(open) welcome to the exsilium transport swim team!

[crocodilesmiles]

Date & Time: August 6th, Afternoon
Location: Hold Training Facilities Swimming Pool
Characters: open to all! heard of it, completely ignorant, stop on by! threadjack! cr!
Summary: The first meeting of the Exsilium Transport Swim Team
Warnings: N/A

By the time the afternoon rolled around, Collette was down and rearranging the towels on the bleachers by the far wall. All those invited were either going to show up or not -- and new people might stop by hearing voices from inside the arched hall of the indoor pool.

Either way, it was a great distraction for her, and she hoped it would be useful for those who wanted to learn or practice swimming, or just have fun diving after rings and pulling them up off the bottom of the pool. Not to mention, maybe people would start diving!

And so it was that the person arranging the whole thing sat in her suit in her borrowed wheelchair (manual when she'd come over in her electrical) at the poolside, examining the lifeguard whistle around her neck with the stopwatch, and leaning over to poke at the lifeguard buoy.

Comments

IN THE LOCKER ROOMS

[crocodilesmiles]

[anklets]

[Lenalee puts her back to the lockers and snaps the leg of her swimsuit, bringing it back from where it'd begun to ride up. Barefoot, her ankles provide the only break in an infinite stretch of leg— even with the fabric in its proper place, it feels like too much— she wraps herself in a yellow towel and considers it the best she can do with what was most accessible to her.

She wishes it didn't smell so strongly of chemicals.]

This place hurts my nose.

[payback]

I know. [Mumbled, as she adjusts the butt of her suit.]

Who decided people should wear things like this anyway?

AT THE POOLSIDE

[crocodilesmiles]

[crocodilesmiles]

Collette eyed the water, tapping her fingers on her stopwatch where it rested against her chest. She shouldn't spend much time in the water to today, but she refused to sit by and do nothing, let alone fail to show up! Still recovering from her three day bout of Van Winkle Syndrome, she at least has better color and looks healthier, if thin.

Besides, with her hair all up under a swimmer's cap, and goggles resting on her head, she also looks like she's business. The one piece bathing-suit was simply par for the course, along with the towel she sat on, and the one she had arranged on the ground hanging partly over the pool's edge.

"I wonder if we'll want more than two lanes..."

[payback]

"You're optimistic, huh?"

It could have been more disparaging, but Rin just sounded dry - ironic, considering the circumstances. She sat down on a poolside bench next to Collette and looked around with an expression of (mostly) wariness, incongruous with the slight scent of chlorine in the air and the artificially blue depths.

It felt like being in a spaceship...

[payback]

[Who skulks at a poolside? Well, Rin does - skulking about, poking through things and looking around surreptitiously is just what she defaults to doing. Sigh, she's a little grumpy but trying to be a good sport about being here.

She does have to pause, though, blinking at the tranquil, sanitized waters. Imagine making a thing like this...]

What will they think of next...?

[allucinator]

Are you gonna punch me if I shove you in?

[Jack comes behind her, flashing her a grin, his hand on her upper back--!]

[debtor]

[HERE'S ALLEN WALKER, junior swim instructor, standing by the pool, looking about as enthusiastic about swimming as one conceivably can after receiving just about the worst news of their life three days ago.

So, a bit subdued, but outwardly cheerful enough.

And he's not wearing long sleeves and gloves, for once. Collette had offered the wetsuit, but he picked the swim trunks in an attempt to appear normal...ish. Though he's got a towel draped over his shoulders, which is partly obscuring his left arm (deep red in color, with the texture of an exoskeleton), and he's a little hesitant about having it out in the open like this; but maybe if he's casual about it, everyone else will be. This isn't like his world, after all.

He'll get in the water, just give him a moment...]

[boundbydevotion]

[And here is the specter of terrible news, following Allen around just as he promised he would. This is an athletic pool so there probably aren't really any seats set out around, but he's made himself comfortable by the wall regardless. Fully dressed too, because is that really what passes for swimwear in this era?]

[velveteened]

( oz keeps an eye out for familiar faces, so he calls allen's name when he sees him — looks slightly abashed a moment later because he keeps forgetting how this place echoes — but trots up to him cheerfully enough. allen's left arm doesn't go without notice, but oz's eyes don't overly linger there either, and he gestures at the water a moment later. )

Do you know how to swim, Allen?

[hornedomen]

[Anyone that looked like they were about to swim had the chance of encountering Ico. He carried a box of goggles that he offered to any swim club member and potential member.]

Need one? The clinic is letting us borrow these.

oops, late.

[commentboxtroll]

[ Caesar has no intention of taking a swim, especially not with the water smelling so weird!

He will sit at the pool's edge, however, experimentally letting his legs dangle over the edge into the water. He decided to hang onto the swim trunks and bright Hawaiian shirt from the beach trip back in time, too, aaand he's not exactly keen to go around entirely shirtless. ]

What an awful smell...

IN THE POOL

[crocodilesmiles]

[payback]

[She's mostly dinking around, really. Rin has discovered the magic of being able to do a handstand underwater, and how much easier it is to balance - she's spending an inordinate amount of time just doing that and slowly counting. It's peaceful under there, all wobbly and blue. She has a decent lung capacity. COME KNOCK HER OVER

When she's not lazing, she is giving swimming a good ol' college try. She's athletic enough to be decent at it for having no form to speak of; she's mastered the doggy paddle and it isn't so bad. But someone really needs to show her how to do a crawl stroke and tell her to keep her head down.]

[the_human]

CANNON BALL!

[With a yell Finn leaps into the pool. He hasn't bothered with a swimsuit; he's just got his blue shorts on. He's actually a pretty good swimmer, and if he knows you-- or even, heck, not-- he'll be flipping and splashing and swimming his way over.]

[velveteened]

( well, it's no waterfall-fed pond in the age of dinosaurs.

he'd hesitated on getting into the water, with its peculiar look and smell, but having a shallower end in which he doesn't have to worry so much about keeping afloat just yet helped decide him. he stays around there at first, clad in what collette has assured him is a "victorian-style" bathing suit that thankfully keeps all and doom clocks safe from view.

mostly he's just splashing around, really, but will discover floating before too long, remembering some of the tips collette had given him previously. )

SWIM LESSONS

[crocodilesmiles]

or swim learnings, whichever. post looking to teach, or post looking to learn!

[candystar]

[Ally managed to find a bathing suit that is both very pink and has little gold foil stars all over it. She is on the steps waaaay over in the shallow end, eyeing the water with a certain degree of suspicion. It... looks clean enough. Unlike pretty much every other body of water this size she's seen.

Suffice to say, swimming was not one of the skills she acquired growing up]

[maddeninghatter]

[ Xerxes Break doesn't know how to swim. Xerxes Break doesn't know he doesn't know how to swim. All he knows is - this isn't the Cretaceous. And - there's certainly no sunshine here. And finally - there's something wrong with this water!!!

Obviously it's the fault of the water that he isn't floating. Without salt to keep him buoyant, nor waves to ride, he is doing a spot-on imitation of a stone. He thrashes about to keep his head up, but it's noisy and inefficient and exhausting. He gives up, finally, clinging to the side of the pool and breathing hard. Defective, evil-smelling water...

Perhaps some kind soul will give him some tips. Or water wings. ]

[recorden]

[ Never fear, one self-assigned swim teacher is here! Lavi has even obtained a whistle from somewhere. (God help you all.)

So, wearing the same black-and-red swim jammers from the Cretaceous period beach mission, he can be found by one end of the pool, looking cheerful as ever and blowing sharply on the whistle once before raising his arm and calling out with an echoing voice. ]

Alright, people who want to learn how to swim come over here!

POOL GAMES

[crocodilesmiles]

Re: POOL GAMES

[theboywhodied]

"Why don't we play a game to practise with agility?" Cedric suggests, lugging a collection of items over his shoulder. He's dressed in red trunks for once, indicating his role here.

He opens the little blue bag, and there are weighted objects---a broken chess piece here, part of a rock there, something that might've been a clock once. He hasn't bothered to pretty them up.

"How quickly can you dive and return?"

OLD GUYS AND SWIMMING LANES

[crocodilesmiles]

because we're not ageist here

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

[Hey some of us just want to enjoy the water, okay. Though despite is claims of not being competitive about it, Nate is actually a fairly strong swimmer and there's not much dawdling going on here. He will do his best to share a lane but uh. He's kind of broad-shouldered]