ψ come away little lass come away to the water | SWIMMING MINGLE OTA

[fishermansweater]

WHO: E V E R Y O N E
WHERE: The waterfall
WHEN: During the hot weather in late May
OPEN TO: Anyone
WARNINGS: PROBABLY NAKED. cw your warnings in individual threads.
STATUS: Open. THIS IS A MINGLE, have at it, tag around, you know what to do. If you want Finnick, let me know in the comment subject!

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He wouldn't actually say it was really hot yet, but it's definitely getting to the sort of temperatures that make Finnick miss swimming. There's no substitute for the sand of a beach underfoot, the reassuring roar of the surf, the taste of salt in the air, but there is at least water here, tumbling down from the waterfall and flowing through the canyon until it disappears into the rocks to the south. And he knows from constantly checking his fish traps that the water is deliciously cool.

He's tested out a few spots along the river for swimming, and it's good to be in the water again, after being kept out of it for so long by the harshness of the winter.  Not swimming doesn't feel right to him, and it never has. He's never spent this long somewhere with a winter this cold, and he can't remember ever going this long without swimming. So Finnick's been testing the water out since before it was probably what most people would consider to be warm enough to swim. It had helped that he and Annie had some gifts to hunt for in the river, but those have long been found, and now it's just for relaxation.

The calmest, most relaxing place he's found so far for swimming in the river is the pool at the foot of the waterfall, where the water plunges into the canyon crisp and cool from the heights of the cliffs. It's deep around the falls, and it's big enough to swim, and Finnick spends most of the hottest parts of the day there.

So whenever he hears someone talking about the heat while he's dropping food off in the village, he suggests they try the waterfall pool. Word's likely to get around, so he won't be entirely surprised to find other people stopping by the falls.

When they do, they're likely to find him swimming around the deep part near the falls, stripped down to his underwear and, from the grin on his face, having the time of his life. It's clear just from looking at him that he's good at this, moving through the water with a confidence and grace more like to a sea-creature than a man. He's in such a good mood that he even calls out to greet many of the people who approach.

Of course, he's not the guardian of the waterfall: everyone's welcome to stop by whether he's there or not. Once or twice, there's even a moose to be seen standing at the edge of the pool taking a long, relaxing drink.

Comments

[fightsinheels]

Isabelle practically beams at the praise, not that she necessarily needs it. This is how he differs from her big brother — Kira congratulates her for her sexual experiences, where Alec would frown and sigh and maybe make vague disapproving noises. Really, Kira is like some odd mixture of Alec and Jace, and she would think that it would make it feel like they're here with her, in some capacity.

Instead, she misses them more, her heart hollow and empty where their presence should be.

She makes a displeased face, turning her head so her chin's propped up on her arms, gazing out towards the waterfall. "I guess so. As far as Shadow World creatures go, Shadowhunters are the most human. But there's... there's something missing now, like some void where my power should be." She sounds frustrated, a muscle in her jaw tightening briefly as she closes her eyes.

[3ofswords]

Coming back around to painful subjects is just the way they are--the way a lot of the village is, he thinks. No one can hold it in all the time: this place knows how to push buttons to drag it out. Better to vent it here and there, get snatches of reassurance, maybe.

Kira wouldn't know much about that, though he might try it after losing his shit on Sonny that first night. Whatever he did or was to cope, Kira wouldn't pretend the man didn't have his own problems, and didn't need more.

"That happened to a lot of people," he admits. "They were always weaker, but I haven't felt mine in--weeks." There was only one bright side to cling to, and it was bright enough for him. "If it means Credence is safe though, I guess I'll live with it."

[fightsinheels]

Isabelle is used to internalizing, pushing away problems and issues and feelings in favor of hunting or wrapping boys around her little finger, whichever happens to be more doable at the time. When she needs to talk, she has her brothers. They might not always see eye-to-eye, but they always have her back.

Here, she has no demons to hunt, no brothers to talk to, and very few boys to wrangle her way. She ends up working through various frustrations by copious amounts of jogging, but even that is becoming less possible with the heat and the lack of food to keep her calorie intake up.

She doesn't necessarily like venting her frustrations to Kira, but it's better than lashing out later.

"Your psychic powers," she says not so much as a question but as a statement. A fact. She'd doubted him at first — real psychics in her world are rare. But he'd proved himself with a few pointed jabs that she'd certainly deserved, and that definitely weren't wrong. She believes him, now. "Hey-- is Credence a demon?"

It's not necessarily said with any malice, but with more curiosity than anything. The smoke-and-destroy thing he'd done was very demon-like, but his personality overall didn't strike her as very evil.

[3ofswords]

"My psychic powers," he agrees, rolling his eyes before returning his gaze to the gently moving water.

Her question is inherently dangerous enough that he takes the time to roll over, pressing his sun-seared back to the relative cool of the rock and exposing his front instead. "I don't know if I can really answer that, not knowing what you mean when you say the word. I don't think it's anything like what I mean."

Demons of the angels and variety weren't something he believed in, because he didn't believe in angels, or gods, or heaven and hell. He believes in cycles, and people: Tina and Newt's explanation of Credence's condition had made a lot of sense to him, in the way it was self-inflicted. "I think it's easiest to say that he was treated like one by the people who were caring for him, and his own power got twisted up like that to protect him. He's like--a container that people put nothing but rotten intentions into, and then they blamed him for the stench."

All they can do, he imagines, is convince Credence he's allowed to throw the rotten bits away, and try to fill it with something better.

[fightsinheels]

It's a touchy subject. She can tell because of the way he stalls, taking time to shift and stretch out like a cat in the sun. She's not about to back off, but she ends up following suit, taking the time to clip her bra back around her breasts and shimmy into her underwear before doing so. Her own nudity doesn't necessarily bother her, but it never hurts to leave something to the imagination.

Not for him, of course, but for anyone else around whose gaze might be lingering.

She listens to the explanation, considering it silently. It doesn't sound like a demon thing, even if the black smoke and destruction very much is. Maybe if Alec or Jace every shows up, they could hash it out together, come to their own conclusion.

"Demon's take a lot of forms," Isabelle says, dragging her hair from beneath her and splaying it out over the rock above her head. "Some of them look like monsters. Some of them can look like mundanes. Some of them look like clouds of smoke — Iblis demons."

[3ofswords]

He wants to break the tension, if only for how it crosses his arms over his chest, has him staring up at the sky. He wants to tell her not to put her tits away on his account, make it snide, roll his eyes again. He wants to tell her if she looks at Credence wrong, he'll burn her entire life down.

Rationality doesn't stay with him long, on the topic of Credence and his nature.

"Credence isn't from your world," is what he manages, moving an arm up to drape across his eyes. "He isn't from mine either, he isn't a thing you and I can pin a name on and know what to do with. He's a person, you should treat him like one."