It wasn't just Hermione's first time seeing Earth from this angle—it was Loren's first time too. Earlier he'd been busy with the magical satellite and hadn't paid the planet much attention. Now, with a moment free, he turned his gaze on Earth, and the sight shook him.
From high Earth orbit, he looked down on a blue planet veiled by cloud. Land and sea spread beneath him in shifting colors and textures. The surface was covered by vast oceans—dark and light blues that changed tone with the light. With his sharpened eyesight he could even make out large features—cities, mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, and islands. Lifting his eyes, he could see the atmosphere itself as a thin blue halo.
For a moment, a helpless feeling rose in him—how small he was before this blue sphere. The next instant, ambition burned through the doubt. He had a system, and he had already mastered power beyond the ordinary. His future lay in the myriad worlds; a single little Earth would not confine him.
He centered himself, sorted his thoughts, and looked again. The helplessness was gone, replaced by quiet awe.
Flipping his magical notebook, he saw Hermione still staring, stunned. He didn't interrupt—he simply ended the video. This vision would stay with her for a while; a good kind of shock. With this cleansing, she might not need to worry much about magic's negative side effects for a long time.
Stowing the notebook, Loren felt for the marker he'd left on the magical satellite. A chain of Apparitions brought him alongside it. He anchored himself to the hull with magic and began final checks.
Leaning on the satellite and gazing at the blue world, an irrepressible idea filled his mind. He abandoned the plan to Apparate back. Instead, he would jump.
Yes—he would dive from 35,786 kilometers straight toward Earth. A no-parachute skydive like none before.
He weighed it and judged his defenses sufficient, then released the tether. He tipped toward the planet and fell—pure free fall.
At first his speed was modest, but under gravity it climbed. In the vacuum, there was nothing to slow him, so the numbers kept ticking up. He adjusted his trajectory to ensure he would hit deep ocean. Once satisfied, he double-checked his protections and then did nothing else, letting himself savor the ride.
Time passed; speed rose; the blue world swelled in his vision. By his math, it would take about an hour to reach the upper atmosphere. He rode the growing acceleration and the rush of adrenaline, grinning into the void.
About an hour later, he speared into the air at roughly Mach 32. Drag snapped on and his speed began to drop like a stone—but friction roared to replace it. Air hammered the rigid magical shield around him and lit it white-hot. Heat from the collision of air molecules licked at him; his magic spacesuit charred away long before, and only his own power held the shield together.
On the ground, an "odd meteor" lit up tracking screens. Small enough to burn up in normal conditions, it stubbornly refused to ablate, blazing brighter without changing shape. Space agency brass took notice. They ordered continued tracking, plotted the impact zone, and readied the military to recover this "peculiar meteorite."
Loren, of course, had no idea—and wouldn't have cared. Just before impact, a hunch struck. He dropped the rigid shield and let his body take the hit. His instincts said this would do him good.
He slammed into the sea at around 300 kilometers per hour. The impact threw up a tremendous shockwave; water heaved and geysered. He wasn't large enough to raise a tsunami, but it felt like punching through a wall of water—painless for his body, unpleasant for his senses. Steam boomed skyward; vortices spun and merged on the surface. It took a long while for the sea to calm, leaving a patch of cooked fish bobbing in his wake.
He didn't plunge straight for the bottom; his own turbulence seized him and tossed him about. Even so, he decided the jump had been worth it—he even wanted to try again. But the emptiness in his magic core said otherwise. A second run would be courting death.
When the undertow eased, he surfaced, drew a small boat from the small world, and clambered aboard. He rinsed off with magic, laid a few protective and warning spells, and promptly fell asleep. Unsteered, the boat drifted with the swells under a sky that grew star-pricked and dark.
He woke to blackness on all sides, still a bit dazed. His watch said three in the afternoon. Then he remembered: he was over the Pacific. The watch was set to London—ten hours off.
His stomach growled. After that drain on his magic, he needed to eat. Out here, that meant seafood. Once he'd recovered a bit, he expanded his detection range and began netting ocean life into the small world with spellwork. He didn't keep at it long—just enough. He pulled out a bluefin tuna that had cruised near the boat and went to work. Most of it he preserved with magic; some he turned into grilled fillets and sashimi, then ate his fill.
Afterward, he packed away the boat, took out the magical notebook, tapped an icon shaped like Earth, and linked to the just-launched satellite. His position popped up. He was a little off his planned splash zone—drifting toward Japan.
A wild urge to visit the Mariana Trench rose in him. He strangled it. He'd just tempted fate once; that was enough. He sketched a quick route and Apparated away over the open sea. Better to hop above the ocean than blink across land. The Ministries weren't staffed by fools, after all.
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