused downwards at where the water lapped gently at the sand. Despite his hesitation, he continued his trudge forward.

Slowly, the blue flank of Rhinestone disappeared down beneath the water, his muscles moving as naturally as before as he swam through the water effortlessly. It took him a moment to find his coordination again, not used to his limbs being so long, but once he got used to it, he found a grin coming to his face. After a long moment of thought, the leader eventually dipped his head down into the water, a silent breath of relief leaving him when he found that he wasn't struck with immediate pain. The water stung his eyes, as usual, but he could deal with that. At least, long enough to catch something decent. So, he continued his slow strokes through the water, until eventually he spotted a rather large looking fish down below. Holding in his delighted gasp, Rhinestone dived down after it, claws outstretched and ready. What Rhine didn't know, though, was that he had just made a rather fatal mistake. Because, as he dove down deeper and deeper, the pressure began to build against his eyes, until there was a flash of intense and agonizing pain.

He still kept his vision, but the sudden sharp flare of agony caused him to shout, air rushing from his lungs as his body involuntarily twitched. Almost instantly, his lungs began to burn, and he found himself flailing to get upwards and away from the pain. He could feel his body growing weaker, however, and he found himself beginning to panic, thinking that he was about to drown. His limbs were growing heavier, and it seemed as though the top of the sea was growing farther and farther away. In a fit of hopelessness, the leader let out another shout, only to startle himself. Suddenly, there was a thrum of power throughout his body, and it was as if a massive force had slammed against the water below. His thin body was rocketed upwards, and he was flung from the water, his long limbs flailing in all directions until he fell into the sand of the shore.

As relieved gasps of air left the feline, he seemed totally unaware of what was going on around him. Soaking wet and breathing heavily, Rhine had wind whipping and howling around him, so strong that it was almost enough to knock anyone who approached away from him. He was in such a state of shock that he didn't even notice it, unable to make it stop fully just yet.

( tl;dr: rhine went to hunt fish for the first time in his new body and felt a bunch of pain in his eyes when he went down too deep, causing him to shout and lose a lot of air and almost drown. he used his newly discovered air elementals to launch himself from the water and landed on the shore where he's now catching his breath with the wind howling around him )

For a long moment, Rhinestone was unable to truly process what was going on around him. The wind howling was not only incredibly loud around him, but it seemed to echo throughout his mind as a whole. His body was numb and hard to make respond, occasionally racked with coughs as he caught his breath, Air rushing into his lungs more forcefully than he had been expecting. When the rushing twister around him seemed to finally calm slightly, he heard Dovah's frantic call, causing his black eyes to instantly open in concern. His chest was still burning from his near drowning, but he was already stumbling to his paws, looking around until he spotted Dovah, pressed against the ground and looking very unhappy. Confused, the leader took a step forward, his powers seeming to respond as he finally regained control of his own faculties. Gradually, the winds around both he and Dovah calmed, moving from a howl to only a whisper, before finally dying down entirely. As soon as he felt his pelt settle back down, the serval realized that the strange and all consuming feeling had been the wind.

For a moment, Rhinestonestar just struggled to understand what had happened, until he realized that Dovah was still trembling before him. Taking a few more steps forward, the dark eyed male reached out, lightly pressing his paw to Dovah's shoulder before he spoke, "We... we're not having a hurricane. Everything's alright. That wind is gone, I promise." However, Rhine found himself glancing uneasily at his own paws, wondering how exactly he had conjured up such a rush. Suddenly feeling a wave of fatigue pass over him, the serval fell back into a seated position, briefly closing his eyes before he spoke up again, "I'm not exactly sure, but... I think I may have caused that. The wind... one second I was in the water, and something was wrong, and I was struggling, and then the next second... I was out here, on the shore. I didn't even realize what was going on around me, not until you showed up." He supposed that perhaps this was like what Vaas and Medusa had both gone through. Still, that didn't serve to settle him at all, considering it didn't seem as though he really controlled it yet.

Exhaustion still gripped Rhinestone as Foamkit grew close, his breathing heavy and slow as he tried to regain some of his former strength. The sound of the child's coughing was ringing in his ears, making him wish that he had earth elementals just so that the ground would open and swallow him up. He never wanted to cause Foam pain, and although the kit hadn't suffered because the serval had intentionally caused the winds, he still felt bad. Even worse, he didn't feel as though he could grow close and reassure the other. It was clear that Foamkit still didn't trust him, from the way the boy shirked away from being close, instead choosing to press into Dovah. It wasn't like Rhine couldn't understand why Foam didn't trust him yet. After all, the other had seen him dead. He had seen his body, and had been wracked by sickness even as he had been thrown into a state of grief. It was natural that his mind would've been racing, and also natural that he wouldn't have trusted the mysterious stranger returning to his leadership. However, knowing the reasoning behind it didn't make Foamkit's actions hurt any less, even if Rhinestone would never dare lash out at the kit for them.

It took another couple of seconds before Rhine was finally able to speak properly again, his lungs seeming to recover a bit as he took a deep gasp inwards. He considered trying to use his newfound powers to recover faster, but he didn't want to screw it up somehow. He didn't have full control yet, and it would've been horrible if he pulled all the air from his own lungs while trying to stabilize them. Shuddering at the thought, the feline nodded slowly before he spoke, his voice understandably rough, "Y... Yeah. Bad wind gone, Foam... I don't know what caused that. Well... I do, but I'm not sure why the wind was still whipping around once I was out of the water. I wasn't trying to make it do that..." He drifted off with a wary look in his pitch black eyes, lifting one of his paws to stare down at it in wonder. It seemed as though he would need to take some time to perfect this new power, once he had a chance to do so away from others. He didn't want anybody else getting injured from him trying to conquer his elementals, after all.