#hydroponic supplies near me

[hydropro-washington1]

It is absolutely crucial that you maintain every facet of your hydroponic farm at the peak of its health, hygiene and cleanliness. Here’s how you can do it.

[farmsbazaarin-blog]

One of the Best DFT System in India | Farmsbazaar

You're looking for the best DWC system for larger plants or the best DFT system for smaller ones, a DFT/DWC system is a great choice for any serious hydroponic gardener. With its efficient use of water and minimal maintenance requirements, it's a great option for anyone looking to get into growing hydroponic microgreens or other plants indoors.

[achie-blog]

Week 3-4: Insights!

Here is an update for my week 3 interview blog, sharing the insights I gained during our interview with the second businesses. I hope you will be able to read it. 😊

The first business we visited was GREEN AND SWEETS and the owner’s story is quite inspiring. She shared with us a story of how she was able to incorporate the love for cooking and her dad’s hydroponic lettuce in making fabulous, healthy dishes. Her ability to use her dad's lettuce for meals that cater to health-conscious people shows her creativity and adaptability. Also, she used to bake and sell cookies, an enterprise which originated when she was in senior high school, and culminated into Green and Sweets. It showcases how these interests can become good sources of income hence confirming that we can make a business out of what gives us joy. Another thing I was able to learn from her is how she started her marketing on the online platform, Instagram. She said it was a good platform because of its aesthetic appeal, which suited her brand at the time. But she said that for those who wanted to gain more audiences, using Facebook is better because it is more noticeable and can attract a wider audience. What also struck me was her vision about future life. Ms. Regina Jandoc already has her business regionally certified and is aiming to go national. She clearly has a strong ambition to grow her brand and reach more people.  Surprisingly, she is not afraid of challenges either. For instance, she got down to closing their branch in Tomasaco because the hot conditions within the food park were not suitable for preserving lettuce which require cooler temperatures. This shows her ability to recognize problems and make necessary changes for the better. And also Ms. Regina Jandoc is very good at taking good care of her customers, the way she interacts with them, a genuine smile and a welcoming feeling.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second business we interviewed was CUADRO OCHO INCORPORATED, and I learned a lot from their approach. One important takeaway is the value of careful planning when starting a business, especially in choosing the right location. Cuadro Ocho Inc. made sure their store had high visibility and foot traffic, placing it near a busy market where it’s easily noticeable. I was also impressed by how they planned for a good parking area, knowing that hardware stores often deal with bulk orders requiring vehicles. This shows their commitment to making the customer experience more convenient, beyond just having a good location. During our interview, the manager emphasized the importance of securing the right legal documents for the business and employees, ensuring that everything operates smoothly and provides benefits to their staff. I also noticed how welcoming their staff is, which plays a huge role in the business’s success, especially in a hardware store where customers often have many questions. Good customer service builds trust and leads to recommendations, showing how much Cuadro Ocho Inc. cares about its people. Another interesting insight is that the business started with a group of friends selling lumber, and now it has grown to 11 branches. It highlights the success that can come from venturing into business with friends, as long as there are clear agreements and everyone has a business-oriented mindset, helping them collaborate and grow their business together.

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The third business we interviewed was FMN AGRICULTURAL SUPPLY INC, where I gained significant insights about running a business in the agricultural sector. Mrs. Guanita H. Tato explained the various documents necessary for legal operation, such as the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority (FPA) license, which is crucial for selling products like pesticides, fertilizers, and feed. This ensures that their products meet the required standards set by regulatory bodies. I was impressed by how thorough they are in adhering to legal requirements, as they also provide their employees with training, including courses from the Red Cross and Basic Occupational Safety and Health (BOSH). This focus on training shows their dedication not only to the safety of their products but also to the well-being and preparedness of their staff. It reflects their commitment to maintaining a safe and compliant business environment while ensuring their employees are equipped with the right knowledge.

Additionally, the importance of renewing their documents on time was emphasized, as it ensures that their business remains legal and trustworthy. In a sector that deals with products that directly impact agriculture, customers need assurance that they are buying from a legitimate source, and having complete, up-to-date documentation builds that trust. Mrs. Tato also shared some of the challenges they face, particularly the presence of competitors in the area. One key takeaway is that in such competitive markets, price often becomes a decisive factor for customers. Many customers, especially in agricultural communities, will choose the business offering the lowest price, which adds pressure on companies like FMN to stay competitive without compromising on the quality of their products. This balance between pricing, legality, and product safety seems to be a driving force behind their success, and it highlights the importance of understanding both customer needs and market dynamics in sustaining a business in this field.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The fourth business that we interviewed was COLOR MIX PAINT CENTER and there are many things that I learned which are very important in handling business. A major insight came from Mrs. Cabatud when she had a business that was doing well and faced a difficult decision leading to a branch to be shut down. It brought out the fact that business stability is never certain, events like the pandemic can lead to huge disruption and losses leaving business owners with very hard decisions to make. Mrs. Cabatud continued to open branches to accommodate more clients and be able to increase income but due to the effects of the pandemic affecting sales and with added competition, she decided to shut down one of the branches. And with this experience, what struck me was her determination and commitment to her work despite the challenges. Instead of giving up on what she had created, she changed her strategy and redirected her energy into developing the remaining branch. Perhaps one of the most impressive aspects of the story was her determination to shift from conquest to mere survival, and anyone can see her perseverance, as COLOR MIX PAINT CENTER remains open for business today. Another important takeaway was the need to obtain the relevant papers since, indeed, without documents, it is impossible for the business to operate legally. Mrs. Cabatud’s experience also prompted me to think of a suggestion for her business: searching for a better location can bring more attention to the store; partnering with contractors is an opportunity since they usually purchase materials in bulk. In this way she could foster these partnerships and consolidate on the quality that her business delivered which would make it strong. In conclusion, Mrs. Cabatud’s experience highlights the critical role of flexibility, legal requirements, and innovation in the management of a business during tough periods.

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The fifth business we interviewed was JAY-Q GRAINS RICE TRADING, where I learned that price changes are common, as rice prices depend on supplier costs and the brand they have.  This poses a problem since many customers desire to purchase goods at the cheapest price possible in the current economy. Also, there is high competition which acts as a hindrance towards the sales. Despite these difficulties, I was impressed by how well they manage their documentation, demonstrating their commitment to following the law and avoiding penalties. They also provide staff training through organizations like the Red Cross to ensure employees are prepared for emergencies. While I was there, I saw potential for efficiency improvements to their shelf placement and compartmentalization of the rice, which would benefit their customers and employees.Another key insight was the versatility of their staff, particularly Ms. Tagaro, who handles multiple roles, including customer service, cashiering, and other tasks, reflecting the reality of small businesses where employees often take on several responsibilities due to limited staffing, especially when sales are slow. ❤️

[skaddy111]

Enhance Your Indoor Gardening Experience with GrowGeneration Hydroponics Store

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Conclusion

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[supremeperlite]

Finding Perlite Near You: Discover the Versatile Horticultural Solution at Supreme Perlite

In the world of gardening, horticulture, and construction, finding quality perlite can sometimes be a challenge. Whether you're a seasoned gardener looking to enhance your soil or a builder in need of lightweight aggregate, having access to perlite near you is crucial. Fortunately, Supreme Perlite near me is here to meet your perlite needs, offering top-notch products and unmatched expertise.

What is Perlite?

Before diving into where to find perlite, let's understand what it is. Perlite is a naturally occurring volcanic rock that undergoes a heating process, causing it to expand and become lightweight, porous, and sterile. This unique structure makes it an excellent additive for soil conditioning, hydroponic growing media, insulation, and more.

Why Choose Perlite from Supreme Perlite?

When it comes to perlite, quality matters. Supreme Perlite stands out for several reasons:

Premium Quality: Supreme Perlite sources only the finest raw materials and employs stringent quality control measures throughout the production process, ensuring consistency and purity in every batch.

Versatility: Whether you're a home gardener, commercial grower, or industrial contractor, Supreme Perlite offers a diverse range of perlite products tailored to various applications. From horticultural perlite for soil conditioning to lightweight aggregates for construction, they have you covered.

Expertise: With decades of experience in the perlite industry, Supreme Perlite's team comprises knowledgeable professionals who can provide expert guidance and support, helping you choose the right perlite products for your specific needs.

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Now, let's address the keyword of interest: "perlite near me." Whether you're located in a bustling urban center or a remote rural area, accessing perlite from Supreme Perlite is easier than you might think:

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Experience the Supreme Difference

Whether you're an avid gardener looking to improve soil drainage and aeration, a hydroponics enthusiast seeking optimal root development, or a builder requiring lightweight insulation solutions, Supreme Perlite is your trusted partner for premium perlite products. With their commitment to quality, versatility, expertise, and sustainability, they've earned a reputation as the go-to source for perlite across the country.

Next time you search for "perlite near me," remember that Supreme Perlite is always close at hand, ready to supply you with the finest perlite products and exceptional service. Visit their website or reach out to them today to discover how they can meet your perlite needs with excellence. Visit us here https://www.supremeperlite.com/

[wonderful-writer]

14 - Mount Weather

Summary: Y/n finds herself in a new place, becoming suspicious of it and it’s motives very quickly. Clarke shares the same suspicion, and both become weary about the safety of the people that didn’t make it into the dropship.

Word Count: 3.90k

Based Off: 02x01, “The 48”

Your eyes fluttered open to an all white room, the brightness stinging your eyes. You closed them tightly again and put your hand over them to block out some of the light, adjusting your eyes to see what was in the room. You sat up in the bed, noticing that you were clean and no longer caked with dirt and blood. Your clothes had been changed, and there was no pain or knife protruding from your backside. 

The room was all white. The sheets, walls, floors, couch, and door were the same shade. However, the only thing that was different was the painting hung up on the wall. It was one of the paintings you recognized from art class as the very famous painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps. You looked at the painting for a few seconds longer before moving to the door, which had a window showing you the hallway. 

The thing that had caught your attention was the sign on the opposite wall, which read “Mount Weather quarantine ward”. You looked at the door opposite to you to see the window was empty, but it looked like someone was in there because of the messed up pillows on the bed. 

As the memories of the previous night flooded back to you, you began to panic. Bellamy and Finn were gone, possibly dead, and whoever brought you here fixed your stab wound and possibly took the others as well. You couldn’t see any of the other 100, and the thought reached you that you were the only one left. 

If there really was no one from the Ark left alive and you were the only one, how was everything going to go after this? How were you going to get out of wherever you were and live without the grounders attempting to kill you at every turn? 

Everything blurred and you felt tears filling your eyes as you stumbled, pressing yourself against the nearest wall and sliding down it, gripping your hair, which was no longer in braids, and attempting to control this raging panic attack with no one to help you. Your breaths came out shakily and your eyes remained squeezed shut, forcing yourself to think the exact opposite of what you just were in order to get your mind to stop racing. 

You felt time slipping away as you stayed there, before the rage of being all alone and without information took over. You slammed your hands on the floor and pushed yourself up onto your feet, breathing heavily. 

You grabbed the first object you could, that being the IV drip, and throwing whatever bags were on it at the door, the saline spilling down it and pooling on the floor. Then you kicked the tray of medical supplies over, the instruments clattering to the floor loudly, and you made swift movements to the room separator, throwing it to the ground, listening to the loud clunk it made when it hit the linoleum floor.

In the small break of silence you faintly heard glass shattering, but chose to ignore it. You grabbed the pole that the IV bags were hanging off of and ran to the door, shattering the window as your feet stepped in the puddle of saline at the door. You hit the doorknob multiple times, to the point where both the metal rod and the doorknob were dented. 

You moved back, taking a running start at the door, trying to ram it open with the IV pole. You, however, slipped in the saline and glass puddle as you were running, causing you to knock all of the air out of your lungs when you fell over, and feel the familiar ripping of stitches; along with a brand new horizontal cut on your forearm, near the scar Murphy gave you, from a large shard of glass that you landed on.

The IV pole in your hands fell on top of you as you fell, hitting you on the forehead and blurring your vision, as well as sending a dull throb through your head. You watched the bright room grow dimmer, your vision fading back into black as you passed out. Again. 

You woke back up in a different room, one that wasn’t white. You tried to cover your eyes with your hand to block out the light as they adjusted, but your hands were restricted. 

“Y/n?” You heard Clarke’s voice.”Y/n wake up!”

You opened your eyes and saw that you couldn’t move your hands because they were tied down, one restraint just barely overlapping with a bandage they put on for your new cut. You looked to your left to see Clarke sitting on the bed next to you, also restrained, but sitting up.

You did the best you could to do the same, the restraints holding you back. You heard the door hiss open on your right, watching as two guards, a woman in a lab coat, an older man, and a girl came in, along with another guard. 

“Hello, Clarke,” The woman greeted. “How’s your arm?”

Clarke didn’t say anything in response. The woman took a glance at you to see you also awake. “Hello, Y/n, I see you’re awake, too. How are you feeling?”

You did the same as Clarke and just stared at the woman. 

“They’re not very talkative, are they?” She commented. 

“A skill they picked up from the savages, no doubt.” The elderly man said. “Maya has something to say to Clarke first anyway.”

The girl that came in with the rest of them looked up at Clarke, almost scared of her. “You were the next one to be cleared through quarantine. Another 10 minutes and you would’ve-” She was cut off by the older man clearing his throat.

“And then it was supposed to be her.” She looked at you for a second and then turned back to Clarke. “I’m not pressing charges.” “Thank you, Maya.” The old man said. “You can get your treatment now.”

The doctor directed Maya to a bed and the older man looked to the guards. “Restraints aren’t necessary. On either of them.” 

One guard came to untie you and the other went to Clarke. Once the restraints were off, you came to sit at the edge of the bed like Clarke. 

“Dante Wallace,” He introduced himself to Clarke, extending a hand for her to shake. She grabbed it to inspect the black smudges on his hand.

“Oil paint,” He said. “That’s right. You’re an artist too.”

Clarke stood up and asked him who told him that. 

“Your people.” He said. “They also said you and Y/n here were their leaders.” You stood up and went to stand beside Clarke.

“Looks like you two and I have a lot in common, kiddos.” You looked apprehensively to Clarke, who looked back at you the same way. 

“Where’s my watch?” Clarke asked. It was then that you noticed the cool metal of your locket wasn’t present on your chest. 

“And my locket?” You asked. “What did you do with it?”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t let contaminated items inside Mount Weather. We couldn’t risk it.” He told you. “Our protocol is very strict. We prioritize safety over sentimentality.”

“That was the only thing I had left of my mother! The only picture of her and my father are both in there you asshole!” You started to get angry again, but Clarke’s assuring yet sad eyes stopped you from going any further. 

“How many of us did you capture?” Clarke asked, pulling her eyes away from the machine that Maya was hooked up to. You kept your gaze on it, too, curious.

“48, including both of you. But, Clarke, you’ve got it wrong. You’re not prisoners. We saved you.” Dante assured her.

“Well, in that case, you won’t mind if we leave.” You said. “If there are 48 of us here, we still have people out there.”

“The patrol brought in everyone they could find,” Dante told you.  

“What about the Ark? I saw it come down last night.” Clarke asked.

“We saw it,” Dante said. “There were multiple crash sites over 100 square miles. If there were survivors, we will bring them in, too. You have my word.”

“We want to see our people.” Clarke decided. 

“Of course, you do. I would too.” Dante motioned for two guards behind him to roll forward a crate, opening it to reveal an array of clothing and jewellery. You and Clarke marvelled at the sight as Dante spoke again.

“Change and meet me in the hall.” He and the guards left the room, leaving you and Clarke to choose what clothing suited you. 

She chose a pink shirt with a turquoise sports jacket over it and some blue pants that didn’t quite reach the bottom of her calf, along with some simple sneakers. You, however, grabbed a white shirt and some black leggings, with a jacket that was similar to Clarke’s but was black instead of her turquoise and running shoes similar to hers.

She ran her fingers along the shoes before she put hers on, picking up a pair of heels and handing one to you. You followed her actions by snapping off the heel and slipping it underneath your jacket sleeve, ready to use when needed. 

You pushed open the door and saw Dante waiting for the both of you with about 4 guards standing by. The room was very noisy as you walked up to him. 

“Sorry about the noise!” He yelled as you started walking. “Hydroelectric power from the Philpott dam. Fresh water from our own underground reservoir.”

“Fresh food from our hydroponic farm,” He said.

“I don’t understand,” Clarke shook her head. “You’re on the ground, you know it’s survivable. Why would you stay here?”

“It’s not survivable for us,” Dante told you. 

“The grounders seem to have managed.” You said. 

“Natural selection works,” Dante replied. “The grounders who couldn’t survive in the radiation didn’t. Those who could passed on their DNA. For better or for worse, here, we never went through that process.”

“Well, neither did we,” Clarke said. “We’ve been on the ground now for…”

“Solar radiation.” You continued her sentence, coming to the same realization.

“Very good.” Dante smiled. “Your DNA ran the same gauntlet as the grounders. Only because radiation levels in space are even higher, your ability to metabolize that radiation is even stronger.”

You stopped at an elevator and waited for it to come up, Dante still speaking to you and Clarke. “Truth be told, our scientists were blown away with the efficiency of your systems. If not for that, your friends would still be upstairs in quarantine.”

“I have a question,” You said. Dante looked at you and nodded for you to continue. “I wasn’t with the others. I was near the front gate with a knife sticking out of my back. How did I end up here?”

“Well,” Dante responded. “Our patrol found you outside the gate not long after we got there and bought you in with them. And it was a good thing that we did, too. You were almost dead when you got here.”

You nodded and the elevator doors creaked open, Dante allowing you and Clarke to enter the elevator. You both entered hesitantly, watching Dante as the doors began to close. Dante stopped them and held out his hand.

“First, give me the heels.” You looked at Clarke in shock, but reluctantly pulled the heel from your sleeve, pressing it into Dante’s palm with Clarke.

“You’re not fighting for your life anymore, girls. You’ve made it. Welcome to Mount Weather.” The elevator doors closed and brought you both to level 5, the guards escorting you. Clarke began to walk towards the small crowd, where you heard a woman talking. 

“Your packet contains everything you need to know about Mount Weather, which I promise isn’t as confusing as the map on page one makes it out to look. You came from level 3, which houses our medical facility including…” 

The woman's voice was drowned by your Monty’s, saying yours and Clarke’s name. He ran towards you and enveloped Clarke in a hug, while Jasper came to you. 

“I thought you were dead,” He whispered. Once they both let go of you, you hugged Monty and Jasper hugged Clarke, the other delinquents coming to greet you. 

“Finn?” Clarke asked.

“And Bellamy?” You asked. 

“Y/n they uh… they didn’t make it.” Jasper whispered.

“We don’t know that,” Clarke assured everyone. “What about Raven?”

The silence was enough of an answer, the crowd breaking to let the woman you heard before come to meet you.

“Welcome Clarke, Y/n.” She greeted you. “If you have any questions, I’m Keenan.” 

She handed you both packets and walked away with a smile. Your head was spinning. You didn’t know what to think, what to do. Things felt weird around here and you just wanted to go back to the dropship. 

Clarke opened up the packet and looked at the map. You took a glance at it from her packet, not bothered to open your own, the map confusing you.

Later in the day, you were back in the dining hall for lunch, which was the best food you’d ever eaten. While the food was nice, you were still on edge about Mount Weather. Something seemed off. You sat next to Monty as he and Jasper ate dessert, Jasper offering his pie to Monty to try some. 

“My turn,” Jasper said, pointing to the cake on Monty’s plate.

“This? Nah. You won’t like it. The pie is way better.” Monty brushed Jasper off and you giggled under your breath, knowing he was keeping it to himself because he didn’t want Jasper to have any.  Jasper eyed Monty’s plate and tried to take it, but Monty was quicker. 

“Really?” He asked and Monty nodded, fighting a smile. 

They both stood up, dishes clattering, ready to fight for the chocolate cake. Monty moved to the left and Jasper copied, then they both moved to the right and stopped abruptly, seeing Clarke approach the table.

“Hey, Clarke,” Jasper greeted.

“Sit down and pretend you’re happy to see me.” She whispered, sitting down next to Jasper.

“We are happy to see you,” Monty told her, mouth full of chocolate cake.He offered some to Clarke and you laughed as your brother put on a look of fake betrayal.

“I’m not eating their food.” Clarke told him, her eyes on Dante at the head table. She pulled out her packet and showed the map to the three of you. 

“Look,” She said. “They gave us a map with no exits. I need you to tell me everything you’ve seen. Every room, every hallway, every way out.”

“Way out?” Jasper asked. “Look around you, Clarke. There’s no one hunting us here. First time in our lives we’re not hungry. Why would we want to leave?”

“Because we have friends out there who need our help.”

“They’re looking for survivors,” Monty assured her. “And they’re way better equipped to find them than we are.”

“I think she’s right,” You jumped in. “This place, it’s too good to be true. I don’t trust it.”

“You guys are bumming me out. I’m-- I’m gonna get more cake.” Jasper laughed lightly and took his plate as he stood up, making his way to the dessert table. 

You watched him interact with the girl that Clarke attacked earlier, a smile making its way to your face. Clarke watched him, too, an idea springing to her head. She took her packet and looked at you, motioning her head for you to follow her. You both stood up and walked over to Maya and Jasper. 

“Hey,” Clarke put her packet on the table. “It’s Maya, right? I just wanted to say sorry, for this morning. I was scared and worried about my friends; I hope you can understand that.” 

Maya smiled and nodded, still anxious to be around Clarke, who picked up her packet and walked away, the both of you smiling at Jasper and Maya beforehand. Clarke discreetly revealed that she had swiped Maya’s keycard when she left, slipping it in her pocket.

Not long after you left, alarms started blaring throughout the white hallway you were walking down, bright yellow lights flashing at the door behind you. 

“Not a prisoner, huh?” Clarke muttered as you both took off down the hall. 

You came to an intersection, looking to your left to see armed guards running towards you, and even more coming from your right. You kept running straight, zig zagging to throw off the guards, until you reached a rusty door. Clarke swiped Maya’s card on the keypad and you helped her pull open the door, slipping inside and pulling it shut.

You looked around and were met with stairs going up and down, you starting to go up as Clarke disabled the keypads and followed after you. You stopped at the first level, opening the door and coming to a stop at the beginning of a hallway. There was a large, round door at the end of it, and you and Clarke ran to it.

She tried pulling the lever beside it, but to no avail. She smacked the concrete wall in front of her and you looked at the door, seeing a hatch on it. You both moved to it and began to turn it, hearing a loud clunk after a few turns. 

Clarke moved back to the lever and you put a hand on it as well. Just as you were about to pull it and open the door, Jasper and Maya stopped you.

“Clarke, no!” Jasper yelled. “If you pull that lever, these people will die. Even a little radiation could kill them.” 

“Don’t make me shoot you,” Maya said, shakily holding a gun up to the both of you. 

“Wait,” Jasper said, standing in front of Maya with his hands out, walking up to you and Clarke. “Don’t do this.”

“I don’t believe them,” Clarke shook her head.

“Why would they lie?” Jasper asked. “Listen to me. We are safe here. Because of you guys, we’re safe.”

“Not all of us,” You said. 

“I’m the one that fired the rockets, should I not have done that?” Jasper asked. “Clarke, when you pulled that lever, you saved lives. Don’t throw that away by pulling this one.”

You and Clarke let go of the lever, sniffling and trying to prevent the tears from escaping your eyes. Bellamy was out there, he was out there with Finn, and you couldn’t get to him. The guards came barrelling in, Jasper raising his hands and moved to the side to let the guards through.

You put up no fight as they shoved you to the ground along with Clarke to handcuff you. Two guards guided Clarke down the halls, while another two guided you, a hand on each elbow as they brought you into Dante’s office. 

“Lose the handcuffs,” He instructed the guards as he painted. “There’s a blank canvas if you’d like,” He offered to Clarke, who shook her head. 

“I used to paint the ground, too.” Clarke told Dante.

“It’s not just the ground,” He said. “It’s a memory.”

“You’ve been outside?” You asked curiously.

“Yes. 56 years ago, for 5 minutes.” He said. “I was 7 when the first of what we call the outsiders appeared. Before that, we thought we were all there was. Imagine our surprise.” 

“We don’t have to imagine,” Clarke replied. 

“My father- this was his office at the time- believed it meant that the earth was survivable again, and so he opened the doors.” He recalled. “Within a week, 54 people were dead from the exposure. My mother and sister among them.”

He turned to put his paint brushes and pallet away, facing the both of you. “Loss… pain, regret. Time eases these things, girls, but the only time it’s ever truly gone is when I’m painting.”

He took off his jacket and placed it on the chair as Clarke looked around. “You didn’t bring us here to talk about painting, did you?”

“I’m afraid I have bad news.” He stopped on the other side of his paint cart. “Our patrols have swept the area and found no evidence of survivors, either at the camp or from the Ark.”

“How can they be sure?” You asked, shaking your head.

“They can’t,” Dante replied. “I’ve ordered them to keep searching.”

“We need to see for ourselves.” Clarke demanded.

“I’m sorry, I can’t allow that.” Dante denied. “I’m doing this for your own good, girls. It’s not safe out there.”

“Radiation has no effect on us. “ Clarke rebutted.

“It’s not the radiation I’m concerned about,” Dante motioned for the guards to come back in. “You need time to grieve. These men will show you to your room.”

“And if we try to leave?” You asked.

“Please don’t test me, girls.” Dante said.

Sighing, you turned and followed after Clarke, who left the room just before you. You tried not to think about the patrols not finding any survivors, but there was nothing you could do but that. The silent walk to the bedroom tore you apart on the inside as your thoughts collected and got worse and worse by the minute.

Soon after you were brought back to the room where the rest of the 48 were sleeping, you were brought back to the dining hall for dinner. Everyone stood at the table and joined hands, you between Clarke and Jasper as everyone said a prayer.

“For the past and the future we serve,” Dante said.

“We give thanks.” The room replied.

“Good health, good food, and good company. And the blessing of new friends.”

“We give thanks.” Everyone sat down to eat, digging into a wonderful beef stew. The thoughts of Bellamy and Finn loomed in the back of your mind, but you pushed it away and focused on talking with Jasper and eating. 

Afterwards, back in the shared room, you sat on a bunk with Harper, who talked about how amazing everything was in here. “They have actually tasteful food, here, Y/n! I mean, the clothes could be a little nicer but I’m not complaining.”

You nodded absentmindedly, and Harper caught on. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I am, it’s just…” You trailed off.

“Bellamy?” 

“Yeah. It’s worrying me that I don’t know where he is, or if he’s even alive, I just-- I need to know if he’s okay.” You ranted. “And these people haven’t found anything yet but I need to go look for myself but they won’t let me.” 

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Harper put a hand on your arm. “He’s Bellamy, the guy can survive anything. You will see him again, Y/n. But for now, we need to get some sleep.”

You smiled at Harper and gave her a hug. “Thanks for that, Harper. I needed it.” 

You got up from her bottom bunk and climbed the ladder to the top one, slipping under the blanket as Harper did. Your hair splayed across the pillow and you tossed and turned, trying to get to sleep. 

“May we meet again,” You whispered into the air, tucking your hand under your cheek and closing your eyes, hoping for the day you reunite with Bellamy to come soon. 

Taglist:  @soullessbabee​ | @hyperion-moonbabe-art3mis​ | @dummythiccwitch​ | @sireddobrev​ | @gxvrielle​ | @hurricane-abigail | @holyhumorliteraturelight

[knight-of-the-thorn]

1 and 2?

I didn't realise exactly how many thoughts I had on these this was super fun

1. How long do you hc the travel time between Divinity’s Reach and Lion’s Arch?

I've thought a lot about this you know, okay so

It takes three in game hours (about 15 minutes real world time) to travel by raptor from Amnoon to the Kodash Bazaar which off the top of my head I think looks to be roughly a similar distance, that's both elon riverlands and then the desolation as well as across the crystal oasis, an unreasonable amount of time that is a lot of ground to cover, so I'm gonna tranlsate those "hours" to one day because that makes a lot more sense, on a very fast raptor absolutely booking it without rest I reckon you could make that trip in two, three, days, but at a more reasonable pace you're looking at between one and two weeks depending on the pace you make, whether you have a mount or cargo. Of course with Asura gates and the waypoint network we can cut that time down to near instananeous but those are taxed to shit so if you've got a lot of Cargo you honestly may as well just make the trek with a couple Dolyak and save yourself the coin.

2. In game the cities are obviously limited in size. What part of a city that is definitely there isn’t shown in game?

Obvious one is that The Grove, Rata Sum, and the Black Cital are a little lax on showing the places that people actually live, and sleep. The Grove and the Black Citadel at least have some indication of what the general living situation is, very communal living like Barracks and the Dreamers Terrace, which is super like, communal with a bunch of different rooms with hammocks. I think there are a lot more structures like that in the grove, kind of like halls of residence where they have seperate rooms and spaces but communal lounges and eating areas, whereas more esteemed or more private Sylvari like Caithe have their own houses. Rata sum I don't think there's any houses in which strikes me as a massive over sight honestly.

Based on what Gorrik says in Bound by Blood we can also assume there's more libraries in Rata Sum, honestly just in general I figure that it has so much more than we see, Not just Labs but places to get supplies, I headcanon that they have a lot of hydroponic farms, self sustaining power plants, it's a floating city so I imagine getting water from ground sources would be a little more difficult, I'm not sure what it would be but the solution is probably pretty creative.

One thing that really gets me for reasons I don't understand is plumbing. By all accounts Kryta has indoor plumbing, and I have evidence and I will fight about this. There are multiple instances of water processing and distributing plants in the game, in Ghosts of Ascalon we learn there are sewers in Ebonhawke, there's toilet paper. Where are the bathrooms? There are no in-game bathrooms look me in the eyes and tell me that's not an OSHA violation.

Not technically a city but I feel like the Eye of the North is also much bigger than we see in game, with a lot of different halls and rooms.

I have more on what I think we aren't seeing in game but these are the big ones!

[allegedlyanauthor]

Ashen Poetry: Chapter 1: Empty

Here’s the first chapter of Ashen Poetry (still only a working title)

CW: for discussions of death and ghosts and brief thoughts of suicide

The world is so empty.

Rather more empty than it was when the older generation were kids. They speak of cities full of people and sound, pushing shoulder to shoulder, walking in chaotic lockstep, each headed their own way. They talk of blue skies, green fields, and white puffy clouds, clean breaths that didn't hurt, and a horizon that stretched forever in all directions. The world was fuller and cleaner back then, though the elders made sure to talk of its decline. It was cleaner but not clean and the air was dirty with the fumes of human life; the price of wealth. Though they may not have been beneficiaries of that destruction, there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t give to go back to that life...they could almost grasp it.

Honestly, Emery couldn’t believe them. They knew there was a Before but it couldn’t have existed in this same place, with its grays and grit; white couldn’t have existed in this smudged world, choked by the colorlessness of its own death throes. Blue was there, but it was always muted, chipped, and the only green they saw was the plants they ate from the hydroponics rooms. If the Before was as colorful as they said, life on the Endeavour would be too depressing to bear--or at least more depressing than it was already.

Emery was ok with grey. 

It was all they knew, from the day they were born on the Endeavour and they suspected it’s walls were all they would see. Their home was a massive cargo ship, long since marooned on a beach by something. Nobody who had lived there was present when it happened and its walls weren’t the story telling type; damage, however, told a violent tale and that was enough. But the bulkheads were sealed against the forever blustering storm outside its walls, and so they were safe from the winds of glass that threatened to strip bare whatever dared defy them. Emery had seen strangers struggle their way to the hatch of the Endeavour, their flesh raw and pitted from the sky’s ash; they rarely lasted after that and, before long, they stopped coming.

It was hard work to keep their home from joining them. Everyone had a job and if you didn’t do it...well everyone made sure to do their job. It meant death otherwise; yours or the community, and everyone knew which to pick. They rarely had to resort to exile. You couldn’t last long without provisions in the Gray and the Endeavour wasn’t about to supply you. The community wasn’t above violence to maintain order but they didn’t relish it...usually.

There were many jobs, each as important and backbreaking as the last; Emery, themself, was an electrician of sorts, kept the ship running and as bright as it could be; there was no natural light, so it was their job to bring some to the world. 

"Our little light bringer," the adults of the ship would say when they apprenticed with the master electrician before he was exiled a few years later for a murder or two….and an attempted dozen in an uprising against the system. He was a bad man but a good teacher and Emery took over his position immediately at the young age of 17, nobody else qualified to take it from them. Despite their job's importance, many looked at them with suspension; how could they have not known what Morey was planning? Could they not hear the whispers of revolt in his teachings?

No, they could not, but that didn't stop everyone from blaming them for the deaths; now that the culprits were sent out to die in the Gray, they had nobody to vent their hatred at. And so they turned to Emery and raised a wall. No longer were they the Little Light Bringer. But they never got a new title other than Head Electrician because the community never thought of them again; they did their job like always and spent their time ignored.

At first the whispers and stares bothered them, but the silence and flicking gazes bothered them more. When they were perceived as a threat, then they at least existed to the people of the Endeavour, but now, they might as well be a ghost; a wisp of movement at the corner of a consciousness and nothing more. After all, a ghost can't hurt anyone.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Of course a few of them saw Emery and paid them some mind–made sure they survived their years of abandonment–but they were few and far between. Old Miss Missy, the lead cook, was Emery's most vocal advocate, but most thought her crazy, with her talk of spirits and afterlives. But she cooked fine and they loved her stories of the Before, so they looked the other way on her ramblings. Charlie Mitchells was another but he had lost his voice to the haze years before and nobody bothered to try and hear him now; his hands often too busy to write while keeping the wind turbines that stole his agency running.

All in all, Emery kept their head down, ready for the noose that settled around their neck when they were at the cusp of adulthood to tighten and choke them as sure as the blanketed Earth would. They worked their fingers to the bones for a people who ignored their existence to the best of their abilities, safe for the moment from their stalled wrath. The Endeavour knew they couldn't get rid of Emery, not yet anyway. But that was their own damn fault for not training a new electrician to replace the tainted legacy that currently held the position; no parent wanted their child near associated guilt. 

Emery thought of walking away from it all, tightening the noose themself and wandering out into the Gray; in their mind, they didn't even close the front door against the wind. They always came back to the present shaking, remembering Miss Missy and Charlie, as well as all the children they would leave in the dark; killing themselves would spite the innocent too. So they resigned themselves to a tense life full of violent silence, flicking wires, and small kindnesses.

"Dinner will be ready soon, deary," said one such kindness in a sweet warbly voice, age tight in every word, "I know you're always in a rush out of here but we've got a few new faces these days, so the extra takes time to make."

"I'm sorry for bothering you, Missy," Emery said, their voice a little sheepish, "I'll check back later."

"Oh I don't mind!" Miss Missy cackled, clanging her large metal ladle on the pot she was stirring, "if I did, this lot would have driven me bonkers decades ago!"

The Lot behind her had flinched at the loud ring of metal on metal and looked like they had a lot to say about Missy's bonkerness but noticed her companion and turned back to their cook stations. 

Emery's mouth twitched into a small frown and ignored them as well, but Missy always saw too much.

"Tsk tsk, unbelievable, all of you," she shook her head, going back to her soup stirring, its looping steam fogging up her cracked glasses and filling the air with the smell of fresh vegetables and stale spices, "you shouldn't pay them any mind either; better for your sanity that way."

"I'll…" Emery's eyes flickered to the aggressively ambivalent room and shrugged, "I'll keep that in...mind, Missy."

They made a face and left as Missy cackled at their mostly unintentional joke, feeling eyes on their back. The humid scents of the kitchen gave way to the dry stagnancy of the rest of the ship. Whispers followed Emery as they wove their way through the cafeteria, debating if it was even worth it to come back for dinner tonight. They usually concluded it wasn't, but they had missed last night….and the night before.

A small body knocked into their hip from behind, a small grey blur of a girl ran down the corridor around the corner without looking back. It was Aisling, one of the children of the ship. Nobody knew who her parents were but nobody really cared either; if you did your job, nobody looked at you twice–it's how they have survived for so long–and Emery couldn't think of a time anyone had given her a single glance.

Turning to see what she was running from, Emery came face to face with Lars, the Overseer's lacky; they always said he was security but he really just broke anyone who said anything against the Overseer. He and Emery were close in age and it was almost refreshing to them to know that growing up didn't change everyone; Lars was always a bully.

"Hey reject," Emery could already tell this was going to be a constructive conversation, "did you see who took my rifle?" 

They rolled their eyes, "I didn't, Lars," they said, fake concern rolling off their tongue before they could stop it, "did you try your back pocket?"

As much as they tried to not bring uncalled attention to themself, watching him grab at his ass to check his pocket almost made what happened next worth it. Almost. Lars grabbed their collar next and slammed them into the wall; Emery couldn't tell if the metal was ringing more or their head.

"You think you're funny, reject?" Lars growled into their face, his teeth close enough he seemed like he was going to bite them.

Emery grabbed at his wrist and weezed, "very much so." 

Funnily enough, that didn't make him let go. Instead Lars ground his knuckles into Emery's neck, obviously trying to leave a bruise, "maybe I'll tell everyone you stole it and finally have an excuse to send your sorry ass to the Grey."

An almost feral grin made its way onto Emery's lips, "if you want to be the reason the lights turn off around here, be my guest," their hand pulled at the rough hand at their collar as they used their only weapon; their words, "but I remember you crying during the blackouts of our childhood. How's your fear of the dark these days, Larry?"

Lars's eyes went wide then narrowed and Emery knew they had won that round. The brute of a man growled as he shoved Emery's head against the wall once more and turned to stalk down the hall without another word.

Taking a moment to breathe and clear their head, Emery looked down the hall that Aisling had run down. Shaking the last of the ringing from their ears, they jogged after her, curiosity overriding their concern.

After all, why would a kid need a rifle?

Emery found Aisling at an open door to the outside, one that sat dozens of feet off the bank, the air bone dry and uncomfortably warm. The ash from outside leaked through the hatch in thin strands that smelled of a house fire and burning meat; not enough that it would poison the whole ship but it was still dangerous without a mask to filter out the gas and grit.

Something they noticed Aisling didn't have with her.

"You wanna die?" Emery let exasperation cover their anxiety about being so close to the outside, "That shit will cake your insides, leave you gasping."

"I'd rather die with a lung full of my own air;" the girl didn't even turn to face them, her dark eyes trained on the gray swirls that masked the horizon, "filled with ash like my name and not the dying breaths of others who waste them."

Emery sighed, rubbing the nap of their neck, "why'd I have to get stuck with the poetic one?" Their words were fondly irritated, knowing what they were going to get themselves into when they followed after her. They noticed the gun was nowhere in sight.

Aisling gave the adult a sad, crooked grin; one filled with more apology and missing front teeth than mirth, "Poetry," her tone, too, was sheepish, "That is also in my name." 

She got a soft smile in return as Emery came up to the doorway she sat at, wary of the smog that seeped into their home but determined to comfort this girl; they would be fine without a mask for a bit.

An idea sparked in their mind.

"Well, guess I gotta speak your language to get through to ya, huh?" They said as they settled down beside her and waved a hand out at the hazy gray devastation, "see all that?" Emery started after a moment of thought, "that air belongs to the dead. They fill it with their bodies and their stench, claiming it as their own." Emery grabbed Aisling's shoulder gently when she didn't reply, her eyes entranced by the shifting waves of the atmosphere, "They don't want you to join them, both out of pity and spite; death doesn't like to share what it has taken nor does it like to take more than it should."

"It's taken more than its fill," the girl's voice was empty of emotion, just stating fact. And Emery nodded, knowing she was right.

"Yes it has. Don't add to it." Emery had seen far too many join those numbers; both on accident and by design, other's or their own, "Back inside, those are dying breaths cause the ones that used them are still living, still taking them. They're waiting for us…" yeah right, they thought, "as is dinner..." They shifted as if to stand but Aisling's quiet voice stopped them, her eyes still locked somewhere out of sight, beyond the horizon.

"I can see them, you know."

"Who?" Emery squinted in a random direction trying–and failing–to see what those dark eyes saw, "Is someone out there in the ash?" They sighed internally; the ship was not ready for a rescue mission.

"No–" Aisling's voice cut through their thoughts, "well yes, but not in the way you think." Emery shifted uncomfortably as she continued, her casually morose tone setting them on edge, "you say death doesn't share what it has taken…" she took a steadying breath, as if to ready herself for a difficult task. Her hard exhale danced through the ash, more carefree than either had ever felt in their lifetime; causing eddies and spirals before the wind picked up again and erased any trace, "but it does with me."  

A shiver ran down Emery's spine and they knew they would probably regret asking, but they did anyway, "How so?"

"I can see them–" Aisling said again before her head tipped to the side in thought, "or what's left of them, I guess. I suppose they are ghosts, like Old Missy says in her stories, but that doesn't quite feel right."

The air in front of them was vacant beside the ever present choking ash–filling their lungs with each breath and slowly smothering them–and yet Emery believed the girl. There always felt like there was more in the air than just soot and death; so many died when the ruptures began, there were probably plenty of ghosts. Miss Missy muttered prayers under her breaths and taught the youths rituals to keep the spirits at bay. Emery usually ignored her insistence, instead throwing themselves into their work, but there was always a whisper at the back of their mind–and in the empty corners of their home–that made them wonder. And Ashe was never one for lying; she was honest to a fault, much to the chagrin of everyone who didn't want their ego knocked down a peg...though Emery always enjoyed watching her talk down to much older and bigger adults. Nobody ever seemed to know what to do with her. There was always the possibility that it was all the girl's imagination but, while Aisling's words were flowery and her gaze always seemed miles or years away, she was very grounded for a ten year old; flights of fancy just weren't her thing.

I suppose the world is interesting enough as is… they thought as they listened to their home creak and groan against the wind, living through what we have, ghosts aren't truly That weird.

Emery resigned themself to an odd conversation, knowing Ashe wouldn't budge till her thoughts had been said, "Can….can they see you?"

They chose and said their words carefully, as if the words themselves and their answers would bite if given the chance. Who knows….maybe they could.

"Some can." Aisling's words were always mindful and unhurried; thought was put into them and you would just have to wait till she was done thinking cause she wasn't going to rush herself, "Some are more….aware than others. Some talk to me or each other–many don't act like life is," she waved a hand at the hazy air, "but some know what's going on. Most, though, meander about as if the world is empty except for them." Aisling's eyes drop to the ground as her voice became a whisper, "...some cry."

The girl shrunk in on herself as a quick wind picked up, sending long dead cinders scattering across the path. It wasn't cold–quite the opposite; the very air itself stuck to Emery's skin with sweat–and there was something to Aisling's movements that concerned them. Looking between the girl and the apparently not so empty space before them, Emery wondered what they could do to help.

There was a long moment of silence before they spoke again, "Do they scare you?"

Do what you always do, they thought to themself, assess, consider, react. It's gotten you this far in life.

Aisling immediately shook her head no but stopped herself with a thoughtful look on her face. It took a few tense moments of thought but eventually she said, in a very small voice, "most don't but some are…" her eyes shadowed, "more….or maybe less? Something in them is hollow or shattered. I don't know how to explain it."

To see Aisling, the girl who could out talk the world, not have the words for something told Emery how horrible the sight must be and a sensation similar to dread settled in their bones like a lead weight dropped into a sea. They had never accepted something as fact as quickly as Aisling's ghosts and it worried them.

"Are they a danger to us? To you?" Emery somehow kept their voice steady as they tried to pick out the monsters this girl saw amongst the gray and browns of their world, visibility down to 50 ft in all directions for now. They knew it was their imagination that spotted shapes in the ashen mist, but that didn't pacify their worry. They couldn't fight what they couldn't perceive–hell they didn't know if they could fight these things at all–but they could get info.

With a shrug and a sigh, Aisling subconsciously leaned towards Emery, as if her mind just wanted to hide, "I don't know. Some of the more aware Shadows can interact with the environment but most just drift. And all the Hallows I've seen haven't been….There." Aisling's next words were into her knees as she drew them up in front of herself and hugged them to her front, "sometimes they look in my direction on accident and it's horrible; like I can hear their torment, the fire that burned their minds. They feel dangerous, but I have no proof."

It broke Emery's heart to see such a small girl try and tuck herself even smaller in fear of this threat that only she could see. They hesitantly lifted their arm as she leaned further, falling softly against their side, bringing it down to circle her thin shoulders. They had never experienced any parental instincts in their 26 years of life but they could probably figure out how to comfort a scared child. After all, they once were one, not that long ago.

"I can't see them…" they started, unsure, but they took a deep, burnt breath and continued, "but I will protect you however I can, all right?"

"Why would you?" Dark eyes finally turned from the outside ash to look at them, wide with a peculiar astonishment–as if she truly wondered why someone would care–and Emery was reminded of how everyone seemed to avoid this girl with her chilling poetic words and biting honesty; had nobody truly tried to care for her beyond food and shelter? "What if you can't?"

How had Emery not noticed? A girl not quite thrown aside but forgotten, ignored, by everyone...and they had let it happen. Everyone had let it happen. Anger at the people they both called a community and, moreover, with themself, filled their veins, warming them in the already hot air. Then and there, Emery made a silent vow in their mind before making it to the girl herself with a determined nod, answering both questions at once.

"Because I can and I will."

Aisling's face told Emery she didn't believe them but she smiled nonetheless, for once looking as young as she truly was, gap toothed and all, before the two of them looked back over her ghosts; one set of eyes darting between them and the other unseeing but now aware. 

Focused on what they couldn't see, Emery was not ready for the rest of the conversation.

"I stole a gun."

They had honestly forgotten why they followed her in the first place. Emery knew Aisling had taken it–they had the bruise from Lars to prove it–but it was said with such a casual tone that they choked on their next breath. After coughing to try and clear it–which was difficult with the ash in the air–they turned to the girl.

"Why the fuck would you do that?" Emery struggled to keep their voice down–the ship was only so big and sound traveled–and they glanced over their shoulder for security, "if Lars finds out, he'll throw you off the top of Endeavour, and he's not going to wait for a council."

Aisling blinked at them, "I didn't feel safe with him having it."

Emery opened their mouth to argue but found they couldn't really–Aisling had a very valid point–so they just sighed, "did you at least hide it well? Or throw it off the ship?"

"Of course."

The girl didn't offer up which question she was answering and Emery didn't ask.

They did, however, shake their head in exasperation, "please, promise me you won't do anything like that again."

Their answer was a grin that didn't make them less paranoid but they accepted it anyway. The two of them sat watching the Grey roil for a moment longer before Emery nudged Aisling.

"We really do have to get back inside; this ash isn't healthy to breathe." A moist gurgle cut across the air and Emery looked at their stomach accusingly, "And dinner's nearly ready, I'm sure."

"Oh," Aisling sounded unsure, her breath wavering, "I suppose...yes, we should go back in."

They could see fear creep into her eyes. The fear of continued loneliness–of having experienced compassion and losing it once more–and it tore them apart; nobody should feel that at the mere mention of dinner…

Or ever. 

As casually as they could–not wanting to let Aisling think they were pitying her–Emery stood and stretched, working out the kinks in their back from sitting on the hard, rusted metal floor for who knows how long; a long time, if their spine had anything to say. With a satisfied sigh, they reached out a hand to the much smaller girl, who hadn't made a move to get up yet, "Come on, let's go grab us a table before they all fill up."

"Together?" Was their small reply as an even smaller hand placed itself in theirs.

It was far too easy to pull Aisling to her feet–Emery was strong and she was young but it was obvious that no one had cared to make sure Aisling was eating enough–and much harder to close the bulkhead door against the darkening gray wind. But eventually both were accomplished, with only a moderate amount of dirt, ash, and grease mucking up their hands.

Wiping their hands off on their already grubby coveralls, Emery grinned down at the girl, "of course! You have to tell me more about your….Shadows?" At Aisling's nod, they pushed on, beginning to lead the way back down the dark corridor, "I'm interested in learning more…if you're willing to talk about them, that is."

The genuine gratitude that filled Aisling's eyes was almost too much to bear and Emery fought the urge to look away from her intense stare as they felt their cheeks warm at the concentrated attention. A smile leaked onto their lips as she began to talk–less in poetic stanzas and in more of a childlike ramble than normal–and Emery wondered when the last time anyone allowed her to just…gush was. They didn't know children all that well–other than their own experiences as one–but they knew that nobody did well being ignored all the time.

The two of them were late for dinner and thus couldn't find a table, but they squirreled away some food that Missy had set aside for them. The old woman grinned at the two misfits as they took their slightly cold trays and found a spot alone on the abandoned stairs to the deck above; nobody went up there unless they really had to these days. Emery let Aisling talk about whatever she wanted to for the rest of their meal.

"And then one time there was this dog!" Was said with a wildly waving, as if it was the most exciting story...maybe to her it was, "I think it was a dog….I've never seen one before–an alive one that is–but old Missy likes to talk about her animals from Before and I think that was what that was. It was fluffy, whatever it was…anyway–" 

Nobody bothered the two of them for a long time; both alone in this crowded ship, but together now, bound by a secret–a ghost story really–and Emery vowed to themself that they wouldn't leave this overly intelligent but odd child to be ignored ever again.

They would rather die than abandon anyone like they were.

And the world took that as a challenge.

[alarawriting]

Writeober 2020 #23: Space

Through the polarized faceplate of her suit, the sun was a round, sharply edged disk of brilliance, sitting low to the horizon, surrounded by a black sky.  The polarization blocked the stars if she looked sunward, but nightward, once she let the plate adjust, she could see the earthshine of the half-planet hovering ghostly on the horizon.  The solar plates were a forest of bright mirrors around her, glittering only slightly less brightly than they had a week ago at high noon.

“Lavonne, you moving on to Serenity this week?”

Serenity.  She smiled bitterly to herself.  She stood now in the Sea of Crisis, Mare Crisium, and she didn’t know when she’d be moving on to Serenity again. At least she hadn’t been working at Fecundity this moonday – the irony would have been a little over the top. “No, I’m seeing Mal.  Gonna help bring the water trucks in and then it’s my days off.”

The com in her suit had lousy sound quality, and it was audio only, but she still thought she could hear Jenia’s grin.  “Oh, yeah, I forgot.  He’s coming in this run, isn’t he?”

“Comes in every other night. One month out, one month back.”

“Girl, you should get you a man on a short-hauler.  Or a Loonie boy right here.  I tell you, I couldn’t deal with my man being gone two months at a time.”

“It’s good money.  And he’s just going out to the ‘roids, it’s not like he’s on a Saturn hauler or something.”

“Uh-uh.  Not for me.”

“Well, good, ‘cause I wasn’t planning to share.”

Jenia laughed.  “You make sure he takes you somewhere nice with all that good money, then.”

“Nearest fine restaurant’s in Tranquility.  I only got him for three spins, I’d rather eat in the commissary or my apartment and stay in, if you get me.”

More laughter.  “Well, you have a good time whatever way you want it, then.”  A faint beep. “Got shutdowns to do.  I’ll talk to you later, girlfriend.”

“Later.”  Maybe much, much later. She wasn’t saying anything yet, not until she talked to Mal, but this was not going to be a funtime, playing around kind of visit.  Her career on the Moon was probably over, and what happened next depended on what kind of man Mal really was.

***

By two earthdays later, night had fallen.  Most of the crew had moved on with the sun, to Serenity or Tranquility or one of the farther maria like Imbrium.  Lavonne had stayed behind as part of the unloading crew to help the truckers unload their cargo.  It was a legitimate job, part of her regular assignments, but she’d gotten herself assigned to it because of her year-long romance with a trucker.  

Nighttime on the Moon was when the majority of the trucks came in.  Short-haulers came in from Earth with holds full of liquid nitrogen, hydroponic fertilizer, or trade goods, and needed to be loaded up with the fuel cells the solar arrays were here to manufacture.  Medium-haulers came in from Mars or the asteroid belt with water ice or metals from the mines out there.  The water ice, in particular, was vital to the operations here; the solar arrays electrolyzed it into hydrogen for the fuel cells and oxygen for breathing mixes.  Long-haulers came in from Saturn or farther with methane ice, more valuable than water ice because it packed tighter and generated more hydrogen per molecule, but less common in the asteroid belt and a lot more volatile.  Lavonne worked with the medium-haulers, unloading the water ice into the bays where it would be melted and readied to be electrolyzed next lunar sunrise.  When the time rolled around that she expected Mal to be coming in, she took a break from the ice bays and went directly to the cargo hangar.

Malachi Lazaroff was a tall, skinny guy with the oddly elongated limbs of the spaceborn.  In fact, for spaceborn he was short, just under two meters.  He had shaggy black hair in a perpetual mess and skin that might be nicely tanned if it ever went near sunlight, but instead was pasty pale with a grayish tinge to it. He had thick implanted contacts that made his big brown eyes look bigger than they really were, and he moved in Moon gee with the economical fluidity of a man who’d never kicked a ball on Earth. “Lavonne!”  He jumped down from the edge of his truck’s hold and reached her in three steps, grabbing her in a big hug.  “I am so glad to see you, honey, you have no idea!”

They were in the hangar, under pressurization – the ice could theoretically be unloaded topside, since it was night, but iceteroids were jagged and could rip a spacesuit, so truckers and loaders both preferred to bring the trucks all the way into the hangar when they’d fit.  So Mal could afford to be a little exuberant, but Lavonne wasn’t in the mood.  She extricated herself as soon as she could. “What’s wrong, Vonne?”

“Nothing,” Lavonne said, which wasn’t true, and “It’s been a bad month, that’s all, and I’m all tense,” which was.  “Looks like you got most of your haul unloaded already?”

“Yeah, I got in half an hour early.  Some other guy took a hit and got delayed, so I got his window.”

“A hit?  He okay, you know?”

“The way I heard it, he lost half his air when a microid punched a hole in his hull, and he had to detour to Little Mars to resupply after he patched it, but yeah, he’s okay.   He’s just not going to make it to Crisis with his haul; he’ll probably have to come in at Imbrium or maybe even darkside.”

When things went right, travel in space went like clockwork.  You could predict to the minute when a medium-hauler currently leaving the asteroid belt with a cargo of iceteroids would reach Luna, and where it would come in, if you knew the weight of the cargo and the exact position of the truck. The iceteroid haulers who supplied HydroGenius’ fuel cell manufacturing operations would try to come in as close to nightfall as they could.  Iceteroids couldn’t be brought in sunside, or the heat would sublimate them in the cargo holds, and the pressure of 200 metric tons of ice turning to steam had been known to blow ships apart.  But they needed to be in place, in water form, ready to be electrolyzed, when day broke again and the solar panels started back up.  This meant that the best time to bring in a cargo was within a spin or two – a day on Earth -- after lunar night fell, when the biggest hauls still had time to be processed before daybreak.  The big rigs were assigned timeslots and locations based on their cargo size, and if everything went right there would be no deviation.

Usually, things going wrong meant someone had ended up dead.  The hauler whose slot Mal took had been lucky, Lavonne thought.  Trucks could survive a hit from a micro if the trucker was fast enough to patch the damage before he lost too much air. Miniteroids and anything larger hitting a truck would usually blow it to bits.

“So you’re nearly done, here.”

“Looks like it,” he agreed. “You want to go to dinner?”

Lavonne made a face. “Commissary food ain’t shit.  I’ve got a kitchen unit in my apartment; why don’t I cook us up some spaghetti?”

“Sounds good. I love your spaghetti.”

***

She was putting this conversation off.

The kitchen was too small for two people to work, but Mal helped by chopping tomatoes and peppers for her in the tiny dining area. Chopping vegetables under luna-g was a skill in itself. It was too easy to do the work; an Earther’s arm would be too light. A recipe for accidentally chopping off your own finger because force you were used to using on Earth was too strong on the moon, and with greater strength and speed came less accuracy. Spaceborn like Mal were much better at it.

In theory, lunarborn would be even better, but there were no lunarborn. A tangled mess of international law prevented the Moon from either being under the control of any one nation, or under its own control, so there were nothing but company towns up here. And in a company town, you worked, and you went back to Earth if you couldn’t.

Spaceborn couldn’t return to Earth – the gravity would be too much for their hearts – but for them, it wasn’t returning. People born on the stations and outposts and ships had never seen Earth, and a generation after space travel had solved Earth’s energy problems, neither had most of their parents. People who lived on the Moon didn’t live here. Their legal homes were back on Earth. There were no facilities here for children or people too sick or disabled to work; if you got hurt or sick and you couldn’t work, you got shipped back to Earth. It was your home. The Moon was just a job site.

Except that if you’d been working on the Moon for five years or more, the Moon wasn’t just a job site. It was where all your recent work experience was, too. People returning to Earth because they’d quit the job couldn’t get new ones nearly as well-paid, and on Earth, you didn’t get a free place to live as part of most people’s employment… and you were competing with truckers and haulers and technicians who weren’t exhausted by the return to earth-g. No one Lavonne knew who’d left the Moon had a decent standard of living, now.

She got the sauce with its spices, the fake hamburger, and the tomatoes and peppers into pressure cooker 1, and took the spaghetti, nicely boiled, out of pressure cooker 2. “Just waiting for the sauce,” she said.

Lavonne could start talking about this. She could tell Mal the choice she faced, see what he was willing to do to help, see if there was any solution he could think of beyond the paths she’d thought up, paths she didn’t want to take. But she didn’t want to have to interrupt herself when the sauce came up. Also, she wanted to put this off as much as she wanted to have it behind her.

Mal filled in the gaps, telling her about his last run, the methane iceteroid he almost managed to catch, gossip about his spaceborn friends and family. She’d never met any of them, but he talked about them so often, it was like they lived next door. “…and Noah’s having his bar mitzvah month after next, so I was thinking, maybe you could take some vacation days and come out to Mars Station with me, meet my family? I’ve told them all about you and they’re dying to meet you.”

Lavonne was brought up short by the sudden question. Normally when Mal rambled, she didn’t need to listen too hard, and she certainly didn’t need to answer. Last month her answer would have been “yes”, and if she had a choice it would still be “yes”, but she had yet to talk to him. “That’s, uh. That’s lovely. I mean, I’d love to, if things work out.”

The sauce was ready, thank God. She ladled generous amounts onto the two bowls of spaghetti, and walked carefully, almost shuffling but with long strides, around the side of the counter to the tiny dining area. In a hangar, she could walk normally, but in her tiny apartment, with two bowls of spaghetti in her hands, that was asking for trouble. Keep the feet mostly on the ground, that was the way to not go flying.

“What do you mean, if things work out? Is – Are we having a problem? I didn’t think we were having a problem, I thought everything was going okay…”

“It’s not a you and me problem… well, it is, but not in our relationship… well, it kind of is about our relationship, but it isn’t… oh, fuck it. I’m pregnant, Mal.”

Mal broke into a broad smile. “That’s wonderful!” And then he read her face. “Or… it’s not. You… I guess we’ve never had the kids talk, have we? You don’t want kids?”

Lavonne sat down, as heavily as luna-g would let her. “Mal. You’re spaceborn. You’ve got no folks back on Earth. If you and I went off to Mars Station to live together with a kid, there’s no downside to you. But I’m Earther. I got Earth family, and if I have a kid on Mars Station, that kid’s never gonna see his gramma, his aunties, his uncle, he’s never gonna meet his cousins… I’ve got a big family, too. I love ‘em, too. I don’t want to cut a kid off from his heritage.”

“But I can’t go to Earth,” Mal said, nodding slowly. “Well… I feel like that’s a thing we could solve, I mean, people on Mars Station have kids with people on Lagrange 2 have kids with people on Phobos Outpost, and you just shuttle around between the two families. Isn’t it like that on Earth?”

“If both families are on Earth, sure. But…” She took a deep breath. “If I quit my job to go back Earthside, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to get it back again any time soon. And you can’t take a baby into space. I’d be stuck down there, without you, until the kid is three… and without my job, I don’t know how I’d afford to get back up into space. You know, down there, you don’t get to just shuttle around the solar system. You’re rich as hell, or you work for one of the lunar corps or a space corp, or you have a government grant, or you’re in NASA or one of the other national space agencies… and if none of that’s true, you’re gonna spend your whole life down there. Maybe you can afford one tourist vacation, in your lifetime, if you scrimp and save for it.”

“Ah, shit.” Mal sighed. “Okay. I’m seeing the dilemma.”

He didn’t ask why she was pregnant. The laws that restricted human behavior on the Moon were heavily influenced by a number of very conservative governments. Birth control couldn’t be shipped to the Moon. Lavonne had been sourcing her birth control from a black market network that came in from the spaceborn, but the supply sometimes dried up for exactly the wrong few weeks. They’d used condoms, the only form of birth control you could get on the Moon, but in luna-g they worked really, really badly.

“So. I go down for a medical procedure and I get rid of it – and you know if I take a flight down to Sweden or something, they’re gonna know something’s up – or, we have to decide which side of the kid’s family he’ll lose out on ever getting to meet. And if we leave out space, you, his dad, you won’t be able to be with him until he’s grown up enough to get his own moon job. But if we leave out Earth, he’ll be cut off from it forever.” It was also company policy that employees who could get pregnant could not get abortions, and doing so would be justified grounds for dismissal. The company wouldn’t be able to tell she was going down for that reason – but if she went home to the United States, she couldn’t get one without being rich, and if she went from there to Europe that would kill a good bit of her savings, but if she went directly down to the countries where it was legal, the company did know where her family lived, and that it wasn’t Europe. And because the company provided all the medical care up here, if they had good reason to suspect her, they could pull her medical records from Earth.

“That… is a really shitty choice to have to make,” Mal said. “I’m sorry. They should let people form a colony on the Moon. This whole ‘you can’t really live here, you can’t have kids on the moon’ thing is bullshit.”

“Tell me about it.”

He shook his head. “I know… I know my folks would be crushed if I had a kid and they couldn’t see him. But I’m guessing yours would too.”

The Jewish families in space were tight-knit, with a strong focus on families, because all over Earth the Jewish diaspora was like that, after generations of pogroms and antisemitic violence. The Black families in the United States were the same way, after hundreds of years of overpolicing and perverse incentives had destroyed the connection between Black men and the rest of their families, over so many generations. Both Mal’s parents and Lavonne’s would see the loss of a grandchild to a place they could never go as heartbreaking.

“Yeah,” Lavonne said. “I just don’t know what to do.”

[thegrowdeport]

The Grow Depot

[bestweedbrands-blog]

The 5 tools all cannabis growers require

Any serious grower has a range of tools to track and tend to his or her crops every day. If you are thinking of going from an interested farmer into a master grower, there are certain resources that are important for the growth of the plant and use them every day to make sure that the next (or first) crop is good and plentiful. See this list of tips below for opportunities to help you develop with the fastest.

Meter of PH

There are many ways to quantify the pH of the nutrient solution with reliable, but easy-to-use pH meters. You should buy a litmus fluid vial to test the PH. Just take a sample of the solution of nutrients and add a few drops into the vial. Since shaking the nutrient solution thoroughly, the hue improves. Compare this color with the pH of the included gauge.

A more cost-effective approach is to buy a pH meter recommended if more than one crop is grown. It is easy to use and can be found in every hydroponic supply shop. Fast-growing leafy plants typically vary from 5.2 to 5.9 like a lower PH.

Meter PPM

Nutrient solution concentration in parts per million (PPM) is measured. This important method is used every day to track and mix the nutrient solution and ensure that nutrient shortages are not present. New, proven seedlings or rooted clones typically begin at 500 to 600 PPM. During the peak leaf growth time, this value is raised to 800 to 900 PPM. The PPM is elevated to 1000 to 1200 ppm during the flowering season. That's a lot of food. Nutrient. And it is important – any decline. It is at the time of flowering when the plant requires the most energy. Read how you will find gorilla glue near me.

Timer 24 hours

A lighting period must be religiously adhered to in order to have a good harvest. It is usually a period of 18 hours with light and six hours without it. This is achieved by an electronic timer. It is necessary to have an arrangement that makes the night cycle dark. It is advised that you should not even go in the space in which you are grown to monitor your night cycle.

Land Fault Breaker Circuit

Because a high energy light would undoubtedly lurk above the bath, the last thing you want is a potent nutrient solution. The ground wire will push the breaker if the solution of the nutrient is energized if you use a breaker. If the calamity that is a fallen light on the crop happens, the breaker of the earth fault is necessary.

The Patient

Each grower was tempted to pinch an immature bug for a taste test. This move would interrupt the bud 's development in the local area. It's a massive no-no. Use discretion while watching the buds grow fatter. By pinching it, know a mature bud. It is a safe bet that the plant is primed for harvest if it does not bounce back. If it bounces up, then in a couple of days try pinching on a new bud.

[grumpyoldsnake]

[Image description: A tall stooped alien with rose-like thorns on his back [left] talks with a thin white human (right) near a hydroponic growing rack. End ID.]

An experimental piece from a while back! Azi (left) and Piper (right) working together in one of the Spire’s active hydroponics rooms.

Piper is the supply manager for the hydroponics facilities, and works directly with the plants as time allows. Azi volunteers his time as a worker in most of the horticultural areas, including both the hydroponics and the earthen installations. (Piper prefers the avoidance of pronouns, but is passably comfortable with ze/zem/zir.)

~o0o~

Azi’s redesign could use some more work, I think, I’m really not happy with some aspects of this one. And I experimented with a new shading method and a line-less style for this piece, and didn’t like the results at all. xD I was much happier with my later efforts with Oscar. I’m thinking soft-shading is maybe not for me.

But! This is still a finished illustration that lets me talk about the Spire a bit, so I’m happy on that front! :)

[rfagriculture]

Hydroponic Supplies Los Angeles

Hydroponic Supplies Los Angeles

Wholesale AG Hydroponic Supplies Store in Los Angeles,CA-

Looking for a wholesale hydroponic supply store in Los Angeles, CA? Look no further! RF Agriculture is an international commercial and industrial grow supply, products, equipment, and system distributor that is based in Los Angeles.

Commercial and industrial growers, greenhouse operators, CEA facility owners, farmers, and hydroponic…

[giantco2-blog]

Services Offered By Beverage Gas Supplier

Searching for beverage gas supplier? It’s not an easy task as there are so many sites and agency out there. While selecting one, a business or individual has to go through many things. Even if you find a supplier of your choice, he might not be offering the service that you are looking for. So what will you do in that case? You have to again search in detail, focusing on your particular need. Luckily, there are many suppliers offering a variety of services. From Co2 Refill Long Beach to hydro-tasting, you can get it all from a professional beverage supplier. Let’s explore the type of services offered by them in detail.

CO2 Gas

Looking for ‘Co2 Tank Rental Near Me’ on the internet? You will find plenty of websites offering the services but you have to be smart enough to choose the right one. A professional beverage gas supplier will have hydrostatic-tested and certified tanks. Being in service for many years earns them a good clientele including restaurants, bars, corporate offices, sports centers, hydroponic growers, and home brewers. They will have educated employees and responsive to meet different needs. If they have all these things, then you must contact them as it will be a surety that your requirements will be well taken care of. 

Nitrogen Gas

A well established and professional beverage gas supplier company will be able to meet your array of needs, Compressed Nitrogen Tank being one of them. You can contact them for a free site assessment where the skilled professionals will determine nitrogen gas needs, where the tanks should be stored, how to access the tanks in the most efficient way, and whether or not you should keep backup tanks. You will be then offered a wide range of gas tank sizes that can be replaced according to your suitability. 

Beer Gas

Whether your needs are residential or commercial, for gas services always trust the professionals. For careful handling and to get the ratio of gases correct, each mixture is prepared on site by experienced and highly trained team members. Even the drivers carrying Newport Gas Refill possesses a hazardous material commercial driver’s license. So, you can be certain that you and your business are completely in safe hands.  

Tank Refills

Apart from supplying beverage gases, a professional company also offers tank refill services to their clients. From 2.5 lbs to 50 lbs, the tank size won’t be an issue as long as you are personally owned. The professionals make sure that the process is easy and convenient for you. But things are not done by them for the sake of it. To ensure proper safety, first they check the cylinder and then the hydro-test date on the neck of the tank.

More Foe Info : -  Beer Keg Co2 Tank Refill

[patsythegreaser]

26th Nov., 2287

I led us along the tracks outside of Boston & found myself back at the railway bridge, probably the safest route across. Cloudy skies made lights ahead stand out, those of a large greenhouse. It was a functional hydroponics facility ran by Mr. Handy units, three with customized programming. This was Graygarden, I heard about it before the bombs, a RobCo project led by Dr. Gray himself. This place could end hunger in the New England Commonwealth, if not for issues with the water supply.

At Lexington we saw something strange, even for this place. On a bench at the bus station sat an old lady, dressed in a flowery dress & fancy shoes & just a cane in her hands, waiting for a bus in the rain. She stood up & started walking to the next stop.

My Pip-Boy sparked to life as we approached Charlestown, picking up a radio message. It was the same one I'd found near Boston Public Garden when looking for Nick. I assumed the source must be nearby & I was soon proven correct.

I spotted at least two sources of sparking electronics & several thin pillars of black smoke could be seen despite the sun having set. The area was littered with metallic scrap & robotic parts. At an otherwise deserted campsite we found Ada, a heavily customized Assaultron. This robot was all that remained after repeated ambushes to the caravan, one specializing in robotics. Ada informed us about this "The Mechanist"-character & their robots attacking both Raiders & settlers alike in the name of restoring order.

The blue assaultron presented its new objective, to locate & stop the source of the aggressive robots, and asked for support. In return Ada would share schematics of a workbench made specific for robotic augmentation. I suggested Ada to come with us to the nearest settlement.

It took us almost 3 days to reach the North End from Fenway. We came around a bend in the river & there it was. The incredibly massive airship had come to a halt further east. I estimated it was located somewhere near Nahant. My thoughts race at trying to figure out how its kept in the air.

We had spotted the airship whilst inspecting a barge used as military transport. On it were decrepit tanks: containers & I even found pieces of a T-51 that I were missing.

Reaching Nahant from North End would've meant at least another day on foot but the incomplete seal left after Kellogg's bullet excluded walking across the mouth of the river. Backtracking through Charlestown to then head towards Nahant would take even longer. Det. Valentine convinced me that we might as well make the short trip to Goodneighbor, to rest & for me to stock up on safe rations.

There were several neon signs leading up to Goodneighbor & they made me uneasy as I came to think of the other creepy joints I've found by similar signs.

Patrick Donahue, Survivor

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Whispers

Summary: A few months after their arrival on Destiny, Dr Belle French has fallen pregnant. There are several rumours flying around the ship as to who the father could be, but no-one has actually taken it upon themselves to ask Belle herself, leading her to wonder if the rest of the crew really is so oblivious to her long-term relationship with Dr Rush.

Rated: E for Explicit

=====

Whispers

Stranded on a spaceship in the middle of a galaxy far, far away, without access to reliable contraception methods, everyone knew that it was only going to be a matter of time before there was a pregnancy. Most people had been expecting it on some level or another.

No-one had been expecting it to be Belle French, though.

As their resident xenobotanist, Dr French spent the vast majority of her days ensconced in the ever-expanding hydroponics lab, and she generally kept herself to herself. She was friends with the rest of the science team, and thanks to their long partnership on Icarus, she was probably the only person to whom Rush would ever concede, but even so, she had never seemed very close to any single person in particular.

As soon as it became obvious that Belle was expecting, the inevitable whispers began. Who was the father? Belle had never been seen to be remotely demonstrative with any of the men on board Destiny; she didn’t appear to be in a long-term relationship with anyone. Was this the unfortunate repercussion of an ill-fated one-night stand?

Naturally, with so many rumours and whispers flying around the ship, Belle found herself at the centre of attention all the time, and she wanted nothing more than for a hole to open up in the floor and swallow her whole.

It was after a particularly trying shift in hydroponics, when even Lisa, whom she had considered a friend on board Destiny, had been giving her odd looks, that she finally snapped, running back to her quarters as fast as her aching back and swollen ankles could take her, tears misting her vision as she palmed the door lock and threw herself down on her bed, finally giving in to loud, snotty sobs. It was all she had been able to do not to lash out in frustration at her situation. Why was everyone on the ship so blind to what was right in front of their noses?

Once she’d cried herself dry, she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand and reached for her radio, tuning it in to Nick’s frequency.

“Nick? Are you there? Where are you?”

She knew how choked and tearful she sounded, but she had long since passed the point of caring.

“I’m fixing up some new statistics for the shields in the console room,” Nick replied a moment later. “Are you all right? You sound like you’ve been crying.”

“I have been. It’s just been a generally shitty day and I want it to be over right now.”

In the console room, Rush tapped his screen to send it into sleep mode, and he rubbed his forehead with a sigh. These last few months had been tough on both of them; finding out about the pregnancy had nearly spelled the end of their relationship. Children had never been on the roadmap for them, and Rush had never had any intention or desire to become a father. He was still terrified by the prospect even now, after all the arguments and soul-searching and the decision to keep the baby.

It had been infinitely worse for Belle, though. For a start, she was the one actually carrying the baby and going through not only all the usual pregnancy difficulties but also all the additional ones that came from being on Destiny. Secondly, nobody seemed to have cottoned onto the fact that he was the father, and instead of just asking her outright, they had deemed it politer to assiduously avoid the subject when speaking to her and just whisper behind her back instead. Belle, being her sometimes infuriatingly stubborn self, had decided that she wasn’t simply going to volunteer the information if no-one asked for it, saying that if they couldn’t see that she and Rush were together and had been for a while, then they didn’t deserve to know. Rush, used to secrecy and trusting only himself, was of the same mindset, however tempting it had been to just stand on a table in the mess and make the announcement that he was the father of Belle’s baby and they’d been together since Icarus so please leave them the fuck alone.

Rush snarled, angry at the rest of the crew for making Belle so stressed at a time when she really needed as calm an environment as possible.

“I’m on my way,” he said. The shields could wait. Belle needed him now.

He made his way to her room and knocked before palming the lock. Belle was lying on her side, curled up and facing away from him; Rush kicked off his shoes and lay down beside her, staring up at the ceiling.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.” Belle reached behind her and found his hand, squeezing tightly. “If I talk about it, I’ll only start yelling about how unfair it all is.” She sighed. “Sorry, you’ve got better things to do than keep me company in my misery.”

“They can wait.”

Belle gave a soft huff of laughter. “Coming from the most impatient man not currently on a planet, that means a lot. I love you too.”

“It is the way it is,” Rush said. “It’s one of those things that we just have to live with.”

“I just wish that people would put two and two together.” Belle sighed again. “Is it really so hard to tell that we’re in a relationship? It’s not like we don’t spend a lot of time together, have quarters next to each other and are always generally in one room or another. Just because we’re not sucking each other’s faces off every five minutes doesn’t mean that we’re not a couple.”

When they had first become an item back on Icarus, they had done so on the mutual understanding that they would remain discreet and professional in their working relationship to avoid lines being muddled. It was something that they had carried over seamlessly onto Destiny, but now it seemed like their lack of public demonstration was coming back to bite them.

Rush turned over onto his side and spooned up behind Belle, taking her in his arms.

“We could always just tell everyone,” he said. “It would save a lot of stress.”

“I know. But you know me, and I know you. We’re not that type. I just wish that someone had the guts to ask me to my face. Can you believe that it’s been nearly five months and not even TJ has asked me who the father is? You’d think that someone would bite the bullet sooner or later.”

“Well, you know my opinion.”

“That everyone else on the ship is a moron? Yes, you’ve said so once or twice before. I was always inclined to be more forgiving, but I’m beginning to think that you’re right.”

Belle turned over awkwardly with a huff. Her bump was definitely noticeable now, no-one could deny it or put it down to anything other than pregnancy, although she could still hide it under loose clothing. According to TJ, there were four and a half months to go before she was due, and Rush was dreading it. If anything went wrong because they were in the middle of nowhere several thousand light years from the nearest maternity unit, then he didn’t know what he’d do. Ironically, Belle was lot calmer about that part of the whole thing. Someone could swap with an obstetrician on the stones, and it wasn’t as if they had absolutely no medical supplies. Women had given birth safely in worse circumstances.

“Thank you for coming,” Belle said. Her kiss started off soft, but then she was pouring everything she had into it, carding her fingers into his hair and pushing her tongue between his lips. Rush opened for her readily. He was quite pleased that thus far, the only craving that Belle seemed to be experiencing was for him, and he felt his cock beginning to react to her nearness and the obvious need in her kiss. He ran his hand down her side, dipping into the waistband of the fatigues she’d started wearing when her jeans became too tight.

“Have you got time?” she asked, grabbing the hem of his shirts.

“When it comes to you and this bed, I have all the time in the world,” Rush growled, unfastening the fatigues. Belle wrestled him out of his shirts before he could get a hand in, but then he was raking his fingers through her soft curls to find a ready wetness pooling at her entrance.

“Kiss me, Nick.”

Belle pulled her shirt off. Her breasts were swollen and sore, and Rush kept his touches to her nipples featherlight as he kissed each of the hard buds in turn.

“I love you so much,” Belle gasped as he kicked his jeans off and helped her out of her trousers. “I couldn’t do this without you.”

“Well, without me you wouldn’t be in this position at all.”

Belle just laughed, batting his chest playfully and pushing him over onto his back. Rush was happy to oblige and go wherever she wanted him. Seeing her riding him like a wild goddess was always wonderful, and her returned his hand to her folds, stroking little circles around her clit.

“Feels good?” he asked.

Belle nodded, hands braced against his shoulders as her hips jerked, pushing up against his fingers.

“So, so good.”

He slipped a finger into her entrance, her inner walls clutching around him greedily as he added another. She was grunting with pleasure above him, her eyes closed and her head thrown back, and God, she looked so beautiful like that. Pregnancy really had made her glow.

She cried out as she came, his name a breathy sob from her lips, and Rush pulled his fingers out of her, tracing little patterns over her hips to bring her through into the afterglow.

Belle looked down at him as she came back to herself, her eyes soft and sleepy.

“Oh, Nick,” she breathed. “My Nick.”

She resettled herself on top of him, taking his cock in hand and stroking him to full hardness, rubbing little circles over the tip of him before she lined them up, sinking down onto him slowly and beginning to rock her hips. She felt heavenly, she always did, and Rush dug his fingers into her ass cheeks as he thrust up to meet her.

“Belle!”

He came buried inside her. There wasn’t a lot of point in trying to be careful, after all. The damage was already done.

She let him slip out of her and lay down beside him, snuggling in close to his side.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“It was my pleasure. I know you needed it.” Rush stroked her sweaty hair out of her face.

“More than you can imagine.”

They lay in silence for a while in the cooling, just enjoying being together, until Belle’s breathing began to even out.

“Belle, love, I’m going back to work,” Rush whispered to her. “I’ll be back when I’ve finished.”

She nodded without opening her eyes. “Go off and save the galaxy.”

“Will do.” He chuckled. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

He got up and pulled his clothes back on, slipping out of the room quietly and making his way back to the console room. Eli was there, fiddling with one of the kinos. He acknowledged Rush’s presence and they both worked in companionable silence for a while, although Rush could tell that there was something on the younger man’s mind from the way that Eli’s eyes kept sliding over to Rush every few minutes.

Finally, Rush looked up from his console and fixed Eli with a pointed stare.

“Do you have something that you would like to get off your chest, Eli?” he asked.

“No, no. Nothing at all.”

“Good. In that case, perhaps you could let me get on with my work without feeling like I’m being watched like a hawk all the time.”

Eli looked down at the kinos guiltily.

“I was just thinking that you spend a lot of time with Dr French,” he said eventually. “She’s been so closed off recently, for obvious reasons, and it seems like you’re the only person she can tolerate, which is ironic, in a way.”

“Perhaps it’s because I’m the only person on the ship who still sees her as a person and not a pregnancy,” Rush muttered. He didn’t look up from the console again, but he could feel Eli’s stare on him and he returned it with a glare and an impatient sigh.

“Is there a singular burning question on your mind that everyone’s dying to ask but no-one has yet plucked up the courage to actually give voice to?”

Eli’s expression said it all, but he didn’t say anything, instead making a hasty retreat with the kinos. Rush sighed heavily and leaned against the console. At least there was some hope of Eli putting two and two together before the baby arrived.

X

Dozing along in a happy, post-coital haze, Belle reflected on her relationship with Nick, and the journey that the two of them had been on since her pregnancy had started. Well, rollercoaster would probably be a more accurate description. Journey didn’t quite cut it.

It had very nearly broken them. Nick didn’t see himself as father material, especially not in their current precarious circumstances. He had enough other things to worry about with adding a baby into the mix. His own childhood hadn’t exactly been stellar, and Destiny was no place to raise a child. But they’d talked (and yelled, and fucked) it all over, and they’d finally come through to a good and solid place. Nick was working tirelessly to get them home, the prospect of starting a family and beginning a brand-new chapter of his life as a father being the catalyst that he had needed to finally let go of the guilt that had been driving him to discover all of Destiny’s secrets at all costs. It was a new beginning for both of them; not just the birth of their child but a rebirth for Belle and Nick too. In this new life that they had created together, there was absolution from everything that had come before.

She woke up when Nick entered the room again; she didn’t bother checking to see how long he had been away. He was back now, and that was all that mattered.

He slipped into bed beside her and kissed the nape of her neck, taking her in his arms. These were the moments that she lived for, when it was just her and Nick and neither of them had to worry about work.

“I think Eli is beginning to realise,” he said quietly.

“Good,” Belle muttered. “Well, not good if all it does is fuel further speculation, but good that someone might finally be getting the right end of the stick. Eli’s not exactly the best at keeping secrets, maybe word will get round soon.”

She sighed, and snuggled further into Nick’s embrace. “What do you think people will say when they realise?”

“I don’t know,” Nick replied. “Hopefully something along the lines of ‘sorry for putting you through four and a half months of stress because none of us actually wanted to ask you who knocked you up’.”

Belle reached behind her and smacked his arm playfully. “You’re terrible.”

“I know, but you love me for it.” Nick’s hand came down to rest on her bump. They’d yet to feel any kicking, but they could definitely feel that there was something there, growing with every day and getting ever closer to coming into the world.

“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” Nick asked after a short pause.

Belle nodded, and wriggled out of his arms so that she could turn over and face him, slipping her own arms around his neck and nuzzling his nose.

“I’m going to be fine,” she promised him. “Nothing is going to happen to me or the baby.”

“You can’t know that, though,” Nick muttered. It wasn’t the first time that she had known him to be so concerned about her and so worried about the future, but every time she heard that fear in his voice, her heart both swelled and broke just a little bit more. Nick was every bit as scared about this pregnancy as she was, and contrary to what many of their colleagues might think when the truth finally did dawn on them, it had nothing to do with the havoc that a baby would cause to his working life. Belle could well understand his worry about her. After losing Gloria, he was determined that he wasn’t going to lose anyone else he loved, be it Belle or their unborn child. He knew how risky these few months were going to be, and at first he hadn’t been able to believe that Belle would take that risk.

“We might be stuck out here forever, Nick,” she had told him. “I’m not giving up my chance to have a family with you because of the risks that we face now. We may never be free from those risks, we have no idea of what might be around the corner. Me having this baby is no more dangerous than any mission planet-side to a place we’ve never been to before. We’re past the point of arguing about danger now. Everything out here is already so dangerous that it seems stupid to be worrying about this pregnancy. We may never return to Earth, Nick! There may never be a more convenient time to discuss family planning! These are the cards we’ve been dealt!”

She knew that she was putting herself at risk, and she wondered if perhaps she was being selfish, bringing a child into this strange world that they might be living in for who knew how long. At the same time, though, Belle couldn’t think of a safer place in the universe for a child to grow up than here on Destiny, surrounded by people who would always put its best interests at heart. Whatever happened, Belle knew that she and Nick were never going to give up on each other or their child.

“Nick, my love.” Belle stroked his hair out of his face, running a hand over his chin where his beard was getting to be rather unruly again. “I need you to be strong for me now. I know that you can do this; I know that you can be a father and I know that you’re afraid. I am too, so much. But we can get through it together, I know that we can.”

Nick sighed, leaning into her touch. It was a mark of how much he trusted her that he actively sought out her hands and skin contact with her whenever they were alone together. He was not a tactile person by any stretch of the imagination, and he would usually shake off the hands of anyone else on board the ship who might touch him casually.

“I love you,” he said. He didn’t offer anything else, didn’t say that he would try not to be afraid or that he would try to be stronger for her. He said all that in those three little words.

“I love you too,” she replied before closing her eyes and allowing herself to drift off again, feeling safe in his embrace. Screw the rest of the ship and what it might think of her, of him. They were together, and that was all she needed.

X

When Eli walked into hydroponics the next day looking rather furtive, Belle thought that she knew what was coming. After four and a half months, it was finally going to be the moment of truth.

There was a heavy silence in the air and Belle knew that Eli was working up to ask her something, probably regarding the identity of the baby’s father. There was absolutely no reason for him to be in hydroponics unless someone else had sent him on an errand, and if that was the case, then he probably would have got on with asking for whatever it was that whoever it was needed by now.

She looked over at him, smiling politely.

“What can I do for you, Eli?” she asked.

“I, erm… TJ sent me,” he finished. “To get some, erm…”

“Space tea-tree?” Belle suggested, indicating the herbs growing in troughs beside her. They’d discovered the plant early on in their gate excursions and it had proved to be extremely useful as a natural antiseptic.

“Yeah, that.” Eli looked relieved at having an out, and he hung around, fidgeting nervously, as Belle searched for her scissors and began to carefully snip off a few stalks of the medicinal plant.

“So… Belle…” he began again. Belle just looked at him, raising an eyebrow to encourage him to go on. She put down the scissors. If this was the moment that she thought it was going to be, then she probably ought not to have any sharp implements in her hands at the time.

“Yes, Eli?”

“You spend a lot of time with Rush.”

She nodded. “Yes. I do. Is that really so surprising to everyone?”

“No, no, I think it’s good that he has at least one person who backs him up sometimes.”

Belle just snorted. “Is there anything else that you wanted to say, Eli, or were you just making the observation that Nick and I spend a lot of time in each other’s company?”

“I was just wondering, I mean, I know that it’s probably an insensitive question, but well, you call him Nick when everyone else calls him Rush, and…”

“It’s his name, Eli.”

“Yes, I know, I just… Is he the father? Of the baby?”

Belle straightened from where she was crouched beside the space tea-tree and raised her arms in mock jubilation.

“And kaching! Eli Wallace finally asks the sixty-four thousand dollar question that no-one else has had the balls to ask even though they’ve had four and a half months in which to ask it. And the answer is yes, Nick is this baby’s father. Who else was it going to be?”

Eli spread his hands. “Like, literally anyone. Well, any of the guys. I mean, apart from me, because I would definitely remember if that had happened.”

“Ok Eli, I’ll rephrase that. Who else was it going to be apart from the man I’ve been in a romantic and sexual relationship with for over a year?”

“What?” Eli blinked. “You and Rush?”

“Yes.”

“In a relationship?”

“Yes.”

“For over a year?”

“Yes! Is that really so hard to comprehend? Is it really not obvious to everyone?”

“No!” Eli exclaimed. “No, it is really not obvious at all. You have separate bedrooms!”

“Which are right next door to each other,” Belle pointed out. “And we’re generally always either in one or the other, but everyone needs their own space. It’s like office space; we both had separate offices on Icarus.”

“But you don’t do any couple things!” Eli spluttered. “Like… I don’t know. Kissing. Hugging. Casual touching. Little things, like hands on the small of the back, getting into each other’s personal space without a problem, that kind of thing.”

“You’ve never seen me get into Nick’s personal space?” Belle asked incredulously.

“Well, ok, you do get physically closer to him than anyone else does, but I assumed that was because you were friends and he trusts you more than everyone else.”

“We are friends and he does trust me more than everyone else. We also happen to love each other and be expecting a child together. I don’t get why this is so incomprehensible!”

Belle knew that she was overreacting, but the truth was that she hadn’t really known how she would feel when someone finally did take it upon themselves to learn the truth. She was relieved that it was finally out there, but at the same time, the fact that Eli just couldn’t seem to believe that it was true was making her so incredibly frustrated that she was glad she’d already put the scissors down.

“It’s just…” Eli backed up a few steps; she must be looking more ferocious than she thought and she tried to tone it down. Pregnancy had dialled everything up to eleven for her. “You don’t act like a couple when you’re working on the ship.”

“Because we’re professional, Eli.” Belle sighed. The brief burst of fight that she’d had in her was dying away, replaced with the aches and pains of pregnancy. She rubbed her back and Eli grabbed a crate, helping her to sit down on it. “When we began our relationship back on Icarus, we drew a line in the sand. We weren’t going to let it affect our work, and you know Nick. If he’s out here, if he’s not in one of our rooms, then he’s always working. Most of the time, I am as well. We’re working. We’re professional. So, no, we don’t do public displays of affection, we don’t kiss or hug or do casual touching just for the purpose of making it obvious that we’re together.”

Eli nodded. “Ok, I can understand that. I guess I’d be complaining just as much if you were making gooey eyes at each other over the consoles all the time.”

Belle gave a snort of laughter. “Can you imagine that? Maybe I should mention it to Nick as a way of pissing Young off.”

“Considering how much Rush manages to piss off Young already, I don’t think that he needs any help in that respect.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, breathing in the clean and fresh scents of the plants and herbs growing all around them. Belle always felt safe in hydroponics. If she could nurture these delicate plants, then she knew that she could nurture her baby as well. She could keep these little seedlings alive in such adverse conditions, so she should be able to keep her child alive.

“Do you want me to keep it a secret?” Eli asked. “That Rush is the father, I mean.”

Belle shook her head. “No. You can tell as many people as you like. Tell the whole ship if you want. There’s nothing secret about it. I’m quite happy for it to be common knowledge.”

“So if that’s the case, why didn’t you just tell everyone yourself?”

“Because up until now, no-one’s asked. Everyone thought it would be better just to set the rumour mill going instead. No-one, until you, has ever actually asked me who the father of my child is.”

“Wow.” Eli seemed to be digesting this for a long time. Her pregnancy had been common knowledge for a while now, and he was evidently having trouble processing the fact that really, no-one had ever asked her about the parentage.

He got to his feet again, handing back the stems of tea-tree that she’d cut for him.

“TJ didn’t really send me,” he admitted.

Belle smiled. “I guessed.” She took back the stems and set about replanting them. “They’re hardy little things though. They’ll survive and put down new roots. Like all of us putting down new roots on Destiny, I suppose.”

Eli laughed. “I guess you’re right. Well, good luck with everything. And I hope that the baby’s ok. Still can’t quite get the image of Rush as a dad out of my head, but that’s my problem. I’ll see you around.”

“See you later, Eli.”

He left the hydroponics lab and Belle sat back on her crate, stretching out her legs in front of her. Perhaps now, things would become slightly less stressful.

X

As soon as Eli started spreading the word that Rush and Belle were in a long-term relationship and as such, he was naturally the father of her baby, the whispers on Destiny died away to nothing as if they had never been there. Belle no longer received odd looks and mutterings behind hands from her colleagues, and Rush found himself the recipient of more well-wishes than he’d ever had at all on his time aboard Destiny, which Eli found very amusing to watch as the older man clearly had no idea what to do with all the positivity and wishes of good luck that were now coming his way.

Most people were as astonished as Eli had been when they found out the actual status quo, but it soon passed. It made sense, they figured. They’d always stuck together ever since the beginning, and after all, Belle was the only person to whom Rush would capitulate. They were still professional, not suddenly starting to kiss or hug in the console room, but now that he was watching them more closely, Eli could see the little tell-tale signs of their relationship in other ways they interacted; in the knowing looks and the secretive little smiles that passed between them.

He received the irrevocable proof late one evening when he came into the infirmary looking for pain relief for Chloe, who was on her period and having a bad time of it in the absence of Midol. Belle and Rush were in there with TJ, who’d found a new piece of Ancient medical equipment that appeared to be an ultrasound scanner, waving a small wand over Belle’s bump as flickering image appeared on the console screen above them, showing a faint picture, barely more than a wisp, of the baby.

“Everything looks fine to me,” TJ said. Eli noticed that Belle and Rush were holding hands. “Do you want to find out whether it’s a boy or a girl?”

Belle nodded. “If you can tell from that picture, then yes, please.”

“As far as I can see, he’s a boy. But don’t be surprised if I’m wrong.”

“A boy,” Belle whispered, and she looked over to Rush with such excitement on her face. Eli didn’t think he’d ever seen her so enthusiastic about anything, and considering how much enthusiasm Belle showed whenever she discovered a new useful plant on a planet, that was saying something.

“We’re going to have a son!” she said, and Rush just leaned over to kiss her.

Eli grabbed a little packet of the regular powdered leaves that TJ kept as everyday painkillers, and left them to it. This was a private moment between the prospective parents and TJ, and not one that he would be sharing with anyone. All the same, looking at them now, there could be absolutely no doubt that Rush and Belle were very much in love.