Out of my bag I fished a black plastic baggie labeled as ‘River Crossing’. As it was situated at the top of my baggage, it must have been snuck in at the last moment. I ran through the memories in my mind to think when I had left my bag unguarded, and the only real possibility was for it to have been snuck in while I was busy with my girlfriend at breakfast. Though Luna must have definitely seen that happen, which means that she was probably in on the sneakery. The sneaky bugger.

  “What’s in the bag?” Gunny asked as he stood next to me.

  “Feels like rope.” I replied as I took my combat knife off my hip and cut the bag open. And just like I had felt, it did contain a rope, together with a weighted grappling hook and a piece of paper. “Ah, alright.”

  “Are you going to throw it?”

  “Sure.” I shrugged and took the grappling hook and rope out of the bag, putting the bag on the ground for now. A quick look across the river immediately showed a good target. A big, sturdy looking tree with thick branches, perfect for a grappling hook, stood well within my throwing range.

  As I spun up my throw, Gunny took the piece of paper that I had left in the bag. Just as I released the hook Gunny called out to me. “Wait, a sec Lauren, this thing here says…” The rope and grappling hook flew across the river and around the branch I had aimed for, although sadly, as I pulled the rope tight, I saw the hook launch itself into the river as it spun back around the branch. The rope then fell flat on the forest floor below. “... to make sure the rope is attached tightly to the hook by using the pin attached to the back of this paper.” Gunny finished his sentence as I looked down at the loose rope in my hand. “Well shit.”

  “Uh…” I looked up at the Gunnery Sergeant. “That might be too late now… Is there a second hook in the bag?”

  Gunny shook his head. “I’m afraid that was the only one.” He then gestured to me to start hauling the rope back in. “Do you have anything else that we could use as a hook?”

  “No, don’t think I do…” I dragged the now wet rope back to our shore “So that means we will probably have to go and manually attach it on the other side…”

  “We can’t go around the river or find a narrower spot first?”

  “Maybe, but who knows how long that is going to take.” I looked from left to right, following the river’s stream. “As Ellie wanted us to cross here, this might have been the best place to do so.”

  “Well, I suppose that means you are going to go on a swim, doesn’t it?”

  “What? Why me?” I squinted at Gunny.

  “Because I didn’t throw our grappling hook in the river. Besides, this trip was your idea, remember?”

  “But it’s a teambuilding exercise.”

  “And you are also a better swimmer.” He shrugged. “It’s only natural that the best swimmer does the swimming part.”

  “Ugh.” I sighed. “I’m not going to get away with this, am I?”

  “Nope.” Gunny chuckled. “But I’ll tie the rope to a tree on this end and then throw it to you once you have gotten across. At least you won't need to drag the rope behind you like that.”

  “And the gear?”

  “Might be best to zipline it across. If we really need to, I can carry it all too.”

  “Alright.” I sighed once more and started to undress to my underwear. I was definitely not in the mood to get all my clothes wet for the remainder of the hike and my sports underwear would normally dry rather well on its own.

  When I was done, Gunny wished me well as I put my foot into the water. The water was actually a rather comfortable temperature, I was definitely not going to get undercooled. In the matter of fact it was actually rather pleasant to go swimming right now with the outside temperature being on the rise.

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  The current was also rather lackluster so Ellie definitely did her planning well when it came to that too. That meant that I got across the river rather easily and swiftly. And thanks to the very clear water I could also easily fish up the hook that had detached itself earlier. It might come in useful for the zipline Gunny was talking about.

  I threw the grappling hook across and Gunny threw me the rope swiftly afterwards so I could attach it on my end of the riverbank, making sure it was attached lower than where Gunny had attached his end.

  Using the hook I had thrown across, Gunny then ziplined my bag and gear across, after which I threw the hook back again and we repeated the procedure again for Gunny’s gear.

  Last but not least Gunny also roped across with ease so the only thing that got wet was me, myself and I, which, all in all, wasn’t that bad.

  As I was putting my clothes back on, Gunny tugged on the rope. “Should we take the rope with us or just let it hang here?”

  “Hmmm…” I stopped getting dressed almost immediately as he said that and then quickly threw off my shirt again. “Good point. It might be best to take it along with us. In case Ellie got something more planned for us. Rope can always come in handy.”

  “You don’t need to swim back across, I can quite easily shoot through the rope from this distance.”

  “Would rather not disturb the local wildlife too much.” I chuckled. “It’s no biggy, I’m wet already, might as well swim back across to collect it again.

  “Fair enough.” Gunny lowered his gun, he had already aimed at the tree across the river.

  “The water is rather comfortable though, if you want to take the dip instead.”

  “No thanks, I’m fine.” Gunny laughed to which I jumped back in to collect the rope. Barely five minutes later I was back on shore next to him. “Hey Lauren, I think you forgot something else next to that tree there.” From the look on his face I could tell he was taking the piss with me.

  “Yeah right.” I chuckled. “Be warned or I’ll push you in instead. Clothes and all.”

  “Ah, sorry, must have been my imagination then.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  The two of us then continued our path into the dense forest, continuing our trek. All in all we had only lost about half an hour clearing this obstacle in our way so we should still be on track when it came to our time schedule.

  As I was taking point in finding a somewhat clear route I could hear Gunny start chuckling around fifteen minutes after we had left the shore.

  I stopped on a fallen tree and looked back at my Gunnery Sergeant. “What are you chuckling about?”

  “I don’t know why,” he started, “but I suddenly thought about something. I should have probably taken some pictures of you while you were swimming to show the LC, right?”

  “Luna doesn’t need to know that I have gotten wet…” As soon as I said that, my cheeks blushed slightly red. “Innuendo wasn’t intentional, just for your information.”

  Gunny chuckled again. “Why not, I bet she would have liked some pictures of you in action.”

  “Like the ones on Felix Invenire? No thanks. She still looks at them way too much. She even asked to hang up a couple in the cabin.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t say yes.”

  “I would rather not look at pictures of myself.”

  “Not that I like you like that or anything, but you can’t deny you look good, right?”

  “I know I do.” At least I was somewhat confident about that. “But I’d rather look at Luna than at myself.”

  “Fair enough.” He laughed.

  “Anyway, that aside, I’m happy you are thinking about Luna.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because of the secret we told you yesterday evening.” I shrugged and turned around again to continue our walk.

  “I had honestly already forgotten.” Gunny decided that he wanted to take point now and jogged past me.

  “Had you?”

  “Figuratively speaking, yes.” He nodded. “I’m happy for you that you found a person to share your life with. And I’m on good terms with Luna as well. To me, even though this may sound weird as she did technically spy on us, this isn’t any different than other coming out stories.”

  “Hmm, I suppose you could see it like that, yeah.”

  “But…” I expected something else to follow but Gunny remained suspiciously silent.

  “But what?”

  “I’m not going to be content until I have met the real Luna.”

  “Ah, you mean in her chosen form?”

  Gunny nodded again, but not looking back at me. “It seems only proper to meet her like that, no?”

  “That’s true.” I admitted. “I’ll talk to her about it when we get back. We can probably arrange an official meeting then. The last one was somewhat rushed anyway.”

  “Thanks, I would really like that.” This time he did turn around and gave me a smile and a friendly nod.