Every good friend looks at your butt at least once because that's what friends do. If your friends say they don't then they're clearly liars.

Falling face first takes more nerves than she's sure first timers can handle because yes, all you could see was the sky and how the wall seemed taller and taller but falling face first gives the body time to tense up. People panic, she's seen it before, attempting to stop themselves or curl up as if they'll be able to protect themselves. It ends in broken bones. Here it ends up with those and a mix of hay and straw up the nose, in the mouth and maybe in the eyes.

Setting both hands on his arms, she smiles softly because she remembers her friends at home being scared when she first showed them what to do and they'd watched her doing it plenty of times. "If you don't want to jump, if you don't think you're ready then don't. There's a rope to get down where you just slide and kick out with your legs or we can go along the battlements and down the stairs. There's no shame in it. Every time I jump or fall, my stomach still tries to leap into my throat, just for a fraction of a second. Some things we just can't control."