Home Is Somewhere Above the Clouds

There's a moment, just before sunrise, when the world below disappears beneath the clouds and everything goes quiet.

That's my favourite part of flying.

No alarms. No missions. No one asking how much longer until we arrive. Just the soft vibration of The Between beneath my feet, the gentle creaking of her wooden hull, and a horizon that seems to go on forever.

I know every sound this ship makes. Every little shudder when the wind changes, every complaint from the rigging, every peculiar noise that Christopher insists is "perfectly normal."

For the record, Christopher's definition of perfectly normal is considerably more adventurous than mine.

People ask me what it's like to pilot an airship through time.

Honestly? Most days, it's a combination of breathtaking beauty, complicated navigation, and trying not to spill coffee on the controls.

But there's something about The Between that I can't quite explain.

She's more than a machine. She's the place where we argue about dinner, celebrate surviving impossible situations, and occasionally pretend we're ordinary people with ordinary lives.

I've watched sunsets over cities that no longer exist. I've seen mountains before anyone thought to name them. I've flown through storms that weren't supposed to happen for another hundred years.

And somehow, the best moments are still the quiet ones.

Just me, my ship, and the sky.

I suppose home isn't always a place.

Sometimes it's something you learn to fly.

Love, ♡