Rahim pokes his hand into the water and then takes it out. He puts his hand in again and splashes, laughing, and then puts his other hand in and splashes with both.

Awww. Élie thinks it's important to encourage children's natural curiosity. He waves a hand and the surface of the water near Rahim develops an undulating rainbow swirl. 

He smiles and reaches out to splash the rainbow. He's really very interested in water, it'll hold his attention for as much as ten minutes at a time, even when it doesn't have any rainbows.

After a couple minutes of this, a boat passes through the canal, and Rahim looks up in fascination at that, too. He toddles along behind it, perilously close to the edge of the canal. "Boat," he says, pointing. "Boat."

Does it look like he's having trouble with his balance? no? Great. 

"Yes! That's a boat!" Here's how you say "boat" in Taldane and Kelish and Vudran and Draconic! 

Rahim looks mildly offended. "No, boat."

Élie knows for a fact that this is one bilingual baby, but – 

"In Taldane – " he says in Taldane – "we say 'boat.' In Osirian, we say 'boat'. Can you say boat for me?" 

"Noooooo," says Rahim, as if he has been asked something quite ridiculous, and then runs off with no warning in the direction that the boat is going.

Awwwww. 

Rahim pokes his finger into the water again, a little ways further, and then slowly, precariously, reaches out towards the boat, until his center of gravity is just about as much over the canal as over the path beside it.

There are some intractable philosophical dilemmas that come with the raising of children. For example: how much freedom should one allow them to make their own mistakes? They're small and confused and ignorant and ill-equipped to make informed decisions about their own long-term well-being, but Gods can and do say the same of mortals, and when they do it's hardly ever in the mortal's best interests. Élie's certainly better informed about what a five or ten or twenty-year-old Rahim might want, but that doesn't mean he truly has Rahim's best interests at heart, and not his own convenience as a more powerful entity with goals and desires of his own. Besides, who's he to say that the interests of some some hypothetical Rahim five or ten years from now outweigh those of the two-year-old right here in front of him? If the kid wants to take risks, that's his right, just as it's the right of mortals to defy the gods. 

And a moment later, Rahim tips over and falls into the canal, so suddenly that he hardly has time to cry out before his head is fully underwater.

FUCK FUCK FUCK HIS BABY IS IN A CANAL 

Five seconds later, Élie is in the canal, holding Rahim and obstructing traffic in both directions. 

Rahim is thrashing, very weakly, and otherwise not making any sound. Some people on the nearby boats yell at him, while a few people on the shore look over to see what's going on. Plenty of other people still aren't paying the situation any mind.

Less than five seconds after that, Élie, Rahim, and a carp that swam up his trouser leg are in the courtyard of the temple of Pharasma where Naima does her healing. 

Rahim is either coughing or vomiting up water, and managing to make at least something that sounds like a weak crying sound in the process. He's clinging very tightly to Élie's jacket.

WHERE IS HIS WIFE she's probably inside the temple THEN HE CAN BE INSIDE THE TEMPLE RIGHT NOW HOW'S THAT 

His wife sure is inside the temple! She's sitting at a little wooden table with her apprentices, near a long, long line of sick people that stretches out the door.

One of the temple acolytes calls out that he needs to wait in line. Naima stands up to see what's wrong, mumbling an apology to the patient she's seeing.

There is a wet husband! And a wet baby! Élie is patting his back and mumbling something soothing in Taldane about how bodies of water should be outlawed. 

She tells her sister to hold down the fort, as if her sister can actually do anything here without her, and crosses the distance between herself and Élie.

"What happened?"

...this really wasn't worth interrupting Naima's schedule for, was it? 

"He fell in a canal – I'm sorry, I should have stopped him – and they're filthy, I thought he might need a Remove Disease."  

Naima takes Rahim and pats him on the back, firmly, several times, before casting her healing hex. He coughs up a little more water, regains a little lost color, and begins sobbing very loudly. 

"It's okay," she whispers to the baby. "How long was he in for?"

"Ten seconds? I jumped in after him immediately – and I realize now there are other things I could have done about that, but I wasn't thinking – " or, rather, he was thinking too much about about the wrong things and now someone else's baby might die because he had to interrupt Naima in the middle of her work day, and she's going to think he's too absent-minded to watch Rahim ever again, and probably question why she married him in the first place – 

"Shhh," she tells Rahim. "Here, prestidigitate him dry and we'll wave him in front of the apprentice with the glasses to see if he has anything."

Right he should have thought of that immediately but he's an idiot and now his wife knows it. He can dry the child.