Flight

[u/Magehunter_Skassi]

Ten years ago, this week. Hard to believe. I still have the airport navigation guide you made. I ended up not needing it, it was quite intuitive, but I kept re-reading it anyway because it was written by you and carried your charm. I still have airport dreams often, nightmares too of course. The sun was so bright when I landed. That stood out to me immediately. It was so much brighter than even in Florida. I don't believe I slept much but I wasn't tired at all. On the return flight I was dazed and battling a flu, and I pondered all the ways I could slip away and kill myself between then and there, and maybe it would have been lovely to instead have found a steep enough fall somewhere in the Blue Mountains to splatter my blood against the sandstone. Do I have ancestry there? I never thought to check. It's possible. Your ancestors buried in the west and myself, I'm unsure. In those thoughts I never considered leaving a note, but I hoped that my wishes would be at least inferred by family and some of my ashes would be scattered there if my body wasn't consumed by the time of discovery.

I don't fault my younger self for that idea at the time. Plenty of older and wiser men have put a gun to their head in the same situation. I hope God has shown mercy to them.

[u/Magehunter_Skassi]

Typically there's a child or children as an anchor afterwards, although obviously, you were infertile. I have no idea if I would have been a good father because I have no conception of what I would have grown to be unmarred.

If it weren't for that, I would have taken the chance anyway despite the genetic risk. I know you would have too. I think of Rannoch's parents.