In an interview-style recollection, Hugo recounts a quiet evening with Zelu during her exo training. After a long session in which Zelu pushed to beat her ten-minute unassisted standing record, the two retreated to a balcony alone, sharing a joint under the stars.

Zelu asked Hugo how he had lost the use of his legs. Loosened by the high and the intimacy of the night, Hugo told her in unusual detail about hang gliding off a Rocky Mountain cliff at eighteen, seeing an owl in flight, then being slammed by a freak gust into a mountainside. He described four days trapped in the wreckage, negotiating with death, while withholding the worst details about a crow feeding on his decaying legs and his own suicide attempt. He concluded that he would not undo the accident: it had become his path and his ultimate boon.

Moved to tears, Zelu reciprocated by telling Hugo about climbing a tree that was hollowed out by ash borer beetles. She admitted that when she fell, her overriding thought was that the accident was entirely her own fault, born of arrogance and the desire to win. Hugo recognized her usually guarded wall coming down and gently urged her to ease up on herself.

They returned to the hotel, stopped for hot chocolate, and never revisited the conversation in following days. Hugo reflects that Zelu copes by owning blame, but that this self-imposed guilt is a heavy, mounting pressure. Addressing an unseen interviewer, he says that as a scientist and friend he understands the choices Zelu later made, though he is not sure he could have made the same one himself.