"I'm sticking my head in that!"

"GRIAN NO!"

"Did you bring a change of clothes at least?"

"Of course he didn't. This is Grian we're talking about. He's only responsible in front of adults."

"The more adults trust you, the more you can get away with!" Grian grinned as he started to walk towards the waterfall at least a little more carefully.

The ground was wet and mossy, making it super slippery. The stone wall next to it was enough to balance mostly safely, but the most falling would do was scraping your knee and soaking your clothes in the pool of water below anyway.

"Alright, small groups at a time can get behind the waterfall. Just be careful and don't slip please, we didn't bring extra clothes for the walk back." Xisuma announced.

"Also for eating, please pick up your trash!" Joe added. "We have bags to carry trash in if you need."

"Enjoy your flight! And thank you for choosing Hermit-Airlines!" Cleo announced formally, mocking the two leaders.

The group that heard it laughed or stifled one, and Ren gave Cleo a high five, to which she bowed dramatically after.

Xisuma sighed, but smiled, and let the hernits all run off in different directions. Mumbo, Iskall, Scar, and Cub followed Grian towards the waterfall a little more cautiously and Xisuma chuckled. It seemed like the two groups had gotten over their business rivalry a year back.

Hypno and Wels were walking around the rocks they could, trying to see how far they could get before one inevitably fell on a wobbly stone or slipped on moss. Meanwhile, xB and Jevin were skipping stones, and Wels had called it an extra challenge when one got a little too close to his face as he was balancing. Hopefully the med kit had bandaids when one eventually fell.

"Pearl," Gem whispered, nudging her arm.

"Huh?" Pearl looked at Gem with a raised eyebrow. Gem slyly tugged her arm in a direction, and the two slipped away from the group unnoticed before everyone separated. No one probably cared, because they were all doing their own things, but sometimes being extra sneaky was fun. In all fairness, this was a secret too good to let spill so easily either.

"What is it?" Pearl asked.

"Those flowers!" Gem continued to whisper. "They're the same from the small patch back at camp, the ones that glow in the dark. They're everywhere here!"

"Woah, I bet that looks incredible at night then." Pearl scanned the area, and tried to imagine what it would look like.

"Yeah, too bad the camp is so far away. I think X might explode if we asked to leave at night." Gem said in a hushed whisper.

"Hey guys!- er, girls! What are you two whispering about?" A voice sprung up behind and they both spun around, faces with guilty smiles.

"Uh nothing!"

"The weather!"

They said at the same time.

"Uh huh, sure." Impulse chuckled.

"The weather is so nice-" Gem said, going with Pearl's excuse.

"Nothing out here!" Pearl said, going with Gem's excuse.

They both internally facepalmed.

"C'mon guys spill! I wanna know the gossip." Impulse pleaded, dropping his shoulders and clasping his hands.

"Nuh uh, there's nothing to spill!" Gem shrugged and crossed her arms.

"Aren't we friends guys?" Impulse asked.

"Well..." Pearl started. And Gem looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "What do we get out of it?" She finished with an evil grin.

"Aw come on!" Impulse whined.

"Yeah, we're not telling you the secret for free." Gem agreed.

"How about-... uh... my s'more at the campfire?"

They weren't impressed.

"I already traded Bdubs and Keralis for extra marshmallows before we left." Pearl said.

He thought for a moment, and couldn't think of much. "An IOU?" Impulse offered with an awkward smile.

They raised their eyebrows, considering it over.

Gem tugged Pearl's hoodie sleeve and they turned around in a two person huddle.

"What could we use the IOU for?" Pearl asked in a hushed whisper.

"He does robotics, an IOU could be worth it if we need technology help." Gem whispered.

"Ooh that's true."

They turned around.

"Alright deal." Pearl said, and they shook on it.

"If the secret isn't any good the IOU isn't worth much." Impulse stated.

Gem leaned down to a patch of plain looking leaves and flowers near the permitiers of the open area.

"See these?"

"The flowers? That's it?"

"Look how many are around the place. They're even near the waterfall. We saw a few by the camp, but only in a small patch." Gem kept going.

"What about them?" Impulse deadpanned.

"They glow in the dark." Pearl said.

"Like, really brightly. It's a teal-ish color and they would light up this place at night." Gem explained, waving her hand around to emphasize the point.

"Wait really?" That caught his attention. "How do you know?" He asked slowly, squinting his eyes at them.

"We woke up early and saw some in the morning. I told Doc about them but he's the only other one who knows." Gem said.

"Woah... can we see them? At night!" Impulse lit up and grinned.

"Well this place is sorta far from the camp, but if you get up early, we'll show you the ones near camp."

Impulse thought for a moment and looked around again at the place. It was already gorgeous as it was. The light reflected off of the waterfall, making the water shine, moss on the rocks and flowers dotted around in patches brought the place to life, and there was no doubt in Impulse's mind that glowing flowers would make the entire thing spectacular.

He smiled, more-so to himself than them, and nodded.

"Deal."

"We're going to go eat lunch now; Thanks for the IOU!" Gem said.

"See ya ladies!" Impulse waved and turned around himself, walking the opposite direction.

"These flowers could get us rich, I'm glad to have the nature expert with me here!" Pearl chuckled, elbowing Gem lightly in the arm.

"Wonder if we can scam Grian out of more chocolate when he gets his head out of the water."

"We can try!"

They giggled and turned to the rocks where hermits were sitting to eat.

ZED! TANGO!" Impulse shouted, running towards them. "I have something to tell you!"

"Can it wait a sec? I'm collecting samples of the water for a science experiment." Zed said. He was using a pipet to carefully put droplets on a sanitized petri dish, squinting his eyes to get it perfect.

"And I'm helping!" Tango stood up straight again, holding up vials of water with caps on them. He held them out of Zed, who carefully placed them together in a wooden case with perfectly fitting spaces for the now filled vials.

"Thank you Tango." Zed said.

"Are you almost done? It's really cool, I promise. And I think I have a plan to do something awesome later."

Zed put the lid on his petri dish and looked up. Both of them gave Impulse a questioning look that said: "go on..."

"Mighty, Xisuma! This place is chalk full of these bioluminescent flowers!" Joe marveled, showing a picture of a flower from a book.

"Oh really?" Xisuma peered at the book, which had the before and after of what the flower looked like. Joe nodded, and pointed to a patch of them to their left, proving his point.

"Wow, that's incredible." Xisuma smiled.

"D'you think we should tell everyone?" Joe asked.

Xisuma looked at the hermits. They were laughing and running around, doing stupidly hilarious things. Grian had gotten his head out of the waterfall, and others were skipping stones on the water or using sticks to see how deep the water got.

He chuckled nervously. "Let's keep this off the radar. We don't want to get their hopes up about it, and let them down when we can't walk into the woods at night obviously."

Joe hummed with a nod, and then got a funny idea. "They might try to convince us to go on a night hike." He laughed. "Just to see them all glow at once."

"Yeah I'd prefer not to deal with that. Both going or letting their hopes down. It's hard enough to keep track of 26 kids during the day!"

Joe nodded in understanding, and flipped the page to the next plant.

"Oh! Look at this! The ferns at the bases of those trees over yonder can be made into tea!"

"I bet it's bitter, but maybe some honey at home could sweeten it!" Xisuma said.

"It says it can cure sore throats and heal the mind. I'm not convinced of the second, but fixing sore throats could be useful." Joe said.

Everyone was relaxing or having fun, no one was hurt or needed help, and nothing showing a change of that soon. Xisuma looked around and got a fun idea, decided to do something fun for himself while everyone was taken care of.

Ren was sitting with three of the hermitgals to the side, talking about who knows what, when Xisuma walked up to them.

"Would you mind helping me and Joe get some ferns for tea?" He asked, and pointed to a tree at the bottom of a hill off to the side, littered with them.

"Ohh you have to get the roots for tea for those. The leafy parts don't taste good." Stress said, "I read about them once at a nature camp before, but I've neva made 'em before."

"Thank you for telling us, that'll make this much easier to try." Joe said.

"I'm down man, looks fun." Ren said.

"Eh why not?" False shrugged, standing up as well.

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be, but it'll be fun to watch you all struggle." Cleo shrugged with a smile.

"How are you gonna get the up-high ones?" Stress asked as he pointed to large clusters in the corners of the branches.

"That's why I needed your help." Xisuma said with a proud smile, while the others gave him confused looks.

"Hey Doc, did you hear the rumor about the glowing flowers?" Beef ran up and asked, with Etho trailing behind more casually. They had already gone behind the waterfall and eaten some lunch, and when they heard the rumor from passing conversations more than once, they knew it couldn't just be a coincidence.

"Oh, it's not a rumor." Doc smirked. When both Beef and Etho glanced at him to let him continue, he did. "Gem told me this morning about them, and I've seen the same ones everywhere around here."

"Really? And what prompted her to tell you that?" Etho asked suspiciously.

"That's my business, Slab."

"Alright alright, secret man."

"So what do you guys wanna do with that info?" Beef asked, stopping their argument before it could start.

"Well, it's a ninja's honor to find out the truth about rumors." Etho said, a sly smirk on the mask shining through his eyes. "You guys busy tonight?"

"Well if Doc isn't sneaking out to visit Ren-" Beef stopped abruptly as he was elbowed in the rib from an unhappy metal arm, effectively shutting him up.

"Ow!"

Etho was the first to erupt into laughter, and within a few seconds the other two were as well. When they calmed down enough to talk again, Beef spoke up again.

"Xisuma's gonna kill us isn't he?"

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." Etho said.

"True. and I say we pay a little visit to the last member of nHo for this adventure." Doc smiled, and the other two nodded in sync.

"Woah, be careful Bubbles!" Keralis held his arm in front of Bdubs chest as his foot slipped forwards on some moss.

"Thanks," Bdubs breathed out, feeling his heart thumping in his chest. The fall wouldn't have been that bad really, just a bruise and partially soaked clothes were they were wearing standing- so why was his heart this loud?

Bdubs looked down, and saw Keralis's hand still on his chest. Keralis gave him a kind smile as he looked up, before dropping his hand, and continuing on the thin path behind the waterfall.

Bdubs hoped he couldn't feel his heartbeat then, or hear it now as clearly as Bdubs did, with the ghost of the feeling still there. He shook his head and focused on the path. He didn't want to slip again.

Or did he.

"This is gorgeous! Please tell me you brought your camera?" Keralis exclaimed, and looked at Bdubs with a hopeful smile.

"I- uh- yeah I bought it!" He took it out of his pocket carefully, extra careful not to drop it into the waterfall in front of them or the water below, and held it up for a picture.

Unfortunately, the lighting wasn't that great from their angle, and the light coming through the water made it look like a blank white sheet, while the background was fuzzy pitch black. It didn't look nearly as good as the real thing.

"Ooh! Get me in it." Keralis beamed. "That way you'll have me off the list for all of the hermits you're talking pictures of!"

Bdubs twisted his face into an apologetic frown. "Sorry Ker, the lighting is so bad here I can't even get a good picture of the waterfall." He snapped a quick photo and showed it to Keralis to prove it.

"See? It just wouldn't do your sweetface justice." Bdubs explained with a shake of his head.

"Aww, ok. Next time I guess then?" Keralis asked, hopeful that Bdubs would get a photo of him soon.

"Of course!"

When they got back onto stable land, another hermit was standing there, waiting for them.

"Uh hey Etho; Didn't you already go behind the waterfall?" Bdubs asked, moving out of the way so he could walk past them and go again if he wanted.

"Eh, I'm not here for that actually." The Canadian said. "Could I talk to you, Bdubs? In private."

Bdubs glanced at Keralis who shrugged.

"Uhm, sure I guess."

"I'll just talk to Shaswammy for a minute." Keralis said, and skipped off to the axolotl lover who was climbing a tree?

Bdubs would figure that out in a second.

Etho waved him over to an area at the edge of the clearing, sort of hidden from view of the others. Beef and Doc were already there waiting with unreadable expressions.

"Is everything ok?" Bdubs asked as he scanned their faces

"Better than ok Double-O," Doc said with a growing smirk.

"We have an awesome secret plan, and we wanna do it with nHo!" Beef said, "Us four, braving the dark!"

"Braving the- what now?"

"We wanna come here at night." Etho explained in a monotone voice, but there was clearly excitement in his eyes. "The flowers around here glow brightly, and it would be a once in a lifetime chance to see."

"You want to walk here? At night? In the woods? Alone! Just to see some flowers!" His tone got more nervous and fast as he talked.

"Shh!" Beef shushed him. "X would kill us if he knew we were even thinking about it."

"And rightfully so! That's a horrible idea guys." Bdubs scolded. "I'm not in."

"Oh come on! It'd be such a cool adventure!" Beef pushed, and Bdubs crossed his arms, not impressed. He shook his head.

"You're not still afraid of the dark, are you?" Doc asked. Bdubs studied his face for a split second, and really couldn't tell if that was meant to be an insult or an actual question, and he scowled, assuming the worst.

"No! I'm not! I just don't want to waste my night to see some glowy leaves or whatever, when I like to sleep." Bdubs fumed.

"Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go take pictures of those idiots getting stuck in a tree before one of them falls." Bdubs declared as he turned around, and walked towards the group trying to do who knows what in a fricken tree.

"Well that didn't...."

"Yeah..."

"Should we try again later?"

"Eh, why not?"

"Hey, you ok Bdubs?" Joe asked as Bdubs walked over to the group with a frown. Bdubs realized he probably still looked mad, and shook his head, replacing his frown with a smile.

"Yep! All good." Bdubs half lied. He walked over closer, and pulled out his camera again.

"Uh, could you tell me what's going on?" Bdubs asked with a chuckle.

Joe chuckled. "Me and Xisuma read about ferns we could make into tea, and these guys were willing to help us get some."

Bdubs snapped a few photos, with Ren holding on one of the thick branches for dear life, while Stress directed him to the right ones. Cleo was grabbing a few of them from the base of the tree, while False stood farther back and warned the idiots up high where the weak spots were.

"Huh. Seems like a lot of effort for tea." Bdubs mentioned.

Very surprisingly, Xisuma himself was up there as well, and by the looks of it, he was having the time of his life. Bdubs thought he looked a little terrified too, but what was fun without a good measure of fear mixed in too?

"It is, but it is a fun effort." Joe said poetically. "Xisuma there hasn't climbed a tree in years, and this gave him an excuse to dip his toes in adventure, if only for a bit."

Keralis had joined in the fun, shouting encouraging things as Ren and Xisuma reached up for the ferns up high and tried to balance their weight. How the heck they got up there in the first place without any good lower branches to grab, Bdubs had no idea, but he didn't really care either. This was funny enough to watch.

"Never thought about it like that." Bdubs said.

He zoomed in on their faces carefully, steadied the camera in his hands, and got glorious pictures and face expressions captured in the moment.

Xisuma, reaching up to a particularly high branch with his tongue stuck out in concentration as he managed to grab the base of the fern successfully, made him look funny and confident at the same time.

Ren, holding on for dear life as his legs were wrapped around the branch to balance, was mostly funny, but had an interesting element of fear and courage in it too.

"Alright Ren! You can come down now, we have plenty." False called out, pausing Bdubs's picture taking process. Bdubs eyes went wide, and he focused his camera at False, posed in confidence and kindness. Ren inched down the tree, and when he was close enough, fell right into Falses arms.

Bdubs was snapping photos in bursts now, hoping any of them were good before his storage or battery ran out.

False set him down and he thanked her, relaxing with a more comfortable smile as he propped his sunglasses back onto his head from where they'd fallen onto the bridge of his nose.

Stress pointing around the tree was less of a good shot unfortunately. Not because of her or anything, but because the back view hiding her face, as well as the shadow of the tree really mis-pointed the focus of the picture.

Cleo was crouched down as she finished the last of the ferns near the base and put them into a pile on the side. Her nails had dirt under them and her bright orange hair contrasted the tree's browns and greens behind her and Bdubs crouched down a little, hoping to get a better shot before she noticed him and stopped.

"Uh Bdubs? What are you doing?" A voice behind him asked. Cleo noticed him as well and stopped what she was doing to look at him.

"Getting pictures of everyone!" Bdubs hopped back up, and held his camera up proudly.

"They're better in the moment; when people realise it's usually too late."

"You make it sound like murder." Cleo chuckled, and Bdubs shrugged.

"I can get a few of you guys holding up the ferns if you'd like? Or reading the book page on it?" He offered.

The hermits nodded excitedly and made a row in front of the tree, with Joe holding up the book towards the camera after he made sure it was on the right page.

"Saaaay fern tea!"

"Fern tea!" They all said at once.

Bdubs smiled and put down the camera, looking through the ones he got.

"What'd'ya think X? We get enough?" Ren asked as he looked into the plastic bag they were holding them in.

"We have plenty for anyone that wants to try some! Although I assume they need to be dried first; Is that correct Joe?"

Joe skimmed through the book. "Hmmm," he squinted his eyes. "It doesn't say exactly how to do it. Maybe we try half normal and half dried?"

"We can try the first half at camp and then dry them overnight. I think I have a thermos if we want to save any for the lake tomorrow too."

"If it's any good that is." Cleo added.

"It better be good for all the work to get them." Ren put his hands on his hips and frowned.

The hermits laughed and False patted him on the back comfortingly. Ren drooped his ears and tail dramatically and slouched his shoulders, only getting more laughs out of the others.

Bdubs grinned at them, and slipped a few feet away, taking one more picture without any of them noticing. He'd show them later.

With that all wrapped up, Xisuma looked to the sky, and noticed it was getting a little later than he expected.

"Well if we want anytime to boil the tea before nightfall we should probably start heading back now." X said.

"Would you like me to do the honors?" Cleo sidled up to Xisma with a subtle smile, and he nodded calmly.

She grinned, a little wildly almost, and stepped away from the group a bit to a more open area. It was probably for their own goods'.

"EVERYONE LISTEN UP! WE'RE WALKING BACK TO CAMP NOW!" She yelled, instantly getting everyone's attention.

"Thank you Cleo." Xisuma said.

As everyone started to cluster around Xisuma since they didn't actually know the way back, he cleared his throat.

"I'm taking attendance one more time before we head back. We don't want anyone being left behind!"

There were a few groans from the crowd, who just had to stand around until he was done, but they were quickly muffled as he started the list. 

------

Hmmmm, oh gee oh golly I wonder what they're gonna do at night??? hmmm??? Can any of you guess??

thanks for reading! and maybe vote if you liked it? 

Or check out some of my other books, like the Coffee shop /College AU about Etho and Bdubs, or Stress Cookies which I recently finished? Have a great day or night!