Redana has never really known [i]height.[/i] So her body doesn’t quite know what to make of this, her boot swinging free over the edge, the world below savagely fanged in broken spurs, her stomach loose and prickling, her fingers clamped white against the landing ramp, the wild winds tugging at her hair as her spacers’ jacket flattens and seals itself against the chill, it doesn’t know what to do with her at all, and yet her mind has relinquished the controls, has stepped away from the bridge, is in freefall already. Her mind is throbbing curved purple on yellow. Her mind is intoxicated, stripped bare of artifice, wide-eyed and drowning. She unfolds like a flower under the morning sun and drinks, drinks deep, the throbbing of color replacing her heartbeat, blood releasing and contracting as the rhythm compels her.

Her fingers, too, release. And contract too late. She plummets insensate, her cunning plans out of reach of her mind, her grapple and her glider and her harness all requiring the touch of clever fingers reaching up now towards yawning neon heavenhalo.

She will survive the landing. She is a daughter of Tellus, and wrapped in spacers’ wear besides; the force of her fall will be canceled out, expelled into a crater. But if she strikes the earth, she will sink into dark dreams and bitter, under the lidless gaze of a watchful eye, and see no more.

[[b]6[/b] with Despair. Without? [b]6[/b] again.]