A squeeze from my girlfriend wakes me up an undetermined time later.
“Mhmm?” I groan and rub my eyes.
“We are going to set up camp now, so we are dismounting.”
“Already?” I open my eyes and look around. We were still in the middle of a forest but the flora had definitely changed quite a bit compared to the region around Parma.
Sam giggles. “Well you’ve slept for quite a while. We didn’t make it to Honnes however.”
My girlfriend gets off the horse first and then helps me down.
That’s when Hilda appears from behind the trees, waving us on. “I found a great place to camp.”
“If we aren’t at Honnes, where are we then?” I ask while I groggily follow her, Sam walks behind me, taking all the horses by their leads.
“I somewhat overestimated how fast we would travel on horseback. We are close to the town but still far enough that we would have had to travel by night to reach it, which I’d rather avoid.”
“Oh, yeah. Makes sense.”
After a two minute walk the dense forest suddenly makes way for a relatively open space. A small pond, surrounded by grassland with cherry blossom trees dotted across the landscape, adorning the ground with their pink fluffiness.
“Wow, that’s beautiful!” Sam agrees, her mouth agape in awe.
I can’t help but agree. “It’s amazing.”
“How could I not pick this place to camp, right?” Hilda looks incredibly proud of herself, with her hands confidently resting on her hips.
“I would definitely pay some serious money to camp in a place in the real world, that’s for sure.” Sam nods. “Where shall I put the horses?”
Hilda points towards the pond. “You can put them somewhere over there. The water’s clean, so they can drink from that.”
“Okidoki.” Sam leads the horses to the designated spot.
“And where’s my sister and Nikki?”
“Went to collect some firewood and rocks to make a firepit. They didn’t want to collect any from over here, for obvious reasons.”
“What do you want me to help with?”
Hilda thinks for a second. “Hmm… well, the villagers gave us some lettuce, tomatoes and vinegar to use, so why don’t we start by making a salad and a vinaigrette for dinner?”
“Sounds good to me!” I smile.
“Good girl.” Hilda gives me a head pat.
We head to our camping spot and find a comfy place to start preparing the meal. Sam rejoins us after having tied up the horses, and starts to marinate and place the meat on some steel skewers.
“Dang, that looks good, girls!” My sister’s voice rings out from behind us as she throws quite a lot of wood down behind us. She’d clearly been sweating quite a lot.
Nikki was right behind her and did the same, although she was clearly a lot less sweaty.
“Did you make my Élise do all the chopping, Nikki?” I ask her.
“Of course, I’m the mage after all.” She winks.
“I don’t mind, it was a good workout.” Lise walks past us and sits by the pond, stretching her arms and joints. “Aaaaah, I think I’ll sleep well tonight.”
“Too bad we have to log out already.” Her girlfriend sits down next to her and starts helping her remove her armour pieces.
“Thanks babe.” My sister gives Nikki a kiss on her cheek. “And yeah, too bad indeed, but hey, we can play tomorrow too.”
“Want me to give you a massage?”
While my sister and Nikki are goofing off Sam walks over to us with all the prepared skewers.
“Want me to start the campfire? I’m done with the meat.”
“Oh, well, Nikki can do it, so you don’t need to.” Hilda looks up from the salad.
“I know, but I want to test out my survival skill…?”
“Ah, right, you get that for your class too don’t you?”
“Alright then. Hey Ami, why don’t you join her? I’ll do the rest of the salad.”
“Well, you can learn more about survival from her then from anyone else, might as well take the opportunity to learn, no?”
“You should’ve become a teacher, Hilda.” My sister comments without even looking back from her massage.
“Eh, that was an option but I decided not too, kids are intimidating.” She winks at me. “Anyway, off you go.”
“Alright, alright.” I stick my tongue out and follow Sam who, in this very short amount of time, has already managed to have set up a stone fire pit.
“Want to try flint and steel, Ami?” She beckons me to sit right next to her.
“Uh, I can try.” I sit down next to Sam and she hands me a piece of flint and her knife. “How do I use them?”
“First we need some tinder, something that easily catches sparks.” Sam walks over to the pile of wood Élise had collected. “I think this will do.” She comes back with some inner bark.
“You need to make sure it’s very dry, it’s easier to get from dead trees and if it isn’t raining.”
“Then we process it.” Sam sits back down next to me and takes a rock. “We want to have as many fibers as possible, and pounding is an easy way to get that.”
She starts smashing the bark with the rock and soon we have some very nice looking fibrous bark.
“And now it’s ready for sparking?”
“Yep! You just hold the knife and the flint .” She moves herself behind me so she can easily manipulate my hands. “And slide down your knife quickly .” A spark flies off the flint.
“Ok, now you try it alone.”
I nod and get to work while Sam holds the tinder for me.
After a few attempts a spark catches the tinder and smoke starts to rise from it.
“Now we make sure it doesn’t go out, put it under our firewood and we got it.” She quickly moves around, softly blowing the tinder until it catches a flame and puts it under the firewood.
“Let there be fire.” She proudly stares at the fireplace. “Good job, sweetie.”
“Yay! Sam is the bestest teacher ever.”
“I know.” She smirks and sits back down, swinging her arm around my neck and giving me many kisses. “And she’s blessed with the best girlfriend ever too.”
Having finished their massage session Nikki and Élise join us around the campfire, getting ready for dinner.
“Can we start cooking our meat?” My sister asks impatiently.
“Of course, they are all done.” Hilda hands over a skewer to the both of them. “And for you two as well.” She hands a skewer to me and Sam too and finally takes one herself.
We all sit around the fire and start roasting the meat while the sun starts to set beneath the horizon.
“That smells delicious.” My sister is almost drooling because of the great smell coming from the campfire and the meat together.
And to be fair, so am I.
“Nothing beats an evening campfire with family.”
“That’s true.” Hilda agrees with a happy nod.
“The only thing that’s missing are marshmallows.”
“They don’t exist this day and age sadly enough.”
“We should definitely go camping in the real world one day. Maybe we can make some smores with them too.”
“Ooh, I would like that! I actually have never eaten marshmallows and smores before.” Sam is enthusiastically bouncing next to me.
“Really? We should definitely try to remedy that.” My sister smiles while taking the meat out of the fire. “Hmm, not completely done yet.” And she puts it back.
“Maybe during the post-exam break?” Sam proposes.
“When was that again?”
“In February I think.”
“Oof, that’s still quite far away.”
“Why can’t we just leave on a friday and then come back on sunday? That should be fine or not?” I bring up my proposal.
“If Sam’s not going to be too tired, you have lots of sports in uni, right?”
Sam nods. “Yeah, but I think that could work. Monday isn’t really an intense day in our training schedule, maybe I could even get to sit it out because hiking is also pretty much training.”
“There you go.” Élise smiles. “We can discuss a specific date later on.” And again she takes the meat out of the fire, now with an even wider smile on her face. “Ah, it’s done.”
“And Hilda can join too, right?” I ask, while also taking my skewer out.
“Ofw couwse.” My sister nods with her mouth full of meat.
Hilda pats my head. “I don’t think that would’ve been an issue, but thanks for asking anyway, kitten.”
“Is Ami also speaking with her mouth full?” Sam looks over to me and my skewer with a confused look on her face.
“No, she’s just getting her ears scratched. Melty kitten, melty kitten.” My sister laughs.
Ear scratches are gooooodd…