Merrily, Merrily, Merrily

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar had been looking forward to The Retreat ever since the faculty had made the announcement about it. This would be his third year attending, and he was looking forward to the varied activities and recreation with his friends. There was always so much going on, and in bunk beds in the middle of nowhere -- even more in the middle of nowhere than Pilot Ridge, if that were possible. 

The canoe trip began early in the morning -- far earlier than he wanted to be awake, if he were honest. But that was his own fault, really; he had signed up for canoeing, and then he had chosen to stay up into the wee hours of the morning chatting with his cabin mates anyway. 

But he showed up at the river front on time, bleary eyed but smiling. He adjusted his bright orange life jacket, swung over the edge of his canoe, and then waved as he approached his assigned canoe. 

"Jonathon! Looks like we'll be canoe partners!" He greeted the other student as he swung over the edge of the wooden boat.

[Jonathan Lee]

Jonathan had never been to New Hampshire in his entire life. When he was in the fourth grade, he had to do a report on New Hampshire - each person in his class had to draw a state name out of a hat and do a report on whatever they got lucky or unlucky enough to blindly choose. There wasn't very much that Jonathan knew about New Hampshire, as fourth grade had been a long time ago. However, he did remember a few key things, such as the capitol - Concord - and it's neighboring states - Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine. The state is rather small, especially compared to his home state of Virginia or states like Texas, but the scenery makes up for its lack of square miles.

With its natural beauty and rural area, it was no wonder that this part of New Hampshire specifically was chosen as a retreat spot for Hammel and, well, many other people. The area Hammel rented out was a large campground, actually, that normal people would come and pitch tents on during other periods of time throughout the season.

The campground was fairly nice. Under the shade of many trees and beside a river, there were a handful of cabins - Jonathan deduced twelve to a cabin, considering his cabin had six bunk beds, each to support two people, which made twelve. While Jonathan didn't mind "roughing it" in a tent or simply outside in a sleeping bag under the stars, he appreciated the cabins. There was one problem with the cabin situation, though, and it related to his power of gender-shifting. The cabins were separated by sex and Jonathan's sex changes with his gender shift. He hadn't shifted from his male form in a couple of days, and since he was roomed with males at school, he was classified as the male sex for the retreat.

Jonathan was concerned about an involuntary shift causing problems with the Hammel administrators hanging around. Later, Jonathan simply decided not to worry about it until the situation arose. If he shifted, he'd simply go immediately to a teacher and explain the situation - surely, in that case, he wouldn't be in trouble. He would just be moved to one of the other cabins to go on his merry way.

Jonathan does love his adventures. He's the type that wants to take a road trip across the country, to explore the depths of caves, to take a small boat out to what seems like an infinite expanse of salt water and sea. He wants to backpack Europe and climb a couple of major mountains. Jonathan is determined to do it eventually, with or without a bunch of friends. The Hammel Institute retreat did draw him in for that reason. Besides, he had absolutely nothing better to do with his life this weekend - he was entirely caught up on assignments for his classes. Jonathan wanted the adventure regardless of whether or not his homework was done. So off he went, and he wanted to get as involved as he could in the retreat. He wanted to go on all of the trips, no matter how early he had to wake up.

This is why he was up so damn early today.

The sun had just recently come up, casting a golden glow over the trees, warming his fair skin. The canoes on this excursion would be departing from this particular river bank in just a few more minutes. His assigned partner had not arrived, so he would wait sitting knees-apart on the back seat of his canoe. Jonathan, a bit bleary eye'd from tire, was slowly figuring out that this trip was not the most popular. A few people had partners, as they were friends who had been planning to be partners, and then the few miscellaneous others who had been paired up by the administrators of the outing. Perhaps it wasn't popular due to the almost ungodly time of day it was scheduled for, which would make sense. Most of the teens here would sleep until noon if they didn't have classes. Because of his slight case of exhaustion, Jonathan didn't notice the individual approaching him, despite the fact he wore a matching - horribly ugly orange - life vest. Jonathan didn't notice anything until he was directly spoken to and the person who spoke sat in the unoccupied front spot. 

"Oh, hey! -- Sorry I didn't notice you sooner.. kind of tired. The people in my cabin were talking all night.." Jonathan complained, not realizing that this guy was one of the people in his cabin who had contributed to the noise. He glanced to the right, realizing that the canoes were being pushed off into the river water by the supervisors of the trip one by one. He looked down, then leaned down to the bottom of the boat, pulling out the oar that was beside his water bottle. Jonathan laid the oar across his knees, patiently waiting to be cast into the water. 

"Have you ever been canoeing before.. Sunar? I think I got your name at some point yesterday. It's kind of hard to not know people in such close quarters." 

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar shook his head at Jonathon's question. "Nope! I spent all the retreat last year in the arts and crafts hall." 

He had been sorely tempted to spend all this week in the arts and craft hall as well, but he had remembered how much his sister had teased him when he had told her later. "You went camping and spent all your time in the art classroom!" She had laughed over Skype, "Maybe you should have stayed at Hammel after all." 

But he didn't want the other student to know just what had motivated him to switch up his activities this year, and so he said, "But it's always good to try something new!" 

He leaned down after Jonathon, grabbing his own oar just as the supervisor reached their canoe. 

"Ready?" She chirped. "One, two, three...." 

And off they went into the river.