Swimming in a Storm

by **Lora** on November 3rd, 2014, 2:06 am

Timestanmp: 12, fall, 514
Lora jolted upright in her bed. She gripped the covers trying to shake off the horrible feeling of falling. She had been awoken by an awful dream that had ended with her falling off a cliff. She had never been to a cliff herself but she had seen drawings and had even painted one once. The steady pounding of rain on the roof echoed in her cottage. The waves were splashing loudly under her house and the wind was howling outside the window. Although it was dark outside from the clouds, Lora could still tell the sun had risen. There was a curtain way light still managed to come through when it was raining except she couldn’t see it. She just knew it was day.

The room was dark, seeing as its only light source was natural light. Lora had been meaning to buy some candles but hadn’t gotten around to it and now she wished she had. She carefully slid out of bed planting her feet firmly on the ground so she didn’t fall over. She could just barely see her feet in the extremely dim light that had somehow made it to the room. She walked over her chest, holding her hands out in front of her so she avoided running into anything. She ran her hand over the smooth surface of the wooden chest until her fingers ran into her comb. She quickly picked it up and made her way back over to her bed. She sat down and began running the comb through her hair.

She could tell she had rolled around a lot in her sleep due to many knots she had to untangle in her hair. It took quite a while, longer than usual, but eventually she did get her hair untangled. She pulled her hair back and quickly wrapped it into a loose, messy braid. She had never been very good at putting her own hair up but since her mother’s death she had to at least try on her own. While twirling her hair together to make her braid she had started to think about what she would do. It was raining so she couldn’t go outside to do anything and she didn’t really like painting inside. She thought about going to the town and looking around in the shops but that would require walking to Mura and by the time she got there she would be soaking wet. No sensible person would like to have someone who was soaking wet in their shop.

Involuntarily Lora’s mind drifted to the time she had gone swimming and then, while she was all wet, tried to buy groceries. The clerk had been kind and gentle in taking Lora to the door. Since then Lora had been extremely embarrassed to go anywhere near that shop and had bought her groceries elsewhere.

Suddenly Lora came to a conclusion of what she could do. Swimming. Like most Konti, Lora had always loved water but she didn’t really get to experience it in its fullest until she came to live in Mura. Since then she had been exceedingly fascinated with the ocean, particularly when it came to swimming in it. Despite this Lora didn’t get to swim often. When she was done swimming she would be soaking wet and thus not be able to do anything. So, in order to avoid the inconvenience she often avoided swimming altogether. Today, though, was a good day for swimming. It was raining so she would get wet no matter what she did. Unless she chose to stay inside in which case she wouldn’t get anything done anyway.

So, with her mind made up Lora carefully took her comb back to its spot on the chest and walked over to the door. She opened the door and quickly stepped out hoping no rain got in her house. It was only a matter of seconds before Lora was completely drenched from head to toe in rain water. She couldn’t see well through the down pour but she knew that the row of rocks that connected her house to the shore would be wet and slippery so she would likely slip off them if she tried to walk across them. Keeping in mind the fact that a fall off the rocks could injure her, she decided to jump off the small deck area that was right outside her door, the one she was standing on now, into the ocean.

Without thinking she immediately launched herself off the soaking wooden planks, hoping to get as far as she could away from the house so the waves wouldn’t push her into the poles holding up the house or the rocks nearby.

by **Lora** on November 4th, 2014, 2:00 am

Luckily, Lora landed right on the top of a wave. By sliding into the wave she kept from being injured by the impact but almost as soon as she entered the water she ran face first into the sand. Underwater was even darker that above ground and Lora could barely see anything. The raging waves continued to jolt her around in the water disorienting her sense of direction so when she started swimming she could only go in the direction she hoped was deeper in to the water. Of course she had gills that allowed her to breathe underwater but the rough waves had the water full of tiny pieces of sand that stung her lungs and eyes. She blinked a few times trying to clear her eyes and started to cough the best she could while underwater. Meanwhile the riptide was pulling her further and further out to sea. Unlike most occasions this was good. The farther out she got the less the waves jolted her around and likewise less sand was drifting in the water. The darkness still prevented vision and the deeper she got the darker it was.

Once she had gotten her barring, Lora started to swim in the direction the riptide had taken her. Eventually she came to a patch of seaweed. Not having been able to see it before had Lora had found it when her arms had brushed into its. From what she could tell by feeling it, because she was all but blind down in the water, it was a long, tall single leafed type of plant. Lora didn’t know much about plants, though she was interested in learning, so she wasn’t sure exactly the type.

A treat Lora enjoyed eating was dried seaweed. She found if she took seaweed and dried it in the sun it tasted good with the salt that was left behind from the sea water. Lora knew she had always eaten this from a green sort of seaweed. It always started out slimy then, as it dried became harder. From what she felt of the plant, Lora couldn’t be sure it was the same type. She didn’t even know if there were certain types of seaweed that were better than the others. Her mind quickly began to wonder if there were types of seaweed that were poisonous. She immediately disregarded that thought haveing no way of telling even what it looked like in the dark and decided she would see if it was poisonous when she could see it.

Swimming to the base of the plant, Lora began to pull on it, not quite sure of the appropriate way to harvest seaweed. Planting her feet on the ground as firmly as one could in the water, she gave the plant one last tug, pulling it out of the ground. Now she was left with a long strand of seaweed that was about one and a half times taller than her and she didn’t know what to do with it. Eventually the idea to wrap it around her waist came to her. She took the long seaweed strand and started wrapping it around her waist as best she could. She was surprised how difficult it was to wrap it around her waist. The currents this deep in the water weren’t that strong but even the slight shifting of the water made it difficult to wrap the seaweed around her waist. Despite this, she was eventually able to securely tie the seaweed into a belt like item around her waist.

Starting to swim again, Lora immediately ran into a large group of seaweed strands. She started to try and go around the large group by feeling her way around the seaweed but she couldn’t seem to get to the end of the jungle of seaweed so she made the decision to just go through it. Quickly she propelled herself into the seaweed. She pulled herself forward with her arms and kicked her legs to try to keep herself moving but the seaweed entangled its self around her limb and body making it difficult to move.

Suddenly Lora’s body became hard and rigid with fear from not being able to move. She thrashed around trying get free from the seaweed but as she got away from one piece another would almost immediately wrap its self around her. Her whole being was in a state of panic as she flailed around. She could hear her blood pumping in her ears. She felt seaweed creep forward and wrap its self around her leg like an arm reaching out of the sea. Immediately her leg refluxed kicking as hard as she could and flinging the seaweed off it. As she rolled around, thrashing her body, Lora seemed to keep getting more and more entangle in the plants.

Suddenly the water was lit up a sudden and bright light coming from the surface. Lora could suddenly see the seaweed that entangled her body. She could see the surface of the water too, with all the rain drops splattering on it. This sudden ability to see lasted only for a fraction of a second before it was gone. The light was quickly followed by a loud and thundering CRACK! Even though she was quite deep in the water Lora could still hear it loudly. The sudden and loud sound startled her causing her to jump, or rather because she was in the water, kick excedingly hard. The force from her kick propelled her out of the seaweed field. She was in clear water once again.

by **Lora** on November 5th, 2014, 9:23 pm

The water was suddenly clear of any seaweed. Lora took a deep breath of water trying to steady her accelerating breathing. Her arms were held stiffly by her side and her feet were the only things keeping her afloat by steadily kicking back and forth. As Lora stood frozen she tried to figure out what had happened. She had never experienced anything like that before. It had been a sudden and now that she thought about it, irrational fear. Not being able to move freely had scared her pretty badly.

Her kicking slowed allowing herself to sink slowly to the ocean floor. Now, she was faced with a decision. She seriously considered going back to her house. That fright had been quite disturbing and she would definitely feel better back in her house. In contradiction to this a part of her wanted to go on. She wasn’t going to be beat by a little seaweed. There was so much more to do while she was in the water. She barely got anything done except getting the seaweed and even that wasn’t that great. Eventually her breathing evened, she started to feel better and she decided to go on. There was so much more she could do that she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.

She started walking again and as she did she thought about the sudden burst of light. She felt like she should definitely know what it was. The word for it was just on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t quite get it. Her first thought was that maybe it was something supernatural but that didn’t seem quite right. As she did her half walk half swim on the ocean floor and pondered the mysterious light it happened again. Sea floor was suddenly illuminated by the bright light but only for a split second. Shortly after the light, like the previous time, there was a loud CRACK! With the sound came a realization for Lora. It was lightning. She immediately felt a bit disappointed in herself that she didn’t know before. It was so obvious but Lora just wasn’t accustom to seeing the lightning underwater.

Lora vaguely recalled someone saying that it was dangerous to swim in a thunderstorm but Lora couldn’t quite put her finger on who had said it and so she dismissed it as an urban legend. Her mind drifted to wondering what she would do next. Before she had just been swimming along with no plan but now as she walked along Lora started to think about what she would do next.

Suddenly, she felt something brush against her hand. She recoiled, tugging her hand back. All of a sudden lightning flashed across the sky, showing a school of fish swimming peacefully beside Lora only for a second before it disappear and was replaced with the sound of thunder. The split second image remained in Lora’s mind. It had been so beautiful. She decided that when she got back on land she would be sure to paint that seen. The group of fish had been swimming so gracefully and so Lora was suddenly inspired with what she would do next. She had never been that good at acrobatics on land because of her lack of strength but in the water her body was so much lighter that Lora hoped she would be able to try the acrobatics there.

She suddenly paused trying as best she could to become rooted to the ground. Then she pushed off her feet jumping backwards. She arched her back and stuck out her hands above her head. She landed on her hand but when she pushed off with her hands she didn’t go back creating the opposite arch but rather just redid the arch she had before. She did land on her feet but it wasn’t the backhand spring she had hoped for. Underwater was much different than on the land. The water was floatlier so she needed to actually curve in the other direction rather than just let gravity pull her.

She steadied her feet on the ground and tried again. Kicking off the ground she curved her back creating an arch. She landed with fingers spread out on the sand but this time she arched her back in the opposite direction before she pushed off with her finger. Unfortunately she didn’t get enough speed from her hands so she just sort of floated up as opposed to landing on her feet like she should have. She tried again only this time instead of trying to get power from pushing of the ground with her hand she tried to pull her body upward so that her feet hit the ground. This sort of worked for her.

After a few more tries she almost had the underwater backhand spring down. In Lora’s mind it was more like fancy swimming than actual acrobatics but she still enjoyed the challenge. She tried the back hand spring once more. Kicking off her feet, landing of her hands, pushing off her hands and pulling her body forward so she landed on her feet. Liking the way it felt as her body slid through the water she decided she would try another move.

by **Lora** on November 5th, 2014, 10:15 pm

Lora wanted to try to do a flip. On land she had never successfully pulled of a flip. Every time she tried she always ended up just falling on her back or not being able to land the flip. Hoping that being in the water would help her to do the flip she steadied her feet on the sandy ground. She closed her eyes because she couldn’t see anyway and jumped off the ground in a slightly forward motion. She pulled her feet in towards her stomach and spun in a circle. After finishing the spin she stuck her feet out thinking they would hit the ground but instead they just struck water. Instead of going down to the ground like she would have on land she had just kept going up. This gave her an idea. What if she could do water orientated moves. It would be like she was flying but instead she would just be in the water.

Electing to give it a try she started swimming as fast as she could-which wasn’t really that fast- then tried to pull herself into a loop. It didn’t exactly work. Arching her back the kept kicking but didn’t use her arms to move. She had imagined the momentum from her initial start up carrying her forward but in reality it brought her to what she thought was the top of her loop-she couldn’t really tell because of the darkness- then she lost momentum and started sinking toward the bottom of the ocean. This forced her to straighten her body and start swimming again.

She came to the decision she would need to start easier. Once more she closed her eyes and started swimming in a straight line. Then with one final trust with her arms and a strong kick she pulled herself into a twirl. It worked perfectly. She had enough momentum to keep her going through the twirl and she finished by continuing to swim them loop back towards where she started.

Lora allowed herself to sink back to the ocean floor as she thought about what it was she would do next. As soon as her legs hit the ground Lora thrust her feet down sending her body flying up. Tossing her arms out she used her legs to spin her body in circles during its ascension. Suddenly her head broke out of the water. The first thing that struck her was how cold the rain was. The tiny droplets of water started rolling down her wet face and hair as soon as she comes above the water. The rain was cold against her skin. The water of the ocean was a sort of lukewarm temperature where as the rain was a bit on the cold side. The difference made the temperature of the rain more noticeable that it had been before. The second thing she noticed was that she could see again. There was just the tiniest bit of light coming from the air that she could see, though not very well.

The water was roughly being tossed around because hard wind that was blowing from the direction of the sea. Lora’s body was brought up and down by the shallow waves that were yet to crack. To Lora the surface of the water seemed like such a harsh place compared to under the water. Everything seemed to happen faster on above water. The wind, the rain, the waves they were all happening so quickly. Underwater everything was so slow and smooth and peaceful. Lora’s mind was brought to the seaweed she had encountered and her hand went to the piece that was still wrapped around her waist. The patch of seaweed hadn’t seemed that peaceful. She came to the conclusion that both the surface and under water had their ups and downs and with that she dived back down into the water. The water filled her ears and the sharp sounds of water splashing about and rain falling of the surface of the water dulled into nothingness.

by **Lora** on November 6th, 2014, 10:18 pm

Lora’s legs hit the ocean floor a bit sooner than she had expected. She was a bit surprised but because she had been sinking in water and not falling in air she wasn’t hurt. Suddenly she realized how tired she was. She had never had much endurance so even short trips like this-if it contained lots of athletic actions- would tire her out. She stood for a while just letting herself float a bit off the ground. The feeling of weightlessness in the complete darkness was a bit unnerving and when she found out that the short rest wasn’t helping her exhaust she elected to go back.

Starting by casually swimming along the ocean floor she went a ways. Eventually she came to the first few strands of the seaweed forest. She turned and started walking right parallel to the seaweed. This time through she had no intention of going through the forest. Holding her hand out to the side she ran it along the seaweed as she passed making sure that she was still along the wall of plants. A few times she didn’t feel any seaweed for a while and thought she had made it away from the patch but then when she tried to swim through she would run in a piece of seaweed and have to quickly backtrack then continue walking. The patch of seaweed seemed to go on forever.

Finally, after what seemed like miles of walking, the seaweed actually let up. As she walked Lora did run into the occasional seaweed stalk but she just went around it and kept going. Eventually Lora made it out of the seaweed altogether and went back to causally swimming along.

As she started to get closer to the shore the water became lighter until she could almost see but with that there started to be more and more stand wiped in to the water making it hard for Lora to see. The water also started to become more turbulent. It rocked Lora’s body back and forth as she tried to swim forward. Although it started to get harder as she got closer to the shore, Lora’s head eventually emerged from the water.

The rain had lessened and was now light with smaller droplets. The sky had also started to clear. It was still relatively dark and cloudy but there was also a bit lighter. Lora walked in land until her feet were out of the water entirely. When she was completely on land her wet hair and cloths stuck to her skin. Crossing her arms against the slight chill Lora looked around. Off to the left a little distance from where she was standing Lora saw her cottage.

As she started to walk back to her cottage one end of her sea weed-that was still tied around her waist- had come lose. She had to quickly grab it and tie it back up to keep it from dragging on the sandy beach. Before long she had made it to her house. Carefully she climbed atop the first rock. She made her way across the rest of them with care so as not to fall on the slippery rocks. She entered the dark cottage, leaving wet, sandy foot prints on the light wooden floor.

Untying the seaweed from around her waist, she stretched it out across her floor. It went the whole way across the room then doubled back half way across. Lora was surprised by the length of the seaweed. She hadn’t realized she was that deep in the water.

Walking back outside Lora stood on the beach. She decided to wait outside to dry-which wouldn’t happen soon, due to the fact it was still raining. Smiling, she looked up at the sky she had had a very enjoyable swim.