(Swimming Lessons) Ought Not to Involve Drowning

Job:

Leahndr had considered many times the way she wished to die.  Old age would be preferable, and if that failed, she wouldn't mind some kind of painless, quick acting poison.  Anything, really, for she wasn't too picky: anything aside from drowning or being roasted live on a spit over a campfire by cannibals.

There were no savages here, but there was a swimming pool.

The girl stared chlorinated water with a hefty scoop of disbelief plopped almost visibly on top of her head, what with the potency of it.  Chemically blue with all the fancy salts she had poured in-- salt makes a body float, and hopefully before it was a corpse, she thought-- it made for a rather deceiving peaceful sight.  Thirty-four bags' worth, she recalled with a  satisfied grin.      She was thankful that the brat's parents were drowning in gold...

Ha, wasn't she funny?

...so that their son wouldn't, in the local rec center's pool.  Magnolia was a lovely city with a decent reputation; Leah doubted she would be allowed to remain in town if a kid died under her 'watchful eye,' as she had promised his parents.

That's actually not quite right.  I probably COULD stay, just... In the local prison, or the like.

"Hey, l'il lad, how many swimmin' lessons have ye 'ad afore?" she called out curiously to the pudgy child, who was tentatively dipping his toes in the water.

He screeched back a number that was unrecognizable beyond the keening 'ee' sound near the end.

"Fourteen, ye say?" she muttered, taking a stab at the figure.  "Or sommat the like."

Returning to a shout, she warned him, "Well I've no patience for a fool, so's by that I mean like ye'd better put on em floaters that yer momma brought."  If ye aren't wanting to die, she finished in her head.  Truly, the tight-faced businesswoman had instructed Leah to have her son trained out of them by pickup time, but that would require her to go.near the water.  And that was... well, it was really out of the question.  Doubtless the kid would need saving if she let him be alone without the safety precautions, being how he couldn't swim and all.

"Missus!" the girl winced at the loudness of the cry and glanced over at the pool.  Joy, he had hopped into the water already, and without the floaters to boot.

"Boy, why'd ye hafta go an' do sommat stupid like that?" Her scathing bark echoed sharply in the empty room, and the annoying boy's face crumpled at her tone.  A bit of regret lit in her heart, but Leah swept it to the side and rolled her eyes.  The redhead went to check the time.  An hour and twenty minutes left.

"Look, y'aren't even wearin' yer li'l buoyies, so c'mon out here afore ye-"

A soft splash redirected her attention to the water.  Joy.  The kid was doggie paddling straight on course for the deep end.  Murgle's beard, but she wasn't going anywhere near there.  But hey, at least he could halfway stay afloat, using that method.  Leah glanced at the clock again.  Sooner or later, he'd have to give up on this foolishness...

Gurgling, just barely audible from where she was standing a good four meters away from the shallow end, grabbed at her ears.  There was no brat in sight, but there was a rather large dark mass resting on the bottom of the pool.

Ye've made me into a liar, boy, she recognized as her feet leaped from dead stillness into a dash, carrying her of their own accord to the edge of the pool.  As a giant splash rippled waves across the surface and stung Leah's cheeks, the girl slipped under the water.

But I was one already.

After swimming enough of a ways horizontally, she leaned down towards the boy and found that she could reach him easily.  It was odd that the buoyant force wasn't propelling her up at least a little bit especially with the salt dissolved.  But oh well.

Leah gathered the curled up ball of boy into her arms and pushed up against the gravelly floor of the pool.  Shooting towards the surface at a relieving speed, she heaved the kid into the ceramic tiles and hacked up a quart of water before her soaked garments dragged her under.

Leah...
What a grating voice.

Leah...
Really, couldn't it go away?  Some people were trying to sleep around here.

"LEAH!  Missus, wake up!  I'm sorry, I didn't- I can swim.  I thought- I tried to rescue you!  Miss Leah, please wake up!"

Green eyes were peeved under tired eyelids, and the redhead raised up her sword arm to thump the boy solidly on the temple.  "I told ye not to go in the deep end."

798 Words.

As it turned out, the bags held colored blue crystals that added nothing but the smell of blueberries and the tint of the same. RIP floatation.