Happy Campers

This page is rated G+ for Light Profanity and Light Horror Themes.

Cici bounced around the small clearing in the forest that she'd decided would be a good campsite. "Yay, camping!" she said excitedly.

Nate, who was the one responsible for actually setting things up, looked annoyed. "Cici, why did you think this would be a good idea?" she said. "Setting up camp out in the middle of the woods where random stuff could happen to us that always happens to people in the middle of the woods is a classic blunder."

Cici looked perplexed for a moment. "Well it's not like we'll be here for more than one night and we're going right back home in a few hours I expect lol," she said, regaining her normal cheerfulness.

Nate had to exert a small amount of self-control to avoid hitting her head against the pile of wood that she was using to set up a campfire.

Eteru stared at Cici jumping around. "Is she normally like this?" he asked Nate.

Nate groaned. "Yes," she said boredly. "All the time."

Eteru started singing under his breath. "My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the-" he paused. "I wasn't singing, I swear!"

"Join the club," said Nate, finishing setting up the campfire. "I never sing either and I'm one of the backup singers in a band."

Cici stopped bouncing a bit to stare at Nate. "Nate why do you keep saying this random contradictory stuff?" she said.

"It's called SARCASM," said Nate.

"Oh yeah that right!" said Cici, who then started looking around at the scenery. "Hey look a tree!"

"Um...why did you have to point that out when there are trees everywhere?" Eteru questioned.

"Because that tree's weird," said Cici. "It's blue."

Nate directed a cursory glance at the tree. "It's not blue."

"Yes it is!" said Cici. "It's slightly bluish-green!"

"It doesn't look blue to me…" Eteru told his hyperactive friend.

Nate looked at the tree for a few more seconds before turning back to what she was doing. "Whatever," she said.

"She's weird…" Eteru thought. "Cici, when did you last get your eyes checked?"

Cici blinked at Eteru. "Recently?" she said. "Probably some time in the last few years I guess?"

"That is...not recent," Eteru replied, looking worried.

"She's gotten her eyes checked recently enough," said Nate. "She just doesn't remember."

"What are we talking about?" said Cici.

"Remember that time when you went to the office with the beige chairs and that really loud music that I kept complaining about but you found catchy?" said Nate.

"Oh yeah them!" said Cici.

"Yeah, that was the eye checkup place," said Nate.

"Well, if you asked last time I went to the place with the beige chairs and the loud catchy music, I would have remembered!" said Cici.

"I think pop music is trash too…" Eteru whispered to Nate.

Nate nodded to Eteru in acknowledgement and continued with setting up things.

"Hey Nate!" said Cici. "I am here to make random excited comments and eat marshmallows, and I'm all out of marshmallows!"

"You got that backwards," said Nate. "You haven't had any marshmallows yet."

"Oh right," said Cici. "Well anyway, where are the marshmallows?"

"You put them under everything else," said Nate. "If you want, you can help me get them out, but I'm still trying to set up things like the things for us to sit on."

Cici promptly started digging through Nate's backpack of supplies, making comments that couldn't be heard because her mouth was against Nate's bag.

"Cici, what the hell are you saying?" Eteru asked, becoming annoyed.

"Mostly commenting on how strange it is that Nate brought along toothpaste," said Cici.

"That's not toothpaste!" said Nate exasperatedly. "It's bottled water!"

Cici held up the tube.

Nate stared at it for a few seconds. "Wait," she said. "How did I accidentally bring toothpaste?"

Cici shrugged. "No clue!" she said, continuing to dig through Nate's bag.

Eteru sighed. "It's gonna be a long night…" he whispered.

An hour or so later, things had settled down a bit. Cici had stopped bouncing around as much, being mostly content to roast marshmallows and comment on the different colors that the campfire was turning, while Nate mostly stared randomly into space, occasionally talked, and occasionally accidentally hummed bits of songs when she thought that no one was listening.

"You have a nice voice," Eteru told Cici.

Cici blushed slightly. "You have a nice voice too!" she said, beaming at Eteru.

Nate stared at something in the trees for a moment before looking back at the group.

"What's going on, Nate?" Eteru asked.

"I, uh, thought I saw something in the trees, but it was probably nothing," said Nate.

"Hey look a goat!" exclaimed Cici.

"It definitely wasn't a goat," said Nate.

"Pig?" suggested Cici.

Nate simply gave Cici a bored look in response.

Eteru chuckled lightly.

A second or two later, a barking noise came from the trees.

"Ooh, cow!" said Cici.

"Cows don't bark!" groaned Nate.

"Maybe this is a magical barking cow," said Cici. "Or a zombie. Zombies sound like cows."

"But this sounded like a DOG!" said Nate, throwing her hands up in frustration. "It BARKED!"

Eteru stood up and looked in the trees. "I'm a little bit too short to reach...may I have assistance, please?"

"It's not in these trees, I think," said Nate. "It's over there in—"

A large object abruptly fell out of the trees on Cici.

"Or not," said Nate, rushing over to inspect the object on Cici.

It was basically a very large dog.

Eteru looked shocked. "Cici, are you okay?"

Cici tried to respond, but was muffled by the dog. She didn't look terribly uncomfortable, though, and seemed to be laughing from the way she was shaking (although it wasn't all that obvious due to the dog).

Nate tried to pry the dog off of Cici. "A little help?" she said.

Eteru attempted to help Nate. "Hold still, Cici…"

Cici stopped moving so Eteru and Nate could remove the dog. However, Cici looked a bit annoyed when the dog had been removed from her.

"Why did you do that?" she said. "He was busy telling me why he was here!"

"I don't think you can speak dog," Eteru laughed.

"Well this DOG speaks HUMAN," said Cici. "Hey, Jim, will you please talk to them?"

The dog scratched its head. "No," it said.

"WELL TOO BAD," yelled Cici.

"Sheesh, calm down, Cici," said Nate. "This doesn't look like something that needs to get solved in the next five seconds."

"What the hell…" Eteru shook his head.

"So anyway," said Cici, who had completely snapped back to her usual state, "Jim over here is from the lands beyond Boulder or something and needs to get back but they won't let him on the train or whatever they use because he thinks he's a DOG and so he had to use the train anyway BUT IT WAS THE WRONG train etc. and so now we have to send him back which is why he tackle glomped me. See?"

"Speak SLOWLY," Eteru told Cici. "I don't want things to be confusing."

Cici took a deep breath, then spewed out a list of syllables so quickly that it was utterly impossible to comprehend their contents.

"OK," said Nate, "so Cici, if you're going to do that, try talking quickly instead."

"Oh that's easy!" said Cici, then repeated what she'd just done.

"All right," said Nate, "I'll translate. I think she said a little while ago that this dog—"

"—who isn't a dog," Cici cut in.

"—who isn't a dog," Nate amended, "needs to get back to some place or other but went in the wrong direction. Right?"

"Yep," said Cici, beaming.

"Ah...huh…" Eteru still didn't understand, but just nodded in agreement.

"The real problem here, of course," said Nate, "is where we are going to put the dog-not-dog—"

"JIM!" Cici said.

"—the Jim," said Nate, "the dog-not-dog-Jim-not-Jim-dog-Jim-dog while we're trying to get him/her/it back to wherever it is that the destination is. Speaking of which, Cici, where's that?"

Cici shrugged. "No clue!" she said.

Nate facepalmed. "Ahh, great," she deadpanned. "Just our luck."

"Then HOW WILL WE GET THIS DOG NOT DOG BACK HOME?!" Eteru yelled.

"You could ask the dog," suggested Cici.

"I'm not asking Jim," said Nate. "You do it."

"Well, he doesn't respond to me," said Cici. "Or he didn't. Hey, Eteru, maybe he'd respond to you. You're an emo boy. Werewolves like emo boys. I think."

"I thought you said he was a dog or a Jim," said Nate. "Argh, who cares."

"Why me…" he sighed. Eteru went over to the dog-not-dog-Jim-dog-not-Jim-dog and asked, "Where is the destination?"

Jim the dog waved in a direction off to his general left and said something that sounded roughly like "Gate B".

"Gate B…? Hmmm…" Eteru thought. "Ah! Rainbow Mist Lake, right?"

The dog nodded affirmatively.

"Only going through there," said Cici uncertainly.

"Well, yeah," said Nate, "that's what you said before. So I guess now Jim the Dog—I mean, ugh, whatever, Jim the thingie just has to go through Gate B, Rainbow Mist Lake, etc. and then go out the other side to wherever he came from."

"Beyond Boulder," said Cici.

"Volhur," said Jim.

"Yeah, Boulder!" said Cici. "See?"

"OK, whatever," said Nate. "So now we just have again the problem of how we get him there. Eteru, do you have any ideas? Cici and I don't—"

"—but we can come up with one in five seconds!" said Cici excitedly.

"Please just come up with something," said Nate hurriedly.

"I'm...not sure...sorry…" Eteru sighed.

"What about a pickup truck?" suggested Cici.

"Where do you propose we get a pickup truck?" said Nate suspiciously.

"Well," explained Cici, "Philip knows this guy Joey who knows a guy who owns a garage, so he probably has one there—"

"We are not stealing a truck!" said Nate frustratedly. "Why do you ALWAYS do this to me, Cici?!?"

"I just mean we could ask Philip to ask Joey to ask the garage guy to lend us a pickup truck so we could drive the dog to Gate B," said Cici, unfazed.

"Are you SURE we should do this? Do you even have a license?" Eteru asked.

"Um...no," said Cici, "but the guy with the garage probably has a license, so we could—"

"Yeah right," said Nate, cutting off Cici. "So we ask your friend to ask his friend to ask HIS associate to drive this Jim and maybe us over there. What a great idea."

"Yeah!" said Cici, completely missing the sarcasm.

"Alright then...I guess we'll go get Phil or something, I dunno…" Eteru tiredly stared down at his feet.

"Wait, Eteru, you think this will work?" said Nate confusedly.

"Hell no! BUT IT'S WORTH A TRY! HAHAHAHA~," Eteru cried out loudly.

"OK, let's go!" said Cici, skipping off with Jim.

"Hey Cici, you forgot your stuff!" Nate called after her, then sighed. "Typical Cici."

Fun Facts

 * This was created as a roleplay between Wiki and Speedy.