I was falling, falling, tumbling, twisting and turning through the air. The world passed by in a beautiful blur of half glimpsed colours, sounds of faint shouts mingling with the rushing of the wind in my ears and the distant cries of the birds which soared so far over head. It was a symphony of a thousand sounds, the faint snatch of a melody long forgotten but ever treasured.

There was no way to arrest my descent, my gear had frozen like the icy plains Armin had once told me of. And so I simply stretched out my arms, feeling the muscles in my shoulders fight against the air pressure. Everything was turning in lazy circles around me as I flipped over and over and over. I could barely breath or I would have shouted in exhilaration unlike anything I had ever felt before. I had thought in training that I was flying, but this was the closest to such a feat any mere human would ever come.

I knew it, and welcomed the sensation.

Strangely, there was no fear in my heart. Of course I realised that this beautiful nothingness would not, could not, last for forever. At some point I would meet the ground. My fragile body was going to shatter into countless shards. I would paint the earth in familiar colours. But until then, there was THIS. It was an eternity and a heartbeat, eons passing with each breath.

What was I really? Just another speck on an earth so large, who stared at a sky so infinite and dared to dream of a world beyond.

Naïve, wise, daringly hopeless.

That was fine by me...