Pangolin Campfire, Thursday Early Afternoon

[cantgetnorelief]

The temperature is in the mid-eighties today even though it seems to be overcast and thunderstorms are threatening, but Anders has a small blaze going at his cabin's campfire. He's sitting, cross-legged, a little closer to the fire than should be strictly advisable, with a notebook in his lap and a large mug of coffee on a flat rock beside him. A

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[mycanonhatesme]

As Chloe heads to her own cabin, she spots Anders sitting by his campfire. She watches him burn paper for a minute before deciding to stop spying and actually say something. "Hey," she says, smiling lightly. "That seems like an awful waste of paper."

[cantgetnorelief]

"It was," Anders says, not looking up just yet. He flips past a couple of blank pages and tears out the next one with writing on it. "Stupid, stupid . . . gah."

Then he looks up, and turns bright red. "Oh. Hi."

It's the heat of the fire on his face. Really.

[mycanonhatesme]

"Hi." Chloe gives him a bit more of a smile. "So, can I fake innocence and pretend that you're burning your notes from the past school year? Because I have to admit, I was pretty tempted to do the same thing."

[cantgetnorelief]

"Yeah. That's totally what I'm doing," says Anders, who never took enough notes all last year to fill one notebook. He pulls a few crinkly strips of paper out of the wire spiral, rolls them into a ball, and tosses that into the flames. Then, completely destroying whatever flimsy pretense at a coverup he'd managed, he added, "Hey, I got your message. About the workshop. I just didn't think I could, you know, do it. Without wanting to hide."