Rae released a slow breath, feeling the tightness in her shoulders soften as she turned Zelia’s words over in her mind. Her gaze drifted to the offered hand, then lifted back to Zelia’s face, taking in the sincerity in her eyes and the steady warmth of her smile. It was a simple gesture, and yet it felt like something more—like a lifeline thrown across the chasm of her own doubt.
"Okay," Rae acquiesced, her voice subdued. She reached out and took Zelia’s hand, letting the other girl help her to her feet. Together, they walked toward the rope climb. When Rae stopped at its base, she tilted her head back, tracing the thick, rough length of the rope all the way to the platform overhead. It was still imposing, still unyielding, and still a challenge that seemed to demand arms far stronger than the ones she possessed.
But the knot in her stomach wasn’t there anymore. She flexed her fingers, feeling a faint, answering heat beneath her skin, as if her resolve were kindling a modest, inner fire.
"Well…whenever you’re ready?" she said.
Zelia’s smile came easy when Rae took her hand, warm and quiet, like something settling into the right place. The contact steadied something in her too, an answering warmth that thrummed low in her chest, bright and patient. When they reached the rope, Zelia stopped with her, her fingers tightened briefly around Rae’s, reassuring, before releasing. She tipped her head back, following the rope’s long, weather-rough spine up into the grey belly of the sky. The rope swayed faintly in the warm air, a quiet pendulum between ground and platform, between doubt and possibility.
She studied it the way she studied storms before a run, reading the angles, the tension, the story written in motion. Her curls slipped over one shoulder as she lowered her gaze back to Rae, expression thoughtful but warm, eyes alive with gentle electricity.
"We can do this two ways," she said gently. "I can climb first so you can watch my form closely… or I can just give you a really good boost and let you take it from there."
Rae considered the options, her gaze shifting between Zelia and the rope as she mentally weighed each approach. She was used to appraising schematics in her head, and this wasn’t so different, she supposed. Watching Zelia climb first would give her valuable data, such as angles, timing, and visible proof that the rope could be negotiated. But she also knew herself well enough to recognize the trap in that logic. If she observed for too long, she’d get lost running simulations of every possible failure instead of actually moving.
She tipped her head back again, studying the rope’s slow sway, then exhaled through her nose.
"I think… the boost sounds good," she decided finally. "Once I’m actually on it, I can figure it out. It’s the starting part that trips me up."
She rolled her shoulders, letting the last of the coiled tension drain away, and stepped closer to the rope. Doubt hadn’t disappeared (she wasn’t suddenly fearless), but it no longer sat like a solid weight in her chest. Now it felt lighter, more like an obstacle she could maneuver around rather than one that would freeze her in place.
She planted her feet firmly in the most stable patch of sand and glanced back over her shoulder at Zelia, eyebrows lifting slightly. "Just tell me when you’re ready. I’ll try not to faceplant or take you down with me."
Zelia snorted before she could stop herself, the sound quick and bright, cutting through the tension like a struck match. "Hey, I said I’d catch you, remember?" she reminded her, grin tugging crooked at her mouth. "Faceplanting is optional. Safety net is included at no extra cost." There was something easy in the way she said it, like the promise was a simple fact of gravity rather than bravery.
She stepped in closer, brushing sand aside with the toe of her shoe until she found steadier ground, then lowered herself into position. Her knees bent, body settling into that familiar, coiled posture she’d worn a thousand times on tracks and starting lines, muscle memory unfolding without thought. She brought her hands together, fingers interlacing briefly before reshaping into a solid cradle. The world narrowed to small, practical details, the grain of sand against her palms, the way the warm air skimmed her flushed skin, the steady sound of Rae’s breathing.
When Rae stepped forward and placed her foot into Zelia’s cupped hands, Zelia looked up at her, curls falling into her eyes, expression bright and focused. "Ready?" she said softly.
At Rae’s nod, Zelia moved. She drove upward through her legs first, clean, powerful, practiced, arms extending in one smooth motion as if she were launching a relay baton toward the sky. Speed had always been her truest gift, but strength had grown alongside it over years of training, carved quietly into her bones. It was enough. More than enough.
Rae lifted, lighter than expected, momentum carrying her higher as Zelia’s hands released her into the rope’s waiting length. Zelia staggered half a step back from the effort, breath leaving her in a sharp laugh, chest rising fast— but her eyes never left Rae. Watching her catch the rope, watching her hold, sent something fierce and shining through Zelia’s ribs, like pride sparked into motion. "You’ve got it!" she called up, voice ringing bright as struck glass.
Rae clung to the rope, her breath coming fast and loud in her own ears. The coarse fibres dug into her palms, an uncomfortable but grounding sensation that demanded her full attention and left no space for her thoughts to spiral out of control. She exhaled slowly, willing her pulse to steady, and glanced down at Zelia, who was smiling up at her with unmistakable encouragement.
"I did it," Rae said aloud. The words felt tentative in her mouth, almost provisional, as though she were testing whether they were allowed to be true. She blinked, refocusing, and only then did the height fully register. The sand below seemed much farther away than it should have. The rope swayed with a faint motion, barely noticeable but enough to send a ripple of vertigo through her stomach. She swallowed, her grip tightening around the rope.
"I did it," she repeated, but this time the words sounded thin and hollow, even to herself. Her inner ear pitched a quiet revolt, sending a soft wave of dizziness through her skull.
She had to move. If she didn’t, she’d be stuck or worse, she’d fall.
Rae drew a deep breath, fighting back the swell of panic. She looked up at the platform above, then down again at Zelia, whose encouraging smile hadn’t wavered. Gritting her teeth, Rae looked back up and began to climb—hand over hand, foot by foot. The rope burned her palms and scraped against her shins as she hauled herself upward, but she kept her focus fixed on each incremental movement rather than the dizzying drop below.
She was almost halfway up when her foot slipped.
With an involuntary yelp, Rae pendulumed out from the rope, the world tilting on its axis. Instinct screamed, and she tightened her grip with desperate force as momentum swung her backward in a sickening arc. All the while, the rough fibres bit into her flesh with a vindictive glee, and all she could do was flail and kick her legs to try and regain control of the situation.
Zelia had been smiling up at her the entire time. Not the brittle kind of smile people wore when they were bracing for disaster, not the tight one that meant please don’t fall, please don’t fall whispered behind teeth, but the steady, sun-warm sort, the kind that lived easily on her face when she believed in someone. She stood with her hands loose at her sides, posture relaxed, weight settled comfortably into her hips, as if Rae climbing that rope were no more alarming than watching a friend cross a street.
So when Rae’s foot slipped, and her body swung outward— Zelia did not panic. Her smile didn’t vanish. But her body moved.
It happened without thought, without debate. Instinct rose in her like a tide answering the moon. She stepped forward into the rope’s path, boots digging into the sand, hands already reaching. The thick cord brushed her shoulder, her ribs, and she caught it cleanly, wrapping it once, twice around her left forearm, the coarse fibers biting into her skin. The friction burned, sharp and immediate, but she welcomed it, anchored herself to it. Then she leaned back.
She let her weight sink into the pull, heels carving shallow trenches into the sand, spine tilting, muscles in her legs and core drawing tight like bowstrings. The rope answered her, its wild sway diminishing, the frantic motion bleeding out until it became something solid, something reliable, something that could be trusted not to betray trembling hands. Electric warmth surged through her veins, familiar and bright, lightning unconsciously threading itself through muscle and bone as effort sharpened her into something radiant and unyielding.
The jolt of the rope’s wild swing cut short, and Rae felt it immediately. Her stomach lurched once more out of habit, but the expected follow-through never came. What followed instead was a voice, one that was clear and unmistakably Zelia’s.
"I’ve got you," she called, voice clear and ringing, steady as struck glass. "You’re okay. Keep going!" She gave another firm pull, grounding it further, making herself an anchor point carved out of breath and will.
"I…." Rae sucked in a breath, a jagged sound that filled the silence of her focus. With conscious effort, she forced her petrified fingers to loosen their death-grip, just enough to re-seat themselves properly on the unforgiving hemp. Her palms shrieked with a fresh, lacerating heat, and a deep ache, intense and urgent, radiated from her shoulders. But the wild swinging had thankfully stopped. Thank the frickin gods.
"You’re okay," she whispered to herself, Zelia’s words a shaky incantation. "Keep going."
And so she did. The climb resumed, Rae hauling herself upward in a sinew-straining conquest measured in painful inches and burning handholds. Each shift of her weight seared a new, vivid red line into her flesh, a tactile map of her progress that throbbed in syncopation with her pulse. Her arms developed a violent tremor, muscles aquiver with spent effort, but she clenched her jaw until her teeth ached and forced another reach, another pull.
The platform hung above her, close enough now to feel tangible and to mock her exhaustion. It occupied that agonizing space between possible and impossible, so unlike the controlled, cerebral projects Rae usually tackled. Her chest tightened with the strain of not looking down, of not measuring the distance she would plummet if her grip truly gave way. Then, finally, Rae dragged herself over the last few inches with a sound caught between a gasp and a growl, her forearms shaking so intensely she could feel the vibration in her bones. Her fingers found the solid feel of the platform, and for a suspended heartbeat, she froze there, fingertips pressed flat against the wood as if it might dissolve if she trusted it too soon.
“Holy shit,” she breathed, the words half reverent, half disbelieving. Then, softer, as though afraid the truth might startle and flee: “I actually fucking did it.”
She lingered for another moment, forehead nearly touching the platform, letting the fierce tremor in her arms rise and gradually fade. The rope hung taut beneath her, and she could almost feel Zelia’s steadying presence bleeding upward through it like reassurance made physical. But the climb itself was over. That alone meant something.
Rae drew a slow breath and shifted her weight.
Getting down, she discovered, was its own particular brand of terror.
The descent demanded a different kind of courage: a controlled capitulation. She inched her hands downward, allowing the rope to burn a path through her already raw palms, her thighs clamped in an awkward, bruising embrace around the coarse fibres for stability. It was a jumble of inelegance and discomfort, but it worked, progressing at her characteristically meticulous pace. Halfway down, a deep, earned fatigue turned her arms to liquid, sending them into helpless tremors once more. She hissed through clenched teeth, paused to let her full weight rest on the rope, and carefully readjusted her grip with scrupulous patience rather than brute force. The remainder of the descent then became a series of small, careful negotiations with gravity: lower a hand, breathe; lower a foot, breathe again.
When her shoes finally met solid sand, her knees gave way in pure relief.
Zelia saw the moment it happened, the instant Rae’s fingers found the platform and her whole body seemed to lock around the truth of it. For half a heartbeat, the world narrowed to that small figure against the height and sky, red hair bright as a struck match against the grey. Then Zelia’s breath tore free of her in a laugh that was half relief, half pure, unfiltered joy. Her hands tightened on the rope where it was still wrapped around her arm, muscles burning, skin aching, but she barely felt it.
“You did it!” she called, voice ringing across the arena like a bell struck clean and bright. She bounced once on her heels despite herself, electricity skittering under her skin, heart kicking hard against her ribs. Pride bloomed in her chest so sudden and fierce it almost hurt— pride that had nothing to do with victory or speed or how it might look to anyone else. Just this, Rae had been afraid, and she had climbed anyway.
Zelia stayed braced as Rae began her careful descent, adjusting her grip on the rope, feeding it through her arm inch by inch to keep it steady. The fibers bit deeper now, heat building along her forearm, but she leaned into it, anchoring the sway, turning the wildness of the rope into something dependable. She tracked every movement Rae made, the pauses, the tight breaths, the way her shoulders shook with effort, ready to move, ready to catch, ready for anything.
Only when Rae was close enough that Zelia could see the grit on her palms, the tremor in her legs, did she finally loosen the rope and let it slip free, coiling back into itself. She stepped forward just in time to see Rae’s knees buckle. She caught her by the arms, hands warm and steady, grounding her before the sand could. Their foreheads nearly brushed with the closeness of it, Zelia’s grin bright and breathless and utterly unguarded.
Rae slumped into Zelia’s waiting hold, her arms hanging like dead weights at her sides. A shuddering, cathartic breath escaped her as the coiled tension in her muscles began its slow release. Her eyes drifted shut, light lashes brushing her dust-smudged cheeks as she drew in a deep, grounding breath. The air was rich with the scent of warm sweat, sun-baked sand, and something else underpinning it all—something vibrant and electric and purely, unmistakably her. This sensory recognition made Rae’s eyes flutter open again.
Zelia’s face was mere inches away, so close Rae could trace the liminal space between them and count the faint, umber flecks scattered like stardust through her irises. The intensity of her gaze felt like a physical touch, a radiant warmth that seeped into Rae’s skin and kindled a quiet fire within her. It made her breath catch, and her heart stutter into a new, frantic rhythm—a reaction Rae knew, in some sanctum of her mind, was completely disentangled from the climb.
“Hey,” Zelia said softly, joy sparking in her eyes. “I knew you could do it.” She gave her arms a soft squeeze and leaned back some, looking Rae over. She’d need water after this, and sleep, but she’d get her to eat too if she could manage it. Her body would need the extra calories with all the work she was putting in.
When Zelia finally stepped back, breaking the supportive embrace, Rae lifted her head. A flush mantled her cheeks, a commingling of exertion and the lingering heat of that unspoken truth. She met Zelia’s eyes and found a bright, carefree joy and unmistakable pride shining there, a reflection that felt more validating than any trophy she’d ever won.
“Hey,” Rae breathed back, her voice rough from effort but genuine.“You saw that, huh?” She gave a shaky laugh, flexing her fingers and watching the angry red marks left by the rope slowly fade back to her skin’s natural colour. Her gaze dropped to Zelia’s hands, which were, strangely enough, completely unmarked by the ordeal. Nonetheless, she reached for them, turning them over just to be sure.
“I don’t think I could’ve done it without you,” Rae admitted, her tone soft and absentminded. “I would’ve definitely fallen.”
Zelia felt the moment Rae’s laugh left her, thin, shaky, real, as keenly as if it had brushed her own skin. Some of the brightness in her expression softened then, melting into something quieter and more tender, like sunlight easing at the edge of evening. She let Rae turn her hands over, palm by palm, fingers loose and compliant, watching her inspect them with that careful, earnest attention she seemed to give to everything that mattered. There were no burns there, no angry lines, no rough red welts— only the faintest blanching where Zelia had gripped the rope too tightly, muscles still humming beneath her skin with the memory of strain.
She hadn’t let the rope slide. Not really. She’d fed it through her arm in controlled inches, keeping the slack tight, steadying its wildness with her own weight, her own balance, her own stubborn refusal to let it become a failure for Rae. Tomorrow, her forearm and shoulder would ache, deep, slow soreness blooming like a bruise in the marrow, but it was the good kind. The honest kind. The kind you earn by holding something up instead of letting it fall.
Zelia watched Rae’s hands around hers, warm and careful. The contact sent a quiet, foolish flutter through her chest, something small-winged and bright, beating just behind her ribs. Maybe it was simple of her. Maybe even childish. But the pride swelling there, round and golden and too big to hide, felt like the truest thing she owned.
When she spoke, her voice was gentle, threaded with certainty. “You might have fallen,” she said softly, meeting Rae’s eyes again, unflinching in the warmth she let show there. Then her smile curved, not teasing, not dazzling, just real. “But you would’ve gotten back up and tried again,” she added. “Even if I wasn’t here.”
She squeezed Rae’s hands once, light but deliberate, as if sealing the thought in place. Because helping had mattered. Holding the rope had mattered. Being there had mattered. But Rae— Rae had done the climbing.
Rae huffed out a sound that might have become a laugh had it not caught in her throat, strangled by exhaustion and residual adrenaline. Her fingers remained curled loosely around Zelia’s hands, her thumbs moving in absent, circular patterns over the smooth skin, as if the contact alone could anchor her to the solid ground below them.
"Mm. Yeah. I don’t know about that one," she said, her tone dry but not unkind, a faint lilt of self-deprecation threading through the words. Her gaze dropped again, shoulders lifting in a small shrug. "I’m stubborn, sure. But I’m not heroic about it. More like…annoying in a very persistent way, maybe?"
A tacit understanding passed between them before Rae finally loosened her grip, letting Zelia’s hands slip from her own. The ghost of their warmth seemed to imprint itself on her palms. She rolled her wrists slowly, testing the protest of stiffening muscles, before tipping her head toward the next formidable stretch of the course: the rope bridge.
"Still," Rae added, her voice stripped of the joking facade and layered with a sincerity that felt almost too raw for the dusty training ground. "I’m really glad you were here."
Zelia felt the warmth of Rae’s thumbs long after their hands parted, a small, lingering heat that climbed her wrists and brushed faintly against her cheeks. She told herself it was just exertion, just the sun, just the leftover echo of effort— but her breath still slowed, careful and deliberate, as if she needed a moment to set her ribs back into place. Then she smiled, soft and real, the kind that came from somewhere behind her sternum instead of her mouth alone.
“I’m glad too,” she said quietly, and meant it with a sincerity that surprised even her. The words felt simple, but they carried weight. She couldn’t imagine herself back on the sidelines now, hands folded uselessly, heart pacing in her throat while Rae struggled alone through the maze of wood and rope and doubt. This, running beside her, sharing the dust, the strain, the small victories, felt right in a way that watching never could. Like choosing to step into the weather instead of listening to the storm through glass.
Rae took a step toward the rope net bridge, her body moving with a new, though weary, determination. Peering up, she assessed it with a mixture of deep skepticism and resigned focus.
"Okay so," Rae began, hands finding her hips. "What fresh nightmare is this one pretending to be, if we’re still doing the whole ‘playground’ thing?"
Zelia’s gaze drifted to the rope net bridge as well, its woven body swaying faintly in the warm air, a strange lattice of knots and spaces suspended between platforms. Instead of dread, something gentler touched her expression. Almost fond.
“It kind of looks like the one at the park I used to go to,” she murmured, more to the space between them than to the obstacle itself. “My mom would take me when I was little. There was a rope bridge like this one, smaller, tighter, way safer. I used to bounce on it on purpose, just to see how high I could make it move before she started panicking.”
A quiet breath left her, half a laugh, half something softer. The memory lived behind her eyes, summer-dust light, the creak of rope, her mother’s voice tight with worry even as she smiled. “She always pretended she wasn’t scared,” she added, the words gentle, a little sad around the edges. “But I could tell. Her hands would grip her bag like it was the only solid thing in the world.”
Zelia looked back at Rae then, as if just remembering herself, her smile still there, but thinner now, threaded with tenderness and something unspoken. “I promise I won’t bounce on this one,” she said lightly, trying to lift the moment again, her eyes bright despite it all. “For your sake, so it’s less of a nightmare.”
Rae snorted softly at the attempt at levity, a wry smirk tugging at her mouth despite the lingering trepidation that sat like a lodestone between her shoulders. The image of a miniature Zelia bouncing with glee on a rope bridge, under a mother’s watchful eye, was unexpectedly endearing. It was a vignette of the person behind the poised warrior Zelia seemed to be, a glimpse that left Rae feeling both intrigued and disarmingly off-balance.
"Well, I appreciate the restraint," she said, her voice laced with dry amusement. Before her courage could wane, she took a small, decisive step forward, hands clenched at her sides with fingertips pressing white crescents into her sweat-slick palms. "Okay, here goes nothing."
Rae reached out, her fingers brushing the nearest rope that was thick with a rough, fuzzy texture. Testing its give, she gave it a tentative shake, the entire network swinging wildly enough to send a fresh frisson of unease tracing her spine. "I’m not sure about this," she muttered. Logic insisted it had held her before, but memory supplied the terrifying wobble she’d had to deal with while crossing it on her first run. She could only hope its strength remained constant this round as well.
With a final, fortifying breath, Rae’s fingers curled around the rough hemp. The coarse fibres bit familiarly into her palms as she committed her weight. She swung one leg up and over, the net depressing beneath her in a deep, yielding dip. Her breath hitched as she found a precarious footing, then carefully transferred her other foot, pressing down to test the stability. The structure bounced slightly but held firm, thankfully.
What followed was a slow, gruelling negotiation with momentum. Rae shifted her weight incrementally, the rope net dipping and flexing beneath her like the breath of some great beast. Each step initiated a complex wave of motion that travelled up through her legs and into her core, forcing her to pause, recalibrate, and only then move again. She fixed her gaze on the knots directly before her, treating them like nodes on a circuit board to be solved through focus alone. One step. Then the next. The world beyond the ropes dissolved into a blur.
Her hands slid along the guide ropes, already aching as they clenched and unclenched with each minute correction. Once, the net pitched with a sudden lurch, and Rae froze, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs, waiting in suspended terror for the motion to subside. When the world stilled, she let out a slow, shaky breath and continued, her jaw set in a line of pure determination. Halfway across, a deep burn ignited in her calves, muscles trembling from the sustained, unnatural strain. The net was indifferent to haste; it demanded a plodding, exhausting patience. Adjusting her stance into a lower crouch, Rae moved on, muttering a low, steady stream of commentary that sounded, to anyone who might listen, suspiciously like encouragement.
When her foot finally found the last knot and solid ground greeted her sole, Rae exhaled a shuddering breath that seemed to come from the very marrow of her bones.
"Thank gods," she murmured, tipping her head back with a weary, relieved laugh. She wiped her palms against her pants before glancing back at the undulating net, disbelief and hard-won pride tangled in her expression.
Zelia stood very still as Rae stepped onto the bridge, as if any movement of her own body might somehow transfer into the ropes and make them sway more than they already did. She drew a slow breath in through her nose, then let it out just as carefully, counting the rhythm the way she sometimes did before races, four in, four out, trying to keep her pulse from climbing into her throat.
From the outside, it looked almost gentle; a red-haired girl moving one deliberate knot at a time across a woven span of rope and sky. But Zelia could see the truth written in the tight set of Rae’s shoulders, in the way her hands clenched and unclenched as if the bridge were something alive and unpredictable. Heights, maybe. Or maybe it was the simple terror of surrendering control to a structure that breathed and shifted beneath your weight, a figurative creature made of braided fiber and gravity.
Zelia’s fingers curled into the hem of her jacket without her noticing. Each wobble of the net tugged at her ribs like a hooked thread. She found herself leaning forward, weight balanced on the balls of her feet, as though she could will Rae steady just by wanting it badly enough. When Rae finally reached the far side, when solid grounding answered her footfall and the tension bled from her frame in a long, exhausted breath, Zelia’s chest loosened all at once. Relief rushed through her so suddenly it almost stung. She lifted both hands high, thumbs pointed skyward, her face splitting into the brightest smile she had worn all morning, sun-warm and unguarded, pride glowing through her like light through glass.
“Yes!” she called, unable to keep it in. “You did it!”
Rae managed a shaky grin and a wave in return.
Then it was Zelia’s turn.
Zelia stepped onto the bridge with a quieter ceremony, her movements careful but unafraid. The ropes dipped under her weight, the familiar, living sway rising up through her legs, but she welcomed it the way she welcomed wind during a sprint, something to listen to, something to answer, not something to fight. Her hands slid along the side ropes for balance, fingers tracing the rough weave, while her feet sought each knot with patient precision. She could have gone faster. Her body knew how. The bridge whispered invitations to bounce, to test its spring, to turn the crossing into a game of daring and air.
But she did not.
She kept her smile small, contained, respectful of the battle Rae had just fought. This crossing was not about her joy. It was about companionship. About arriving on the other side together. Step by step, she closed the distance until the last knot gave way to solid ground beneath her feet. Zelia straightened, breath light, curls shifting in the cold air, and looked at Rae with a grin that was softer now, fond around the edges.
“I think the one at the park was a lot more bouncy,” she said gently. “Probably safer too.” Her eyes sparkled as she said it, not with triumph, but with shared warmth.
Rae shook her head even as a laugh escaped her. She rubbed her palms together, flexing her fingers to dispel the deep, residual ache the ropes had left behind.
"I’ll take your word for it," she said, glancing back at the bridge as if it were a sentient adversary that might overhear and take offence. "I think I’ve had enough rope-related training for one day."
Unfortunately, the course disagreed.
End of Part 1
