No calms in the Antarctic; if they are in motion, it's dangerous, if they are still, it's haunting. Crozier is up before the first bell that first 'morning' after anyway, Terror abruptly thrashed about with no warning. The water looks so motionless and the terrain all around them so evenly pale that obstacles and sudden shifts in condition happen as shockingly as stepping into a covered spike pit. It his them, and a quarter-hour later, Erebus tilts in the same way, hammered by the same snaking pattern of brutal wind through the corridors between snow-covered rock and cathedral icebergs, all one consistent, pristine color.
It persists. Many things are suspended (shaving, grog, pissing upright) by necessity to avoid personal disasters. Shifts on deck are shortened, rotated out frequently. Frustratingly, perpetual daylight makes receiving and sending messages between ships more difficult, with no nightfall to make lanterns more visible when flags are battered and obscured.
Still. Once, in a brief moment where just the two of them were crossing each other in the otherwise empty great cabin, Crozier places a hand on Jopson's hip and squeezes affectionately. Quick and then he's gone again. Acknowledgement, he hopes. He hasn't forgotten, no matter that there hasn't been time to help with so much as a sock with how preoccupied every steward must be during times when the ship is pitching like a seizing bird.
Just the way of things. In the end it clears, and they anchor in the first sheltered lee they can find— further out than Erebus, whose sails have suffered enough to require at least two days of work before they forge ahead. Terror fixes herself fast, and off they go to the 'shore' of the ice shelf, to do that mysterious thing they have been assigned above all else: explore.
Ross has a bruise on the side of his face that nearly looks like a black eye, and Crozier is torn between being aghast and laughing loudly when the other man explains how he got it, the assailant a rogue paperweight poorly stowed on a shelf flying like a rocket at his head. Doesn't do a thing to tarnish his title as the handsomest man in the navy, which is a little unfair, but that, too, is just the way of things.
"How's it feel to stand on something stationary again?"
To Jopson as they head back to the gigs to unload their temporary gear. It's all hands to set up their tents, captains and stewards alike.
no subject
It persists. Many things are suspended (shaving, grog, pissing upright) by necessity to avoid personal disasters. Shifts on deck are shortened, rotated out frequently. Frustratingly, perpetual daylight makes receiving and sending messages between ships more difficult, with no nightfall to make lanterns more visible when flags are battered and obscured.
Still. Once, in a brief moment where just the two of them were crossing each other in the otherwise empty great cabin, Crozier places a hand on Jopson's hip and squeezes affectionately. Quick and then he's gone again. Acknowledgement, he hopes. He hasn't forgotten, no matter that there hasn't been time to help with so much as a sock with how preoccupied every steward must be during times when the ship is pitching like a seizing bird.
Just the way of things. In the end it clears, and they anchor in the first sheltered lee they can find— further out than Erebus, whose sails have suffered enough to require at least two days of work before they forge ahead. Terror fixes herself fast, and off they go to the 'shore' of the ice shelf, to do that mysterious thing they have been assigned above all else: explore.
Ross has a bruise on the side of his face that nearly looks like a black eye, and Crozier is torn between being aghast and laughing loudly when the other man explains how he got it, the assailant a rogue paperweight poorly stowed on a shelf flying like a rocket at his head. Doesn't do a thing to tarnish his title as the handsomest man in the navy, which is a little unfair, but that, too, is just the way of things.
"How's it feel to stand on something stationary again?"
To Jopson as they head back to the gigs to unload their temporary gear. It's all hands to set up their tents, captains and stewards alike.