Rebekah's eyes lit up and she shot Elena a devious smirk.
"Set up the tents, shall we?"
Elena's camping skills were virtually nonexistent. But she decided she'd rather embarrass herself a little than wait around and see what Rebekah was grinning about. With that, she trudged over to the pile of gear and pulled out the first tent she saw.
She fumbled with the drawstring a moment before tugging the waterproof bag off of the tent. A couple of poles tumbled out after it. She shoved her hand back in the bag and searched for an instruction manual, to no avail.
Elena carefully unfolded the tent and then glanced at it in desperation. The task looked no less daunting.
"Something wrong?" Rebekah asked innocently, although malignance was clearly written in the slant of her lips.
Elena glared at her and continued scrutinizing the tent, finally finding a loop of fabric to thread a pole through. She grabbed one from the ground and pulled it through until she found another loop.
Once finished with the first pole, Elena held the top with one hand and pulled, only to find that she had somehow twisted the fabric around. The end of the pole was dangerously close to puncturing the tent's fabric. She quickly pulled it back out.
Elena glanced over at Rebekah, who had already driven her first tent peg into the ground with a rock. She let out a frustrated sigh. The girl had been locked unconscious in a coffin for a hundred years, so obviously had no former camping experience. How was it that she knew exactly what to do?
"A picture might last longer," Rebekah said pointedly, and Elena realized she was staring. She quickly averted her gaze.
"You know, I could always help you out with that," Rebekah continued. "You should make yourself useful, go collect some wood. We can all roast marshmallows by the fire later. That is, if you don't trip over a twig and launch yourself over a precipice." She paused to grin wryly. "What a shame that would be."
After glaring irately at the other girl, Elena did her best to ignore the jibes and hoped that if she stared at the tent long enough, her solution would magically appear.
"Seriously." Rebekah's voice jolted her back to reality. "Give me that thing."
She made a grab for the pole and Elena surrendered it with a sigh. Stubbornness was her saving grace and she didn't like to admit defeat.
Rebekah grabbed the end of the pole and wove it through the right holes. She then fished around in the nearly empty tent bag for a handful of pegs and began anchoring the tent to the ground.
"Well don't just sit there," she said upon glancing at Elena.
The other girl hurriedly grabbed a peg and tried to push it into the tough soil. She got it halfway in before it stopped moving. Elena let out an angry huff and pushed harder. Nothing.
"You hit a rock," Rebekah informed her. "Push it in at an angle."
"I know how to stick a peg in the ground." Elena narrowed her eyes in annoyance. Rebekah rolled hers and went back to her own handiwork.
As discreetly as possible, Elena angled her peg away from the tent. After a little bit of wiggling, it slid all the way in.
Rebekah readjusted a pole on the top of the tent and then got up. Elena let out a satisfied breath and stood up next to her to admire their handiwork.
It wasn't until much later that night that Elena accidentally brushed against the wall of the tent and it collapsed on top of her. So much for truces, Rebekah...