She ducked under, and inspected. Slate found himself frowning down at her blurry outline under the water’s surface. Why, precisely, was she doing that? When Ms. Verdigris again returned to his eye level, and spoke, he realized they had a misunderstanding.

His circles had been intentional. Given her careful inspection, he was disappointed that she had not noted that. Nor, apparently, had she noticed his strivings towards precision: how he had carefully aligned the four quarter-arcs that transcribed the larger figure against the black lines painted on the pool’s bottoms, thus allowing himself some check for his regularity by passing the same fixed points at each rotation. He had at first sought to use her as the center, but she had not stayed still enough; therefore, she was removed from his paddling equation.

If she had not observed this, he was puzzled as to what she had been observing.

One of the male swimmers at the pool’s other side (the one next to the one wearing much too little) was wearing a T-shirt in addition to swim shorts. Slate made a mental note to dress similarly, next time. Though that would pose new issues: the shirt would be likely to billow, for instance. Nothing that a belt could not fix. He made a note to bring one of those next time, as well.

“They were geometrical,” he defended softly, before paddling away from her in a (mostly) perfectly straight line, towards the pool’s other end. That would prove his Cartesian intent.

His voice was slightly husky. Perhaps she had not paid enough attention and missed him breathing in a lungful or two of water. She eyed him with a worried frown. Seeing as he wasn’t coughing or spluttering he couldn’t be drowning too badly.

“Yes, they were. I didn’t realise it was on purpose, most people can’t control where they’re headed at first.”

She pondered splashing the young boss but didn’t want to upset him further, if he was in fact upset. She kicked gently along, staying behind him, near enough to help if he needed, but not so close as to be in his immediate splash-zone should his feet break the surface.

“Good job.”

‘Are you ok?’

Offending your employer is surely not a good move. Especially when they might just be your only chance at a solid, dependable income.

‘They were nice circles…’

>> “Yes, they were. I didn’t realise it was on purpose, most people can’t control where they’re headed at first.”

This did not merit a reply.

>> “Good job.”

Nor did this. Though he did, perhaps, begin to hold his head even higher above the water.

>> ‘They were nice circles…’

Slate’s blue eyes chanced a look at the girl swimming near him. She appeared sincere. Still, one could not always be certain. One had to ask.

Do you really mean that?

It was not a vain question. He was simply confirming facts.

Shun.

Double Shun.

Triple Shun and a raise of the head almost to remove himself as much as possible from the water he was sharing with her. She had really done it now… A glance. Questioning? Forgiving?

~~Do you really mean that?

It was a strange feeling to have someone else’s voice in her head, kind of like a song you keep hearing even when it isn’t playing. How much did other people’s thoughts get into his head? Did it drive him nuts listening to everyone’s internal monologues? Or did he only hear things directed to him (or, on recalling his plea for the more quiet consideration of his murder at the wedding, about him)? She was fairly certain that having the constant blatant honesty, while refreshing at first, would be quite distressing. Perhaps that was why he was always impeccably dressed and moved cautiously, as if he had planned it all out in his mind first to ensure he would be well thought of.

Yes, I do.

It was strange to direct thoughts towards someone, was she shouting? Was there even a way to tell if she was ‘thinking too loud’.

At first it was quite… splashy, but once you had that under control you were excellent. Few people can control the smaller shapes, especially with that much consistency. It’s why most people swim laps, not obstacle courses.

Was there even such thing as aquatic obstacle courses? She was fairly sure there must be, with all the ridiculous sports out there (seriously, curling?). Could she swim perfectly round circles in a pool? Perhaps. She hadn’t ever really tried.

Blink, blink. Slate glanced back over his shoulder.

Aquatic obstacle courses? These sounded intriguing. Furthermore, she had hinted that he would be a natural at it. Do they have one of those here? May we use it, or is it only open to those officially training for the sport?

He began swimming a small circle around her, waiting on her reply. He would prefer to simply face her, of course, but stopping his watery motion seemed an excellent way to drown.

I don’t… know… I’m not sure if it truly exists. Hang on a second.

Her feet moved from propelling her along to under her, making lazy circles to hold her upright in the water. The leg movements were similar to pedalling an oversized bicycle and her hands made swirling motions to keep herself straight as the young man circled around her.

A giant blow-up ring peeked out from a big basket of pool toys and she could see a rolled up floating rubber mat, the kind that sits on the top of the water as well.

They might not have one, but we could probably make one.

Keeping an eye on the young man she paddled to the edge of the pool and heaved herself out and onto the edge. It would not be good for him to go under while she wasn’t right there, she was sure she had seen warning ads on the TV telling parents to watch their children in the water as it only took two seconds to drown. Or was it two teaspoons of water? Either way, she didn’t want it to happen.

After a moment’s eye contact with the lifeguard, making sure she wouldn’t be yelled at for removing the toys she wrestled the floating ring and the mat out of the basket and into the water. For good measure she also pulled out four pool noodles and a handful of sinking rings. All soon made their way into the pool, Verdy included, and she turned to grin at the young man.

What a curious thing, for Verdigris not to know if aquatic obstacle courses existed or not. She was the one who had mentioned them, after all. As Slate watched, she settled the matter: with the tools she had gathered, an obstacle course would indeed exist. They would create one.

Slate approved of such decisive action in his employees.

As she tossed items into the pool, Slate diligently paddled to gather them. Soon his arms were hanging over four long, brightly-colored foam creations. He would not have thought them buoyant enough to hold a (nearly) grown man, but each alone proved capable of the task. Four together made of a nearly sentient mass that seemed intent on bobbing out of his control. Only through an unparalleled feat of skill did the Kabal’s Leader wrangle proper order into their untidy chaos. Grinning seemed to be a side-effect of this.

“I collected these ones,” he informed Verdigris, his feet still idly paddling water, “but those ones sank.” He pointed downwards, at the plastic rings she had tossed. He was not sure they were supposed to do that. Retrieving them appeared difficult.

Perhaps that was the point?

Diving through the ring (far larger than a tire on a car, with enough space to easily fit a more… robust person in the centre) with a little splash she bobbed up next to the grinning Slate and almost caught the end of a pool noodle with her face. She back-sculled quickly out of harms way laughing.

Observing the tools they had, including the sinking rings sitting happily on the bottom of the pool, she began to construct the course in her head. With the pool relatively still they could organise an over-under with the noodles, around the floating ring, under the rubber mat and down to retrieve the sinking rings.

Can you see pictures?

The image in her head was clear, right down to the colour of the noodles. She wasn’t certain how to talk a picture in her head, so she just thought it as loud as she could. It would be a wonderful course, and if he couldn’t see it in her head, she would show him in real-time.

Slate could indeed see pictures. As his feet stopped their paddling kicks, and the images clouded over both sight and thought, his grip on the noodles became a very good thing. It was likely he would have slipped under the water, if they hadn’t been there.

The subtle perspective of the image were... different. Where his mind saw a cylindrical prism consisting of a porous-appearing material, Verdigris’ insisted that a pink noodle existed. Where his saw a watery image of the weights, hers supplied a clearer notion of form than he’d been able to grasp before they sunk. When the images ended, the sudden absence of input left him blinking: back in his own thoughts. He’d drifted only slightly from where he was. Baby blue eyes sought hers.

“I approve of your proposal,” the Kabal’s Leader stated. Then his legs resumed their kicking, with clear determination: he had cylindrical noodles to position. The pink one went over there.

It was almost like someone flicked an ‘off’ switch behind the young man’s eyes. They were still the same shape, colour and size, they simply appeared a little... blank, like he was staring out a window, not really focused on anything. A moment or two was really all it took and he was back, blinking and kicking again. She had been concentrating on the image and his eyes, and hadn’t noticed he had stopped.

His approval made her ears tingle a little pinker than they had been and she grinned at her employer and paddled to arrange the rubber floating mat and retrieve the sinking rings for repositioning.

Coolest obstacle course, ever.

The thought that any of what was happening was weird had long since left her, and she was fairly confident in Slate's swimming abilities to almost forget that he was a beginner.