capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

WHO: astral! feferi! shinji and kanaya and any other of their friends who might want to tag along! and YOU, if you happen to be at the pool at the time!
WHERE: the pool at xavier's
WHEN: not 3:30 a.m., that's for sure. let's say backdated to saturday afternoon since that seems like a reasonable meeting time
WARNINGS: very silly
SUMMARY: feferi attempts to teach a human astral how to swim, emphasis on attempts
FORMAT: i'm assuming quick, fuck if i know how to start a log

[there's a lot about this set-up that feferi doesn't like, but the alternative was lessons in the open ocean, which astral had insisted against for some reason. it's not like she have would let him drown.

but that is how it goes and now feferi's stuck in a glorified box that's too narrow, too shallow, and too chemical, with an ugly, cumbersome filter clamped to her gills, mostly submerged and fully cross (already). any comfort she might have felt at being allowed her natural form again--and around friends for once--is tempered by the repellent feeling of the chlorine against her skin, and she suddenly feels glad to have held onto her goggles all this time.

she sinks down into the water up to her ear fins and blows bubbles as sullenly as one can do so. the sooner they all get on with this, the better.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ they got kanaya to come to the pool, but that doesn't mean she intends to swim. she had at least changed into a bathing suit, but for the most part she had a chair by the window, where she was trying to get some sketches done on her ipad. prom season means busy season for a seamstress like her, and she didn't want to lose a chance to get some work done.

it's a shame they had to hold this indoors, she's not getting as much sun as she'd like here. she does still glance at the pool every now and then, just in case. swimming lessons would be lousy if someone ended up drowning. ]

[oh hey boss here's your assistant leaning over your shoulder and watching the ipad.]

Can't you put off work for one day?

[Says the hypocrite who brought his own computer.]

[ she turns a bit to look him in the eye, her brow raised with a frown. ]

That's a joke, right? [ does she notice the hypocrisy? not at all. she just can't fathom that he wouldn't know better than to think she could ever answer that with a yes. ]

Not this time. [He sits back up, walking in front of her.] We're here to help Astral learn how to swim, remember?

[ she shifts in her seat to more comfortable face him, crossing one leg over the other to rest her tablet against. ]

Feferi is here to teach him. My purpose is more to provide moral support, and perhaps supervision.

The most I could teach him about swimming, really, is how to sink gracefully.

[Shinji raises an eyebrow.] Wait, you don't know how to swim either?

[He gives her a judgmental look for a second before easing off.]

Is it a vampire thing?

[ she just shrugs. ]

I don't know. It's more of a me thing. I suppose swimming is an activity I could perform if I really had to, but my approach isn't as easily emulated by most.

Your approach? [He smirks.] Does that mean you would have to be swimming fashionably?

I mean that I don't bother coming up for air.

Ah, right. [Was he accidentally undead insensitive there? Oh well.] That's not really swimming then, yeah.

[He sits near her, reaching down into the pool and running his hand through the water.]

Pretty much everyone learns to swim where I'm from, so I'm always a little surprised when people say they don't know how.

[ she adjusts her position again to follow him, now more comfortably suitable in her pool chair. ]

Was there that much water on your world? I had something of a dearth in my younger years, so there was never any need to learn.

[He sits back, looking up at the ceiling.]

More than on this world, yeah. I guess everyone decided teaching swimming in every school was a good idea After a few million people die in a worldwide flood.

[ oh. ]

Yeah, that...would probably be prudent. Given the situation. [ she doesn't think knowing how to swim would really have saved many of those people, but actually saying that would be a bit insensitive. ]

[He shrugs.] Maybe. I've heard in the old days they used to tell kids to get under desks for nuclear attacks. That's probably about as effective.

[No one can be more insensitive to himself than Shinji.]

[ she frowns, leaning back in her chair. ]

Ever so slightly less, I would imagine.