Thoroughly sodden from her impromptu emergency shower, Yor slopped and slipped her way back to the main pool area, grateful that, though she was leaving a trail of puddles behind her, she was in the hallway adjacent to an indoor pool. If someone slipped on that water and cracked his or her skull open, dying as a result of a traumatic brain injury, no one could justifiably blame her.
A good assassin had to cover her tracks, even with those oh-so-easy accidental murders.
Once she passed the double self-closing doors, she took in the sight of the pool area proper. Relatively busy on a Saturday, the sports complex was beginning to swell with people. To the clear consternation of several lifeguards, one of whom was on her way towards them, several youths were roughhousing in the deep end now that the diving boards were closed. Small children sat about with their parents, some tugging and cajoling to try to coax "mammas" and "papas" into the pool and others laying cuddled up in laps, being read to or allowed to nap, snug and safe.
There was no indication as to where Loid and Anya might have gone off to, but that only provoked a quick sigh, Yor's heart-rate slowing and cooling as the assassin scuttled over to the collection of plastic chairs they had set up. Bending down, she rummaged through the bag that held their supplies. Fortunately, Loid had thought to bring extra towels. Their experience applying to Eden Academy had affirmed and reinforced his penchant for nigh-obsessive over-preparation. He was always such a forward thinker and careful planner, so clearly skilled that, if that analytical mind and propensity for organization had been turned only a few degrees, or his talents been identified at an early age, as hers had been, he would probably have made an excellent handler or assassin in his own right.
Maybe even a spy.
But Loid, as he stood, could never have the stomach for that sort of thing! Imagine someone as caring and gentle and unassuming as her husband engaging in cloak-and-dagger escapades!
He just wouldn't have the heart.
It was said heart that truly stood out. His empathy and keen insights into the human condition, something Yor struggled to understand after foregoing almost all normal social interactions from the time she began to murder people for a living, shone clear and beautiful like his meaty pecs in the light. A mind could be trained and honed with enough practice, but nothing Yor did to herself could ever allow her to feel like a normal person again. There was no rebuilding the foundations that should have been laid when she was a child now that a rickety façade of a building, utterly empty inside, had been erected atop the uneven and low-quality concrete.
Of course, if anyone was to assist her in that regard, it would have to, and could only, be Loid.
His patients must have really appreciated his efforts as their doctor, loving him in their own ways, despite an appearance of cool detachment. Yor could likely use a little bit of concussive therapy herself now and again. Many women probably benefited from a good pounding by a professional, here and there.
Cleared the head.
Wiped away all those negative thoughts.
Maybe that was what she needed to help banish these lewd and untoward visions, Yor considered to herself as she wrung water from the edges of her crumpled and creased sundress before pulling out several fluffy beach towels to try to dry the rest sufficiently to allow her to make it home. Hopefully she wouldn't be completely soaked. She really didn't care to be around Loid while she was so wet.
It made things rather hard.
Once smooth and airy fabric was now coarse and sticky, still terribly damp and stubbornly refusing to dry due to the general mugginess of the pool area, low ceilings, girded with visible metal beams, trapping the moisture from the heated pool. Her sundress was simply in shambles, and a mental chastisement provided some distraction right up until the point that Loid arrived, hand-in-hand with Anya.
Immediately after entering the room, he stopped dead in the doorway and appeared to be quivering in a fashion that she'd really like to see on a nightly basis after Anya had been put to bed, his eyes stretched wide as he took in the sight of her doubtlessly shameful appearance, half-sodden and fully disheveled.
Fortunately, he'd dried off and slipped back into his loose shirt, which made it far easier to return his gaze without fixating on the rippling swells of muscle that arched and curved into each other as if they'd been sculpted from marble or poured and caste in bronze if only Loid's eminently fair skin were exposed to a little bit more sun, although it was probably for the best that he stayed indoors and wore his hat to keep his skin that alabaster sheen so that goosebumps would prickle across his flinching navel, those little fine hairs bristling as he whined, holding himself completely still, as she dragged the flat of her knife along-
"Mamma!"
Shaken out of her reverie right as she was getting to the point – which was somewhere between her knife-tip and Loid's pants, likely the easily-sliced belt – Yor stared directly at Anya as that was, apparently, the only safe thing to do here.
The small girl had stopped cold, grasping frantically at Loid's hand, as if she was caught in her death throes that caused the muscles to twitch and spasm, providing fierce strength for only few seconds before the adrenaline coursing through a man's body was overtaken by the effects of blood loss.
Which was ridiculous.
Yor would effortlessly extinguish anyone who even thought about harming Anya.
In Anya's other hand, a popsicle with tiered coloured rings in a perfect rainbow from red to dark blue was just starting to melt, little trails of saliva mixed with fruit juice rolling down from the slightly narrowed top.
A pang of something very much like pain shot from Yor's aching throat down through her lungs, enough to make her forget about Loid entirely. Anya's expression was simply all wrong. Like a gaping chasm set in a field of white snow that was her ashen face, her mouth flopped open and her upper and lower lips, stained slightly red, quivered. Gazing up at Yor, the little girl's eyes were like saucers of milk, each pupil and iris little more than a drowned gnat right in the centre.
"What is it, Anya?" Loid asked in a slightly strained rush, as close as her husband came to being frantic, really, as he bent down to his knee next to his daughter and pressed a hand to her cheek, then forehead, to test her temperature.
Speaking of which, Loid looked like he was running a fever.
A terrible mother and wife! That's what she was.
Having little need of her towel, Yor let it fall and staggered forward, hand outstretched towards the little girl.
"It's okay, Anya." Her voice pitched up in the most utterly fake of fashions, and she despised it just as utterly. Why couldn't she have been a better actress, or a better person worthy of being a mother to the poor girl? What had she done? Surely she'd violated some sacred trust or forgotten something vital to the girl for her to gaze on her with such shock and horror.
Anya gulped down a half mouthful of her popsicle juice, everything that remained from her last lick. "Y-you shouldn't play with knives, mamma."
Yor's hands flew to her hips, whereon she found her emergency knives strapped underneath her clothing, but invisible to the naked eye. No tears in her clothing allowed Anya or Loid to see them.
Which was good.
She didn't want to have to kill all these witnesses, perform concussive therapy on Loid until she'd nearly banged him to death so that he would have no recollection of what he'd seen of her thigh-knives, and pinky-swear Anya to secrecy, the inviolable bond of female friendship ensuring that the existence of her assassin's tools would remain confidential.
"Whatever do you mean?" she asked sweetly as Loid recovered and scooped the shuddering girl into his arms to carry her over an open chair.
Once settled on her seat, Anya blinked, shaking her head like Bond after a bath, sending wet pink hair flopping about.
"Oh, uh." She gave her little popsicle a long, contemplative suck as Yor shared a worried glace with Loid, both of them now kneeling before their daughter. "W-well, they told us that at school. No running with scissors. And there's that sign." With that, Anya raised the multi-coloured popsicle, pointing it towards the safety sign that clearly stated 'No Running' alongside the image of a little man with flailing legs, encircled and crossed out by a red bar. "So... so you shouldn't run or – or play with scissors!"
Consternation wrinkled the bridge of her husband's nose. "But what does that have to do with knives?"
That was the question that Yor needed answered, as the possibility struck her that Anya had, perhaps, found her way into one of the trunks in the second bedroom! Perhaps even gotten into that secret floor panel that Yor had pried loose so she could stash her varied poisons. Oh, what a terribly unforgivable person she was, if indeed, she'd imperilled her daughter! Imagine a child getting hold of such deadly weapons. If anything had happened to her, it would have been Yor's fault entirely, and the image of Anya twirling knives around her diminutive fingers, and then accidentally putting out an eye, very nearly had Yor vomiting as she shrunk in on herself.
"Well," Anya began, flicking a finger over her lower lip. Then, to Loid's sigh of relief and the unclenching of Yor's gut, the little girl beamed at them, nodding her head vigorously. "Knives are a lot cooler than scissors! If I was going to run with anything, it'd be a knife. Not scissors. Not even safety scissors for the construction paper at school!"
Loid, his gaze stoic and searing in judgment, stared down at their daughter with suspicion.
"That's it?" he asked dubiously.
"Yep!" Anya popped in something akin to a screech that drew the attention of a few random child whose parents had to hurry them along, muttering something about not wanting anything to do with that weird lady, before chomping off the end of her popsicle. "I jus' 'eely uv nives,"
Any concern regarding knife usage was wiped away by the dictates of decorum as Loid retrieved a cloth napkin from their bag, reaching around in front of Yor, who had her had clasped to her chest as her heart throbbed.
"Sensible bites, Anya," came his chastisement as he wiped up the dribble of juice on his daughter's chin. "And whatever your... feelings about knives, never touch them without me or your mother there to supervise you."
"Mm-hm," Anya murmured in acquiescence around her popsicle.
Under normal circumstances, Yor might have added her voice, gentle though it was, to that of her husband, but as the danger had been averted, she was rather busy at the moment.
Her heart melted at her daughter's love of knives.
Although she did have to lock away her own weapons a little bit more carefully, she now knew just what to get Anya for her sixteenth birthday!
But no deadly weapons until she was old enough to drive.
Having resolved that matter to Loid's apparent satisfaction, her husband gave Anya an affectionate stroke to her head, keeping his gaze directed away from Yor in what she assumed was sympathy embarrassment for the frumpy and soggy state of her sundress.
"I, uh-" Loid coughed out a little bit of a squeak from his voice, fingers drumming against his thigh. "I believe that I'm going to run through some laps while Anya finishes her popsicle and digests." With that explanation, Loid slid his fingers under the moderately soggy hem of his tee-shirt and yanked it upwards, peeling the entire thing from his torso as Yor choked on her own drool.
Could this display be considered spousal abuse given that Loid was attempting to murder her?
Apparently, she just had to admit that she was a degenerate. Resign herself to life lusting – in ways she'd never dreamt possible – over her husband's physique and kindheartedness towards children.
As Loid burned off excess energy with shockingly vigorous laps in the pool, outpacing most Olympic swimmers – oh, yes, nothing wrong with his performance in moist environments or the pace and smoothness of his forceful strokes – Yor distracted herself by reading a storybook to Anya. No focusing on her husband's demonstration of unexpectedly impressive endurance and constitution that meant he could probably go for hours without being spent.
Are You My Mother? didn't seem a wise choice of text considering the little girl's life experience, but it had them both tearing up and cuddling.
"I'm so glad I found my mamma." Tiny arms wrapped around Yor's torso, the girl snuggled into her side, Anya beamed up at her with a toothy grin.
If anything was more important than Loid in the pool, it was Anya.
That, at least, sufficed until they had to leave.