Completed Out for a swim

[Cleon]

55th of Spring, 522 A.V.

It was early morning, the sun was out and the jungle was steaming, a slight fog forming around its underbelly as Cleon walked up the path the the community pool. Carrying a surf board he borrowed from the shop under one arm, he intended to get some practice in before it starting raining or got too hot out. Not that it would much matter once he was in the cool waters of the pool, but he’d rather not bake in the sun if he could help it. Besides, it tended to be empty around this bell as the pool was colder the younger in the day it was. Occasionally he had run into Julie or Indigo, but this morning he had the water to himself as he slid the board out onto the water, allowing it to drift a short ways before stopping it.

Climbing halfway onto the board so his upper half held on while his lower half kept himself afloat by kicking, he steered himself gradually into the deeper waters of the pool as he tried to remember all he’d been taught. Getting onto the board the first time was always the part he most struggled with as he got reacquainted with his balance, and tried his best not to get flipped off.

Holding onto the board tightly, he pushed himself up, holding that position for several moments as the board dipped this way and that. When he got a good sense for how it was moving, he pulled himself up the rest of the way stomach first only to flip over the opposite side when most of his body was out of the water. Surprised and turned around, he thrashed about several moments till he broke the surface of the pool sputtering, flopping his way to the edge where he quickly caught his breath.

Although this was not his first attempt, it certainly felt that way trying to swim back to the edge of the pool as he felt the opposite of graceful in the water. He still hadn’t quite gotten his head wrapped around coordinating his arms and legs together so half the time he was working against himself trying to get out of the pool. It was just lucky that his efforts didn’t cancel each other out.

Looking across the water at the drifting surf board, he tried moving his arms and legs with each other as he pushed off from the edge into the deeper water of the pool. At first it seemed to be going very well. Sweeping his arms out to the sides in a maneuver that he’d seen Randal do, he managed to get reasonably far before he started kicking with his legs. However, what he was doing with his legs didn’t help nearly as much, and really just seemed to make a lot of noise as his arms were behind all of the momentum. Before he quite got to the board, he tried changing it up with his leg movement.

WC - 500

[Cleon]

Instead of just blithely kicking away, using the flat of his foot he worked on pushing off the water behind him as he kicked backwards, continuing his breast stroke until finally he reached the surfboard. By that point Cleon needed to catch his breath, and propping himself onto the board with his arms crossed, he took a moment to relax as the bracing chill of the water slowly caught up to him. He would have to keep moving if he didn’t want to start shivering, but he still didn’t feel that confident about his ability to balance.

Taking in a deep breath and setting his hands down flat on the board he slowly pushed himself up with his elbows extended, then swung his leg over the end of the board. It rocked ominously to the right side so he shifted his weight left. The board responded almost too quickly by shifting with him, catching him briefly off guards as he leaned forward so he was lying flat across the board. Finally after a little bit of rocking, the board stabilized underneath him and he could finally breath a sigh of relief.

Grasping the edges, he chuckled a little at himself as he slowly pushed himself to a seated position, wobbling for a second till he felt like the board wasn’t going to jump out from under him. He took a moment to admire his accomplishment before he remembered that this was probably the most basic part of this. Actually he should have probably remained lying on top of the board so that he could practice paddling, but he was sitting now so he might as well try standing up.

With a sigh he placed his hands flat on the board and gently pulled up his legs, shifting his weight appropriately as the board rocked under him. Then when he had gotten his feet up onto the board, he slowly extended his arms till he was in a crouch. The tip of the board swung towards the edge of the pool, and panicking Cleon tried to push off the edge before the got too close. In his effort, he ended up shifting his weight too much in the wrong direction and toppled off the edge of the board.

This time when he tried to come up out of the water, the top of his head banged against something solid sending wave after wave of shooting pain through him in a rush of bubbles as he was startled into letting go of the breath he had been holding in. Grasping his throat with one hand, he tried to swim up to the surface with the other but couldn’t get the proper traction as the pain in his chest became intense. The world started to darken on the edges of his vision as Cleon watched the outline of his board drift away. It felt like he was sinking to the bottom of the pool. Cleon felt a wave of fear wash over him.


WC - 500

[Cleon]

There was a distant splashing noise that sounded muted underwater and suddenly there was something pulling him up to the surface. No, not something. Someone. As they broke into the sweat fresh air of the morning, Cleon coughed and sputtered as they dragged up over the edge of the pool, then pulled him out before rolling him over on his sides. He coughed up what he felt like had been half of the pool, then kept on coughing till his throat felt raw and his vision blurred while the person beat on his back.

Finally when he felt like he could take in a breath without coughing, he squeezed his eyes shut as he rolled onto his back. Taking in several deep breaths, he stayed that way until he regained a semblance of normal feeling back into his limbs. Then he flickered his eyes open to see Indigo crouched over him, looking very serious. When it quickly became clear that he was not going to expire anytime soon, she backed away from him, standing up as she checked her clothing.

Clumsily Cleon pushed himself up onto his feet, although Indigo had to catch him when he started to wobble.

“Sorry..” Cleon slurred, blinking several times as he adjusted to being suddenly upright.

Indigo tsked at him, patting him on the back. “You should be more careful with that board, you could have drowned if I hadn’t heard you thrashing about. I thought some animal had gotten itself stranded in the pool at first.” Indigo said curtly, allowing him to lean against her for a moment until he managed to take a few steps on his own. Then she was hasty about putting some distance between them, and resuming her check of her personal possessions.

Still processing what just happened he watched as she hopped into the pool after a couple of loose arrows, gathering them up before coming back out to shake them dry.

“Yeah, I should be more careful. Sorry, won’t happen again.” Cleon offered, shaking his head as he walked over to sit on the edge of the pool. Indigo remained rooted where she was a few feet away, and once she was done with things getting everything situated on her person, he could feel her looking at him. He tried dodging the stare by looking deeply into the water, but he still felt a bit of nervous energy having the woman there looming over him.

“Next time you should bring a partner till you know how to swim.” Indigo said calmly.

“I know how to swim.. Kinda.” Cleon protested, not looking up.

“You call that swimming, I call that drowning.” Indigo chided.

“You weren’t there earlier, if I hadn’t hit my head on the board I would have been fine.” Cleon said, feeling the top of his head as the thought came to him. The spot was tender, and he winced at the touch. “See!”

Cleon let himself fall forwards into the water, and for a moment it felt like he was going to sink to the bottom again.

WC - 512

[Cleon]

Instead he started kicking up, off the curved edge and pulling in the water around himself with his hands before a moment later he resurfaced sputtering at the cold, but feeling a lot better. When he looked up to where Indigo had been, he was mildly surprised to find that she was no longer standing there but was beside him in the pool.

“You followed me in?” Cleon asked, belatedly noticing that she had dumped her things in a pile near the edge. Indigo slowly nodded, keeping herself easily afloat in the deeper water with slow, sure strokes with her arms and legs.

“Had to make sure you didn’t almost drown again. Randal wouldn’t be too pleased if I let that happen.” Indigo offered, and Cleon decided to let it go at that. Paddling against the water, he crept his way over to where the board was a few feet away, making it there almost before he needed to catch his breath again. Of course, she followed him easily, gliding along the water almost like she was born to it with smooth short strokes that almost reminded him of a fish, but that wasn’t quite the right comparison. There was something more graceful about her movement, but that could just be him reading more into it than there was with him thinking with his smaller head.

Then she started treading water not far from him, watching carefully with a straight face although he felt there was a hint of amusement behind that expression. Shaking his head, he tried pushing up onto the board and almost got up there on his own but Indigo helped him along the last little bit. When he was securely laying flat across the board, he turned on his side to look at where Indigo was treading water.

“I could have done it on my own.” Cleon protested.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.” Indigo snickered.

“Do you think you could do better?” Cleon asked.

Indigo shrugged, and blowing out a frustrated sigh, Cleon slipped off the board before guiding it towards her.

“Go ahead then.” Cleon said, slightly smirking as he watched her look the board up and down.

After a moment she pushed herself up onto the board, and for a moment he thought she was going to fall off right away like he had earlier, but she adjusted her balance to slide over the top without issue. Then laying across the board she started paddling with her hands, getting a little momentum going before she hopped to her feet in one fluid motion. Cleon’s jaw dropped slightly as he squinted at Indigo. She was clearly riding the board while standing on it, alternating where she put her weight as it wobbled forward till it got close to the edge of the pool and she hopped off.

Turning around, she gave him a mock bow and Cleon slapped at the water.

“You could have told me you’ve done this before.” Cleon sneered as tried to keep afloat.

WC - 502

[Cleon]

Indigo shrugged, and then moved to sit on the edge of the pool. “You didn’t ask.” She said simply.

Paddling over to the board, he eventually caught up to it and grasping it managed to get it under his control within a few ticks so that he was slowly just paddling across the pool with his feet. Giving her a long look he shook his head as he tried once more to push himself up onto the board.

“Why do you swim like that?” Indigo asked.

“Like what?” Cleon groaned.

“Like a deer drowning.”

Gritting his teeth Cleon sprawled across the board, holding the edges tightly as he adjusted his bodyweight to be balanced across it.

“That was rude.” Cleon said.

“Is the truth rude now?” Indigo asked.

Cleon shook his head, then waved at her dismissively. “Go away.”

“Okay.” Indigo shrugged, standing up on the edge of the pool and started walking off. However before she was out of earshot she called out, “try using your whole body when you swim, not just your arms and legs. Oh, and don’t drown.” She said, her voice fading as she walked out of view further and further away. Cleon rubbed the tender spot at the back of his head as he tried standing up again on the board, pushing himself up till he was straddling the board in a hunched crouch.

When it didn’t immediately try to jump out from under him, he adjusted so that he was standing straighter and straighter on top of the board till finally he was actually doing it. Cleon grinned, straightening up his back a bit and slid his foot back. It slipped out from under him, along with the board sending him flopping down into the water on his back. Fortunately the pool was deep enough in this part that he didn’t suffer another knock on the head, and he managed to orient himself towards the surface before swimming up this time.

Now that he knew to look for it, he guided the board away from where he was about to surface, and took a moment to take in several deep breaths as he used his feet and legs to keep above water while he balanced outward with his arms and hands. As he had just seen Indigo do it while treading water, he was surprised at how effective it was at keeping him afloat, so much so that he even dared to lean backwards a bit as he floating along the pool, recovering his energy. Perhaps he should cut his losses and call it day. He’s managed to accomplish quite a bit, and avoid drowning thanks to Indigo. Also, thanks to that knock he received earlier his head was starting to hurt something fierce so a lie down might be in the cards or maybe even a visit to the Panacea to make sure everything was alright. Yeah, perhaps he would stop there first just in case.

With that in mind he swam to the edge of the pool with the board in tow, and decided he would give the pool another try someday soon.


WC - 522

[Cleon]

Grade Award!

Cleon:

Endurance: 1
Observation: 5
Surfing: 3
Swimming: 4


Lore:

Surfing: Moving from siting to standing
Swimming: Thrashing about is wasteful and slow
Swimming: Kicking out with legs together
Surfing: Crouching on a surfboard
Surfing: Hitting head on surfboard
Indigo: Appearance & Mannerisms
Indigo: Saved Cleon from drowning
Swimming: Floating on one’s back

Feel free to pm me with questions or concerns about your grade, and don’t forget to edit your grade request!