fandomhigh | 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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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.

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

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