The brutality of the voyage is even with its wonder; distant shapes of mountains, white silhouettes like ancient gods, become the grandest skeletons of volcanoes, at the same time as climbing them means to annihilate every man to the marrow. Creatures never before described by humans, plants that the naturalists say grew alongside the beasts whose bones bear extinction titles, preserved by the pristine, frightening ice, which in turn breathes and seizes around them like being on another world entirely.
He had wondered aloud some months ago, on deck with his steward (the steward he is still adapting to having at all, but back then, first leaving the oppressive heat of Van Diemen's Land and slipping into the cold like sinking beneath a black lake, he was adapting even harder), if the moon did not look the same— Francis has been to the Arctic time and again, but it is a different kind of haunting, this place, with no Inuit, no Greenland in the distance. He'd been a little drunk, but most of them are a little drunk, most of the time.
Following the voyage, the men, too, are at evens with bad and good. Brutality and wonder again, for every infraction, swinging wildly between parties and bitter fights with blood freezing to dull rubies before it can hit the planks of the deck. And now, on this strange evening, the split is one he is still feeling out the edges of. For there is one, even if it's twisting like firelight at the moment.
"A lie is just that."
Seated at his desk in the great cabin, the least plausible suspect stood before him.
"You can make it wear all sorts of costumes, lovely carnival ones or just.. mud. Still a lie, painted one way or another. And now I have to open the guts of it."
He looks at Thomas Jopson, and tries to work out the puzzle. Why?
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.
Weather isn't poor, it's just the wind, which slams off of icebergs and rocky cliff faces and gains enough velocity to make moving through the narrow labyrinths of the ice a trickier thing. They stop once to collect soil and rock samples, not staying overnight to make camp, just Crozier and a few other men scrambling out to shore, uneasily rowing to Erebus for dinner and reports, uneasily rowing back to Terror.
(Francis gives Thomas a note penned by Jamie, upon his return, a friendly thing and a small, awful drawing of a fox; whatever he'd tucked in Francis' own coat before leaving, the man has to burn over a candle with an expression that's a deeper, distant kind of fond he wouldn't be able to put a name to, had he been watching himself.)
They still manage to read in the evenings, over dinner or after if any of the lieutenants sit with him during meals, which happens if they're busy with something. Crozier bids Jopson take his work in the great cabin when he's able to take advantage of the better light, instead of ruin his eyes and fingers trying to do any detail work in his berth under a candle. They can steal moments. He sees to his back, once, and it is just as bittersweet as ever to send him away after.
It is eventually determined after some back and forth — and Ross with his lieutenants and steward visiting Terror for a lively dinner — that they will aim for a place to wait out the turn of the season, hold a celebration, then determine if they are to carry on or cruise for the Falkland Islands and attend to some work there. They anticipate that the ice will make further mapping of the coast impossible, but the decision hinges on just how aggressive the freeze becomes. A careful thing to time; a ship can become stuck in a matter of hours, the surround turning from deep blue to white before a man's eyes.
But this subject is not one that lingers in the days after Captain Ross returns to his own ship. The men have faith, for their commanders have proven able to make sound judgement calls in all else. No, they dither over the matter of a ball on the ice, with some men having experienced parties on shore leave before, and some even Parry's famed ones in the Arctic. They shall have the dubious honor of throwing the first one in the Antarctic, now, and half of them have never done so much as a spin around a pub to someone's out of tune fiddle.
Crozier, Phillips, Dr Robertson, and first mate Moore are the only officers willing to put on record their ability to dance without embarrassing themselves. Clearing away dinner ultimately involves clearing the table away, too, and Robertson peevishly organizing the men present in the great cabin by height as to not make any man feel like the lady, though of course they will have to practice both sides to learn. Not even Jopson is safe, made vulnerable by his attentiveness while the other officers' steward slips out to save his own skin.
Lieutenant Kay is abysmal at it, and Crozier tells him so as he attempts to lead Jopson around the room.
The days blend together when the ship comes to life and the work steady. The weather taking a turn to more bitter temperatures means the crew works harder on deck to clear ice and sea spray from the arbors and deck, chipping away slowly as the sea churns beneath them.
It means even the crew belowdecks works harder, stewards jumping in to help with meals and tending to their charges even in the bitter and icy cold on deck. Jopson spends a great deal at Crozier's side when he can, but often makes sure the meals and teas are hot and fulfilling when he does come back in. A relentless few weeks of this means he's busy keeping an eye on their stock and inventory, going through things a little faster when the men are doing more labor than usual, but also using those resources to keep them healthy. They have a while yet before they return to the Queen's land.
A couple of weeks of intermittent weather and recovery and things begin to quiet again. Enough that there's more downtime between watches on deck, the ice still present but building as expected and less an onslaught. A couple of days with Crozier in the great cabin more regularly has done something to him, though. After the man's supper they sit as they used to in the quiet, each working on their own projects. A companionable silence, but when he glances up and watches the man write, or worry the bridge of his nose in thought, or - simply anything, he's suddenly very aware of their distance. The patches on his back are healed up, but he still thinks about the bruising hand at his side, the awkward press of their bodies in a bunk together, and -
"Sir, let me refill your tea. The warmth will do you some good, and a break from your paperwork."
Repairs set aside he makes up a new kettle. He gives the tea time to steep and while he waits, he tidies up the man's desk. He can't ask for attention - can't ask to feel the desperate grab of large, warm hands on his body, or the gruff voice against his neck, his mouth. Instead -
A cup of tea delivered, and just as he sets it down? A fumble, spilling the steaming beverage over the cleared space on the desk. Deliberate? Oh, heavens no, he wouldn't. (He did).
"My apologies, sir -"
But no urgent move to clean it up, instead a careful righting of the cup, and a distinct lean over the man to push some of his paperwork aside so as not to stain it.
Perpetual day does not leave them, but they begin to experience spans of hours with the sun dipped low enough to one side that they're left with orange light and long shadows, as unsettling as it is beautiful. It reflects off the ice and the water, plays tricks on vision; trying to navigate through labyrinths of icebergs and judging what's a shadow and what's going to ram into the hull is a trick.
At least there's still light, a prayer that doesn't last. Night does not find them, but weather does. Fog and mist so thick it may as well be night, blanketing them in a smothering, black blanket, broken up by beams of sickly light from the sun, or bounced off great frozen formations. Erebus sways ahead of them, marked by lanterns hung in the windows of her great cabin— when they can see Erebus at all. Sometimes there's not but inky darkness ahead of them, sometimes fog like reams of cotton. Crozier leans over the bow and sees barely a seam of dark water rush by them.
Some men are on edge. Some, like Crozier and other more experienced seamen, aren't quite— but very, very alert. He's on deck more often than not, and the crew is hushed; men shout orders down the line, calls of Steady on lads, head's up, in between.
"Haunting," says Crozier, hands in the pockets of his greatcoat. "That's the word for it."
Robertson agrees. The man's been sketching, or trying to. Not the best artist on board but competent, particularly with diagrams. Currently, his sketchboard is wedged under an armpit, clutching the warm drink brought up to them. He nods his thanks for Jopson, though his expression is chagrined. Difficult not to be put ill at ease by these circumstances.
He's only a little drunk. It's fine, the ship's not going anywhere; the ice gave way behind his heels walking from Erebus back to Terror but it's already solid again, so says the carpenter who slid over it fetching a bar that went flying.
Crozier is only a little drunk, but McMurdo and the good doctor are plastered beyond reasonable behavior, and the rest of the officers (and a few mates) are teetering on one line or the other. Stupid of them all, this is more the sort of thing Jamie permits, rarely Crozier, ever cautioning while the other man is leaping off the edge of something.
But they are in good spirits. (Hah.) Card games, some dancing pointers. Terror is more or less upright, and so climbing up back on deck to indulge in fresh, cold air isn't as much of an ordeal as it was a week ago. Almost dark out now— sun dogs blinking in between lines of black water and purple sky, winter threatening them. In three days they'll start breaking the ice with powder again.
"If I were anyone else you'd have started me," he says, before Jopson can say anything. Crozier hasn't seen him; just knows that it's him behind his shoulder, which he looks over to spy him. "Should put a bell on you."
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He had wondered aloud some months ago, on deck with his steward (the steward he is still adapting to having at all, but back then, first leaving the oppressive heat of Van Diemen's Land and slipping into the cold like sinking beneath a black lake, he was adapting even harder), if the moon did not look the same— Francis has been to the Arctic time and again, but it is a different kind of haunting, this place, with no Inuit, no Greenland in the distance. He'd been a little drunk, but most of them are a little drunk, most of the time.
Following the voyage, the men, too, are at evens with bad and good. Brutality and wonder again, for every infraction, swinging wildly between parties and bitter fights with blood freezing to dull rubies before it can hit the planks of the deck. And now, on this strange evening, the split is one he is still feeling out the edges of. For there is one, even if it's twisting like firelight at the moment.
"A lie is just that."
Seated at his desk in the great cabin, the least plausible suspect stood before him.
"You can make it wear all sorts of costumes, lovely carnival ones or just.. mud. Still a lie, painted one way or another. And now I have to open the guts of it."
He looks at Thomas Jopson, and tries to work out the puzzle. Why?
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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.
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leaning hard into the mongoose fursona
aye aye captain
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(Francis gives Thomas a note penned by Jamie, upon his return, a friendly thing and a small, awful drawing of a fox; whatever he'd tucked in Francis' own coat before leaving, the man has to burn over a candle with an expression that's a deeper, distant kind of fond he wouldn't be able to put a name to, had he been watching himself.)
They still manage to read in the evenings, over dinner or after if any of the lieutenants sit with him during meals, which happens if they're busy with something. Crozier bids Jopson take his work in the great cabin when he's able to take advantage of the better light, instead of ruin his eyes and fingers trying to do any detail work in his berth under a candle. They can steal moments. He sees to his back, once, and it is just as bittersweet as ever to send him away after.
It is eventually determined after some back and forth — and Ross with his lieutenants and steward visiting Terror for a lively dinner — that they will aim for a place to wait out the turn of the season, hold a celebration, then determine if they are to carry on or cruise for the Falkland Islands and attend to some work there. They anticipate that the ice will make further mapping of the coast impossible, but the decision hinges on just how aggressive the freeze becomes. A careful thing to time; a ship can become stuck in a matter of hours, the surround turning from deep blue to white before a man's eyes.
But this subject is not one that lingers in the days after Captain Ross returns to his own ship. The men have faith, for their commanders have proven able to make sound judgement calls in all else. No, they dither over the matter of a ball on the ice, with some men having experienced parties on shore leave before, and some even Parry's famed ones in the Arctic. They shall have the dubious honor of throwing the first one in the Antarctic, now, and half of them have never done so much as a spin around a pub to someone's out of tune fiddle.
Crozier, Phillips, Dr Robertson, and first mate Moore are the only officers willing to put on record their ability to dance without embarrassing themselves. Clearing away dinner ultimately involves clearing the table away, too, and Robertson peevishly organizing the men present in the great cabin by height as to not make any man feel like the lady, though of course they will have to practice both sides to learn. Not even Jopson is safe, made vulnerable by his attentiveness while the other officers' steward slips out to save his own skin.
Lieutenant Kay is abysmal at it, and Crozier tells him so as he attempts to lead Jopson around the room.
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It means even the crew belowdecks works harder, stewards jumping in to help with meals and tending to their charges even in the bitter and icy cold on deck. Jopson spends a great deal at Crozier's side when he can, but often makes sure the meals and teas are hot and fulfilling when he does come back in. A relentless few weeks of this means he's busy keeping an eye on their stock and inventory, going through things a little faster when the men are doing more labor than usual, but also using those resources to keep them healthy. They have a while yet before they return to the Queen's land.
A couple of weeks of intermittent weather and recovery and things begin to quiet again. Enough that there's more downtime between watches on deck, the ice still present but building as expected and less an onslaught. A couple of days with Crozier in the great cabin more regularly has done something to him, though. After the man's supper they sit as they used to in the quiet, each working on their own projects. A companionable silence, but when he glances up and watches the man write, or worry the bridge of his nose in thought, or - simply anything, he's suddenly very aware of their distance. The patches on his back are healed up, but he still thinks about the bruising hand at his side, the awkward press of their bodies in a bunk together, and -
"Sir, let me refill your tea. The warmth will do you some good, and a break from your paperwork."
Repairs set aside he makes up a new kettle. He gives the tea time to steep and while he waits, he tidies up the man's desk. He can't ask for attention - can't ask to feel the desperate grab of large, warm hands on his body, or the gruff voice against his neck, his mouth. Instead -
A cup of tea delivered, and just as he sets it down? A fumble, spilling the steaming beverage over the cleared space on the desk. Deliberate? Oh, heavens no, he wouldn't. (He did).
"My apologies, sir -"
But no urgent move to clean it up, instead a careful righting of the cup, and a distinct lean over the man to push some of his paperwork aside so as not to stain it.
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At least there's still light, a prayer that doesn't last. Night does not find them, but weather does. Fog and mist so thick it may as well be night, blanketing them in a smothering, black blanket, broken up by beams of sickly light from the sun, or bounced off great frozen formations. Erebus sways ahead of them, marked by lanterns hung in the windows of her great cabin— when they can see Erebus at all. Sometimes there's not but inky darkness ahead of them, sometimes fog like reams of cotton. Crozier leans over the bow and sees barely a seam of dark water rush by them.
Some men are on edge. Some, like Crozier and other more experienced seamen, aren't quite— but very, very alert. He's on deck more often than not, and the crew is hushed; men shout orders down the line, calls of Steady on lads, head's up, in between.
"Haunting," says Crozier, hands in the pockets of his greatcoat. "That's the word for it."
Robertson agrees. The man's been sketching, or trying to. Not the best artist on board but competent, particularly with diagrams. Currently, his sketchboard is wedged under an armpit, clutching the warm drink brought up to them. He nods his thanks for Jopson, though his expression is chagrined. Difficult not to be put ill at ease by these circumstances.
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Crozier is only a little drunk, but McMurdo and the good doctor are plastered beyond reasonable behavior, and the rest of the officers (and a few mates) are teetering on one line or the other. Stupid of them all, this is more the sort of thing Jamie permits, rarely Crozier, ever cautioning while the other man is leaping off the edge of something.
But they are in good spirits. (Hah.) Card games, some dancing pointers. Terror is more or less upright, and so climbing up back on deck to indulge in fresh, cold air isn't as much of an ordeal as it was a week ago. Almost dark out now— sun dogs blinking in between lines of black water and purple sky, winter threatening them. In three days they'll start breaking the ice with powder again.
"If I were anyone else you'd have started me," he says, before Jopson can say anything. Crozier hasn't seen him; just knows that it's him behind his shoulder, which he looks over to spy him. "Should put a bell on you."
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