Ｔｈｅ Ｓｅｌｅｃｔｉｏｎᵃᶰ ᵃᵈᵛᵃᶰᶜᵉᵈ ʳᵒˡᵉᵖˡᵃʸ discussion

Hopefully you aren't afraid of heights for these 7 adrenaline-pumping zip lines overlooking some beautiful scenery.

Audra had received the message earlier that morning that, today, during her group date, they would be zip-lining. Of course, everyone seems to want to do crazy fun things like this, right? Wrong, not everyone. She had gotten dressed in a flowing blue tank top and white shorts, tucking the top of her shirt in her shorts. Audra had packed a small brown handbag, bringing her faithful sketchbook and a few pencils and an eraser along, knowing the view would probably be to die for. Audra had been escorted to the place, silent the entire way. They really should've taken fears into account when they planned these. But no one was going to know; no way. This was Audra Beaumont you were talking about, she wasn't going to quit and cry just because of some stupid fear of heights! Not knowing whether she should stay at the bottom or climb to the top, Audra just went ahead and climbed up, itching to sketch before anyone else arrived.

Eager to get started, Will walked to the zip lines he'd chosen for the group date. He'd only been on a zip line once before, at a family vacation on some tropical island. It was one of his favorite memories, which was why he chose it for the group date. They actually had to build the zip lines just for that purpose, but William figured the rest of his family would have a good time with them.

He was surprised to see a girl already having climbed up to the base of the first zip line. She must have never done one before. Will called up to her, "Would you like to come down? I'm afraid we have to put on a harness first."

Audra had alredy sat down, leaning against one of the wooden rails, sketchbook out and sitting up against her knee. All too soon, she heard the voice of the one person this was centered on, and bit her lip. Not out of nervousness, but mostly because she had thought she'd be able to get more done on her drawing before he had arrived. And now that she had to climb down, which meant she had to look where she was going, straight down. She didn't say anything as she put her things back into her bag, instead waiting until she had made the last step on to the ground. "Yeah. I had wanted to sketch the view from up there before anyone came, sorry."

Will smiled and thought of how charming it was that she had brought her sketchbook to go zip lining. To him, it represented that she was very down-to-earth and very real, in a way. It was nice. Refreshing. "That's just fine," he told her. "It's just not very safe to be up there without a harness. You're Audra, right? Why don't you come over here so we can get all hooked in?" Will led her to where a recently arrived servant waited.

((sorry for the short post))

((No problem, I just switched to mobile so mine are going to be on the short side now too))

Audra almost raised an eyebrow as he smiled. All she had said was something about sketching and sorry. Oh well, maybe he liked painting or something. Who knew. "Yeah, I get it. It's-" terrifying up there., Audra almost said, catching herself. "It is pretty high up there. And yeah, I am. Nice to meet you." Audra smiled back before setting herself bag by where they were standing, and walked over to where the servant was waiting with a harness ready for Audra to get into.

((Sorry for taking so long, I got busy))

Will stepped into the harness being held out for him and pulled it up to his waist. As a servant attached hooks and ropes to him, he asked, "Are you excited for the zip lines? I've heard they're amazing." He hoped Audra would be. He didn't want to seem like the guy who picked the most awful activities. It would also be bad if they didn't like it and then had a grudge against him. Not exactly the greatest way to start a relationship.

((no problem!!))

Audra followed his lead with the harness, absolutely no idea how to put it on, but not wanting to ask. She finally gave up, laughing at herself as she asked the servant that had given the harness to her for help. Was she excited? She was excited..in a way? She decided to just say yes, and focus on the artistic side of it, rather than the height. "Yeah! The view must be amazing from all the way up there. But I mean, I've alwayd looked at things in a sort of artistic way, so yeah," Audra told him, laughing at herself again.

Will quietly laughed a little with her. It seemed like the polite thing to do, after all. "I just hope the others come soon. I'd really like to make it up there for sunset," he added. "I can only imagine how amazing it'd be." That was very true. Will had never really liked art or mountains or forests or landmarks, but he was a sucker for sunsets. They just had such amazing colors. That, and the weather always felt so nice at that time of night.

Audra nodded. "Me too. Sunset up there must be...absolutely incredible." She mentally reminded herself to remember as much as possible so she could draw, or maybe even paint, the sunset from that point of view. Not really caring for small talk like the weather -however much she loved sunsets- Audra started up another little conversation. "Have you ever been zip lining before?" Audra asked almost casually, as if this wasn't the first time she'd ever met the prince, and almost as if he weren't really a prince. Just someone who was taking a bunch of girls zip lining. Because that happened all the time.

Will started saying, "Yeah, once. We were at some island-" he stopped himself there. It looked really bad to not even remember where you were. Will explained what he meant. "I mean, we, like my family and all, we're going around to a ton of islands in Central America, and we were only at each one for a day, so I can't quite remember which one it was, but we zip lined over this forest, and it was super pretty. Slightly terrifying to be over the tops of those trees, of course, but absolutely gorgeous." Immediately, Will reprimanded himself for being so awkward. This could be his future wife, and here he was, blabbing like an idiot. Great first meeting.

Audra nodded as the servant finished strapping her into the harness. "Oh, that's okay. I've never had the best memory, either. Don't worry about it. But that's amazing. I get the terrifying part, too, but to zipline over a forest on an island? Incredible. Does your family travel a lot?" Audra asked curiously. She had never travelled outside of her province, let alone the country.

Will shifted his harness slightly once he finished getting it on. The other girls were nowhere to be seen, so he decided to stay put while they waited. "Yeah, I guess we do travel a lot. We try to do one big trip a year as an entire family, but my parents are gone a lot on business," he said. Will had never really thought about how much they traveled. It was just natural to go somewhere exciting once every year. "Do people not travel a lot in the provinces?" he asked.

Audra moved to pick up her bag, not sure where to put it. She just held on to it for the time being, they weren't heading up anytime soon, anyway. Audra was still the only selected girl who had arrived, though they were supposed to arrive about ten minutes ago. "That's pretty cool. Not that your parents are gone a lot, but I kind of know what that's like. But big trips that often sounds amazing. Yeah, I don't know about other people in the provinces, I can speak for them for this, but my family never traveled much. We never really had the extra money, you know? But we are Fives, so you'd probably have to ask others."

Misumi was mumbling to herself as she slowly approached the two figures in the distance, assuming the taller, more broad one to be the Prince. A maid walked beside her holding a harness and explaining some basic ziplining rules. And while is looked like the young girl wasn't listening, she was. Her ears were there, listening to her every word, but her mind was elsewhere, thinking about her mother and father. She was going to be meeting the Prince soon, and she understood her parents would want her to make a great first impression. But what was she to do? Flash him her boobs? Zoe would that be too hard in the pink lace top and white shorts outfit? She was even wearing sandals, though there were rather long and tan, resembling those of ancient gladiators. She smiled politely when she reached the other two, understanding they were in mid-conversation and merely nodding we head in greeting before she began assisting the maid and preparing her for the journey they were about to take.

Will was about to comment on Audra's statement when another Selected arrived. She was a pretty gorgeous girl, definitely of New Asian descent, wearing an outfit similar to Audra's. Will decided it would be polite to talk to her and include her in the conversation, so he said, "You're Misumi, right? I'm Will, but I bet you already know that. We were just talking about traveling. Have you ever traveled?"

The sound of her name made the young girl turn her head, her fingers tightening up the straps of the harness along with the maid. She chuckled a bit when the Prince mentioned how she probably already knew his name, which was true. She nodded her head as she began to answer, "Yes I have, mainly to New Asia to visit family." It was true, as that was what tended to happen when her parents told her and her brothers to pack her bags.

Will grinned. "That's really cool," he said. "I've only been to New Asia once, when I was little. You have family there?" Will was interested in Misumi, but also by her family. Marrying a girl with close ties to powerful people from New Asia might do very good things for the country. His parents would most certainly encourage that. Hopefully, though, it wouldn't come to that.

Audra listened to their conversation, already feeling about left out. This girl had to be a Two, she just had that air around her. Traveling all yhe way to New Asia, just to see family? Audra had family in other provinces whom she hadn't seen since she was a toddler, or more likely, never met at all. Audra could tell almost immediately that Will was interested -not like, romantically yet, obviously, but with her family; maybe even impressed- in Misumi, it was quite obvious. As they engaged in a conversation about New Asia and her family, Audra backed away and took her sketchbook back out, continuing parts of the view she had only gotten a glimpse of.

Misumi smiled back at the Prince, nodding her head once again. "Yeah, my parents moved here after they married. The rest of my family is in New Asia." She explained, keeping eye contact until the very last word. And then she looked over at the girl beside her, whom was now drawing in a sketchbook. She guessed the drawing was of the scenery around them, was actually impressed. "You're a good artist... I have no artistic ability, whatsoever." She admitted, a bit embarrassed actually.

Mira had only ever heard of ziplining in her wildest dreams. So, now, standing there in the area designated for the very thing, she had to wonder if she wasn't dreaming. Blonde hair pulled back into the picture of a greasy looking braid, she marveled at the prospect of some flimsy looking line holding her up as she hurtled through the air.

Audra had looked up a moment later after she had realized the selected that was talking to Will was now speaking to her. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were talking to me," she said with a laugh. "But thank you! I've been an artist my entire life, but whatever you do I'm positive I could never do. I usually like to draw architecture more, but I'm not terrible at landscapes." Audra shrugged. "What do you do for a living?" She asked, trying to strike up a conversation that wasn't filled with an awkward tension of her making fun of herself.

Will thought it might be good to let Audra and Misumi chat. Making friends was good, right? He heard plenty of stories of life-lasting friendships being made in the Selection. "I'll leave you both to talk," he said. Now, he went to the blonde girl looking somewhat amazed. Will recognized her as Mirabelle Levosa. "Are you looking forward to the zip lines?" he asked. He honestly couldn't imagine otherwise. Zip lines were amazing.

Mira looked over as someone--the prince--spoke to her. A nervous smile flitted over her lips before her giddiness caught up to her again, stretching her smile into a full blown grin. "Yes, I am," she replied, rocking back on her heels. She took a moment before blurting out a solemn, "I've never done it before." Climbing trees wasn't something she'd compare to this, since she hasn't actually tried the thing yet. But, she suspected that zipping through the air would be a whole lot more fun than pulling herself up the limbs of a tree.

Mira seemed to be both extremely excited and nervous. Most of the girls so far seemed to be a good mixture of both. "Trust me, it's amazing," Will told her. "Super fun." He then realized he wasn't learning much about any of the girls by just talking about zip lines. It would be best to at least learn something about everybody before starting any individual dates. "So, where are you from?" he asked.

Misumi smiled at Audra, listening to her response. "That is very impressive! Maybe I'll have you draw me something sometime.." She responded, before going along and answering her question. "I switch between being a model and an actress," Misumi explained, holding her hands in front of her. "I think you'd be able to do it, it really isn't too hard. Modeling is just based on looking good, and you have that down. Took me a while to convince photographers I looked good until I got labeled as an 'Exotic Beauty'. And acting just really has to do with facial expressions and tone of voice." Misumi looked up to the zip lines, wondering how things were going to go.

Audra nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, that'd be awesome! I could probably take you up as a model for me as well, if you wouldn't mind. I've never been particularly good at portraits, but you know, practice makes perfect, right?" Audra smiled, setting her sketchbook back down near her bag. She nodded, listening to the girl explain. A small laugh came out of her when she spoke of modeling and Audra, as a sort of thanks without having to interrupt her. Audra agreed with her completely; this girl was definitely beautiful. How would they not be able to see it? That was crazy. "I'm a terrible actress, even in just small plays and silly things like that. Oh, and I'm Audra, by the way."

"The Yukon," Mira replied, sparing him a gap-toothed grin, "I guess I'll take your word for it, then." But even if he hadn't told her it would be fun, she probably would have done it anyway. It seemed like the kind of thing that could get someone's heart racing, and that was sort of her thing. Adrenalin junkie, or maybe just the thought that something could go wrong. Or just that something could happen. Because as far as she knew, her life hasn't had much happening.

"Do you do this often?" It was a simple question, but she wanted to take it back almost immediately. He was royalty; he probably didn't even have that much free time. The Selection was probably also taking up his time, so there was even less. Or maybe she was--shocker--over thinking the whole ordeal. Because he was royalty; he could do whatever he wanted to do, and not to worry so much about the repercussions. Unlike her.