Chapter 50: Swimming
Felix Sythias’s POV (continued):
Alex stripped down to his underwear and kicked his clothes towards the patchwork of blankets and towels. Putting a hand on my shoulder, he reached out with his foot to touch the water. He grimaced, clearly not too pleased with the temperature. I couldn’t blame him; the water was quite cold. Still, he persevered through and put his foot down on the pebbly riverbed. He kept one hand solidly on my shoulder as we waded deeper into the water until he was about knee deep.
We were deep enough in now that the flowing water pulled a bit at his feet, so we stopped so he could get used to the sensation. Then I instructed him to sit down so he would get used to the temperature and the feeling of the water faster. He did as told and hissed in discomfort as his tail submerged in the cold water. I could sympathize. Both our tails were sensitive towards the cold, especially the tips, which were thin.
After a few moments, when he was acclimated to the temperature, we continued on deeper into the river. It wasn’t all that deep, all things considered, but it was plenty deep for someone who had literally never been in water like this. His snout was all scrunched up, and I wasn’t sure if it was displeasure or concentration.
“You doing okay?” I asked.
He looked up at me and flashed me a smile. “I am. It’s just cold, is all. My [Internal heating] Skill is trying to compensate, but it’s not used to such… pervasive cold. It leveled already, though, so that’s good.”
I chuckled. Then, knowing he was fine, told him to submerge himself up to his neck. He did, and I went on explaining how to float, or, at least, how I thought bipeds floated. Dad had taught me to swim once, and always used bipedal swimming methods as guidelines, so I knew a fair bit about swimming. How much I remembered, though, was a different question.
After a while, he got a hang of it, and he was floating on his back with relative ease. The only thing stopping him from floating downstream was the talon I held on his leg. Alex rather enjoyed the sensation of the water flowing past his scales and told me as much. I was glad he was having fun.
The rest was relatively simple. The basics were really just paddling your feet while using your hands to steer and stay afloat. It was exhausting but effective. It was also the extent of my knowledge. I was aware there were better, more efficient styles of swimming, but dad hadn’t had a reason to teach them to me, so I had no idea where to even begin with those. Doggy paddling had always been more than enough for me.
Soon, though, Alex was swimming in circles around me. And the others, who had been talking and watching me teach Alex from the side, joined too—except Sekara, who stayed by the picnic table. Just like Alex, they’d stripped down to just their underwear. Looking at them approach, I noticed for the first time just how truly muscled Viggi was. I’d noticed it before of course, but it had always been underneath clothing or armor, and not just him in his undies. You could see every single muscle clearly despite his scales. From his abs to his calves, he was well toned. What would Alex think of that?
That thought froze me in my tracks—what did Alex even find attractive? We’d never talked about that, or anything like it. The topic had just never come up. Did he have a preference for scale color? Did he like muscles, or did he prefer a leaner build? I fell outside any such norms, so what did he think of me? I shook the thoughts off. They didn’t matter. I was almost convinced he liked me, anyway, despite our vast physical differences. Almost.
I looked over at Zhalia. Just like the other two, she was only wearing underwear. Like all lizardkin, she had no breasts and so no reason to wear a bra. She looked alright, I guessed. Her features were more rounded, her tail shorter, and her hips slightly wider than her male counterparts. Her scale patterns were also distinctly female. It was curious how such small differences made her utterly unattractive to me. I wondered how Viggi thought about this, since I knew he liked both men and women. I couldn’t possibly imagine finding those features attractive—they just didn’t click with me, not like Alex’s, or even Viggi’s, looks did for me.
Tiki, with her skin and breasts, was even worse in that regard. But that was fine, they were still beautiful women, and my feelings on the issue didn’t matter anyway.
Zhalia had taken the large inflatable ball with her and threw it over for Alex to catch. He did, and he threw it towards Viggi. Soon, they were all swimming about and playing catch with the ball. It looked fun, and I wanted to join. I looked down at my sharp, ball puncturing claws and sighed. I had to watch out for Alex, anyway. He was still new to swimming, and I definitely didn’t want my crush to drown. So I sat down a small distance downstream, letting the water flow over me like some kind of thick air.
I kept an eye on Alex while I started practicing my water magic. I focused on the sensation of the flowing water and did my best to commit it to memory, then I tried applying said memory to my new mana control. Imagining the mana flowing through my veins like the river I was now in, I practiced my control. I let it flow slowly at first, but I sped it up with each passing moment.
Where the mana exited my body, it created an increasingly powerful jet of water. I aimed it downstream so as not to disturb the others. After I thought about it for a moment, though, I aimed the jet towards the ball. Viggi, who stood with his arms outstretched, caught nothing but air as I knocked the ball off course. They looked my way, and I shot them a smile back. Viggi then picked up the ball and threw it towards me. I couldn’t catch it, but I did manage to knock it back using a jet of water. It wasn’t very controlled, though, and the ball went flying to the right, instead of at Alex.
I treated the game as an exercise in control, and I slowly got better at knocking the ball to where I wanted it to go. I also tried to make my water jets stronger and stronger by making the mana flow faster. At some point, though, the speed got too much for the mental image I’d created and it failed. I could try to create my own image, and I did, but it felt distinctly less… real than my new image for the slower flow, and was less effective as a result. It seemed I was in need of a swim in a much faster flowing river soon. Some other time, though. I was having fun with my friends right now. This river didn’t flow very fast at any point, anyway. I’d have to find one outside of the campus, and I wouldn’t get an opportunity for that for a while.
After the failure, I stopped playing catch, and the others went off to do their own thing. Zhalia went to the other edge of the river and laid down on the pebbles there, letting the water flow around her as she watched the clouds. Tiki joined her, and introduced herself properly while they chatted. Viggi decided to teach Alex some more advanced swimming techniques, and I watched them splash around for a bit before finding a place to sit back down. I wanted to practice my magic some more.
Having found a nice spot, I settled back in to give the mental image another go. I was sure I could make it even better, make it last just a little longer before it broke again, and I needed every edge I could get. The excursion was a chance for everyone else to level up, and they’d get stronger and faster, and I wasn’t planning on getting left behind.
Stolen novel; please report.
-------
Alex Sandclaw’s POV:
Swimming was fun. The water was cold, but the sensation of weightlessness it gave was really nice and well worth the discomfort. The best part was the company, though. Felix was practicing downstream, but I caught him looking up every so often and smiling at me. I made sure to smile back. Both Viggi and Zhalia were swimming and playing with me again, though Tiki had gone to sunbathe. Playing catch with the ball was as fun as it was exhausting. Running through the water to catch the ball in time took so much more effort than you’d expect.
Not everyone was here in the water, though. Zhalia had told me Sekara hadn’t felt like swimming and preferred to just watch us having a good time. Looking at her sitting on the blankets, I wasn’t sure I believed Zhalia. She had moved from the bench to the ground when I wasn’t looking and was now seated with her knees drawn to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. She was watching us intently, but there wasn’t a smile to be seen. No, she was frowning and looked sad, maybe even jealous.
I turned back to Viggi and Zhalia. “I think I’ll go rest up for a little while. I’m really not used to this kind of exercise. You guys have fun, though.”
Viggi nodded and smiled, telling me he might join me in a little while. So I turned and trudged out of the water, which resisted my every step. After a small moment, I figured out going slower was much less tiring. Felix watched me get out of the water and started to get up, but I motioned for him to say, gesturing at Sekara. He looked at her, then nodded and sat back down—once again blocking part of the stream, causing water to swell up around him. I chuckled at the sight, but quieted down as I turned back to Sekara.
Up close, she looked even sadder than she had from the middle of the river. She glanced up at my approach, but looked away and back to the river with a sigh. She seemed surprised when I sat down beside her. We sat in silence for a moment before she spoke up.
“What do you think of swimming so far?” she asked.
I turned to face her again. “It’s fun, but very exhausting. I had expected the water to flow around me with no resistance. It does not. It’s still fun, though.”
She was still looking at Viggi and Zhalia, who were splashing around in the shallows, throwing mud and sand at each other like little kids, but I could see a slight smile flash across her snout. “Really? I wonder what it’s like.”
I tilted my head at her inquisitively. “Why don’t you join us, then? I promise the water isn’t that cold.”
She shook her head and tightened her arms’ grip on her knees. “That’s not it. I just… I can’t. Sorry.”
“Oh. Is this why you said you weren’t sure if you wanted to come yesterday?” I asked, and she just nodded. “Why did you, then? I don’t mean to blame you or anything, but if you knew you weren’t going to have fun like this, why did you come?”
“Zhalia wanted me to come with her. She was right, anyway. My reasons for not wanting to come are stupid.”
“I’m not sure I believe that,” I said.
She whipped her head around to face me. “What?”
I held my hands up. “Sorry, I just meant that if your reasons really were so stupid, wouldn’t you be having fun right now? Clearly, whatever it is, it’s still bothering you.”
She deflated and sighed. “I guess. I just… I should be over it by now. It’s not like it’s new.”
Not knowing what exactly we were talking about was starting to get a little frustrating. Maybe I should just ask? Clearly she was willing to talk about it, or we wouldn’t still be having this conversation.
“Can I ask what the reason was?” I asked.
She’s quiet for a moment, then instead of responding, she rolled her sleeve up. The scale patterns—the way they’d grown and the pattern in the colors—were distinctly male.
My immediate reaction was exasperation. Really, that was the reason she was so miserable? I quelled the reaction, though, and hoped none of it showed on the outside. Like I’d said, it was clearly bothering her. Just because I didn’t understand why it bothered her this much, didn’t mean it wasn’t still important to her.
I could definitely see why it bothered her, though. I would have been bothered, too, if I’d had a female pattern instead of a male one. It also explained why she was always wearing a sweater or something else with long sleeves. That by itself was pretty weird, since it was normal and almost expected for lizardkin to wear sleeveless clothing, like a tank top, to show off the patterns on the arms. I’d noticed it before, but disregarded it as her being cold. I could easily imagine that not every type of lizardkin adjusted as well to the lower temperatures here.
The more I thought about it, the more I understood why she was so bothered by it. She couldn’t exactly go swimming without taking off her sweater first, especially because it didn’t look like she brought a spare. And she couldn’t take the sweater off, because it made her very uncomfortable. So she was just here looking at us having fun while she couldn’t even join in.
She quickly rolled her sleeve back down, looking tense and ready to jump, as if she was expecting me to lash out. That… was worrying. Had I let something of my initial reaction slip out, anyway? I quickly made sure to clarify myself.
“That’s definitely not a stupid reason. Did Zhalia really say it was?”
She let out a breath I hadn’t even noticed she was holding and relaxed a little.
“Not in as many words, no,” she said, and after a moment of silence, I realized that was all she was going to say on the matter.
“Well, I hope you two can talk it out,” I said, then switched the topic. “How are your classes going?”
We talked about our classes for a little while. I didn’t get to ask the question I wanted to ask, though. I figured now would not be the right time to ask about relationship stuff. Maybe I could ask later? Actually, that gave me an idea.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.
“I don’t have any plans yet. Why do you ask?”
“I was wondering if you wanted to meet up again tomorrow? There was something I wanted to ask, and we could go do something you actually enjoy.”
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Have you ever gone climbing?” I shook my head. “Do you want to try? It’ll be difficult, though.”
How hard could it be? I climbed the walls in Felix’s room all the time. “Yeah, sounds fun.”
We continued talking for a while and hashed out the details, and shortly after, the rest joined us, too. Felix shot me a questioning glance, but I shook my head at him, so he left it be. I’d tell him later, though without the exact details. We rested for a while, and Sekara managed to convince Zhalia to leave.
An hour later, Viggi left too, giving us some bullshit excuse for why he had to leave. Before he left, though, I’d given him my application, and he told me to swing by the restaurant on Wednesday. But why did he want to leave, though? I didn’t mind spending time with just Felix—the opposite, really; I actually wanted to spend time with just him—but Viggi couldn’t have known that, right? Maybe he still felt a little awkward about the dinner and Felix? I decided it didn’t matter that much, anyway.
I turned to Felix, but he just shrugged. “Wanna go for another swim?”