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"You must not drink it, nor attempt to inhale it - for water is generally unsuited to human lungs even when it is not so salty as this - but there is nothing quite so pleasant as swimming in the ocean!" Flayn declared, spinning on the soft sand. She was ever so glad that her father had allowed her class to extend their visit to the Rhodos Coast for the rest of the week-end after defending Mother's resting place! A pleasant swim with friends - albeit nowhere near as long and deep as she once would have been able to do - seemed just the thing to wash away her melancholy at seeing this familiar place so changed, so neglected.
(Meanwhile, several of the Golden Deer - chiefly Lysithea, Leonie, and Claude - were trying their hardest not to ask just how young Flayn had been when her family had lived here if she'd had to be very specifically told that humans couldn't breathe underwater.)
The salt spray flecked all of their skin, water whipped up by wind. Under the bright sun, the surface of the ocean glittered, interminably deep blue flecked with pure light like a clear and starry sky. Though Anna had kindly equipped them all with swimming gear (for a generous bulk discount, as she said!), for a long moment none of them made a start towards the water... until Claude set off at a run, jumping as high as he could to splash into the sea.
It did not go well, considering that they were on a beach and not by any kind of cliffside or sharp drop suitable to diving, but he was laughing as Flayn healed his scrapes and bruises, and soon enough the Golden Deer all began to frolic, metaphorically or literally, around the beach.
Lorenz, Marianne, and Ignatz stayed in the shallows to construct some sort of tiny building out of sand; Hilda and Lysithea began to hunt for pretty shells. Leonie, Raphael, and Claude all proved to be strong swimmers, and Professor Byleth proved to... drastically overestimate the ease with which they could take to swimming, having never before attempted it. That was all right, though! Flayn and her friends kept them from drowning.
Today might not have been altogether too much like those with the loved ones she had lost so very long ago, but Flayn's heart was still warmed more than she could say by this family trip to the beach.