@lapelegrina
Today is the day. Today, Heysel will learn to swim.
Her Xanthous robes are obviously unsuitable for the task. The headpiece alone will prevent her from keeping her head above water, and as it turns out, undead still need to breathe. The medallions and hard leather will weigh her down, and the metal tassets, while forged for agility, will be a hindrance nonetheless.
Her bandages will need to enter the water with her, firstly because she will not be caught dead baring skin for any reason, and secondly because she is unsure of her fungus’ potential for contagion. In the span of her prolonged life, she has not infected anyone else yet, and she is not certain if it can be transmitted at all, but she is not about take the chance.
Nobody is providing her with instruction, but how hard can swimming really be? Is it not just like walking, but suspended in a body of water? Heysel wanders the Mare Nectaris boardwalk, looking for a place to obtain the necessary equipment. Her mind churns.
She will need floatation devices. A swimsuit, something cute. Goggles. An oxygen tank? She will be practicing in a shallow Mare Crisium indoor pool, with assurances from the rodents running the facility that it is clean and well-maintained. The ocean still scares her beyond belief, so she takes them at their word.
In fact, the whole endeavour makes her nervous. She is tightly gripping her Rosaria’s Fingers rune, feeling its curvature and the lines on its face, reminding her of her family, and it does a modest job of easing her apprehensions. If they saw her fretting like this over something so innocuous as swimming, they would absolutely hurl a few barbed remarks her way. Shush, she retorts in her head, You all can’t swim either!
Heysel stops in front of a sports store, admiring the mannequins adorned with the latest summer fashions. In truth, she is a little anxious about entering it; shopping is still an embarrassing and emotionally laborious process for her. One never had to speak while shopping in Lothric, you only dropped your souls in the merchant’s waiting hand and the bought goods would be handed over without a word. Selections are far more generous in the Ark’s stores, and Heysel will have to constantly ask for what she needed, given that she has no idea what any of it looks like.
Her anxiety is enough to keep her glued to the storefront while she peeks inside, mentally arguing with herself, trying to summon the courage to walk through the bead curtain in front of the doorway.
