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Tasa climbed carefully, lost in the action rather than the thought. It felt good to strain her muscles some... she would ache in a few hours, but it would be the good sort of ache that comes when your body is repremanding you for lazily forgetting your own fitness. The sort of ache that reminds you not to do it again.
She had made an effort to avoid work such as this... it was too reminiscent of long passed battles... of climbing cliffs silently before dawn to stage an attack at first light. She knew now that she could not forever escape her past. Or if she could, then diving blindly into the future was certainly not the way. She climbed unconcernedly now. Her lithe muscles shifted imperceptibly as she reached from hold to hold, finding small outcroppings that her companions' larger hands and feet could not trust. She trained her entire thought on the joy of motion.
Not more than twenty feet of slow climbing had gone by before her concentration was broken. Malris, who climbed joyously above her, ever gaining a lead, had dislodged several small pebbles and bits of ancient dust. It rained onto Tasa's head, startling her. The bits of rock stung her eyes and unthinkingly, she paused in her climb and released the rock face with her looser hand to attend her pained orbs. The fragile bit of stone she perched on crumbled at the extra weight. Blinded temporarily, she grasped for a stronger hold. It was too late. The sharp edges of the rock cut into her long fingers as they tore loose from the wall.
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