Arvin stood atop his gondola, with an arm holding onto a rope of his dirigible airship. With his keen brown eyes, he scanned the land that was far below him. He was leaving the mountains now and heading towards the plains. His trusted and well-loved airship had been battered in a storm, and she was well in need of repairs. The envelope that held the gas was stretched and it was in danger of ripping, one of the propellers was damaged and the rudder had been slightly bent. Arvin wasn’t much of an engineer himself, but he knew enough to diagnose the issues and correct them well enough on the move, so that when he landed he could find himself an engineer and they could fix her up together.

He let himself lean out over the side and felt the wind rushing past his face. His latest job had been a success, and all of the villages had successfully been warned about the oncoming flood. Unfortunately, his reading and predicting of the wind speed in the storm had been wrong, and that mistake had lead to his airship becoming damaged. She then had drifted westwards, away from Arvin’s course home through the mountains and towards the great plains. It wouldn’t be long, a week or so, until he reached the shoreline. As the wind died away, Arvin felt his airship rock and set itself onto its side.

“Right,” Arvin said as the airship began to turn. A bolt in the rudder had become loose, and now the ship was beginning to turn through 360 degrees. He took hold of a wrench and began climbing up one of the ropes in order to reach the rudder. With one arm looped around the rope, and hanging slightly upside down, Arvin carefully fixed the bolt back into place. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do. He took the wrench back into his hand before a sudden, violent gust of wind caught the airship and send it soaring upwards.

“Wooho!” Arvin called as he wrapped his legs around the rope for more stability and he let the wind steer him. The rudder was struggling to turn against the wind, so the airship twisted and swerved at the winds mercy. Arvin loved the feeling of wind, it was strong and determined. It was a force of nature you could not control no matter how hard you tried. Of course, he was actually in a rather bad situation, and nobody ever wanted to crash from a great height. Arvin was very proud of his dirigible, even if his work meant that he was constantly climbing her ropes to fix one of her parts.

Once the wind had calmed down and Arvin’s ride became easier, he descended back down the rope and onto the gondola. Then something jolted, and Arvin was thrown off his balance. There was a popping sound and the airship juddered. The broken propeller had finally failed and to make matters worse, a sharp ripping sound followed and the stretched part of envelope tore open. Gas began leaking out of the tear and into the surrounding air, sending Arvin plummeting towards the ground.

“You held on as long as you could dear girl,” He said as he ground drew nearer beneath him. He quickly made sure that every bag was tied up and attached to the airship before he climbed up a rope and braced for the impact. He looked down to see what he was heading for. “At least I can get you fixed there,” He said before he ground passed him and he closed his eyes. He heard the clattering of metal against metal before he was thrown from the airship and everything went black.