Swimming in Bliss
Liliya’s swimsuit was a deep blue, a one piece and the kind you had to step into like a dress. Which was to say she did not quite enjoy wearing it. She much enjoyed the floral bikinis she often saw passing shop windows, and wondered if she could match them with flowers growing by the beachside on a vacation to Hawaii. She would need to figure out the technicalities of such a holiday first, and there was no way her guardians, even magnanimous as they were, would allow her to kick her feet up in foreign America with a coconut in her hands. In her daydreams, perhaps.
A beach day sounded like a dream in the middle of nowhere Laplands of Durmstrang, but within a dream it will remain. A terrain sans beaches, a territory sans oceans, a treacherous landscape sans solace — many things could be said about what the Institute lacked. But, with the generosity of the Institute overflowing, there were also an abundance of provisions by Durmstrang: rocky lakeshores that dug into her soles, silky sand that lapped at the stones, and in many ways, a home where she would have least expected it. She found an odd comfort in the way high winds rushed through the treetops, passing gales sent ripples across the lakes, and windows slammed to a shut at the drafts of cool breezes.
And now, they were bidding their springtime days goodbye as summer was creeping up on her fast. With wildflowers blooming in profusion, her favourite lilies had tenderly and gently opened their buds, as if the first of them were peeking out at the world. Lilies, just like her name, the only shred of her past she was willing to carry forward because she had made it undeniably her own. She picked one from the grounds and slipped it into her hair. There were always underestimated values of working with an imagination that never failed her.
A bright splash of colour dotting her honey blonde locks, Liliya gripped a basket in her hands as she jogged down the winding paths that led towards one of the school’s many lakes. Its contents contained of a picnic blanket, towels, and some drinks — juice based, mind you; they could have fun another day. With sunglasses shielded her eyes from the blinding rays of the midafternoon sun, she seemed out of place under the snow-capped peaks and high-rising spirals of Durmstrang’s grounds. A lost traveller, or perhaps simply one willing to make the world bend to her tastes rather than allow herself be reshaped.
She set the basket down by the lake, taking care to put it just out of reach from where the water would ruin her linen. Shrugging off the long jacket now inappropriate for summertime’s slipping coolness, she allowed it to fall atop her thing. Retrieving her picnic blanket, she spread it out over the rocks with as much precision was their surface could allow. Laying down on the uneven patterning of the terrain, she propped her back up on her elbows and stared out into the distant tree line without a worry at all. The world hummed around her, the currents licked at her feet, the sun was beating down on her. She bathed in it. It was great weather for some tanning.
It was also, she decided, great weather for some socialisation.
Spotting a victim immediately, a stray student whose lack of swimwear did not seem to bother her, Liliya called out with almost threatening ferocity. “Эй, ты! Да, ты!” She insisted. “Come on! Join me.”
If they would not come, she might as well push someone in.
Translation: hey you, yes you!
@Astrid Olsen & @Viktoriya Petrovskaya | banner by Camille de Varenne
INPC of Archer Duncan