The first day was easy, depending on how one chose to view it.
Arriving on Ida was like stepping out of a dark, cramped space into the open sunlight of a new day. If it had been luck or her own desire to be so, she had landed before the tower she had planned to set up in, her large stack of supplies deposited beside her with hardly a jostle for its long trip from Earth to the other side of Mars. Taking a deep breath, Ida let her lungs expand with the crystal clean air of her homeworld, drawing it as deeply into her as she could. Releasing it seemed to take the dark cloud around her with it and replaced it with an ease she hadn't felt in far too long.
Safe... It was safe here. No war, no death, no future full of blood and pain... Ida looked the same now as it would in five years, as though time didn't exist. It didn't matter when she was any more, and that was a weight off her shoulders she had hardly even realized she'd been carrying. Here, she could finally take a step back and really look at herself and the memories she carried, begin to find a way to make sense of it all and decide where she was going to go... and oblivious to the turmoil she had brought with her, the asteroid was silent and peaceful, embracing her with warmth she could feel traveling up from the soles of her boots.
That, and the lack of any demands on her from any source beyond herself, was the easy part. The first day was for settling in and relaxing.
The hard part, as Ida soon found, was dealing with the supplies she had brought with her and setting up a living space for her month-long stay. That much time had required a lot of things to be brought along, from food to water to books to read and paper to write on. Getting that moved from the grassy area at the base of the tower inside was a chore in itself and half way through, the young woman finally stopped to wonder why she was moving it in the first place. There were no animals to bother the supplies and the wide branches of the tree building would shade them from the sun. Why not just leave them were they were and move things when she needed them?
In fact... it made her wonder about a lot of the things she had held to herself as strict rules of how to do things and how things should be. Ida was not Earth... there were no other people here to tell her how to do things, where to put things, or judge her if she chose to act differently than society had decided she should. It was both freeing and frightening... there were no guides here, only her own thoughts and creative processes, her own needs and desires. It was strange for a young woman who spent her life more worried about everyone else than herself. This sudden need to decide what she wanted, not just in today's small house keeping chores but all month long, gave her flutters that were mixed excitement and dread.
Eventually, the uncertainty of it was too much and Ida abandoned her self-imposed chore to retreat to the top of her tower, where an observation deck gave an unparalleled view of the city and the sweeping grassland outside of it. Settling into one of the bench seats facing outwards, Ida relaxed herself into the curving back and let her eyes drift half closed as her mind wandered idly. There was no rush to finish anything... no need to really do anything she didn't want to do right now. There would be time for it later and a whole month to fill besides.
Gazing out over the gently waving branches, Ida wondered for a moment what her loved ones were doing right now. Where they busy with work, school? Where they patrolling in henshin, or relaxing after their own busy day? What were they thinking about? Did she, perhaps, cross anyone's mind in this moment, when her own thoughts were turned towards them?
The answer was 'probably not'. And really, that was okay. She was not an important person, she had little in the way of responsibilities and those who might miss her had better things to do with their time. Being here on Ida... it affected no one but herself, really. Taking a deep breath, Ida let her eyes drift shut completely and her mind empty of thoughts.
She was the next best thing to non-existant, being here... Just a small spark of life on a distant planet, removed from anyone and anything. The sheer aloneness of it... it settled over her like a blanket and to her surprise... she found it comforting. There was no one to hurt here... no one to care for. She was utterly free in her loneliness. Another deep breath lifted and dropped Ida's chest as she relaxed, drifting easily away to sleep. No dreams, no nightmares bothered her this time. Only peace, and silence.
