Welcome to Gaia! ::

My my, the tension in the room was rising, and Hadiyya was left to wonder just what exactly had happened to trigger it. Things had been progressing nicely enough one moment, and the next.. Well, something would surely have to be done. Brows knitting gently above the bridge of her nose, Yaya turned a concerned glance back towards Calder, but the narrowed glare he was aiming at the newest boil was so very far from helpful. Frowning harder, the marid pulled her towel off her shoulders and folded it before walking over to lay it on the bench beside the Kelpi. "Whatever the problem is, we'll talk about it later, but please stop glaring?" The request was barely a whisper, and for Calder's folded ear only.

She didn't remain by his side for long though, and had walked back to the little knot of students beside the pool just as Gabrian suggested they all get in the water. Considering she'd been about to say the same, she could do little but smile approvingly at him. "Yes, everyone into the pool. Shallow end only for now please." She didn't want anyone accidently mucking about with the glowing orbs the leeches had set up for them.

And while everyone was migrating towards the water, Yaya took the oppertunity to greet the two newest arrivals, Raziel and Arachne. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself sooner, but I'm Hadiyya, or Yaya if you rather. I'm standing in for Calder as captain for now." Smiling, she offered a hand to each of them.

Under normal circumstances she might have been perfectly fine with the rising tension in the room. She quite enjoyed observing such strong emotions, but now was certainly not the time in place.

Casting another worried, though stern look up at Calder, Yaya slipped over to the water's edge before dropping off the side and into the water. It was warm, though not hot, slightly off color, and came up to the ghoul's rip cage. Her hair in it's thick braid swirled lazily behind her in the water like some great snake.

Alcyone was late again! She really needed to change her catalarm or else she was going to be late for everything. She had written down the swimming tryouts in her notebook somewhere and was going to make sure that she was going to be there on time. Guess not.

As she was making her way to the pool, she already heard the voices talking and she frowned to herself. She hated missing out on things. For sure, she was changing her catalarm. Stepping on deck slightly out of breath, Alcie surveyed the scene and glanced at all of the students already on deck. She recognized a few of the faces but there really wasn't anybody she knew too well. Then she spotted Gabrian and tried to make eye contact to wave. "Hello! I hope that I'm not too late. I'm here for swim team try outs?"

Smiling widely at everybody, Alcyone had decided against wearing a two piece and thankfully she had a full variety of swim suits to pick from. Even though it was a one piece (cept there are straps), it still managed to expose a lot of skin. Her iridescent scales were more visible as the light reflected from the pool hit her skin. She didn't like tying up her hair until she had to get into the water so she had a hair tie around her wrist.

Calder glanced at Yaya when she came to whisper her warning, and he frowned, not at all in the mood to talk about anything regarding Raziel. Still, this was tryouts, and he was already making it difficult enough with being on the bench. He wasn't about to let some jerk of a boil ruin his club's first tryouts and he kept all thoughts (and outbursts) to himself.

As everyone took to the water, Calder rose, walking over to stand 3 feet from the pool's edge. He made sure to mark little lines in chalk to show what was the proper distance he could be at before he would be in trouble. As everyone slipped into the pool, he was about to speak when a new member came in. Smiling, he glanced to see that Yaya was already showing everyone into the shallow end while he went to go over to Alcyone. "We just started. I'm Calder, the swim squad president. Well, I'm temporary off duty at the moment. Just supervising. Yaya.." He gestured to the ghoul in the water. "…will be taking my place. If you could, please step down into the shallow end. We're about to start."

Moving back to his place, he breathed out and called. "Okay everyone! We're going to just do a simple test. I need to see how well you all can swim. Just because you are here doesn't mean you are all great swimmers. I need to know you aren't going to drown on me.." He thought about that lovely little idea a moment and gave them all a sort of appraising look before shaking out of his trance. "…Its going to be simple. I want you all to do warm-ups in the pool and when you are ready, get in line. Yaya will time your lap. You are to go from the starting point where Yaya is standing to the end of the pool, and then back again." It seemed simple enough. Then again – "Now, unless you haven't noticed yet, I left something in the pool for all of you."

He went over to the bench and pushed the towels aside from where he was hiding a jar, and came back. Holding it up, it looked as if he was holding a underwater firefly, but looking at it revealed it was a glowing plant with a rounded, glowing bulb and open leaves. On the bottom were short vines that barely went down an inch. "These are Blargars-Bulb Blossoms." (Say that three times fast.) "They glow faintly in the water and…" He opened the jar and put his hand in, pulling it out once the underside of the plant latched on. "They also stick to you if you get close too them. The aim here is that not only are you swimming, but how well you see and dodge in the water. Some of the swimming events are going to be like obstacle courses. At the end, we'll check your time and how many of these guys you have on you. Don't worry. There is no rank or grade here. We just want to see your starting points to keep track of your progress."

He pried the pesky plant off his and and tossed it in the water. It glowed in a faint green color before it slowly sank down into the water.

Rules:
The Blargar-Bulb Blossoms like to stick, so even a passing current can sweep them against you or make them bounce off.
Here's how it works.

Roll 2 10 sided dice.

First dice determines swimming speed:
1-3: You were careful and took your time.
4-7: Good speed. You kept a steady pace!
8-10 Way to fly! You just zipped through that lap!

Second dice determines how many Blargars'-Bulb Blossoms stuck!

((Example: Calder swam a good, steady speed, but 9 blossoms stuck to him. Tough luck, Calder. Should have been paying attention to where you were going instead of daydreaming about Alabaster in a speedo.))

((I will edit in a lil liiiiil bit

I'm going to post my .... post bellow actually, but obviously keeping this roll. Derp derp >> I took too long to edit and people posted and yeah. UHM. YEAH.))

It was unlike Yui to be late for anything, much less something that she enjoyed and was fairly good at. But then again, she also usually didn't have to pry the clothing she needed from the too-playful jaws of her pets.

Still, she'd managed to rescue the modest two piece from the little beast, had donned it and raced like fury for the pool. She'd arrived just in time to hear Calder issue his instructions and slid herself into the pool, tail twitching in excitement. For now, she ignored the others, except for the two in charge. Those were the only ones she needed to impress.

Once the young Samebito felt that she was sufficiently warmed up, she began her lap, legs barely moving as she allowed her tail to propel her through the water. Which would have been even better had said tail not also stirred up some of the bulbs. Bulbs which decided to stick to her tail like annoying little barnacles. Still, Yui was confident that she'd done reasonably well and once she'd finished with her laps, she moved courteously out of the way of the other swimmers and simply watched.

((WAY TO FAIL RAZ. /facepalm ))

Waiting after the others for his turn, Raziel was just idly standing by in the shallows of the pool. One by one they took their turns and moved up in the line. When it was Raziel's turn to go, he took the entire thing as a sort of warm up or practice lap. He swam calm and lazily to the other end and back, not really caring how fast he was going. Looking down on him in the pool he probably resembled some sort of crocadilian beast, streamlining his arms and legs against his body and using his tail as a propeller and rudder, moving him forward and guiding him the length of the murky pool. He had been so comfortable in the warm water with his lazy practice lap that he had kept his eyes closed the entire time, not even looking to see if the weird glowing plants were in his path.

Standing back up at the end of his go, there were quite a few of the glowing things stuck to him. With a slightly disgusted expression, Raziel began to pry at the first one, tossing it over his shoulder back into the other end of the pool. The rest of them came off much quicker as Raziel got the hang of them, and soon enough he was free of the little things and standing back in the shallows with the others.

He'd watched the way Natalia had... well, melted under the soft patting, out of lack for better word, and the demon rationalized that yes, maybe it was the same for all weres. He decided he'd have to ask both LW and the were-lemur at some point in the future, though he was figured he might have to be careful with how he phrased it, least he accidentally offend both ghouls. In all honesty, he just thought it was cute and thus felt the need to ask.

Alas, this was not the place or time for such questions; he watched as Calder stepped up and explained their task, the demon's gaze moving over to the pool to take note of the Blargars-Bulb Blossoms. This, he decided, was going to be tricky, given the fact he wasn't going to be allowed to use his swifter, more agile serpent form. On the other hand, he liked the idea of a challenge; specially one he knew he could overcome with time (after all, which he wasn't a fan of trying to perform impossible tasks, he didn't mind trying to best himself).

Arachne's performance was rather stellar, if he said so himself. The ghoul was fast and he counts just a few of those blossoms when she emerged. The were-lemur was not nearly as fast, and not nearly as graceful, for when she emerged, she hand a handful of the blossoms, but he did regardless, offer both ghouls a smile. The later performances ranged; some were fast, some not so much, but regardless, he didn't think anyone did too terribly. Specially seeing as how he doubted Yaya or Calder would toss them based on this alone. Wasn't the whole idea to have fun and learn?

By the time it was his turn, Gabrian had decided that this wasn't really that much of a competition; it was more about being part of a team and enjoying themselves, and thus... with that in mind, he made his lap. Not nearly as fast as he wished he'd been, but he didn't do too poorly either; after all, he wasn't used to swimming in this form. Pulling himself out of the pool, he sat by the edge and counted three Blossoms, which he plucked off and placed on the ground before him before looking up to see how the rest were doing.