There were some advantages to being the daughter of a scientist. Her second trip to her homeworld, she was better prepared. She was there to study, to learn, not just to sightsee and probe about. Hyakutake landed on the comet with a backpack slung over her shoulder. The area she landed in that second time looked like it had once been a garden, causing her to pause and look around, to try and imagine what it might have once looked like. It must have been vibrant, if her vision last time had been any clue. Full of life. And perhaps light, since there were what seemed to be broken stone lanterns scattered about. Setting the backpack and luggage down, she made her way around the garden area, seeing what she could before going to the luggage.

“Alright...first things first.” Out came her phone and the mobile speakers for it. She wasn’t going to work without music, thank you very much. She’d made sure to charge both phone and speakers beforehand, and now she set them up. It wasn’t long before a myriad range of instrumental music pieces were flowing out, prompting Hyakutake to pull the next set of items out; nice sturdy gloves and a water safety test kit, too. Feeling she was ready, she started the search for the nearest source of water, and found it within the first few minutes. A well, old and low by the look of it. That wouldn’t work, simply because she couldn’t get to the water. So the search continued. This time, it took at least ten minutes. But she finally found a creek that looked like it had once been a river.

Once she was sure it wasn’t going to eat her alive [tossing a few things of varying hardness/etc into it served nicely...yes, her shoe was a totally valid item to use], she got the water test kit out, setting about to make sure it was safe in other ways, gloves donned after she rolled the odd bracelets off her wrists. Once she had the results, she carried them back to the area she’d arrived in, dug out a second test kit and bottled water she’d bought at the corner store before she’d henshined, and set to see where the results compared.

The water on her homeworld was safer than the bottled water, if the tests were reliable.

“Huh...looks like water isn’t why you’re having a little trouble getting back on your feet, dear. I think...I think I’ll bring Kells with me next time. He might have an idea of what’s going on.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Definitely not taking any water back with me, though. No idea what might happen.” She put things away, and then dug out her digital camera, booting it up and spending the rest of her time wandering and taking pictures. If she was going to rebuild...she needed to start somewhere. And best to start with what was left.

She did, however, notice one odd thing…

She didn’t find a single animal of any sort...

And when she looked at the pictures later, from the safety of her laptop screen, she didn't see any bugs...nothing that moved or crawled or squirmed...

[Word Count: 516, according to Google Docs]