[IC] Second Horizons

[Hey Im Jordan]

_{Mentions: The Blue Counselors @HaleyTheRandom @Bee}

---

Rich was normally one of the last ones to arrive at Second Horizons, but this year… something was a bit different. This year, he found himself excited to be heading to the camp, so much so that he left almost a week early, and by the time his fellow campers started flooding in, he’d been at the camp for a few days already. When he’d arrived so early, more than one of the counselors had given him a bit of a look, and watched him a bit more closely than he would have hoped, but… He couldn’t blame them. He’d be the first to admit he’d been a real asshole in his previous years of camp, and a reputation of being the local problem child wouldn’t go away overnight. No, Rich was going to have to work for that — and probably work hard for it.

Acting out for attention was the old Rich. Shooting smuggled fireworks at younger campers was old Rich. Breaking into the Lodge and nicking alcohol from the director’s personal store was old Rich… okay, the last one might still be the Rich of today, but the important thing was Rich wasn’t going to go out of his way to make a scene for the counselors at every possible turn. This year, he was determined to swing everyone’s opinions of him from… well, he assumed from negative to hopefully positive. Looking back, the staff of Second Horizons had always tried hard for him, so now he figured it was time to repay the favors.

One way or another, Rich Griffin was going to figure out how to make himself look as good as possible when it came to being a counselor the next time Second Horizons was in session.

After a few days of hanging out at the camp by himself, Rich was happy he’d finally made it to the day when his peers would start to arrive. Would there be familiar faces from the years past? Or mostly new people? At least the counselors were the same for the most part — although at least one of them had shifted cabins around, which was kind of a let down for Rich. He’d wanted to impress Nick with the fact that he’d been doing his best to spin on his heel and be a good guy now, but Nick had left them for the Pink cabin.

Pink? As he walked out of the Blue cabin and toward the arrival area, Rich took the time to think about it some, Nick did kind of seem like he belonged in Pink, didn’t he? Between the way Nick had a habit of hooking up with people at the camp, and the way he seemed to actually take it to heart when Rich had given him some choice words… Yeah, Nick in Pink made sense.

"RED SQUAD, COME FORTH. RED SQUAD, TODAY YOU WILL BECOME Z-WARRIORS. RED SQUAD, OVER HERE! THE WORLD NEEDS HEROES LIKE YOU! RED SQUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAD!"

Christ. In the dynamic duo of Nick Walters and Mike Carter, if Nick had been misplaced… Mike certainly couldn’t have been more accurately placed. Who gave him a megaphone? Rich knew Mike well enough to know he sure as fuck didn’t need to be using a megaphone to be heard, but this… this just made it worse. Or, at least, it used to. Now, though? The message kind of had an infectious bit of enthusiasm to it.

Maybe this would finally be the year Mike and Nick got him to watch that Chinese cartoon bullshit. After all, he’d already started playing the games.

Fuck, was the therapist right the whole time? Was being a happier, nicer person really as easy a one, two, three… and then you were in? All Rich had done was try really hard to feel like he wanted to be in camp, and now?

Rich turned his attention to Fiona and Alex, and asked them a simple question: “How come neither of you have a megaphone? Seems to work for Mike.” Wait did he come off like a douche? Shit. “Just a, like, suggestion. I'm sure you guys got it under control though..."

[KatKook]

---

"Over and over, like it's red over."

---

——————————————————
_{Second Horizons Camp}

Yvonne had finally fully woken up, a few more shakes and she was fully up and running. She put down what she was holding and before she knew it, she was a bouncing in place and a huge smile beamed on her face as soon as this pretty guy replied to her. He had soft hands, and smooth skin, smoother than hers-... That is besides the point. His name was Elias, she nodded at him as soon as she heard his name and looked over in the distance over the lake, the sunshine bounced off her eyes so she got distracted a little. What snapped her back into reality was Elias' question about camp. He said he was new, and boy did Yvonne love new people. She hobbled over to him and put her arm around her neck, panning the two of them to have a quick view of the camp.

"The lake is pretty good if you're into skating, you should see the new kids when they're slippin' and trippin' all over the place, it's pretty wild." She said, gesturing at the lake, her arms expressed all her emotions and that was a Yvonne classic. She snapped her fingers to get his attention to look over at the two structures in the distance, "There's the rec room if you're the type to stay indoors," she then playfully punched his shoulder and continued, "But why stay at camp if you're staying in a camp." She then moved over to the other one, "That's the stage, it's a pretty good spot to hang out by when they're not doing anything with it. I..." She pulled away from him and looked down at the ground, her smile moving to be more visible now. "I-I... I-... Fucking stutter. I think it's a great place to just fuck around and be yourself, you know."

"I mean, you could alway-" The loud sound of the megaphone in the distance distracted her, and it was a beckoning call that she had to answer. "Fuck." She cursed under her breath, she picked up her stuff and nodded at Elias, "That's me, I'll tell you more if I see you again! If not, the other people probably got your back." Said Yvonne as she jogged backwards towards the call for the red cabin mates. She was pretty lucky to not trip over anything, knowing Yvonne it was common thing to occur.

Yvonne arrived to where the sound came from, and put down her guitar softly on the ground. At least Elias was not too far off, she smiled at him from the distance and spoke up, rather rudely actually, she did not mean to but her tone just made her sound rude.

"Yo! Where'd you come up with Z-Warriors?" She called out, it was after she said it that she realised how rude she sounded but hey, you live and you learn.

---

[Melissa]

With the campers having finally arrived after days of anticipation, the Winter session of Second Horizons was officially underway. After gathering the teens at the North Pole in the center of camp to sort them into their bunks for the next two weeks, the groups were released to their cabins in order to get settled and unpack. Snow had begun to fall shortly after they adjourned, but by the evening the sky had cleared its clouds to reveal the gorgeous stars amongst the mountains as a backdrop for the night’s activity.

The cold winter day had rolled into a cold winter’s night, and the campers and counselors alike found themselves huddled by campfires in the annual bonfire tradition. It was customary that on the first night of camp the bunks gathered to play some getting to know you games and roast marshmallows to make smores in order to start the session off on the right foot together. Since numbers were lower this year, each cabin paired up with another to not only encourage friendships in other bunks, but also to save firewood (all of the counselors could agree that chopping wood was their least favorite responsibility, and the less they had to do it, the better). Fetching Fox (Red) and Howling Wolf (Blue) were at one campfire, and Cozy Bear (Green) and Little Hare (Pink) were at the other.

Gwen was excited for an evening spent by the fire- she was looking forward to gazing up at the starry sky and finding the different constellations and couldn’t wait to get to know her new campers better. The brunette had already begun making connections with the first years and thus found herself sitting on a log next to Mickey braiding her hair. Delicately, she twisted and folded the girl’s hair over itself, forming a plait in little to no time.

While Gwen was busy braiding Mickey’s hair, Nick was sitting on the other side of her, watching over the campers and idly sipping at a cup of hot chocolate as he observed. Gwen was a better counselor than he had figured — and his co-counselor Kim was occupied with some other campers — and Nick was wondering why he was even here. Did they even need his help? The two girls seemed like they had it under control. He shook his head and looked away, while Mickey just turned her head slightly to look back at Gwen and ask a question. “Hey, how does it look?”

The brunette smirked, “It looks perfect, if I do say so myself.” She laughed, trying not to seem as though she was bragging about her own handiwork. Braiding and doing hair was one of her many talents after taking care of her younger sister’s hair for so many years when her own mother couldn’t. Grabbing the elastic band that was stored around her wrist, she tied off the end of Mickey’s hair, a job well done. “There! Hopefully you like it.” Gwen took out her phone and snapped a picture from the back so that she could show her.

Mickey was all smiles. She’d never had her hair braided before — at least not by another person, and the end result was great! “Thank you again. Hey, are there traditions around here like this? Like, the bonfire, I mean.” She asked, looking around at the other campers, and off to the other firepit on the other side of the camp, by the other cabins. “How late does this usually go, anyway? I don’t… really stay up late,” she admitted with a shy smile added on; it was more than a little embarrassing to more or less admit she had a bedtime.

Seeing the girl’s smile made Gwen grin widely in return- she loved nothing more than making people happy and that alone made it obvious why she was a counselor. “Of course!” She replied on instinct before focusing on her question. “Hmm, let me think… cabins love pranking each other at least once so expect to see that, on Christmas everyone wears pajamas all day- even on the slopes, and on New Years a few people like to jump into the snow in nothing but their bathing suits and then they end up in the sauna until they can feel their toes again…” She laughed to herself remembering the events from her first year on staff last Winter. “But I won’t spoil them all for you.” Gwen had opted to focus on the fun and wacky traditions, but there were many more things that happened during the session that made Second Horizons unique and fun.

In regards to the end time of the evening’s events, the brunette addressed Mickey’s concerns, “Don’t even worry about it- I know the first day can be a bit overwhelming especially after traveling to get here. Even though I’d love for you to be here the whole time, feel free to stay as long as you would like, and when you want to head back to the cabin one of the counselors can walk with you.”

❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄

Meanwhile, at the other campfire, Chloe Chambers sat amongst her cabin-mates from Red as well as the unknown faces from the Blue cabin (if she was being honest, she could barely tell who was in her group and who was in the other since she hadn’t made an effort to remember names). The only people she recognized were that of the counselor who practically fainted earlier when she broke the news that not everyone on the planet watches sitcoms and the boy with the ridiculous accent.

As she mindlessly went through her short program in her head and let her marshmallow set ablaze in the fire (it was sadly not on her training diet so she could not partake in the eating of the smore, only the burning of the ingredients), Chloe glanced at the person sitting next to her out of curiosity. “So… how’d you end up here? Did your parents send you away for the holidays too or are you somehow here by choice?”