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Senior Counselor Finn Derouen had gone for a walk in the rain with no real, clear idea of where he'd wind up. The only thing clear to him was that if he stayed indoors at the senior cabin for any longer, he would probably go nuts. It seemed vaguely bullshit to him that the day's activities had been cancelled on account of weather - when he'd been a camper (at Jewish summer camp, several states south of here), nothing could stop activities. But then again, parents hadn't been as likely to sue if you slipped and fell on a slick patch of georgia clay five years ago.

By the time he realized he was over by the girl's cabins, his poncho was nearly soaked through. Finn entertained the idea of dropping in to annoy the hell out of his sister very briefly, but decided he'd rather not inspire the ire of a bunch of teenaged girls. Instead, he kept walking through the rain until he spotted a pair of girls huddled on the porch of Azalea cabin.

Finn trudged over and hopped up the stairs. He flopped down on the deck and peeled his poncho off, tossing it into the corner.

The girls were braiding each other's hair.

"Ooh," said Finn, beaming at them. He was not much for spa days but he was basically bored out of his mind. Watching paint dry would have sounded interesting at this point. "Can I be next?"

Finn took the towel and dried himself off as best he could. His shorts were soaked, though, and the only cure for that was time, so he wrapped the towel around his shoulders like a cape and beamed at her. "Well," said Finn, "I would be honored if you would braid my hair!" not that there was much of it to braid, but it was pretty shaggy in places and Finn was already imagining he would look pretty awesome with a bunch of tiny spikes.

He studied the girl for a moment, trying to recall her name, before submitting to hair brushing. "Ainsley, wasn't it?" he asked, taking a guess. he was relatively versed in the names of all the campers, but there was still a possibility he'd get it wrong, which would be mildly embarrassing.

Rule number one: never piss off the woman doing your hair.

But he was pretty sure her name was Ainsley. "Will you make me a pretty princess?" he asked.

"Finn!" said Finn happily, leaning back on his hands so she could reach his hair more easily. Little tiny braids sounded perfectly okay to him, so long as she had the patience for it. "...That's not a very good name for a princess, is it?" he added, after a bit of consideration.

Hmmm. He needed a better princess name. Finn stared at the rain and thought about it for a while. All the girls had their derpy nature names, didn't they? Maybe his absurd birth name was about to come in handy for something after all.

"I guess I could be Princess Huckleberry for a while," he said. He was probably going to regret this later. "But only to you, okay, Princess Ainsley?"

"Blue," said Finn Princess Huckleberry, without any hesitation. He was rather lucky that he liked blue - it seemed that, as a Mercury Page, he was stuck wearing it and had no choice in the matter. He dreaded to think what he would have done if he'd gotten stuck wearing, say, orange, which he didn't fancy nearly as much.

He was, at least, thankful that she had not known to laugh at his name. That kind of innocence was refreshing - this was one little girl who would never call him ********.

"Are you enjoying camp, Princess Ainsley?" he asked, trying to hold still while she tugged at his hair. (It was easier said than done, since it sort of tickled.) "Doing lots of fun camp things?"

She even talked like a princess, reflected Finn. What kid said 'Very much so'? He didn't know where she was from, but he'd decided he wanted to adopt her. It might not be allowed, but if he ever had kids he wanted them to be as polite and adorable as 'Princess' Ainsley.

He only narrowly stopped himself from nodding in response to her question. Tensing his neck, Finn agreed, "Yeah, I am! I've been teaching some of the older kids camping skills. They're starting to get the hang of it!"

How to start a safe campfire was generally a pretty exciting lesson. Pitching a tent... more than a little disastrous on a good day. But these were important life skills as far as Finn was concerned. How did you know you weren't going to wind up stranded in the Virginian backwoods tomorrow with only the most basic of supplies?

"I'm going to teach everyone how to do tie-dye later this week," he said, thinking fondly of the bottles of dye in his dresser. Blake had held up his end of the deal admirably - it was going to be great. "Have you done tie-dye before, Princess?"

He had a sneaking suspicion that she had no idea what he was talking about, and that was just sad. What kind of poor, deprived child was currently braiding his hair? "It's, um, well, you know those shirts people have with the colorful swirlies on them?"

Frequently, he would have demonstrated the concept with his own shirt, but today he was wearing a faded political campaign tee from the Reagan administration. "Anyways, you can do that with rubber bands, some Rit dye, and a white shirt! We're going to make them. It'll be cool, and you'll get to take it home from camp and wear it and it'll be all yours."

Why pay for tie-dye when you could DIY? The process was a bit tricky and more than one kid had accidentally turned their shirt brown by dipping it in too many colors before, but Finn was feeling confident. He was a pro, and under his careful instruction, the kids would be pros, too. "Doesn't that sound cool?" he asked.

"Oh, it's definitely fun!" agreed Finn. "They turn out really cool looking and then they're something you can have forever that you made! And no two tie-dye shirts are ever alike! Like snowflakes!"

For him, this was part of the appeal - that you could never make the same design twice, even if you tried. Sometimes he thought about making a metaphor out of that but it always wound up sounding kind of stoned.

"How are my braids coming?" he asked. He noticed she was working on the other side of his head now, but beyond that he couldn't be certain.

Finn skimmed a gentle hand over his braids, admiring them in a manner that was deliberately camp. "They look fabulous, Princess Ainsley!" he said ecstatically, turning his head to view the other side. Oh, this was marvelous. Ridiculous, but marvelous. Finn got slowly to his feet and retrieved his dripping poncho from the corner.

"I'm going to go back to the senior staff cabin and show them to everyone and they will be so jealous," he declared. Who wouldn't be jealous of his braids? They were the best thing ever. He shook out his poncho and pulled it delicately over his head, being careful to not mess up his braids. "And when they all ask me where I got such a fantastic, daring 'do... I'll tell them it was none other than a real, bonafide princess who did them!"

He curtseyed lowly to the girl and flipped his hood up over his head. "Well, princess!" he said. "I will see you... at tie-dye!"

And then he bounded off into the rain.