#spring year 2

[simmelsurium]

[pinkstations]

~ I think I've finally found my perfect recolor combo ~

Bluegrass Recolor + purple grass from Yri's Project Yellog Modular Recolor

[tinycrownpenguin]

And great sorrow.

This is not the kind of place anyone can gaurantee a return from. And sometimes, it becomes startlingly easy to forget that- until something throws it into sharp relief.

The trip itself is successful. Valuable data is gathered, and nobody is injured, at least not drastically. The sickness that takes Robert McCoy upon his return is a matter of poor luck, nothing more.

Were they elsewhere in the world, he would have had a chance. Not much of one- there is a surgery, successful in the past few years, when carried out in an operating room with instruments as clean as technology can make them.

Not when carried out here. But when your captain tells you to try, even though there is near-nill chance of success... you do.

And on the last day of his life, just as on the first, Robert McCoy falls asleep in his mother's arms.

[tinycrownpenguin]

Great joy...

On a cool spring morning, the relief ship is first sighted, and the company explodes into glee. This means resupply, security until at least the summer, new faces, news- a hundred things that make them feel like they're not alone in the world, the only living humans on the globe.

It also means that some of their number will be leaving.

Violet, for one. Ibrahim has done right by her, and they've privately exchanged vows, even if nobody back in Civilisation will know that. She'll wait for him in Christchurch, and has left detailed copies of her notes that someone (probably not him) will carry on her work.

Next, Aodhán (left, standing) and Cornelia (right, blue). Less specialised but no less of a loss. Aodhán began to crumble after the death of his closest friend in the outbreak, and is being given the grace of being invalided out, and Cornelia has been ill on and off for months. She was a gamble to begin with, aboard with some smoothing of the way by her brother.

There's been some debate over whether Hyacinth aught to stay. He's not in the best of health himself, being prone to stints of nervous illness & inexperienced with the climate. But unlike his sister, he wants to stay- and has valuable skills as a meteorologist and baloonist. he wants to stay. so stay he shall.

[tinycrownpenguin]

The sun is back!

It's a moment of great euphoria for all present- to see, for the first time in what feels like eternity, signs of something akin to life. Hope blazes into the sky, first as just a lightness at the horizon, and then higher day on day.

The sun means spring. Everyone knows the plan, that a relief vessel will meet them soon. But that's different than feeling it, than seeing the earth begin to awake again. The sun means new supplies, means news- means that there will be any hints of the outside world.

It also means expeditions. A party dispatched to summit a nearby formation and take photographs and samples- it finally feels like they're here for a reason.

[justdaysoffuturespast]

If only life were this easy 😭