Some time later, Carol's out of breath and relatedly laughing.  "Okay, okay, you got me.  Uncle, I give."  God, I needed that.  No pressure, no esper bullshit, just tag.  "Whew."  After catching her breath for a moment, she puts her palms on the edge of the pool and lifts herself back up onto the edge, slouching forward.

Anika stays in the water, but she leans back, just floating and relaxing. "That was fun. Thank you."

"Thank you. I definitely needed that."  It might be November, but it's November in California.  She's happy to feel the warmth of the sun on her skin, to feel the tiredness in her muscles, to see the quiet smile on Anika's face.  "You've got great camouflage for a pool, you know."  A hand brushes Carol's flaxen strands by way of illustration.

Anika laughs. "I think it's a little too shiny for that."

Her swimsuit is a less blue (and less metallic) grey.

"Well, better than mine.  Mine stands out anywhere that isn't a..."  She pauses to think for a second.  "... desert?"

"Hmm. Or those fields of wheat in movies? -- I don't know if they're like that in real life."

"There we go.  You'd never find me in a movie wheatfield, and maybe not in a real-life wheatfield, either.  If you ignore the rest of me, at least."  She's lightly tanned which sort of works, but her black bikini would probably give the game away in a heartbeat.

"You'd have to wear camouflage," she agrees.

"Well, if you ever see me wearing a yellow rainjacket, you know why.  It's a rainy wheat field dungeon.  Monsters'll never see me coming."

She snorts, inhales some water, and starts coughing.

She slips into the water, not quite preparing to haul Anika out of the water, but getting ready if that's necessary.  "You good?"  She's not hovering like a worried mother duck, she's responding to a Potentially Injured Noncombatant.

She's fine! Her body is very effectively keeping water of out her lungs! ...okay the coughing isn't fun but she can nod at Carol and lean on the edge of the pool until she can speak.

She can get a sympathetic pat on the back, then.

"It's like we can't breathe water," she jokes, when she's recovered her breath.

"Right?  What a ripoff.  We have special powers, and we don't even get water-breathing."  She takes a deep breath and sighs theatrically.

"I'm sure someone has it."

"And their backlash is, I don't know, being afraid of getting dry."  It's a little bitter.

"I'm sure there's some way that would be cripplingly bad, but," Anika shrugs, and drops back into the pool up to her neck. "Would be fine for underwater work, which is where you'd want to use that power."

"Mmm."  Getting angry while fighting monsters is fine, they deserve it.  Until you get angry enough to use your power to kill them and you don't stop until you die of an aneurysm or the portal closes because you're too angry to do anything but kill.  "S'pose you have a point there.  You'd just have to figure out underwater guiding.  Get a partner who does scuba, maybe."

"...better than breaking your bones if you sneeze," she agrees, after a moment. Do you want to talk about it?

Emotional vulnerability?  In public?  In front of all* these people?  Perish the thought.  "Does it really get that bad?"  

*like six, but all of them have esper hearing.

"Only at hellweek levels." Which if she hits something has gone very wrong.

She can extrapolate.  She shudders.  "Backlash."  It's just a word, but it's spoken like a curse.

Shrug. "It's not fun, but it's a background risk. Lots of backlashes you're dealing with all the time."

“Yeah.  I s’pose.”  Okay you’re spiraling, let’s do something else.  Anything else. ”What do you do when you’re not playing Supernatural Health and Safety Inspector?”