"Well," Nat said, standing up, "we've been waiting for them a while, I think I'll just head down and get the water myself."

"Don't give them a hard time," Mac replied. "Kaz worked real hard on the last portage, and Red did cook us some good soup."

"Oh, no question, I'll go easy. I just want to get the dishes done before the bugs find us."

"You got the dishes?"

"I got the dishes."

"Then I'm gonna go check out the view that Kaz liked so much."

"Scream if you fall off the cliff, alright?"

"Love you too." Mac blew her friend a kiss and picked herself up off the log she was sitting on. "Stove's off. Lighter's in the kitchen box."

"Check. I'll head down."

Nat and Mac walked off in different directions. Nat felt a bit out of place, as the scrawny, waifish 'kid' (despite being only a year younger than the other three) compared to Kaz's hugeness, Mac's charismatic presence, and Red's boisterous theatrical energy. Fighter, cleric, bard... guess that makes me the rogue. She'd had that thought many times, though she'd never voiced it to the others. Mac would have understood, she was sure, and maybe Red had been exposed to role-playing through the world of the stage, but it seemed doubtful that she or Kaz would have been interested in coming to the tabletop.

When she was sure no one could see, she dodged an imaginary arrow and stuck a stick she pretended was a dagger into the ribs of a foe that wasn't there. That'll show 'em, she thought to herself, giggling.

Her first indication that something was unusual came when she spotted the red two-piece bathing suit tossed carelessly into one of the canoes. Unusual, but not worrying; if there had been a problem, Kaz would have come to get them. Confidently, Nat took the last few steps to see Kaz and Red both swimming. Red noticed her first and acknowledged her with a wave.

"Hey, Nat! Jump on in!"

"Nah, thanks, Red, I wanna get dishes done." Nat moved closer to the shore and spotted the water pail. "I'll just take a little bit of the lake back to camp with me."

Kaz spun, standing in water that just barely failed to conceal her nipples. "You sure? It's nice and cool."

"All good, really," Nat replied, lifting the pail and dipping it in the water. "Work first, I guess?"

Kaz took a couple steps to shore, exposing more of her powerful abs. "I can carry that up," she offered.

"All... good!" Nat grunted, lifting the full pail with two hands and managing only to splash a drink's worth or so on her old t shirt. She ignored it, turning to head up the trail. "You two swim, you've — oof! — done your work."

"Alright, if you say so."

Nat heard the sound of Kaz pushing herself back into the water but couldn't risk turning back. She could probably easily carry the bucket in one hand, and me in the other, Nat thought, forcing herself to keep moving uphill. It took considerable effort, but she make it back to camp without spilling the rest.

She put the bucket down triumphantly by the single-burner stove, then sat beside it. She needed a pot for boiling, the dirty-water scoop for scooping, and... fire. She needed to relight the stove. She took a breath, stood up, and moved to the supposedly bearproof kitchen box, and worked it open. There, right on top, was the barbecue lighter. Nat grabbed at it clumsily, knocking it to the side instead of picking it up and sending it deep into the box.

There's the infamous Nat One, tee em, she thought with a sigh. Critical dexterity fail. The breeze conspired with her wet shirt to make her shiver in the warm summer evening. "Of course you're cold," Kaz had said to her during one of their practice paddles on a retention pond. "You're just skin and bones!"

Resigned to her fate, Nat moved around the kitchen box and dug down the side, trying to find where the lighter had fallen. It took a couple minutes of fighting with bags and pouches and utensils and only scraping her arm up once before she managed to get a grip on the escaped fire source. With no one around, she lifted it over her head with an internal cheer.

"Great sight, isn't it?" asked a voice Nat didn't recognize, followed by an unfamiliar figure emerging from the bush.

"Huh? This?" Nat looked at the newcomer. Male-presenting. Nearly as tall as Kaz, but nowhere near as well-built. "It's super nice to see I guess, after what I went through to get it, but it's really just an old butane lighter, nothing much to—"

His smile was disarming. Something about it made her sleepy. "Been here long?"

"I just got back like two minutes ago," Nat answered. "Went to get some water, got to do the dishes, clean up our messes, you know? But uh, we landed late afternoon? I didn't exactly check my watch. Didn't bring a watch. Like the people who came before, right? Tell time by the moon, sun, and the stars? Wish I knew how to—"

He had taken a couple steps towards her as she spoke, his smile never changing. "I'm Jon Tucker."

"Natascha Kryczek, but I go by Nat, like the bug, you know?" Why did her eyes feel heavy? It was weird. "You can understand why, I guess, yeah? Who wants to say 'Natascha Kryczek' all the time? 'Nat' is a lot faster. I like fast. And stealthy. Sneaky, you understand?" She giggled. "Sorry, I'm talking way too much. That's what happens when I get tired, I just sort of keep going on and—"

"Can I ask a personal question?" He was just far enough away to be polite.

"I mean you can ask anything you like, just no guarantee that I'll answer, right?" She stifled a yawn, but kept talking. "Like it would be rude to ask my age, yeah? Or my weight, I guess, or like my body c—"

"Do you walk in your sleep?"

Pfft, that's it? Easy question, never have, never will. "I will sleepwalk for you," she said, clearly and confidently with no understanding of why. Everything felt strange and dreamlike. Her fingers tingled. She felt like she was under some mysterious spell, stuck in those moments where she was falling asleep enough to start dreaming but not enough to actually be properly asleep. She was expecting her head to jerk up and her body to startle awake at any moment.

There was obedience that came from outside of her. Every experience, she knew, came from inside, a combination of electromagnetic waves combined with nerve impulses and an overactive slab of soggy cholesterol in her head, but this wasn't something she saw, or heard, this was an obedience that came from the same place as the joy she felt watching a cheesy fantasy epic or the excitement she got from listening to some solid metal. So far outside her that it felt so far inside her.

Her wet shirt clung to her a bit; she hadn't bothered to put a bra on. She almost never did, considering she'd had mosquito bites that were bigger than her tits. Still, her breasts were extremely sensitive to touch, something she was very aware of as her fingers had slipped under her damp shirt to play with her nipples. She wanted to go further, but Jon Tucker had things well in hand, slipping her shorts down just enough to lightly stroke her clit.

She was able, for a moment, just a moment, to wonder if Kaz and Red's skinny dipping was similarly inspired, before the ecstasy that came from the same place as the obedience took over.