Daryl tentatively slithered out towards the pool. Something immediately struck her as off. She sniffed the air experimentally, and then to her surprise her forked tongue slid out and tasted the air. It was a bit weird but doing so let her figure out exactly what was strange about the pool. "No chlorine," she said to herself.
"Well yeah," said a voice from below her, "not in a mermaid pool." Daryl looked down to see Anna floating at the edge of the pool, head propped up on her hands and looking up at Daryl. "I swam in a chlorinated pool once, I swear my scales itched for a month." Her expression softened as she smiled up at Daryl. "Hi Daryl..." she said in a sing-song voice.
Daryl made a mental note that her name was still Daryl. That was good to know. An advantage of having a unisex name she supposed.
"Hi Anna..." she said a bit hesitantly.
"I saw you watching us..."
"...Yeah, sorry. Not really sure what came over me."
"Don't be sorry." Anna splashed her tail in the water a bit. "Humans may be wiling to repress every desire they have but I don't think that means we should..." suddenly she backed up her eyes went wide as she covered her mouth. "Shoot! Sorry! I totally forgot about your... you know the Lamia curse and..." she grimaced. "I know you have trouble."
"You have no idea..." Daryl said, partly to herself. "But I actually think I may have found a way around it." She unconsciously
tapped the book at her side.
"Really? And it works?" She looked interested.
"It works so far." She ran her eyes down Anna's body. "Pretty dang well."
Anna's face showed that same promise that had been there before. Apparently it didn't take much to get a mermaid back in the mood. Which of course meant that that was when the coach blew her whistle.
"Ok ladies!" she said. "I think that you've got most of that out of your system. Let's do some hoop trials. Next meet is in two weeks and I need you all at your best!"
Anna sighed, "She has literally got us jumping through hoops." She looked back up at Daryl expectantly. "You'll stay and watch?"