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A.) Plow full speed ahead towards the faster-moving water on the right-hand side. Yee-haw! 

Marissa had only been able to get through the experience of camping with a bunch of other knights—most of whom happened to be very young looking twenty-somethings—through the assistance of a few drinks.

Alright, more than a few, but it wasn't like anyone had been counting.

Well, not anyone that mattered.

In any case, it didn't bode well for her the next morning. On the one hand, she was grateful for the sunshine, as her sunglasses looked in no way out of place. On the other hand, it caused an aching pain in her skull that three Advil and a s**t ton of water hadn't quite cured yet.

Why she'd even agreed to come along, she had no idea, but it'd seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, being around a bunch of teenagers and/or those who were barely adults had a way of reminding her of her advancing age, which she tended to put a great amount of effort into resisting. The specter of forty loomed right around the corner, despite her insistence for the last ten years that she continued to remain a sophisticated twenty-eight.

She highly doubted she was fooling anyone around here, but she'd be damned if she gave up just because she was being confronted by all these fresh faces. She still looked damned good for her age, thank you very much. Not many year-from-forty year olds could still rock this purple bikini.

Of course, the swim shorts and rafting gear kinda made it loose its effect being that it was more or less entirely covered.

Into the water Marissa went, ignoring her aching head and taking up her oar with the determination of one attempting to prove that she was still young. The slow channel along the left bank held absolutely no interest to her aside from a vague thought that it might have been the better idea under the circumstances. Instead, Marissa went right.

B.) Go with the slower channel near the left bank - there will be plenty of chances to rock the boat further downriver, right?

Darren had been on the fence about this trip - he'd had to put aside other... obligations... but he felt it was worth it to spend some time with Hafwen away from the hustle and bustle of civilization. He was not a stranger to the outdoors - well in theory anyway - but camping and rafting were not things he usually did... Well rafting anyway.

He'd stuck close to Hafwen for most of the trip so far, and was a bit chagrin that they were about to get on the water where he wouldn't be able stick close to her. But it was part of the course, part of the "training" so he figured he'd suck it up and if they both ended up soaked and frozen they could huddle together for warmth at the end of the run.

It was summer, so he doubted they'd die of exposure.

Breaking away from Hafwen with a regretful squeeze of her hand and a kiss to her forehead. "Be careful, okay?" he murmured before he made his way to his own raft and hopped pushed out into the water once he got situated. He was tempted to head toward the faster-moving water on the right side, but seeing as he'd never really rafted before, he felt that taking it easy would avail him better.

After all, he wasn't in this to win.

B.) Go with the slower channel near the left bank - there will be plenty of chances to rock the boat further downriver, right? -- Rene severely hopes this isn't the case

Maybe he should have thought twice about signing up for a camping trip. Of course it would involve water. Camping always involved water. Sighing, Rene looked from the river to Finn as he talked. He decided right then that he was very glad he didn't understand what class three or below meant, or what classified as tough. He didn't want to know.

It was better if he didn't know.

....Wait a minute

Fall out?! You could fall out. Oh god. Oh god he was in SOOOOOO much s**t. This was such a bad idea. Was it too late to go home? Probably. Rene whined before shoving off. He just had to take things slow.. And hopefully everything would be okay.

B.) Go with the slower channel near the left bank - there will be plenty of chances to rock the boat further downriver, right?

Hafwen had briefly contemplated signing up for the trip without discussing with Darren prior but was glad that she had changed her mind on that eventually. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy spending time with the affectionate idiot whom she knew would put aside everything for her sake. It was more a matter of her having to make an effort to try to include him in her life now in stark contrast to how she had led it before they got back together.

She had been looking forward to this trip for awhile really. The cast on her left arm had come off about a week ago and she was looking forward to pushing herself a little with this so as to help her regain her stamina faster. Clad in a blue bikini that just about matched the shade of her hair that was now tied back in a ponytail, she blushed faintly at Darren's words and nodded. "Mm. You too."

Giving his hand a small squeeze, she smiled then started towards her assigned raft with her oar in hand. It took her awhile, this being her first time trying her hand at rafting, until she finally got a hang of the paddling required and what was required to get her to where she wanted. She decided to go with the slower channel like Darren and a few others (Rene and Marlin) ahead of her, figuring that it was probably better to be safe than sorry lest she accidentally capsized her raft so early on.

A.) Plow full speed ahead towards the faster-moving water on the right-hand side. Yee-haw!

He didn’t bother telling anyone, but it was probably pretty obvious that Michael Gallo was quite confident in the water. Probably overly confident. But that was with good reason. Water was his element, where he felt most comfortable. Rain, lake, river, ocean, snow — anything water related he thrived in. He’d practically lived eight years of his life on the ocean, and while he hadn’t been kayaking in quite some time, he was confident it was like riding a bike.

“A little birdy told me it was someone’s birthday yesterday,” he called over to Marissa as she headed towards the faster currents, plunging his oar into the water to propel himself towards her. “Lordy lordy~” he chanted, clearly enjoying himself.

Michael was one of the older campers there, but he didn’t mind. It was knight stuff that made him feel old. This? This revitalized his teenage years.

A.) Plow full speed ahead towards the faster-moving water on the right-hand side. Yee-haw!

Cora needed to get away from the city, needed something that was fun instead of hospital visits and having to take it slow in everything she does since her attack. So of course she jumped on the thought of a camping trip, it was perfect. Not only would she be out of the city, but she could finally see if she was able to do things like before.

Without her boyfriend and her mother freaking out over her.

In a pair of simple jean shorts and a purple tank top, she hid her bikini under it as she glance around at the others. She gave a nod towards Darren and Hafwen before she moves to her own raft. She only been rafting once, and that was with her father. Trying to remember what he did, it took a couple minutes before she go use to the oars and the paddling. Ahead of her she could see some of the other take the slower path, and she would have had she not decided she was in this to prove to herself she could.

Shifting her weight in the raft, she moves the oars as hard as she could in the water, forcing her raft to move towards the fast moving water. If she capsized, she didn't mind.

She knew she would be okay.

It could be said, if one was in the general habit of understatement, that Laney was not the most coordinated human being that the universe had spat forth. While she had gotten through her school years without faceplanting on a pommel horse or putting any classmates' eyes out with a golf club, she had never really blossomed into what anyone could describe as a being of great athleticism. Her personal best on the mile run had come in somewhere in the ballpark of thirteen minutes, she knew which direction to run in baseball if she managed a hit, and she had a healthy sense of self-preservation that enabled her to represent her impressive flying-projectile-avoidance skills in a dodgeball match -- that was about it. Otherwise, she was roundly considered somewhat hopeless.

Something like white water rafting was not what anyone would have described as in Laney's wheelhouse.

But Finn had been really nice, and funny, and Laney was supposed to be trying to make new friends. And she knew all of three knights in the world, which was pretty abysmal for how long she'd been at this job now, and she couldn't really have tried to pretend she'd had a busy schedule with no room for a camping trip in it. So, instead of skipping the outing, she'd RSVPed her yes, bought some alcohol to take on the trip (because at 21 she was convinced that the person who brought the booze always got coolness points), and turned up to learn how to paddle a very large inflated banana (with her in it) downstream.

Laney was quickly learning that, even in the company of all the other things she wasn't very good at, paddling large, inflated bananas was not her best skill. She poked her oar through the water with haplessly desperate enthusiasm, silently begging it to propel her banana in the direction she wished, but she struggled to really get the instructions right in her head. Her banana was definitely zigging when she wanted it to zag.

(Could everyone tell? Was everyone silently laughing?)

It took Laney a moment to realize that the river had come to a fork up ahead and she was going to have to split off from part of the group. She didn't like the look of the water on the right, which was intimidating and which all the confident people seemed to be paddling to. The left was much more her idea of a good time: it had the gently inviting feeling of a bunny slope, and cried out for her inept kayak to join it in its friendly little meandering jaunt. Naturally, she paddled for the left.

So naturally, her kayak completely disobeyed her wishes and began whooshing off to the right.

Frantically trying to correct herself before anyone noticed, she paddled harder -- but in her anxiety about the idea that literally everyone else was somehow not paying attention to kayaking and instead paying attention to Laney Sutton's personal kayak decisionmaking foibles, she couldn't wrap her head around how to correct herself. Instead her kayak sailed with an almost mockingly unerring grace off to the testier waters on the right, where she most definitely had not wanted to be.

She plastered on a terrible, horrified smile.

No one must know.

A.) Plow full speed ahead towards the faster-moving water on the right-hand side. Yee-haw!