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Betinda looked down at the platform through her visor, gentle puffs of her breath fogging up the very edges of the view before vanishing. She had a large, durable suit on, which made her just as bulky as Tyko beside her. Before her, a blue planet spread below her, the violet glow tinging the circumference as the light deformed and refracted through Georditec's atmosphere.

"Never been orbital diving before?" The static on the radio crackled through the suit's speakers.

Betinda jumped a tiny bit, looking over to the larger geroo, also clad in a thick, heavy suit. "No. I did expect something else as a date, though," she admitted. She spread her ears in a nervous smile, but the helmet kept everything covered. Her mate wouldn't be able to see a thing. She tried to giggle instead, reaching her paw for Tyko's.

The clumsy glove held it tight in response. "If you fall, it doesn't matter. It's still something like five minutes before you need to pull out your chute. Or wings if you're good enough. Still, don't fall yet. This trip cost a lot, and I'd like you to see its best part."

Betinda peered over the edge again, muzzle slightly open. She felt a tinge of vertigo like she was about to tumble head over tail. Without anything but the magnetic tug on her boots, she would float aimlessly, drifting off, before plunging the thousand-kilometre drop.

As she leaned over, she could feel the boots starting to radiate warmth, tickling her paws within. "Is this platform hot?" she asked. She squatted slowly to touch the cold, dull, silver surface barely wide enough for two geroo to stand on. This was difficult due to their bulky suits and even more so because Tyko was such a massive gal. She was very thick at the waist, huggably so, and towered over Betinda at 2.1 meters. Even the tail behind her was just a bit thicker than the smaller geroo's.

The platform was long and rectangular, called a 'plank' from when ships used similar equipment, though only sailed in water. Betinda's paw could feel nothing through the suit's thick padding except that it was just a solid metal sheet.

Tyko looked over, tilting her head in a confused fashion as she looked at Betinda. While the gesture was useless through completely insulated gloves, Tyko also checked the plank.

"You shouldn't feel anything," Tyko said. "These suits have to withstand temperatures required for atmospheric re-entry."

A separate static call spoke through their ears, heavily accented. "You shouldn't feel that. That's probably a small fault in the boots. I'll look at that when you reach planetside. Your boots use a special, localized magnetic field to keep you attached to the metal. It's likely overworking and drawing extra current. It won't cause a problem for the dive, but remind me so I don't forget."

"Thanks, Choti," Tyko mused and walked over to Betinda. Both geroo peered down at the planet, constantly looking at the clouds shifting ever so slowly that it looked to be an incredible painting than a place where people lived.

"You're my faulty magnetic field," Betinda said in a cheesy fashion. Even with the helmet on, she could feel Tyko's eye-roll. "You know, because you're hot and attract-"

"Thank you, Betinda," Tyko said with something between a huff and a yarp.

Betinda turned back to the planet, peering down in awe and pointing. "That's the main continent of Georditec." Her paw drifted in the direction of the largest landmass presently visible through the white swirls of clouds. "They have buildings in the tens of thousands of meters tall, with levels going up to over a hundred. I hear they're planning to make a few several hundred-story buildings for some of the wealthier business ventures."

"Betinda, you don't have to impress me. We're here, we're together. That's more than enough." She stepped next to the smaller geroo, arm draping over the large tail poking out behind and reaching to squeeze at the waist.

Tyko gently fell to the plank, taking literally seconds to go from standing to sitting. She slowly floated down, one second, two seconds, three seconds, all the way to five before landing with a gentle, metallic 'tink' of metal that was more felt than heard. Betinda soon sat down by her.

The two sat in silence, leaning on each other, looking down at the gentle hues of purple and blue from the planet's atmosphere. It was tranquil here. There was nothing Betinda wanted more than to look at the scenery and feel the gentlest tugs of gravity. She envisioned floating, weightless, like a pool you could breathe in. The only sound was their heartbeats and the soft and gentle static of their breathing.

One thousand kilometers. That was the average drop for an orbital dive. Betinda knew that Tyko had done her fair share of dives and said to always keep the eyes open, to see everything. What was it like to see all the way down? Would clouds fly past them like she was phasing through, or would it be like gentle whiffs of resistance? What about planetside? That will be hard to shuffle around, considering how clunky she felt.

"These suits are going to be a bitch to walk around in once planetside," Betinda mumbled, breaking the silence.

"They have to be sturdy for re-entry, Bet." Tyko nuzzled her face into the crook of the metallic suit. "You will have to suffer just to see what it's like to fall through every atmospheric layer of the planet. Well, not all, but you know what I mean."

Betinda lay her head against Tyko again, encouraging the silence. Their heads pressed up against the insides of the neck as they both listened once more. Betinda wished she could just close her eyes and inhale that scent she longed for during the nights.

"I think Choti wants to get a move on." Tyko finally drew from the tranquility and climbed to the underside of the plank. It was an awkward maneuver as one had to step onto the ninety-degree panel on the side, then another ninety-degree step to get underneath.

Betinda hadn't done this before. She watched Tyko shuffle sideways, one step at a time, to help demagnetize each step with her paws. When she was at a right angle to Betinda, she reached out. Betinda accepted the gesture and joined the bigger geroo. Then, they both did the one-by-one step to creep over the final right angle. They were now completely upside down, stuck to the plank.

It was no issue to simply fall off or fall backward from any section of the platform. Betinda had seen videos of many divers performing tricks, from leaping into spirals, spins, flips, and so on, before they eventually fell to the planet. What Betinda wanted with Tyko, though, was to be a little more symbolic and romantic: a dance.

The two geroo looked at each other, embracing as they looked at the underside of the ship from the plank. It was always disorienting to shift perspective, but the intrigue of it all was similarly alluring. It was punctuated heavily by the local star's brilliant white shining below - with respect to their new orientation. They craned their necks 'up' to see Georditec again.

Betinda felt Tyko gently reaching for her paw, clasping it. The other ventured to the hip, teasingly sliding from the waist down to the wider part of the suit. Tyko let the glove lay there while Betinda shivered in delight, quaking within her suit. She was fluttering in the heart and head over heels in this romance. "I'm ready."

Tyko spoke quietly, a gentle whisper that breathed through between the two geroo's suits. "Me too."

The near-silent and ever-present hum that tickled the base of their ears stopped. Their feet no longer had purchase. The weightlessness was now complete. The two geroo drifted away from the plank, staring at each other's eyes as their boots detached, the magnets no longer active. They held each other. They dared not breathe.

The ship slowly sunk further and further away from them, centimetre by centimetre, as the two remained in each other's embrace.

"Will we hit a cloud?" Betinda asked in her hushed tone. "Is it soft?"

"I don't know," Tyko responded, a slightly deeper resonance. She stuck her boot down in a point as if to take the first step, humming a gentle tune Betinda recalled her practicing this particular dance to.

Betinda copied the movement. Tyko twisted another step, and Betinda followed. One, two, step by step. While they couldn't shift and sway their bodies nor turn around, they played out the odd and weird tangle of left and right paws. Each step timed to Tyko's hum, the only sounds in this vast exosphere as they continued to fall.

As time went on, the colors changed. The expansive black littered with dots of the stars faded into a purple haze that reminded Betinda of a gentle smoke from an expensive, near-frozen cocktail. The smog of purple hung with an exotic flair, and Betinda conjured the imagination of a room lined with the luxurious color, deepening every passing second.

Then the blue came in, and light merged in a beautiful transition that reminded Betinda of a bed. The sheets and the mattress were so deep and soft, perfect for sinking into. She had to smile, her ears twisting and brushing the tops of her helmet to portray the emotion. She felt like she was directly in bed with Tyko, like the thick aluminum shielding between them didn't exist.

"Tyko, this is beautiful. Thank you," she said as they drifted toward the planet.