Colin takes the hose but doesn't puff right away, staring up at the ceiling and weighing how high he already is.

He's scared. But he's always scared. He has come to realize that he truly can't tell the difference between a real threat and an imagined one, but that hasn't eliminated the need to try. So he tries to work it out by looking at the facts. It's not the most reliable system--he'd told himself all sorts of things so he could ignore the warning signs with Lutair. He finally pops the hose in his mouth and inhales deeply.

"Makes me think too much," he admits with a sigh of smoke. "You know how when you were a kid, you knew there were dangers in the world, but you reckoned the world as a whole wasn't out to get you?"