“They haven’t, no, which is like deeply fucking unhelpful of ’em,” Astrid laments, but buoyed by that advice she eventually manages to move from her dejected puddle and haul herself back up to a seated position. An arm still hooked around the mast, her legs now dangling over the edge. Her stomach still roils, but she looks where the other woman’s pointing, following the line of her arm, and stares off into the distance. The way the light glitters on the water. The way the sky unfurls forever, an open canvas above them. (They’ve got to be closer to the Lady of the Skies here, surely.)

There’s a noise in the back of her throat, a huh! as she takes it all in. “That is gorgeous,” she says, watching that distant steady unmoving horizon line in contemplative quiet as something to anchor herself by, and eventually something settles. Feeling a little less likely for her gorge to rise, she risks glancing up at Inej.

“I’m from the mountains,” she says. “So I kept thinking, what’s a bit of height. But the mountains had the nerve to stay put.”