gooseberryhigh | MONTHLY BONDING: CAMPING

MONTHLY BONDING: CAMPING

MONTHLY BONDING: CAMPING

It's a windy October day, and the entire school is packing up to go on a camping trip. This month's monthly bonding is going to force even the most indoors-loving students out into the wilderness for one night.

There's a rumor going around that the trip is clearing out the students so that MACUSA agents can search campus without the students around. This will have to remain a mystery, however, as nothing interesting happens before the hike gets underway. Quentin Youngblood sets up some magical audio surveillance in their cabin, but when they get back the most interesting thing they recorded was the sound of two raccoons fighting outside. However, they do hear footsteps on the walkways outside the cabin. It could just be staff doing patrols.

Natalie Prince struggles on the long hike and ends up lagging behind, but on the bright side gets to walk with Mr. Covington who's bringing up the end of the group. As everyone's setting up camp, Dinah Dixon suddenly shouts either in fear or excitement: it's Brother! ... Oh, wait, no, that's just a normal moose. False alarm.

CAMPING RULES:

Dress appropriately for the weather. It's autumn up in the mountains, and it's beginning to feel like it.
~~No large electronics of any kind.~~ Alas, Mr. Thorn has been overruled during this particular trip, since it's not actually an OE event. You may bring your gadgets.
Buddy system at all times. Do not go off on your own.
Don't leave the trail.
Respect your tent-mates. If Thorn suspects there's a problem, he's stepping in.
Lights out is 10:00 PM. All students must be quiet with lights off after this hour.
You must help carry the group's equipment.
Clean up after yourself.
All the rules that apply on campus apply here, kids! The only things you're escaping are your uniforms and classes.
If you act up, you're being sent home early with Mr. Covington and will face IC repercussions.
Thorn is serious about making sure you kids learn how to survive in the great outdoors without your wands, and therefore insists all the set up and take down be done without magic. He doesn't humor any arguments about wandless magic, either. "Those are the rules. Now get to it!"

HOW THIS WORKS

Students will leave Friday afternoon and hike out to a large camping area. The trip is about a an hour and a half long hike, but it's low impact and everyone takes a break in the middle for snacks.

Upon arrival, tents are set up. It's two or three people to a tent!

Tent assignments were made with a combination of student requests and random assignments. You can choose whether your characters asked to be put together, or if staff assigned them by chance.

Couples are not prevented from being in the same tent. However, the tent walls are awfully thin, and the campground is crowded. Hanky panky at your own risk.

Each year has its own campground and fire, but you can wander and mingle with other years.

No magic is allowed when working on setting up camp and survival skills.

Students will return Saturday morning. Ebonhide will have to miss their Quidditch/Cheer time on the pitch, but Mr. Thorn will arrange with their captains to give them some choice extra practice slots next Saturday.

Students who don't have sleeping bags, pillows or camping gear will be provided with school loaners.

Students may bring their familiars so long as they're able to travel safely. Familiars that remain behind will be tended to by staff.

Staff will come through and do a head count at curfew (10:00 PM) when everyone must be in their tents or at the fire pit. Midnight is quiet time, and everyone will need to be in their tents with the lights off.

If your characters want to sneak around and trade tents, there's a chance of being caught if it gets too widespread. Chances are, though, you can get away with it.

Assume that the locations of the tents and campgrounds correspond to the layout of the table that's just below this list.

EACH YEAR WILL EXPERIENCE A UNIQUE SUPERNATURAL EVENT. There will be places to react below.

SENIORS:

Veronica & Riley	Iliya, Ulysses, & Mackenzie	Avery & Sofia
Saira & Phoebe	Ferdinand, Reid & Cameron	Phineas & Yancey
Adeline & Sybilla	Reece, Jonathan & Sylvester	Lachlan, Jaime & Ennis
Oscar, Dominic & Webster	Roxanne & Rosemary	Olivia & Clementine
Casey & Casper	Kurt & Chloe	Antonia & Ursula

JUNIORS:

Ariadne & Jade	Joanna, Samantha & Evangeline	Sebastien, Lucas & Ramon
Fern & Charlotte	Gabriela & Victoria	Madison & Ruby
Calvin & Micah	Milo & Bianca	Cole & Austin
Regan, Isabelle & Paige	Estella & Jefferson	Zachary & Solomon
Hazel & Susana	Todd & Spencer	Heathcliff, Cassius & Ira

SOPHOMORES:

Archimedes, Hieronymus & Griffin	Natalie & Antigone	Peyton, Grace & Corrigan
Violet & Carolina	Rupert & Quentin	Concordia, Marie & Tuesday
Nisha & Dinah	London & Paris

» THE HIKE: Although it takes an hour and a half, the hike is low impact without many hills, and it's very scenic. The mountains are full of fall colors, and it's perfect scarf and sweater weather.

» SETTING UP CAMP: Mr. Thorn encourages everyone to participate! Help dig a fire pit! Learn to put up a tent! Prepare dinner!

» EVENING: Everything's winding down, and many students have retreated to their tents. Others linger by the fire. Mr. Covington makes some (non-alcoholic) hot apple cider or hot cocoa for anyone who's still up.

» IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT: SENIORS: A beautiful teenager in a tattered suit, lace shawl and what looks like a mask from last year's masquerade wanders through your campground, leaving newly bloomed violets where his bare feet touched the ground. If you're awake (one character per player), you can come out and meet Anon in person. He will answer the first 5 questions asked, but... it's Anon, his answers may not be useful. Staff are exasperated by this news, and MACUSA agents will want to interview you. Anon needs to be reminded to keep his distance.

» IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT: JUNIORS: Pearl visits your year's campground, and wanders through the tents at night. If you're awake, she will trade with you through an opening in the tent flaps. Give her something valuable, and she'll reward you with something of hers. (One trade per player.) Later in the evening, Peter can be heard coming to collect her. In the morning, members of staff insists all students who made a trade give up their items to MACUSA... unless you hide your prize.

» IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT: SOPHOMORES: Late at night, everyone remembers Mr. Merrill coming through and checking on them individually now that he's finally caught up with the group. Sheesh, that's a long walk, kids! He's a little too quick to tease them, but it's easy to assume he's tired and that's why he's not his usual gregarious self. However, in the morning, he's nowhere to be seen. Mr. Merrill never arrived last night. So who was that..?

» MORNING: The staff are tired and a little frustrated by what happened last night, but this is just what happens at a magical school, right? This is Gooseberry now. Time to pack up and hike back to campus.

» OOC - Questions, comments, concerns!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The emotions the Anonymous Writer had imparted had lingered in Antonia's chest for hours. She could tell when his anxiety left, because the prickly, tightness in her chest and head and shoulders stopped feeling alien and started feeling like her own. So she passed the night thinking. About what he'd said - about visitors - and what he'd made her feel and the fact that he'd been able to make her feel things at all.

And what sleep she'd gotten was interrupted quickly by the chatter of morning birds. Now, absent of any strong feelings, she's just exhausted. She packs slowly, sluggishly stuffing her things into her bag - which, really, isn't all that different from how she'd pack normally. Just, lower energy.

Nia scrubs a hand over her eye. Hiking back to campus is going to be miserable. And now there's the shadow of someone else standing over her. She shuts her eyes, not looking up from her spot on the ground. "What can I help you with, honey?"

Olivia didn't get a wink of sleep last night. Nobody wandered off into the woods to die. Nothing bad really happened. But it felt very much like bad was still a possibility. The entire time they'd been at this school, the anonymous writer had been this unknowable entity, and yet they knew him best when he'd kidnapped half the school and made them make terrible choices to find their friends. Now he has a new role and was back to this unknown entity but still... Olivia didn't not trust it. It bothered her that anon was allowed to get so close to them.

They'd told him personal secrets.

She's packed her things up in the early hours of the morning and once her tent was collapsed she'd done a lot of wandering around, a lot of busy work ensuring that everybody else was good and didn't need help with anything. Then she found the head girl. Nia's exhaustion was almost visual. Olivia paused over her. "Just touching base, hun," Olivia murmured. "Do you need help with anything?" Olivia had never much achieved for that now coveted headgirl spot because it seemed like... a lot of responsibility and she felt bad for believing that. But she felt even worse for the headgirls. Two years ago all they had to worry about was giving out detentions. Now there were ghosts and some massive magical mooses.

It's a familiar voice. A prefect's voice. And Nia relaxes at hearing it, a relief to not have to be too much of a manager at this exact moment.

She tilts her head up lazily, trying for a smile and just kind of looking sleepy. "Carry me back to campus?" She jokes with a huff laughter, her voice grainy and tired. Unwilling to betray whatever she is or isn't feeling at that moment. After a beat, she pushes herself up onto her feet. "Some night, huh?"

"Honey, I will give you a piggy back ride all the way back to school, you just say the word," Olivia says. Olivia has impressive upper body strength, not just for a girl but for someone of her height but she only has two inches on Nia and she very well likely will not be able to uphold that promise but she was committed to it.

"Night was a bit more active than we expected," Olivia says, a great deal more sober. "But everyone made it through it unscathed." And that was what matters, she keeps reminding herself. Everything is fine.

Antonia snorts, amused, knocking her shoulder against Olivia's playfully. "I appreciate the offer, Muscles, but I think I just need a good, long nap once I get back to a real bed."

She slings her backpack up onto her shoulder, thinking carefully over her next words before saying them. "He's ... like a kid, you know?" Nia's expression flattens, serious and thoughtful. "Not excusing him or his actions," she's quick to add, musing, almost to herself. "Kids don't always listen to what their parents tell them."

Olivia gives Nia a muted amused smile of her own. They could all probably use a nice long nap in a real bed. Bonding camping was unsurprisingly not as relaxing as one would think. "Yeah. But, I don't know, maybe that's why he feels dangerous? Adults are aware of what they do, and how that impacts other people - how dangerous they can be. But if you got a kid who isn't human and hasn't been human for a long time, possibly ever, who just wants to be friends with all these other super human kids - he doesn't know that exposure to the weather kills us, he doesn't know that manipulating how we feel is an invasion of privacy. He screws up and he doesn't know why and that not knowing enables him to continue to screw up in possibly dangerous ways." She shrugs. "It's like giving a five year old a pet hamster. How do you make sure that kid doesn't hug the hamster until it dies? How do you stress the danger of that in a way that the kid understands?"

"I can't BELIEVE Mr. Merrill didn't give us his blood," Dinah says to no one in particular, before shoving an oversized breakfast sandwich in her gaping maw. "I thought he was an educator."

"It's not like blood's a LIMITED RESOURCE," Nisha scoffs. "It's not COAL." She takes a bite of a granola bar and just keeps talking, words only slightly burdened by the oats in her mouth. "It doesn't take FORTY MILLION YEARS to MAKE."

Edited (I'm sorry I keep hitting you up with my awful girl.) 2017-10-23 00:46 (UTC)

"I think he's AVOIDING us now out of shame or something," Dinah mumbles around her food, narrowing her eyes and moving in conspiratorially. "I don't even SEE him so he's probably hiding out."

Edited (i adore your terrible daughter in every situation) 2017-10-23 01:05 (UTC)

Nisha's eyes widen. "We should go LOOK for him," she says while shoving the rest of her granola bar in her mouth, so that the last bit of that sentence basically doesn't sound like any human language. "He's probably under a rock." She says that, too, but it mostly sounds like 'humumuh murhuma ROH.'

Ennis is faring far better on the trek back to school now that the salve's washed off, and there's a noticible pep in his step as he skips up the trail to meet Yancey. His face is scruffy, his hair is a mess, and his floppy bangs are already a bit oily, but he couldn't look more pleased with himself. There's only one reason why.

"Did you see him last night??" he asks, linking arms with his good pal and beaming brightly at him. This is all he's going to talk about for weeks. Coming from Ennis, though, it sounds more like Boy Gossip than a normal, sane discussion about the supernatural. "He was more beautiful than I'd ever imagined. There were flowers blooming in his steps."

"Hey man," Yancey greets with a soft laugh when Ennis links their arms. It's a pleasant surprise - seeing Ennis so bright and chipper on the hike back. Yancey has a vague idea of why. It's probably all anyone at the senior camp was talking about this morning.

That forest dude is all anyone talks about, it seems. Yancey's smile tugs to one side.

"I did not," he says, drooping his head and overdoing the disappointment in his voice in an effort to hide the fact that he is a little disappointed for once again missing out on this thing that seems to tie so many of them together. "That's really cool, yeah? Straight out of a fantasy novel. Did you talk to him?"

Ennis uses his other hand to pat the top of Yancey's arm in consolation. "If only you were a lighter sleeper," he teases. "I was crammed between two toasty boys, sweating like a pig-- tried to crawl out for air and there he was. Pure luck, really."

"He was only around a bit before Ms. Rhee made him leave. I asked him if he was going to the dance since Sam say him practicing the other day and... He seemed really sad that he's not allowed." Ennis frowns. "I feel bad for him, you know?"

"Sounds like the boy sauna wasn't all that bad, eh?" Yancey replies, low, with a lift of one brow and a snicker.

There's a long, slow pause before he goes on. He wishes he could understand what happened to everyone last year. Ennis seems to think it wasn't as bad as so many people make it out to be. And Yancey trusts Ennis. "Yeah, you know, it sounds like he's contrite about...what happened last year? And it's just a dance. It'd be supervised and everything."

Ennis's lips curl into a small, coy smile and he shrugs a shoulder in response. It's not much of an answer, but that's all he's giving.

As Yancey ponders, Ennis lets his attention wander as he looks just past his friend, toward the spread of woodland to Yancey's side. There's a hopeful glimmer in his dark eyes as he scans the forest for anything vaguely Anonymous-shaped; his heart skips a beat when he spots a fallen tree branch that sort of looks like an antler.

Those eyes don't lose their twinkle when he looks back to Yancey. Finally, someone else who understands! "Mmn, yeah, the teachers would be around to make sure we dance with him at a modest arm's length," he says with playful lilt to his voice, showing a lopsided grin. "You know, I-- ah--" His grin fades somewhat and he casts a quick glance over his shoulder before canting his head toward Yancey and speaking in a low tone, "I was thinking... it might be nice to do something for the forest entities for Halloween...? They're not allowed to participate in our school festivities, but that doesn't mean they can't have something nice for themselves..."

Edited (I'M SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO REPLY) 2017-10-26 14:29 (UTC)

After the visit from Anon last night, Ennis had a hard time coming down from his high. When sleep finally came, he dreamed of him.

Ennis doesn't wake up even as the students around them begin to unzip their tents. He's partway out of his sleeping bag, arm and leg both draped over Lachlan as he clings to him in his sleep. He nuzzles against him, grinding that awful sandpapery scruff into the poor boy's skin.

Oh, Anon!! You're such a good dancer!!

Edited 2017-10-23 06:14 (UTC)

Honestly, Lachlan likes the warmth and the pressure and the closeness that comes with being held in his sleep and even after he slowly starts to stir, his drowsy brain doesn't mind that the much larger boy is latched awkwardly onto him. The trouble doesn't start until that rough stubble is being rubbed against his cheek. It's itchy. And uncomfortable. And it sort of hurts. He grumbles something completely incomprehensible in a quiet voice and tries to move away. Leave him alone, cactus.

Ennis lets out a low whine as his otherworldly beau tries to pull away. He mumbles something equally incomprehensible, pulling lightly on him to try to coax him back. One more dance! Brother doesn't have to know!

Outside, the smell of breakfast over the campfire carries through the air. Sizzling bacon and eggs aren't exactly scents that belong in his dream and it's jarring enough to finally cause the boy to stir from his slumber. He blinks his eyes open, finally removing his hand from Lachlan in order to rub away the sleep. Their closeness doesn't immediately register as strange and he doesn't shift away, but he does pray that Lachlan is still asleep as he slinks his leg back into its proper place in his unzipped sleeping bag. Maybe if he closes his eyes, he can still pretend he's sleeping. It's awfully cold out there and being this close to another warm body is nice.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MONTHLY BONDING: CAMPING

MORNING

Nia (Open)

Re: Nia and Olivia

Nia and Olivia

Re: Nia and Olivia

Nia and Olivia

Re: Nia and Olivia

Dinah (Open)

Dinah & Nisha & (Open)

Dinah & Nisha & (Open)

Dinah & Nisha & (Open)

Ennis & Yancey

Ennis & Yancey

Ennis & Yancey

Ennis & Yancey

Ennis & Yancey

WAKEY WAKEY (Ennis & Lach (& Jaime???))

WAKEY WAKEY (Ennis & Lach (& Jaime???))

WAKEY WAKEY (Ennis & Lach (& Jaime???))