A/N: Well, I wrote this for my creative writing class. I think it turned out pretty well. What do ya’ll think? Constructive criticism is welcome, but flames will be mocked relentlessly. I mean, uh…taken into consideration.

The Princess Goes Camping
by: TouchofViolet

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Ashley Venice struggled passed trees of evil dispositions, that reached out with their long, bony hands and scratched at her face and arms. She had been walking uphill for a good ten minutes, and Ashley could not remember another moment in her life where she had been sweatier. Black dirt clung to her sweat, almost changing the color of her skin. Her knotted, stringy brown hair had been pulled up into a painful bun. And the mosquito bites on her neck and elbows were slowly becoming bigger, redder, and more itchy.

It was all her boyfriend’s fault.

He had dragged her out camping, claiming it would be “good” for her. What crap that had turned out to be. What crap he had turned out to be. She was dumping him as soon as they got back to civilization. And she wasn’t going to let him go kindly, either. No, no. Painfully, slowly, relishing in his heartbreak.

She reached the top of the hill, and started her downward trek. She twirled the lavender bag she carried, watching her surroundings, pausing briefly to admire the sunset. Ashley was trying to find a stream in which to wash herself, and was following her boyfriend’s rather vague directions: “It’s over the hill, and then you turn.”

He was a stupid idiot.

The bag she carried got stuck on a low hanging branch, bringing her to a halt. She turned around to see what went wrong. Noticing the bag’s current situation, she tugged as hard as she could on the strap. The bag ripped off the branch, leaving the better part of its bottom still clinging to the tree. The force at which the bag ripped caused Ashley to stumble. She tried to steady herself but couldn’t grab hold of anything, and tumbled the rest of the way down the hill, landing feet from the stream she had been searching for.

She moaned as she pulled herself together. Carefully, she checked herself over. Her arms and face were even more scratched up than earlier. Her hair had fallen out of its bun, and hung wildly about her head. And her jeans, her beautiful Diesel jeans, were ripped. She fingered the hole, which ran vertically down her shin, and noticed the gash on her leg.

An annoyed grunt escaped her lips. “That just figures!” She muttered a long string of unconnected curse words and crawled over to the stream. All she wanted right now was to get the dirt off her body. Then she’d get back to camp and she’d, she’d…well, she’d do something mean to her boyfriend. She’d work out exactly what later. With a sigh, she stopped at the stream’s edge and reached her hands into the water.

A small, silver fish swam by. Ashley screamed. “EW! Ew! EWWW! Fish water! FISH WATER! Oh, God, I touched fish water!”

She backed away from the fish water, mortified, wiping her hands on the ground. “It’s okay,” she told herself. “It’s okay. I can still use astringent to get the dirt off my face.” Ashley searched for her lavender bag, and found it around the same spot where she had landed moments earlier. Cautiously, she opened it up, and found it to be completely empty. She lifted the bag up, shoving her face into it. She tossed it aside when she found it to still be empty and frantically began to search for her astringent.

A few feet away from her she spotted her light blue astringent bottle. Ashley made a gurgle of joy and scooped it up. Sheer liquid drizzled down her hand, forming a puddle at her knee. Ashley stared in disbelief at the bottle, and the giant gaping hole in its side.

Tears welled up in her eyes. “My astringent! Not my astringent!” With a surge of anger she threw the bottle far into the woods and started climbing back towards the camp. Her boyfriend was seriously going to pay. She thought of all the ways she was going to hurt him: all the things she could cut off. And oh, the nagging, there was going to be so much nagging.

But when she made it back, and saw him sitting by a fire, cooking hotdogs, she lost her nerve. There he was, his dirty blond hair clinging to his face, his big green eyes looking at her lovingly, and his arms poking out of the shirt he had made sleeveless. She had never seen him in a shirt with sleeves, and started to wonder if he even owned any.

She shook her head and forced herself to look away, noticing two tents perfectly set up. “Harper…you, you fixed my tent.”

He chuckled and put the hotdog he had been cooking into its bun. “Yeah, well. It was funny as hell to watch you set up that thing. I mean, I’ve never seen anyone turn a full sized tent into a retarded tepee. But I wasn’t gonna let you sleep in it.”

Whatever anger Ashley had tried to cling on to left completely. Her mouth opened and closed, trying to find something to complain about, but could find no words.

Harper patted the ground next to him. “Come here.”

“But, the astringent…” She said, walking over and sitting down next to him anyway.

He handed her a recently bunned hotdog. She began eating without question, confusion etching itself on her face.

Harper looked up at the sky that was showing some signs of nightlife. “Ah, here we go.” He said. “Look up, Ash. This is the whole reason we’re out here.”

She looked up, swallowing her mouthful of hotdog, to see stars streaking across the sky. “You brought me out here to watch a meteor shower?”

“Yeah. Isn’t it worth it?”

Ashley thought over the day’s events. She thought about the bug bites, the scratches, the sweat, the dirt, the pain, the absolute misery, and sighed, watching the quiet beauty of the shooting stars.

“No.”