Love Poison No Cure Needed

Swimming's hard 3.3

Sorrel slid carefully into the pool while he muttered, “Yep, that’s cold.”

*Your expression is still a bit flat. So keep trying.* Sephy commented as she cruised by. She was at least now proficient at swimming now as she paddled slow circles around Sorrel while occasionally duck diving into the water to keep up the behaviour to match her appearance.

“I didn’t expect this to be that hard. Also what are you ducking for? There is nothing to eat in here.” Sorrel responded as he sank to his shoulder next to the wall. He never expected that all the normal aspects of humans became so much more complicated the moment water was involved.

“I’d thought I’d covered everything I needed to match the human look before. Just as well this never came up or the elders never would have let me out.” Sorrel continued before he took a breath and dunked his head under water. He focused his concentration on simultaneously stopping his hair from its attempts to spread out to enjoy the water and on blowing a steady stream of bubbles before he stood back up.

*Don’t forget to wipe the water out of your eyes. Or maybe by goggles.* Sephy noted as she paddled back past. Sorrel belated realised that what in the eyes would cause a reflex like surprise or bright sunlight. Ugh, he recalled the horrible struggles he’d gone through when Nonna Yew had been supervising his human appearance training.

‘You need to blink at least 15times in a minute.’ ‘ The human eye is fragile, the eyelid its protection and cleaner, the cleaner and shield need to always be on.’ ‘You can stare but don’t do it too much because your eyes don’t develop dryness or redness like a humans.’

Sorrel thought about it afterwards and wondered how Nonna Yew even knew about human blinking habits. He didn’t think it was a result of casual study. However, he wisely decided not to pursue that avenue of enquiry; he had the feeling that the answer would concern him; or at least place him in one of those morally grey areas that the Griffin that covered human laws with him had spoken about.

It had been an interesting thing learning the laws of the human realm from an Aeronian Realmskin but Sorrel supposed it was a matter of foreign traders needing to know the laws for where they trade. Still he wished there’d been some consideration of the effect water had on humans. Who would have known it could have so many reactions. This degree of complicated had definitely not come up when they’d discussed human’s reaction to rain.

Sorrel shook off his wander thoughts and focused. He needed to get this, he was basically ignoring his friends to do this study so it needed to be serious. He supposed he could have told them what he was doing but he was a bit embarrassed that it was proving to be such a chore. Not to mention he didn’t want them being bored if they came to help him, which he was sure at least Kayad would. Finally, he was a bit worried that they would change how they acted at the amusement park on account of knowing his issues with swimming. So it was best if he could just get this worked out.

As he tucked his legs up and speared his hands out in front of him Sorrel pushed strongly from the wall and started to glide through the water. Reminding himself to blow bubbles. Kick. Windmill his harms one after the other. Bend them at the elbow. When he ran out of air to blow bubbles, turn the head to one side under an arm and take a breath. Then repeat all the way to the other side of the pool.

The coordination needed to swim freestyle was more challenging that some of the other strokes Uncle Christian had talked about but it had the unique advantage of being the stroke that kept his hair from fully submerging in the water.

Sorrel had tried a swimming cap to hold his hair in place but the confinement was denied by way of spikes tearing the offending rubber before it had even fully settled on his head. No matter what he tried he couldn’t prevent that and so he was left with manual control while swimming.

Having swam two laps of freestyle Sorrel stopped for a break and drank a mouthful of fresh water from the bottle he had placed on the side of the pool.

*That looked good, though you should remember to take a deeper breath when you stop since the effort of holding their breath again and again for humans changes their breathing pattern.* Sephy remarked as she paddled by.

“What did you take notes over what Uncle Christian had said? Also that does not look like a duck seeming anymore.” Sorrel rolled his eyes. He liked that type of expression from humans it had so many nuanced meanings. Still Sorrel had to admit that the black swan appearance with silver tipped wings was very pretty. “Though I think humans would try to catch you if you went out like that.”

*I’m aware I just wanted to try the upgraded look* Sephy replied as she shifted back to the duck form.