The route started with a wide, shallow, vertical, tapering fissure opened by an artillery blast long ago, and Lawrah instinctively began her approach by stemming against both sides of the fissure with her long limbs. From there it was a simple matter of spidering up for her, the pressurized conglomerate giving her plenty of pockets, pinches and crimps in the chunky underbelly of the riven, which narrowed and narrowed. So entranced was Githarie that she only half consciously felt the belaying rope steadily slip along her grasp, indeed, almost tugging impatiently against her tight, sweaty palms.

  “Slack a nakaz, Gith, wonsha?”

  It made Githarie feel uneasy, as she fed more rope, nearly slipping out.

  Lawrah’s brisk pace slowed as she found herself gastoning, the precious holds folded deeper and tighter where her fingers couldn’t reach. But the grade began to lessen from straight sheer, and at the fissure’s peak she calmly slapped a sloper. Carefully clambering further up to a new face now, she paused to catch a breath just beneath a craggy ledge.

  “Up!”

  Then she dynoed, completely kicking her feet away after building momentum with a backstep to launch herself forward and get both her hands on the ledge! Githarie felt her stomach cramp as she pulled as hard as she could, the counterforce pulling her up to her heels. “Bub, bub, Githarie,” Master Luruk observed coolly behind folded arms. Lawrah shimmied across, and then she arrived at the crux - the hardest problem.

  The hardest part of the climb was where the ledge ended in an overhang. Directly above was a spine, where their route ended and around the butte’s bend was the route clockwise from theirs. Once the spine was reached it would be nothing but side holds until the designated top – a conveniently placed boulder which created a scenic perch and where Luruk had placed the final bolt – but only slightly further up was the summit, past a treacherous but lightly graded final face.

  “Master!”, she yelled, unsure of how to hoist herself up.

  “Try swinging up!” Luruk bellowed back, for she was high enough now that it was the only way his voice could reach her.

  Kicking her legs forward to grab what she could with her toe claws, Lawrah steadied herself and closed her eyes as she took a deep, steadying breath. Githarie wanted to close hers too.

  “Slack!” she cried. Oh, skai this. Skai this! Githarie fought the urge to look away, for to do so would betray her duty as the belayer. Luruk noticed her trembling hand and grabbed it, pushing forward.

  Now Lawrah was truly dangling by nothing but her own strength. With the slack given, she could begin to swing. Grimacing, her eyes shot open, and she began the rockover. Momentum building. Just a little bit more…

  “UP!” Githarie yanked hard. And then–!

  Just as she nabbed the spine, Lawrah’s forward hand slipped off! The momentum of the rockover sent her swinging back fast on her back arm, and it yanked the rope back, and Githarie flew up into the air, nothing but the sound of a bloodcurdling scream of a doomed, plummeting orcan ringing through her ears until she realized it was her own and promptly stopped. Master Luruk had lunged forward to wrap her safely with his upper torso. “You’re bub, Githarie! You’re good! I’ve got sha, it’s all okay.”

  “Bub, Gith!” Lawrah shouted, dangling with only one hold on the ledge. She pinched her index finger and her thumb together to signal she was okay.

  Githarie couldn’t help but think that none of this was okay, none of this was okay at all, but could only, in the end, give her own sheepish, “okay.”

  Snarling, Lawrah pulled herself up with one arm to grab a higher hold – a small crag that simply wasn’t big enough to play the fulcrum for another rockover attempt – mantled her leg up even further, and steeled herself for another try. This time she would go for a jump instead of a rockover, which meant that if she failed, she would fall.

  “Send it, zug!” Master Luruk roared. Now or never! “Lok Tar!”

  “GRR-UNF!”

  Lawrah crunched so hard after launching that she thought her side would split, but once her reaching hand grabbed the overhang, she knew she had the strength and momentum to pull her entire body up with it, and deftly she hooked her inner knees around the jutting end of the spine. Letting go of her handholds completely now for they would slip any moment, she now dangled upside down, her legs wrapped firmly around the jut and dropped her arms towards the ground in a bat hang. She smiled as she gazed down at Githarie and Luruk cheering before realizing how stupid it was to be looking down.

  Kipping up, she shot her way up the spine. She did it! As she pulled herself up on the boulder, the dopaminergic ecstasy mixed all up with a soothing serotonergic reverie – how beautiful it was up here, she could even see the snowy peaks of the Vinson Massif scraping up behind the Tangra range! – and she squealed with joy. She crouched down for a minute, soaking it all up, but then without hesitation swung around to gauge the final ascent.

  Don’t do it, Lawrah, a frustrated Luruk cursed silently. If she fell from the summit, it was too much higher than the final bolt for them to be sure the bolt would stay! He hated it. Every single time! Curse his station as Physical Education Master!

  But she couldn’t hear him from all the way up there. She went for it. Githarie wanted to faint, but now Luruk had completely taken over the belaying.

  “GHASH!” She had scraped her leg trying to twist her way around the uneven final face but compared to the rest of the climb this was rudimentary. She gave Ormuz Okalen – a gruffly mulleted orcan boi who had made it to the summit from the other side – a high five, which he pulled her into a handgrip hug. She pumped her free fist into the air. Gingerly picking her way back down the most dangerous bit – the return to the boulder – she saluted Master Luruk before grabbing the rope and bouncing off the boulder with a backwards skip before rappelling her way down.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Gods dammit, Lawrie!” Once Lawrah had dropped her feet back to the earth, Githarie bolted over and hugged her like it would be the last.

  “I’m all bub, Githarie. I’m fine!”, said Lawrah as she cuddled her back.

  “Ahem.” Master Luruk gave her a stern glare. “I toldsha not to summit.”

  “Oh, didsha?” Lawrah feigned ignorance.

  “Ha-ha, had our fun did we, Miss Varoka? Donsha be playin’ like this when it’s Tar O Dar. How do sha think the Chief would feel if sha broke yer neck on the way down?”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t, did I? Didsha not say – Lok Tar?”

  “Did I say – O Dar?”

  Lawrah rolled her eyes and unclipped her carabiner. Luruk snapped his fingers and swapped the clippings before Githarie could realize and strode back to supervise. No. No, no, no! No it couldn’t be, but it was. It was her turn.

  She stared into the yawning chasm before her. Damn it.

  “C’mon, Gi! Leeroy! Sha can do it. Lok Tar O Dar!” Lawrah encouraged. Adrenaline still pumping, she couldn’t help but utter the full phrase. She made sure to give Githarie as little slack as possible, practically pulling her up.

  Skai that! Tar O Dar? No thank you. But there was nothing she could do. The only way was through. Let’s just get this over with.

  “Belay on!”, not so much a question but a command.

  “On belay!”

  With her halfling stature for an orcan, Githarie could easily pick her way up from the many holds deep inside the fissure, and she kept her gaze fixed inside, concentrating only on the next handhold or foothold, staring intently at the surfaces and textures of the stone. One step at a time. How to devour a leviathan? One bite at a time. That’s what Da always said.

  And before she knew it, she had already made it to the next face. She was almost looking forward to the next little seam in the fissure she could hook her fingers into. She had no desire for the goal, and now the wind rippled her, and she felt the little hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up, and the engine of her mind runneth over with nightmare fuel.

  Don’t look down. Don’t look down!

  Whatever sha do, sha mustn't look down!

  Githarie’s nimble fingers could more easily grasp the slopers on the face off where the fissure tapered to an end, but here she felt so much more exposed that she began to tremble. Some force within her seemed to quell the jitters so that after a second’s pause her limbs seemed to move robotically. She reached the ledge, picked her way across it, chose not to dyno up to the ledge but instead worked her way the long way around the face to get there, and now could put her toes on it. She scooted slowly along, hugging the rock wall for dear life. She scraped as much skin as she could along the coarse grit of the rock. As she shuffled, one of her moccasin skidded off the ledge with a scritch- “EEK!” She tried to steel herself even as her stomach lurched. Just hang in there, Thraxes, just hang on! The rope and carabiner rubbed uncomfortably up against her body, but she dared not move an inch from the wall.

  Finally, she was at the crux.

  She pressed her head against the rock, eyes shut, trying to magically vanish the problem with her mind. She fought back tears. Up here she couldn’t hear Lawrah and Luruk yelling advice and encouragement over the howl of wind, all for the better because the advice was contradictory and the encouragement only angered Githarie because she didn’t want to be doing this at all in the first place.

  How unfair was this? The anger boiled on. How pointless it was! When would she ever be called to climb rocks? She belonged to sea level. Suddenly her weariness seemed to dissipate, replaced by growling hunger. Stupid Luruk! Her perception of time began to dilate. Stupid Lawrah!

  Githarie had never felt the berserker rage before, for she had never needed it before. But now it came to her aid.

  “RR–AH!”

  Sharp claws sprouted and sunk deep into the soft pumice so deep she should have feared it would rip away if she could feel fear anymore. They sprouted out from her toes and tore through her roughshod muttskin moccasins. With brute force she tore her way up, her claws sinking so deep into the spine that she did not even need to straddle against it - the orthodox way up.

  “WA-AA-AGH!”

  Everything just felt like a red, whirling, stormy, blurry haze of hatred and rage and before she knew it, she was perched on the boulder like a gargoyle, slowly emerging out of stony unconsciousness as it was caressed by the blanket of night.

  Really a poor situation to come to her senses, because, of course, she was deeply afraid of heights.

  Her vision came into focus, and she realized she was staring straight down at Lawrah and Master Luruk! Vertigo shot up from the ground and throttled her, what was worse was now that the rage had ended, she felt winded, and her limbs felt like old salt-wet and shredded bamboo straws suddenly bending, and she felt so dizzy, the whole world spun woozily around her, and, and-

  “AIEEE–”

  She fell.

  She scarcely plummeted a few meters before Lawrah and Luruk jerked her back up with a “WOAH!”, the whiplash pulled and twisted her spine hard with a jerk and she felt a cascade of bubbles between her bones pop, and it hurt! It hurt! But not that badly. Her arms and legs, now all sprightly, instinctively wrapped around her savior the rope. Oh, how she loved this rope! She loved it so much and hugged it so fiercely she might as well be making love with it!

  “Skai sha, Gith! Agh all your drama!”

  Lawrah and Luruk ever so gently lowered the quavering wreck of a zug down to the ground, and Githarie sunk her whole body into the soft earth face and stomach down just trying to hang on to the rotating, revoluting, void-borne rock for dear life. She clung to Gaia like her own dear mother. She thanked whatever Gods of the Earth that she was back on the ground.

  “Sha won’t get full marks for that, Thraxes.”

  But Githarie, just glad to still be alive after all, couldn’t give less of a fuck about her grades.

  Anyone could do this job, and yet it fell on Luruk. Which said a lot more about lazy Luruk than anything else.

  Pet mutts still had their hides tanned for leather when in old age, every resource was necessary. It was unfortunate these were ruined, they were Githarie’s favorite pair of kicks. The cobbler bred their own mutts in cages, using orcan natural ability to reweave their essence by touch alone. She chose creatively – she got stoned and made what she felt were pretty shapes – stitched together rottweiler essence hide scraps for the toe box, heel, top pieces and the cuff. For the insoles and lining, she bartered for bred bichon frise essence wool. It made the shoes feel very much like Uggs, at least for less sensitive orcan skin. The Godlikes would have found her footwear absolutely horrifying, as well as a little scratchy around the ankle.

  Every flight must first begin with a fall.

  An ancient pleasure art known as shibari.

  Pangu, Tudigong, Demeter, Atum, Aganju, Geb, Enki, Rhea, Dhara, Enlil, Cybele