fandomhigh | Wilderness Survival; Wednesday, Second Period [01/17].

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wilderness survival

Wilderness Survival; Wednesday, Second Period [01/17].

While the weather was still pretty wintry, it didn't seem that bad to Gladio, but, ultimately, he decided he'd rather have the students focusing on the lessons on these early weeks rather than the cold, so it was another week in the danger shop on the same mountainside where they'd been last week to build their fires. And while it was hardly freezing, it was still a bit chilly. Didn't want anyone getting too comfortable, after all!

"Alright, guys," he said, "first things first, we're gonna review what we covered last week by having you all gather up some wood to get a fire or two going before we get into today's lesson. Pretty much that's going to be how most of these classes start, to the point where it should just become second nature when we get to a sight, to start getting that fire going, with maybe a few exceptions. But today's not one of 'em, so let's get some wood gathered and get some fire to work by."

Once that had been taken care of, then, it was onto the lesson of the day, which some more savvy students might be able to guess based on the amount of rope and tarps around them that week. "After knowing how to build a good campfire," Gladio said, "your next big important skill in wilderness survival is shelter, and, next week, we're going to go a little bit further into detail about different shelters for different conditions, but today, we're going to keep it simple, because there's an important skill to learn before you get too deep into shelters that'll be useful for a lot of other things across the board, and that's knowing how to tie a good knot.

"A good rope can help out in a lot of situations, from getting you through difficult terrain, making traps for wild animals, and one of the big ones is using them in making structures and shelters. So we're going to learn some of the most useful ones and spend a good deal of time practicing them until we're confident we've got it right, and then, we're going to use those knot skills to put up some basic tarp shelters. There's a lot of different styles of those, too, so we'll go over them once we get to it, but for now, we're going to start in with our knots. Now, who here's already got a pretty good handle on knots? This'll be good review, and as for those unfamiliar, our first one's going to be a clove hitch, which is probably the most versatile...."

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Feeling a little tied up....

Steve McGarrett

Jonathan Sims

Gonzo the Great

Nell Ingram

Arden Finch

Hey, probably not many classes are going to start out with encouraging to light things on fire, so gather up some wood, chase away some of that chill, and then get ready to learn all about knots and basic tarp shelters! Gladio figures this is just review for some of you, but hopefully it's still pretty helpful and useful for those who might be more new to it1

Jon was good with wood now! There was probably still some softwood mixed in, but it was mostly good stuff!

Arden flashed him a smile and a quick thumbs up when she spotted his collection of wood.

Jon smiled back and nodded his thanks.

There's plenty of rope available for you to practice your knots with, and, when you feel you've got that down, it's time to put at least a few of those knots into practice by putting up a type of tarp shelter! Teamwork and helping each other out is strongly encouraged, as well!

Was McGarrett making the most extra tarp shelter? Yes, yes, he was. Way up in that tree.

Knots were interesting and overall not too difficult, but Jon occasionally had problems due to his burnt hand's range of motion. Still, he thought he was doing fairly well, as long as they didn't have to be too tight.

Gonzo had somehow managed to tie his own arms into an elaborate and remarkably secure knot.

"Um," he said. "A little help here?"

Gladio's attention was instantly snagged by a request for help, but when he went to see how Gonzo was doing with his knots and saw....that, he paused for a moment, opened his mouth to say something, and then tilted his head for a better look at exactly how this might have happened.

"I...guess I should have specified making the knots with rope," he said, in a very that's on me, I guess? kind of way, and this did complicate his plan to just slice most knots that couldn't be undone without a great deal of trouble.

He hesitated a moment, before nodding to Gonzo's...arm-knot. "May I?" he asked, as sort of a courtesy heads-up that he'd be happy to help, but this could be a little awkward.

"Please," Gonzo said, offering Gladio his arm-knot. "My fingers are going numb."

The fingers made of felt, yes.

This was quite possibly going to end up like that time back stage with John Cleese. Just you wait, Gladio.

"Just, uh, let me know if it hurts, I guess?" Gladio said, as he tentatively trying to figure out exactly how to go about unknotting someone's felt arms, but at least he was....fairly confident that these limbs were going to be pretty resilient.

"I will give you this," he added, when he realized just what a task he had in front of him, "this is one helluva knot, at least."

Sorry about your impending arm distortion, there, little buddy.

"Thanks," Gonzo said. "I aim to impress!" He watched Gladio's work carefully and gestured with his nose. "I think my elbow needs to slip under that loop, there."

He absolutely did not have discernible elbows, no.

Arden was semi-decent-okayish with knots, but the tarps added a whole new level of complexity.

He's definitely there and he'll happily help out of you wanted to tie your tarp up really high!

Nell was absolutely here after class.

Of course she was. Gladio grinned as he headed on over. "So," he said, "think you'd like some company on the way home? It's actually on my way now."

"I'd hate to take you out of your way," she teased, "But yes, I'd love the company."

Nell smiled up at him and reached out to take his hand. "I think our first joint gathering went well on Monday, what do you think?"

"Well," said Gladio, taking Nell's hand with one of his while the other lifted to stroke his chin thoughtfully, "nothing burned down, no one starved from too much food mysteriously disappearing before everyone arrived, and there weren't any fist fights, so, yeah, I'd say it was pretty successful."

Nell laughed. "Pretty low standards, I'd say. I was happy Steven could join us. It took a while before I felt comfortable inviting him, but he's been such a good friend."

There was a soft smile at that, since, obviously, anyone who'd been good to Nell was definitely going to get points in Gladio's book, but he couldn't deny that there was...a whole mess of complicated things, down that way.

"Gotta admit," he said, with a slight shake of his head, "definitely threw me off at first, but, you know, once you get talking to him, it's a little less of a head trip."

"Sometimes I forget he shares a face and body with Marc," Nell said. "It was hard at first to see him, but I decided that wasn't really fair to Steven since he'd been nothing but good to me."

She sighed. "We finally talked quite a bit and he understands that Marc isn't welcome around me - and certainly not in my house - and he's okay with it. With the caveat that should something terribly dangerous happen Marc would need to take over. So, with that... after a while of just testing it out, I thought I should invite him."

Gladio nodded, giving Nell's hand a reassuring squeeze. "And if anything dangerous were to happen on a Monday night, there's definitely no shortage of capable people to help handle it."

Really, their group was stacked.

Nell laughed again and stretched up to kiss him. "There definitely are. Not that anything dangerous is going to happen in our house, but we're more than capable of handling most anything."

Grinning, Gladio leaned in to help make it so Nell didn't have to stretch too much for that kiss. "Yeah, I think we're pretty good there."

"So," Nell said, swinging their arms a little. "Now that you've had a few days to settle in... is there anything you'd like to change about the place or things that you'd like to do differently?"

"I mean," Gladio lifted a brow at Nell, "there was talk of a hot tub at some point..."

"Mmmm..." Nell said. "You think there's room on the roof for a decent sized one?"

"We'd only need one big enoigh for two," Gladio pointed out.

Then, pausing slightly, smirked shamelessly as he amended, "Well. Two and a half, maybe."

That got a laugh. "That's what I meant. Big enough for both of us. Think we should get someone to put one in for us?"

"I don't know," Gladio admitted thoughtfully. "Could be a good weekend project, but I don't know how complicated something like that might end up being..
."

"The people who got the house ready before I moved in were really good," Nell said. "They redid the little bathroom attached to my - our - bedroom. I could ask them about a hot tub."

"No rush," said Gladio, his grin catching a little on that correction. "Things are pretty great right now as-is right now.

"...for me, anyway," he realized. "Don't know if you've got anything on that matter..."

"I've got everything I need," Nell said with a fond smile. She squeezed his hand and leaned into him. "Anything else is just the icing on the cake."

"Sounds like a pretty sweet deal," Gladio said, because you couldn't just set him up like that and expect him not to take it.

"So sweet," Nell agreed. Honestly, she had so much more right now than she'd ever dreamed possible that it was hard to imagine anything more.

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Wilderness Survival; Wednesday, Second Period [01/17].

Sign In - Wilderness Survival, 01/17.

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Start Some Fires and Listen to the Lecture - Wilderness Survival, 01/17.

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Class Activity: Knots and Tarps - Wilderness Survival, 01/17.

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Talk to the Teacher - Wilderness Survival, 01/17.

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OOC - Wilderness Survival, 01/17.