Soaring Eagle

Chapter 9: My Friends Visit

The next day Tim and I head out to the manor's pool. I was wearing the same sort of swimsuit as the day before and had my wings pulled in tight, not so tight it hurt but tight enough that they wouldn't be seen. "We'll start with floating then move to the swimming itself," Tim says.

I nod, "Okay."

Tim starts to explain different floating positions. When he's done he leads me to the shallow end of the pool, " I'll support you at first, then I'll let go and let you float by yourself, okay?" I nod.

He flips me onto my back, making me yelp. Once he explains what I need to do I adjust my body to match the description he gave me, "Like this?" I ask.

"Yep. Now I'm going to let go just arch your back slightly to maintain this position," he confirms.

I feel his arms leave my back. After a moment I grin, "This is easy!" I kick my feet a little and start to move. I flip over so I'm on my stomach and begin to swim. I had watched a few swimming videos the night before so I had the general idea of what to do. Copying the movements of the swimmer from the video I begin to swing my arms and move through the water.

"Watch out for the wall!" Tim shouts.

I don't register his warning in time and end up headbutting the wall, "Ow." I mutter.

"Are you okay?" Tim asks.

"Yeah..." I reply, "I guess watching YouTube can only teach you so much."

Tim shakes his head, "So that's how you knew how to do that."

I blush, "Yeah, sorry."

"It's fine. In all honesty, I don't think I need to teach you the other fancier strokes and stuff since we aren't professional swimmers. I'll save the stroke used in water rescues until later when you're more comfortable with swimming. So, for now, I think I'll teach you how to turn and tread water then we'll call it quits." Tim replies.

I nod, "Okay."

"Alright, well turning can be done in two ways. The first is to simply stop swimming forward and then rotate yourself to face the direction you want to go. The other is maneuvering your feet and hands to force yourself to turn in that direction." Tim explains.

I start to swim towards the opposite wall again then I duck underwater. While underwater I angle my kicks differently and turn myself around so that I am facing Tim again. "Like that?" I ask.

"Yep," Tim nods, "Now lets work on treading. Come on."

He leads me to the edge of the shallows and shows me how to tread. I duck under the rope that divides the shallow end from the deep end and starts to tread next to him. I kick my feet and push water in quick circles with my hands to keep myself up. "This is tiring," I complain as I feel my muscles start to hurt.

"That's why we'll keep practicing. It will help to increase your stamina throughout your body." Tim says.

"That's a bonus, I guess." I consider as I swim to the ladder and pull myself out of the water.

As Tim follows me and we dry off, Dick walks over from the manor, "So how'd it go?"

"She already has floating, the front stroke, the backstroke, and treading basically down. She needs to work on stamina and endurance, but that is basic training stuff it doesn't affect her ability to swim." Tim replies, setting aside his towel and pulling his shirt over his head. I tuck on a hoodie and sweatpants. I let my wings out through the hidden slits in my hoodie.

"It isn't hard," I say. Dick opens his mouth to respond when the three of us hear a yell, "What the heck? Was that Damien?" I ask.

"Sounded like him. Let's go see what happened. He said he was going to be doing some secret training with his katana." Tim answers.