Private Getting Away for a Bit

Jasmine was arguably the most visibly excited she'd been in a long time. She was strapped with a backpack that had about what she'd usually carried out with the Boy Scouts. More than she needed to get by in the woods, but it would certainly make the whole trip easier. And if she wasn't worrying about trapping an animal for dinner or keeping a fire going constantly, she could maybe actually enjoy her time out in the woods with Arianell.

It had dawned on Jasmine several times since their hike started that she would be alone for an entire weekend with the girl she'd been wanting to kiss for... months now. And every time she pushed the thought out of her head, because that wasn't what this was about. Aria wasn't that type of person. She certainly hadn't lured Jasmine out into the woods to... Jasmine's imagination wasn't that good, thankfully.

Lost in thought once again, she was brought back to the present by Aria nudging her shoulder and joking with her. "The sounds aren't so bad, unless we get a lot of crickets. Those'll keep you up all night if you aren't used to em." And when she'd registered the rest of what she'd said, Jazz's cheeks turned a bit pink and she shrugged. "No more cliche than half the things I say. I don't know how to be a real teenager sometimes, so I just steal from movies."

It was a joke, but also not. She recalled what she'd said to Eric when they'd started dating, and it sounded precisely the kind of cheesy thing a writer would have their teen romance drama protagonist say. To cut herself out of that train of thought, she stopped and looked around. "Do we have a specific campsite or are we just picking a place? Cause right up there looks pretty good. Mostly flat, mostly uphill. At least if it rains on us, the ground won't stay soaked."

Jasmine laughed quietly as she ascended the small hill up to the spot she'd chosen. "If it rains we can just stay in the tent until it stops," she replied with a shrug as she began clearing away grass and fallen leaves to leave them a relatively smooth patch of dirt that she could stake the tarp down on.

Being stuck in a tent with Aria wasn't the worst way she could spend a weekend. "The tarp will, uh. It'll help insulate us more from the ground and keep any moisture on the ground from seeping up into the tent. This corner will drain and water it catches downhill and away from us."

"Ah-" she paused, rubbing at her warm cheeks. "Sorry, I don't want to bore you with the details. Other than getting the tent set up, we could use some tinder and small branches to start and feed a fire."

Aria might not have noticed her arm around Jasmine's shoulder, but Jasmine certainly did and her cheeks reddened further as the brief contact was removed and she nodded in agreement to her getting to work on the tent.

It was a simple enough thing to set up, one she'd done a hundred times - only her tents had usually been smaller. Back in the Boy Scouts, she'd always had to sleep on her own since she was the only girl in the group. It was funny, thinking now, that it was probably more awkward for Eric sleeping in a tent with a other guy than it would have been for him to share a tent with Jazz.

She was so lost in thought, she didn't even fully realize that she'd finished until she went to grab another stake and found that there were none. With the tent set up, Jasmine set her backpack down next to the entrance and stood back to admire her handiwork.

"Hey Aria?" she called out, not entirely sure how far away the other woman was, "The tent's ready. I'm also going to dig a fire hole nearby."

"Yeah, we wanna face the same direction. I've always put my head towards the back of the tent, but I don't think it really matters? We could put our heads near the entrance if we wanna be able to lie down and look out at the sky or something."

Jasmine realized that probably sounded really cheesy, but the thought of that sounded really nice actually. She continued to dig the two holes for the fire pit, connecting them via a short tunnel with her arm until she was happy with the result. "There we go. All ready to place the wood and start the fire whenever we want."

Moving over beside Aria and brushing the dirt off of her arm, Jasmine smiled and looked over the rest of their supplies. They had plenty of cordage, which was nice. "So what'd you want to do first? We've got the whole weekend, and you're the less experienced camper so I wanna make sure we get to all the stuff you were planning on."

"Lunch sounds nice, yeah," Jasmine said once the two of them were finished with the prep for their first night out in the woods.

"I'm actually pretty hungry." To he words spilled out and Jasmine realized that she was, in fact, hungry. She'd gotten used to the days of no appetite and it was almost a nice little surprise that she actually wanted to eat something. "What do you think? Peanut butter and jelly? Do we have jelly? Maybe honey if we have that. Just peanut butter would be fine too. Or ham. I can't decide."

Laughing at her own silly tangent, Jasmine started going through her own bag, pulling out the carefully wrapped containers of food that she had brought. There was jerky and trail mix and other easily stored and carried snacks, but she didn't want a snack right now. She wanted to sit down - possibly with her feet in the stream - and eat a sandwich.