#windsail

Basically, he got himself caught in what’s known as a Scraplet Intake. It’s a type of wind column that’s not only icy, but contains bits of metallic debris blown up from the ground below. One of the many varieties of weather phenomena Seekers fear.

But the truly nasty thing thing about Scraplet Intakes? They, like their namesakes, tend to strike with very little warning.

Windsail and his trine were out making their usual rounds and apparently, this storm blew in out of nowhere, shredding the lining of his left wing before he even had a chance to turn tail. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to bring him down, but the pain distracted him long enough for the raging, battering winds to turn him end over end. If his trinemates hadn’t called out to him via commlink, directing him upright again, he almost certainly would have crashed.

He told me later that time slows to a halt. That the romantic idealization of a Seeker dying in the air is sheer drainage -- every moment of that descent is an exercise in terror and regret.