"Oh, that's nice," she nods her head along for a few moments.

"How long are the trails we can take, anyway? Since we have a little time to go over them." 

"You're telling me you didn't research that already?"  Tim lands a very gentle elbow, and points his tongue at Sara.

"Hey," she leans away, laughing, "I wanted to leave you with some surprises!" 

"I actually don't know.  Let me look."  Tim browses his phone and looks a little disappointed after a few minutes of browsing.  "It's actually kinda small, it looks like it's about two miles to the south tip of the lake?  Maybe we could do a different one, and come back in summertime when we want to go swimming."

She peers at the map over his shoulder, "Mm, yeah. That looks like not much for a day of hiking and activity. What else is there? We need a cooking spot and a fair dark sky at night, and ideally fishing as well. Is there anything like that?" 

"Lemme look..."  Good thing I don't have to drive this thing right now.  "Hmm...that's kinda far off...how about Elmore State Park?  It's about forty miles north of here, it's got a little mountain and a lake.  I think it's stocked - yeah, they have trout, see?"

She nods, "Oh good, I prepared for trout. That hike to the summit would be nice for the evening. There's a lookout tower up there, see?"

She pulls her own phone out and navigates to the park on her map.

"Oh, they do boat rentals... Hmmm. Why don't we do a light hike in the morning, look around for interesting stones and such..." She pans around the park, looking at trails and options.

"We can have a light lunch out there, then come down to the lake in the afternoon, do some fishing and maybe even take a small boat out..."

"I think that's a great plan.  I don't know if the rental place will be open, they might do it on the honor system..."

Forty minutes of small talk ensues.  Tim does wind up wanting to take the wheel about ten minutes 'til their destination.  After that, they can start the hike!  It looks like it's going to be a nice day out, maybe a liiittle overcast.  But it's not bad for a nice October!

They can spend the first part of the day in the wooded area around the lake and below the mountain, poking around for interesting rocks and plants. Sara will use her stonesense occasionally to get a look at what's available around them, and report anything interesting to her partner.

"-oh, more copper," she comments as they come up on a small rocky outcrop. "And the rock-to-metal ratio isn't so bad, either." 

"I'm sort of glad that there wasn't enough to be useful.  I mean, I know we need mines, but...well, I grew up around here, you know?  I'm allowed to be selfish."  Tim is going to be extremely conscientious about evening out their backlash, he does not want to have to chase his partner up a mountain while she gasps for air.  As such: Handholding!

Handholding! 

"Mhm. I'm glad there was no one with my power around before regulations became good enough to protect places like this." 

She lets go of him so she can clamber up a rock and get a look past the trees to the lake. 

"This park is much nicer than an open-pit mine would be." 

Hmmmmm.  She does need him to match backlash.  And it's really cool.  Tim is going to take a moment to mentally calculate distances and leap up onto the rock next to her.  "Isn't it, though?  Beautiful."  And guide the ensuing .25 seconds of backlash off, it's not objectively a lot but today's an endurance activity, and Tim's backlash is miserable for those.

Sara will lean on him so that their heads touch as well, there not being a lot of other bare skin around at the moment. 

"...there's some not too far down," she muses, "I could pull a little up, if you don't mind guiding me for a little while." 

"Hm.  Sure, we can leave a little mystery for the next hiker who comes along." It would be really funny to sneak a hand up the back of her jacket for 'guiding' but.  Maybe save it for when you know her a little better.  "Wanna stick your hands up my sleeves?"

"That should work," she agrees, "Though I need them to actually pull it up, to start." 

She slides back down the rock to meet the earth, then, and kneels down to touch the ground. 

"Could you hold the back of my neck for now?" 

Tim is capable of holding a neck!  For twenty seconds.  Then he gets antsy and starts rubbing it instead.

He may be able to faintly feel the earth shifting under his feet. It's very subtle - nothing like an earthquake - but it's there. 

What he can definitely feel is the sheer amount of backlash she is racking up doing this, faster than anything else he's felt her do the entire time he's known her. The deliberate way she is breathing becomes very obvious soon enough. 

The neck massage doesn't distract her from her work, though it doesn't seem to help relax her, either. He can feel the tension in her muscles increase in time with her backlash. 

Absentminded rubs give way to a pause of deep concern.  What the fuck?  No, really, what the fuck?  It's the sensory equivalent of watching someone walk into the sea wearing lead ankleweights.  It's fine, until it really, really isn't. Tim bumps up his own power use, giving Sara just a little touch of durability Just In Case, and himself significantly more.  It's still not enough, and Tim definitely is not an endurance predator.

Fuck.  Okay, I know I was joking about this before, but I think I need more skin contact.  How do I do this without freaking her out.  I can't wrap my arms around her neck and I'd really rather not just shove my entire arm down the front of her shirt.  Tim sticks his whole right arm inside of his own shirt.  Then he does his level best to wrap his neck around the right side of Sara's neck, and then tries to maximize skin contact with his left hand and Sara's neck without actually touching her throat.

She actually relaxes a little with the increase in skin contact, and soon enough the effects of her power become visible to the naked eye, not only to the guiding Esper. 

At her feet, a chunk of intermittently orange stone seems to dig itself out of the ground. The earth around it crumples and sags, and finally the rock sits inert in a small divot. 

Sara releases a slow, shuddering breath, and then sags back into Tim. Her backlash accumulation rate drops to nothing, though she's already accumulated enough to last them the next hour at least, at this rate of guiding. 

Tim catches her and sprawls back with her.  His legs reflexively hook themselves around her thighs, and his left arm twitches a little bit towards the front of her neck before stopping.  His right arm flails out of his shirt and performs the most pathetic breakfall Tim's seen since he watched a wrestling class for six-year-olds.  Not that it matters, since.  Well.  I'd break the stone with my skull right now.  "You scared the shit out of me, Sara.  I haven't seen you do anything like...this."  A thought springs to his head, unbidden: Some espers are sprinters, and some are marathoners. Until now, Tim had only seen Sara do slow marathons.

Unless Sara objects, Tim is going to stick his now-warmish right hand under her shirt for additional contact.  It's too cold to do much of anything else.

She gives a little shriek! And flails, briefly - COLD! - but if he tries to remove his hand she grabs his wrist to keep it there. Guiding good. Yes. 

"Je suis-" she stops to take several deep breaths, evening them out.

"I'm fine, Tim," she says once she's breathing more normally again. "It's just- a lot at once. But this is less than I had yesterday." 

Tim actually manages to pull his hand back about four inches back.  It's like trying to stop a bulldozer with her bare hands.  It's trivially clear that when Tim is burning his own fatigue, he's unstoppable until it's naptime.  Thankfully for Sara's backlash levels, as soon as he realizes that she's holding him in place for a reason he will stop his bulldozer impression and put his hand back.  Whoah, she's really panting.  He moves his hand down as low as it can go on her stomach without actually moving into her pants.  After all, anything she might perceive as interfering with breathing is Bad, Actually.

"Ah.  Hm."  A moment of slightly nervous contemplation.  "I think you're right, actually.  The - rate of accumulation - was what spooked me.  And I stuck my hand down my OWN shirt first!  If you think that's cold, you should have felt it before I sacrificed my own body heat!"  The levity poorly conceals sheer relief.

She giggles breathlessly, "I'm sorry, I should have-" she pauses to take a deep breath. 

"I should have warned you. That- is what happens when I use-" another pause, "-when I use my geokinesis at a distance." 

"You did say you were better suited to delicate work."  How do you guide without A: freezing your partner, B: setting yourself up for situationship Hell, or C: sexual harassment.  "Well.  Let's guide for a bit and check out your cool rock?"

"Mhm! Mm," she shifts on her knees, "Let's- see if we can get more comfortable, too." 

Some shifting around occurs, and Sara removes her jacket and rolls up her sleeves and the bottom of her shirt for better guiding access. The jacket proves to be a good substitute for a blanket to go over her exposed front, and protect her lap from the rock she'd pulled out of the ground.