(Untitled)

[river_meimei]

The days are getting shorter, and colder. It's well into autumn now, and before too long it'll be too chilly to be comfortable without heavy jackets and boots

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[his_fathers_sin]

Standards of cold are a little different for Tidus.

Okay, a lot different. It's enough that since he's trying not to think about most of what's happened today, Tidus dove in a bit ago, blitzball under arm.

It's really, when he surface and uses his head to knock it into the air, more like watching dolphins at play than anything else.

[river_meimei]

River's head snaps over, her eyes wide.

And then the smile starts. She may or may not be aware of it.

They say that for penguins, swimming is like another bird's flying, all graveful speed and swooping dives; this is like that.

[his_fathers_sin]

It is.

The ball's hit once, and he lets it drop.

And then he dives deep as he can--and he doesn't even realize he's looking for fiends, already, as he does so--and surfaces to knock it up again.

And then--

It's a kind of art. You have to be able to flip and kick at just the right moment, or else you look like an idiot falling back to the water.

If you do it right, though--if you do it right, it's almost like magic, and Tidus knows how to do it right. The ball goes flying, and he dives back in, neatly.

[river_meimei]

If River were someone else, she might say that you can't do that -- you can't get enough speed up with human limbs to burst out of the water like that, to spin up and up and hover for just an instant at the apex where momentum and gravity cancel out for a breathless weightless moment before the fall.

But River knows Crowley, and River remembers -- and besides, he's just done it.

The ball rockets past her and ricochets hard off a tree two hundred yards away; River ducks as it whizzes back, and laughs silently.

[his_fathers_sin]

Maybe you can't, but no one's ever told Tidus that, at least.

When he surfaces, he sees her and shoots a grin.

"Hey! See where it went?"

[river_meimei]

"Watch out."

River points over his shoulder. Her voice is bright with laughter.

"Skips the ship -- eastwards to the hull."

[his_fathers_sin]

"--Huh?" he asks, intelligently, and looks over to where she was pointing.

[river_meimei]

Halfway across the lake, well past the Black Pearl, a small blue-and-white sphere bobs.

River patiently keeps pointing.

[his_fathers_sin]

"Oh!"

He grins at her again and it's quick--too quick--as he swims over to get the ball again.

And hey, she helped, and it's only polite to swim back and grin at her again, the ball tucked under his arm. "Thanks!"

[river_meimei]

"You're flying," River says.

And grins again, quick and bright.

[his_fathers_sin]

...

Uhhhh.

"No. Swimming," he says.

Ever confused helpful, Tidus is!

[river_meimei]

River gives him a blank look.

[his_fathers_sin]

Tidus gives her one back.

Tidus?

Has blank looks down, at this point.

"--Water, not air?" he tries.

[river_meimei]

"Irrelevancies."

[his_fathers_sin]

"--No. They're different."

Swimming isn't flying. It's swimming, and even if Tidus had flown--

Swimming means you have to hold your breath. Swimming means you go to far, your lungs fight back.

Swimming is swimming, and water is water, and it matters.

[river_meimei]

River's face sobers, falls into confusion.

"I know," she says.

"Okay."

But she still looks confused, and her tone is just a little tentative.