nothing compares to what we share
I don't have a care in the world
cause even if it all came crashing down
as long as you're around
I'll be safe and sound
— Tonight Alive, "Safe & Sound"

Hubert Oswell is afraid of heights.

This is a new revelation, discovered within the span of the last five minutes, which have been spent standing on the edge of a cliff alternately stammering out nearly incomprehensible responses to his Amarcian companion's questions and willing himself to not look down, for the love of god.

Standing beside him and fiddling with a massive contraption that appears to be some mixture of wood, metal, and canvas shaped into a triangle, Pascal doesn't appear to be afraid of anything. Her eyes are fixed on the rope in her hands, she's making a poor attempt to whistle a song, and she apparently seems completely unaware of the fact that her boots are planted roughly three steps away from the start of a sheer drop.

Hubert asks himself — and not for the first time, either — why he lets her drag him into these situations.

"Huh?"

He realizes that must have been out loud. "Nothing," he says, refusing to look at her, or the ground, or really anywhere but the bright blue sky and clouds above them, because if he does that he will become aware of just how high up they are. They are standing at the top of a hill, a very tall hill, somewhere in Windor, and gosh, he hears her voice in his head again, from just a few minutes ago, did you know this part of the world went up so high?

He had not, in fact, known that. But she had. Which is why she had declared it the absolute perfect spot for testing out her new … invention.

"What did you call it?"

Pascal doesn't miss a beat, as if she's following along with his mixed up, jumbled, slightly terrified thoughts. "A glider," she responds, "'cause we're gonna strap ourselves on in and go gliding down over everything and land all safe and sound on the other side."

Ah, yes, there's that word again. We.

We're gonna test out my new glider!

They'd been halfway up the hill then, panting and puffing, and he'd been dragging the contraption behind him like a proper gentleman — oh, what a joke he is, how many foolish things he's carried and done and said and thought for her. He'd snapped his head around to look at her so fast that his neck had cracked. We?

Well, yeah. She'd laughed, casually, with a twinkle in her eyes. If it doesn't work, I don't wanna go down in flames alone, ya know?

He hadn't said much else, because then he'd happened to glance out at the scenery below, at the top of the hill and then down to the bottom, and he'd come to the rather startling realization that he was very much afraid of heights.

Oh, what a fool he is, because here he still stands, scared to death and yet hopelessly in love with this woman who insists on shortening his lifespan by several hours, if not weeks, every time they meet.

"Pascal?" he ventures, quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Aren't you — " He looks down. Oh. Bad idea. He looks up again. " … aren't you — afraid?"

"Afraid?" she echoes him. "Of what?"

"You haven't tested this — glider before," he says, and it's a statement, not a question, because he knows her and of course she hasn't. Pascal thinks test runs are for wimps. Her words, not his, because the word "wimp" is just not in his vocabulary, not after Garrett Oswell called him one at the age of eleven and — well, that's neither here nor there. "What if it… fails?"

"Well," she says, slowly, evenly, as if this thought has not occurred to her even once before this moment and oh god he is going to die, isn't he, "then… I guess it fails."

"And — "

"But it's not going to fail!" she declares, all pep and optimism, and yes, there's the blind faith he knows and … tolerates. "We're gonna jump on off of here and woosh and fly right over the trees and hills and people and land on the other side all like yeah, that kicked butt! And then I'm gonna make a billion gald off selling these babies, and everybody's gonna know my name." She pauses. "I mean, for the right reasons this time. Reasons that don't involve, like, craters and blown pipes and stuff."

He glances at her without giving his eyes an opportunity to settle on anything else. Three months ago, there had been an accident at the site of hot water piping construction in Velanik. It hadn't been her fault — Malik had made that perfectly clear to him, on a recent visit — and there had been no serious injuries, but the workers had blamed her shoddy, incomprehensible diagrams for the mistake. And word had spread, and rumors had started, and then Pascal had been quietly removed from the project and replaced with her older sister.

She has, Hubert thinks, had a lot of free time since then.

And so here they are, on the top of a hill, with a glider behind them and a sheer drop ahead.

"I'm not really afraid of anything."

Hubert glances at her again, but the glance turns into a stare because for some reason he just doesn't believe her. She's smiling and knotting a length of rope around her shoulders now, securing it to a strap around her waist, but there's something, just a little something, that seems … off. Wrong. Maybe untrue. He's never known Pascal to lie, but sometimes he catches her in half-truths, in the middle of forced smiles and faked cheeriness, and he doesn't like it at all.

But what on earth can he say to her? What can he say, the man who is afraid of her, of his feelings for her, of a future without her, of falling to his death from a grassy hill in Windor without a single soul to witness it?

"There is nothing that scares you?" he asks anyway, because to hell with it, he's probably going to die here. He might as well be a little reckless before he bashes his head in on a rock. "Nothing at all?"

"Well," she starts, then looks at him and stops, instantly, her eyes going wide. "Hu, you're as white as a freakin' sheet — "

"Never mind that."

"Are you gonna — "

"I am fine," he declares, even though he is not, and looks back up at the sky because he's noticed where she's standing again and his mind is heading in the direction of those we are very high up, aren't we? thoughts again, and that is most certainly not what he wants right now. "I simply — apparently — do not enjoy heights."

"Oh."

"But — "

"I don't really like it up here either," she says, their voices clashing for just a moment before he stops, shutting his mouth tight, listening. "But — well, you know, you only live once, right? And I've done a ton of research on physics and air and gravity and all the science-y stuff that will make this work, so if you wanna attach, like, a percentile to this or something, I'm like eighty-seven and a half percent sure this will work. There's two and a half reserved for a huge change in the wind, and then the ten left over is for how big I made the glider and how I calculated out our weights and the mass and construction and stuff. But other than that, I reeeeally think we're gonna be fine." She pauses; it's a long pause and Hubert is almost uncomfortable by the time he hears her voice again, but this time her words give him something that isn't fear and is more like understanding. "But… I guess I am still a little scared. Of… stuff. You know?"

"Yes," he says, although he doesn't, not really, not right now.

"I mean," she continues, like he's pried open the doors in front of a dam stuck closed for a few strained weeks, "I am scared of messing stuff up, and making people mad. I don't wanna piss anybody off. Sure, there are people out there who are like "aw, you suck, Pascal!" no matter what I do, but then there are people who I like, and I mean like a lot, and I don't wanna make them think I'm a total moron. And I guess I'm kinda scared of losing those people, 'cause what am I ever going to do without them? I'm totally fine on my own sometimes, but man, just thinking about not having my big sister, or Poisson, or my friends, or you, Hu, especially you, because you're the only one who ever really puts up with me all the way — "

He looks down at her, stares, opens his mouth to interrupt, decides it's not a good idea and shuts it again. And somehow he doesn't notice the hills and the scenery below anymore.

" — I mean, if I make everybody mad and they all go away, what's the point of me sticking around anymore? What's the point of making all these cool inventions if the people I like most don't give two hoots about me? What — " She stops to draw in a breath, as if she's forgotten to do so over the span of the last thirty seconds. "… what am I supposed to do if I screw up again?"

Hubert allows the words to come flying out of his mouth because, well, he's definitely going to die in a few minutes, so what does it really matter what he says now? "The people who truly care about you will not leave your side, Pascal." She turns her head up to look at him, to fix those gorgeous amber eyes on his, and he stutters his way through his next line but still gets it out. "You — you mean the world to — to so many, to — and — and even a mistake will not force them to leave. They — we — I won't stop caring about you. Even if something — if anything happens."

She looks at him, quietly, smiles just a little. "Even if we fall off this cliff and don't come back up again?"

He exhales, shakes his head, adjusts his glasses and shrugs at her. "I certainly won't be around to change my mind."

She throws her head back and laughs, and the sound echoes around them so loudly that he thinks Richard himself can probably hear it from his throne.

"Come on," she says, with sparkling eyes and a genuine smile on her pretty face, "help me get you strapped into this thing. My glider isn't gonna test itself!"

It's a full twenty minutes later when Pascal's eighty-seven and a half percent proves right, and they land — clumsily and with some muffled screams, but still safe and sound nonetheless — in a grassy field just behind the castle walls. Hubert's heart is beating, by his estimate, four hundred times a minute, and he's sure he'll have bruises on his arms, his hands, and his neck tomorrow, thanks to a certain Amarcian grabbing at him while screaming at the top of her damn lungs and burying her head in his shirt, but…

But, he thinks, as they collapse to the grass in a tangle of rope, limbs, and canvas, he is somewhat pleased to have discovered that Pascal is just as afraid as heights as he is.

"Okay," she declares, half on top of him and half in the grass, her hair messy and in her eyes and one of her hands still gripping his shoulder tight, "let's never, ever, ever do that again. I thought that was gonna be fun. It was so not fun."

"Agreed," is all he can say, because for some reason he wants nothing more than to kiss her.

"… what?"

Oh. Well. Apparently he said that out loud, too.

"To hell with it," he declares, and maybe it's the adrenaline or maybe it's just the fact that he's happy to be alive, but he runs a hand through her hair and leans up and kisses those perfect, pink, chapped lips of hers until he thinks his heart is absolutely going to explode. And when he draws back and looks at her and begins to regret it, she stares at him with wide eyes and then bursts into laughter, throwing her arms around his neck and tackling him right down into the grass.

"Pascal," he says, hearing a snap somewhere behind her, "your glider — "

"To hell with it!" she laughs, and hugs him tighter, and Hubert gives up and finally laughs along with her until they're both out of breath and exhausted and have forgotten how to be scared of anything, because it's good, so good, to be alive and together.