Work Text:
They arrive at the shipwreck three days before the holiday season.
She peeks into the dark waters. She couldn’t see the shipwreck even though it was supposed to be beneath them. Which meant she couldn’t see the gold statue in the ship hull. So maybe the rumour wasn’t real. But the rumour also said the statue was supposed to be Gree. And anything Gree was worth investigating. Because it meant a lot of credits.
Besides, the shipwreck was in open waters. So this time, it wasn’t even a crime.
Luthen and her hadn’t really discussed what to do next. But the way he laid it out made it sound like a two-person job. There had to be a guide to navigate the inside of the ship and clear a route. Her. And someone else to carry the statue. Him.
Except for one problem.
“I can’t swim.”
Luthen glances at her. She looks right back. She has not reached her fourteenth name day and she is not expected to know how to.
“Swimming is a basic life skill.”
“No it isn’t! It’s dangerous! We weren’t taught in my village until we were of age!”
They think of hiring a guide, but they couldn’t risk the guide blabbing about what they found. So the three-day job becomes a one-night scavenging hunt. Luthen dives into the waters and takes what he can. Goblets and necklaces and a helmet.
She wasn’t going to ask him if they were worth as much as the statue. Because they weren’t.
-
They were in a strange upside-down planet where winter was summer, summer was winter, and Life Day was called Winter Solstice even though it was sunny outside. But that didn’t stop the space port from closing for the holidays. So they had to find a place to stay for the next two days.
The hotel receptionist peers at her from over the counter.
“How old is she? I can get you a discount if she’s under twelve.”
She leafs through her ID’s until she finds one where she is ten years old. They are saving money to buy a Haulcraft for the Rebellion. Every little counts.
-
She is supposed to be scrubbing a rusty goblet beside him, but she cannot stop watching the children playing in the sea.
She decides then and there that she will not be the weak link again. So she points at a boy, swimming by the shore.
“I want to learn.”
He looks at her.
-
They buy her a wet suit because it is on discount. Red, green, and about two sizes too large. But the shop does not have any floatation devices stocked.
No matter. She will learn this on the shallow end of the sea.
*
Except she doesn’t. Because he has tasted the shallow end of the sea. She isn’t sure if she’s supposed to do this before swimming. So she does it too.
The seawater is disgusting.
“Kleya, what are you doing?”
She glares at him.
“What are you doing?”
He grumbles something she cannot catch. Then he turns and heads back.
“I thought we were going to learn here.”
“No. The salt’s a crutch. You learn in the pool.”
She has no idea what he is talking about. She tries anyway.
“I just need to know the moves, Luthen. Until the floatation device kicks in.”
“What?”
“Floatation device. That’s what everyone uses to float.”
She can tell he is trying not to laugh. This annoys her.
-
The pool in the hotel is large. There is a shallow end for children and a deep end for adults.
She refuses to enter it until she has some clarification on how this actually works.
“But you used a floatation device when we were at sea! I saw it!”
“I used a breather.”
“Then how can you float without a device!”
“You just do!”
She finds this vague and unconvincing. But he has already slipped into the pool. She dips her toe in the water. It is freezing. She does not understand how everyone else is smiling , or how the group of children in the middle of the pool is taking swimming instructions from a droid.
“Do what I do.”
She forces herself to try. But her hands and feet do not speak to one another. She is flailing. She is inhaling water. She is drowning.
Luthen grabs a loose flap at the back of her wetsuit and picks her up. It takes her a moment before she realizes she is paddling air.
“That’s not how you do it. Try again.”
He dips her back into the water before she is remotely ready.
-
“You have no rudimentaries.”
She does not know how long they have spent in the pool, only that she is too tired to argue over his insult. The sound of laughter follows her. The children in the middle of the pool are now in pairs, taking it in turns to practice arm strokes and holding their breath underwater. She is the only child without a droid for an instructor.
“Start at the beginning. Hold on to the ledge. Stretch your legs out. Kick.”
She does this until he is satisfied. Then he holds out his hand towards her.
She refuses. There has to be another way.
So he submerges himself. She waits for him to surface, then sticks her head underwater when he does not. She sees him moving his arms in a sort of half circle. Slow and deliberate. She nods. Then imitates him.
*
“Now do it simultaneously. Rise for breath every other stroke.”
She flops on her belly.
“Try again.”
She wants to kick him in frustration. But all she can do is shove some water in his direction.
He pauses. Then splashes the water right back at her. The ensuing wave hits her squarely in the face. She squeals and dips her head underwater. But not before sending another wave his way.
Beneath the surface, where every reflection is askew, he almost looks like he is smiling.
-
Winter Solstice celebrations come and go. They ignore the caroling and the trees and the food and spend their time in the pool. Her gift is the slow learning of a sort of crawl, with him holding on to the loose flap at the back of her wet suit as if she were a suitcase. But release her, and she sinks.
“Stop that! I’ll drown!”
“No you won’t! You’ll float!”
“You don’t know that!”
He launches himself towards the deep end of the pool and glares at her. On his back.
She tries to do the same and sinks like a stone.
-
He decides her next step is to leave the pool and sit on a deck chair. Where she will watch a video on her datapad about physics and floating.
“Kleya, it’s Science.”
If it was Science, then why was she still sinking? She tells Luthen this, then explains that she might be an anomaly (a word she also learned in the video).
He sighs so loudly that the Twilek two deckchairs over looks at them in alarm.
-
There is another answer here. Luthen might be the problem.
So she paddles away from him (carefully, with one hand clutching the ledge) and drifts towards the middle of the pool. The group of children (floating perfectly) and the droid are still there. She stays on the edges and she imitates what they do.
But the droid begins to stutter. Then repeats itself. Again and again. The children groan and slip away. But not Kleya, who momentarily does not understand what is going on. Her hands begin to tangle with one another, the arm which clutches the ledge slips. She spends the next few seconds frantically clawing her way up the walls of the pool until someone picks her up by the scruff of her wetsuit and hauls her back to the shallow end of the pool. Luthen.
She goes limp and sighs very loudly.
-
Evening again. They will be leaving the next day and she does not know if they will find a pool in the next planet. But try as she can, she still cannot float. And if she cannot float, she cannot swim.
She looks out to the horizon. The children have abandoned the droid and are now running along the edges of the sea, playing and swimming in the wake of the setting sun like little dots.
She is very envious. Although she would never admit it.
-
He wakes her at dawn.
“Come.”
She follows him to the pool. No, she follows him past the pool, and into the open sea.
“I thought you said we learned in the pool.”
“I know.”
They stop when the water is just below her neck. The sand crumbles beneath her feet. This shaky, unsteady feeling of slipping. And suddenly, she is grabbing both his hands, gripping them tightly because she remembers every failed attempt she has had in the pool and how she had to use the ledge to claw her way up and now she is in the sea and she has no ledge, and she is convinced she is going to drown…
“Do what you did in the pool. Body straight. Kick out your legs.”
His right hand slips away before she knows it. She scrambles for his left hand and swallows a mouth full of water.
“Breath. Alternate strokes.”
She continues to paddle with her legs. This was not as difficult as she expected. Maybe because Luthen was holding her up with his left hand.
“I’m letting go.”
She nearly launches herself into him.
“No!”
“Five seconds.”
“How will I know!”
“Because I’ll be here. Put your head underwater.”
He dips underwater. So does she. In the rising sun, she sees the finger he holds up.
One.
He releases her. This sudden feeling of weightlessness. She trashes about immediately. So alien.
Two.
She reaches for his right hand. His left hand. Any hand. He waves her away.
Three.
She’s going to drown she’s going to drown she’s going to…
Four.
She has to reach Luthen. She has to climb on top of him and sit on his head to save herself. But he was so far away and…
Five.
Then she is floating. And Luthen is right. There is no way to explain this. He offers a hand. But she waves him away. She doesn’t need him anymore. She pushes away and begins to swim the way he taught her.
-
Storm clouds arrive later that morning. All shuttles out of the planet are cancelled. The receptionist allows them to stay until the space port reopens. So they return to their room after the swim and they collapse into their beds as one. Exhausted.
She turns to her side and she sees him asleep. This big black lump. He was mumbling and sighing again. But he wasn’t shouting. So maybe he wasn’t having a nightmare.
“Thank you.”
She whispers it out loud and she pretends he hears her. Then she falls asleep moments later.