Sometimes Falling isn't Down

Chapter 5

You'd only gone a little ways away from your cabin when your mom stopped at a large tree, "Right here, (R/C)." She pulled herself onto the lowest branch, her case trailing behind her as she turned to look at you. "Do you need help climbing up, hun?"

"Of course not! I'm just as good as you at climbing- maybe even better!" You boasted, and you meant it- at first, until your mom nodded with a small laugh and started to climb. Before you'd even hoisted yourself onto the first branch, she was already five branches above you and scaling higher with every second. Multiple times you had to search for a foothold or a solid branch to hold, but your mom seemed to just know exactly where to grab, climbing effortlessly, like she was made to do it- all while lugging a case full of fragile camera equipment behind her.

You thought you were the one who climbed trees for a living, but it seems you were naive and a fool to who the real master was- if you weren't in a tree and at risk of falling to your untimely death, you would bow to the master you so clearly underestimated.

Your mom was already settled and snapping pictures by the time you made it to the branch she was sat on. You shook your head, wiping the sweat from your forehead as a smile came to rest on your face. You were beat fair and square.

You looked up to your mother. When was the last time you'd climbed a tree with your mom? You used to do it all the time when you were younger, but at some point, you started climbing trees together less and less and eventually you just... stopped. She'd just gotten so busy... so you stopped asking.

You'd thank Gravity Falls for giving you the chance to climb a tree with your mom again if that wasn't a silly thing to do.

Maybe this was why Sienna liked Gravity Falls so much.

You threw your arms over the branch your mom was on and pulled yourself up. Your eyes grew wide as the whole horizon opened up before you, the sun barely sitting up from her crook behind the mountains, stretching her rays high into the sky and slowly brightening it with her light, casting a warm glow over everything she could reach. You scrambled the rest of the way up and settled onto the branch, having to grip a branch tightly lest you lean forward too far trying to be closer to the sights and be swallowed in and fall.

Back home, even at the top of the tallest trees in your area, you never caught such a clear view of the rising.

The sun's rays hadn't quite reached the branch the two of you were perched on, laying just above your hand when you reached up. You stretched until your fingertips caressed the light, feeling almost like you could gather it in your hands and hold it there, just like catching a glittering firefly in summer.

You only noticed the camera pointing in your direction when your mom let out the faintest hint of a laugh, a soft smile on her face when she lowered the camera from her eye. You scrunched your face at her, but shifted closer anyway, motioning for her to turn the camera around so you could see.

You were glowing, an expression you didn't even know you were making of pure wonder and awe captured perfectly on your face, the horizon reflecting off your sparkling eyes. Your mom could really make any subject mesmerizing simply by capturing it in her lens.

You gave your mom two thumbs up and her smile widened before she brought the camera back to her face, humming slightly as she turned back to the rising sun.

You pulled your bag off your shoulders, deciding to capture the sights in the way you knew how- in a drawing.

You scribbled a simple sketch into the paper, puffing out the trees like the quills of a porcupine and scratching in the sun's rays spreading above the mountain like the tentacles of a jellyfish, running your pencil over the whole drawing, then erasing where the light fell. You tapped your face with the eraser of the pencil as you looked at the sketch, contemplating adding a subject and as soon as your pencil reconnected with the paper you instinctively started sketching the statue from the forest drifting over the treetops lazily, like a paper plane right after it was thrown.