"Almost..." *ching!* "There!" *ching!* "Come on!" *ching!* "One more~" *ching!*

Kade pulled herself to the top of a high rock face. She was out of breath and her pull up was more of an exhausted scramble to reach a surface that wasn't vertical. Once she managed to get her entire body off the cliff face, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky, panting to get her breath back. She was wearing her climbing attire and had a climbing pick in her hand, which she let go as she lay on the ground. Her hand was red and raw for holding tightly onto the pick for too long. Kade unclipped a steel canteen from her belt and drank the water in it, pulling it away with another gasp as she caught her breath.

Kade had left the walls early in the morning to tackle the hardest cliff face on the island. She had done it every other week, her first time had resulted in a bad accident that almost killed her. Despite her bad history with the rock face, she still climbed it, The face had essentially become a apart of Kade's fitness regimen; she would climb up it, shift to the inverse and climb back up it, only to shift back and be at the bottom again. Before she shifted, she made sure she was rested and fed so she would have the most amount of time possible in the inverse.

Kade sat up and stared off to the horizon, she sat in a meditative position. She relaxed her shoulders and took deep breaths to regulate her breathing. After a few minutes of meditating and relaxing, she reached into a pouch hanging from her belt and pulled out a tupperware, inside was a sandwich. She opened it up and ate the sandwich as she looked on to the endless horizon, the wind blowing into her and cooling her off from that intense climb. When she finished eating, she put the empty tupperware in the pouch and went back to meditating.

Shifting was the worst part of her power. She could never get over the disorientation that happened right after the shift. She found ways to minimize it, such as meditating and becoming aware of her surroundings, it helped enough that Kade could refocus herself in a few seconds and get to work, time is very precious in the inverse. She took in some more deep breaths, not to recover from her fatigue but to be made aware of the wind currents. She flexed the muscles in her legs and butt to feel the ground she was sitting on. When she closed her eyes, there was a 'thud' sound; when she opened them, she was facing a large rock wall and things were dark. It was night time in the inverse. This was Kade's true test for herself, it was dangerous and exciting to her. Climb a rock face at night.

Kade remained in her position for a short while, feeling light headed and dizzy. Down became up, and left became right. She kept her breathing stable and strong. It helped her to reorient herself in the inverse. After about thirty seconds of meditating, she opened her eyes. She looked at the rock wall and grinned before standing up. It wasn't total darkness, not yet. So she could see enough, if she stuck to her plan, she'd be at the top before it reached midnight in the inverse. She got to work.
__________

*ching* "You can do it..." *ching* "I know you're tired." *ching* "Think of the shower at the end." *ching* "Come on~ Yes!"

Kade pulled herself to the top and was panting more than when she scaled it the first time today. Climbing night is a much more methodical and slow paced journey. The exhaustion is even worst since you need to hold yourself up while you search nearly blind for the next surface to pull up on. "Water... Holy crap... Water..." she said to herself why searching for her canteen. When she didn't feel it, she looked over the edge and saw it had unclipped when she was fiddling with the roots of an inverted bush. She saw the glint of the steel taunting her.

Kade groaned and threw herself back to lay on the ground, staring up at the inverse moon. She took those deep breaths again so that she could have the energy to shift back to the verse. After that climb, and the lack of water, she only had about another twenty minutes left before things would start to go South for her. She slowly and sorely brought herself to sit up and get into her meditation position. With a groan, she started to regulate herself. Yet another shift for her.

*Thud!*

Things were warm again, birds were chirping and insects were buzzing by. Keeping her eyes closed and her breathing in a good pattern, she fought the disorientation every step of the way until it had passed. When she opened her eyes, the light from the sun prompted her to squint them near shut again. Kade stood up and looked back at the rock face, "I have conquered you again!" she said at nothing, just thinking out loud.

She saw the bush that her canteen had been lost in. She could even make out her steel water container half embedded into the stone. She sighed, "Not getting that one back, either..." she looked to her right along the wall, seeing one or two other canteens from earlier, similar, predicaments . "These things are gonna put me in poverty."

Kade started to do some stretches to ease herself down from the intense work out. When she finished, she turned and began walking back to the academy.
__________

As she walked through the main gate of the walls and onto the campus, Kade studied the groups of people but didn't really recognize anybody she knew past their first name, if even that. Her mind was dead set on the showers, after climbing the same rock face twice in the same day, she definitely didn't look and smell too lady-like. Her clothes were damp with sweat and she was covered in dirt. Her hair was a dirty mess also. The shower after her climbing was the part she looked forward to the most. Kade made her way to the dormitories, wanting to get clean sooner rather than later. As such, she hoped nobody would stop her.