She launched herself into the air. The Gold buff I'd given her must have been running on fumes by now, but it still had enough juice to let her cover the distance between the forest floor and the ridge in a series of aerial bursts that left blue-white afterimages hanging in the corrupted atmosphere. Her pink and black hair streamed behind her, escaping from a braid that looked like it had been through a war, and her amber eyes were bright with tears she wasn't bothering to hide.
I had approximately two seconds to brace myself before she hit me like a guided missile.
Her arms went around my neck. Her legs wrapped around my waist. Her face buried itself in my shoulder and she was crying and laughing and saying my name over and over in a voice that cracked on every syllable.
"You're alive. You're alive. You jumped off a cliff, you absolute idiot, I watched you disappear and I thought—I thought—"
