Gravity kills.
Takes place during that part in the anime where Holland's crew is exploring that mine. …Uh, yeah. I wish I could be more specific, but it's been too long. Orz
The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for August 3, 2008.
As he sits at the very edge of an abandoned launch pad, cross-legged and smoking and alone with the wind and the horizon, Holland realizes that it's been only too long since he's touched the sky. He used to feel at home up there, whether he was on his board or in the cockpit of his mech – he used to feel like all he had to do was reach out and he'd be floating among clouds, drifting through the perfect blue. It was where he used to run away to, when things at home got too difficult. It is what his crew wanders through now, drifting from one place to the next, refusing to admit that their captain has no idea what he's doing, trusting in the fact that someday he's going to find a way.
Holland wonders how something so familiar had suddenly become so distant without him knowing. He wonders if it's because of the way he looks up sometimes and realizes that Talho's frozen herself in time just to get him to notice her. He wonders if it has something to do with the snot-nosed brat with the messed up hair who's only too much like him.
Finally, after two hours' too much of thinking, Holland tells himself, for the umpteenth time, that he hasn't lost the sky just yet, he's only outgrown it.