Prosaic.

Self

After that, things began to run smoothly. The group had overcome all possible bumps in the road. The officials medicated Marina and she began to overcome the infection, getting better every day. Davis worked with the irritable group and designed them a loose schedule and working ridgiment. They could take days off as needed, but agreed to work to pay for their food and shelter. The group was given a single house outside of the main cave. The house was simply constructed and built into the side of the canyon, opposite side from the cave and accessible by boat. Other houses had been built and housed other unfamiliar families. The house was simple, one bathroom, a communal room lined with simple furniture, a few chairs, and mattresses on the floor, and then a single extra room. It remained colder here, as the fireplace was in the communal room, and the furnace fumed smoke from a pipe through the wall and through the rock of the canyon, shooting smoke from a chimney on the side of the structure. It was a real house; although it felt a little more like an unfinished basement, bare cement bricks lining the walls and a cold concrete floor obscured by a rug or two. But it held a frontdoor on hinges (although only curtains for the other two rooms), and a solid floor, solid walls, and a solid although exposed roof. Davis had suggested the group be split up with separate dwellings, though they would be smaller and take longer to build, but the group had quickly decided to stay together.

The group had a house. It was hard to process, and they spent moving day surrounded by giddy, excitable energy. Felicity was feeling less excited despite the uplifting circumstances, and Zephyr prompted by asking what was wrong, and thinking only of him and not of herself, she said, "Nothing," and smiled timidly the rest of the boat ride to their new house. From the boat, they parked at a dock and then used a series of short stone stairs and rickety construction elevators, chained to man-made rock ledges, in order to reach where their house sat a little less than halfway up the wall of the canyon. The outside of it was similar to the rock around it, muddled with mixtures of orange and brown and grey, but mostly just dusty tan that darkens to brown when wet.

Felicity had decided to be a fisher. She had expected to enjoy the slow-pac ed, tranquil mornings by the water, but she tended to feel restless instead. Zephyr had encouraged her to be a fisher as it was a safer job, and if she were to get hurt now, there would be no saving her. She had also been dwindling mentally over her insecurity of being disliked by Tati. Still, she considered Tati was simply hot-headed, and tried to falsely reassure herself that Tati somehow liked her.

With Zephyr's praise, Tati's scolding, and her family's coldness, she felt she had expectations to be absolutely flawless, and felt she was worthless if she wasn't. Felicity could not be herself and also perfect. She was imperfect. It was a design flaw, by nature, to engrain into elementary students to strive for perfection, do the best and be the best that you can be. Her circumstances had never aided her mental issues, and instead hindered them. She had grown, and now, she had plateued and then fallen. Felicity chose to accept the fate of being empty rather than admit that the need to please others had become a problem for her. She didn't decide this consciously, of course. She only meant well for others, deciding not to dwell on her own, less important existence in an effort to be perfect to others. She cared so little about herself that it had, ironically, grown from a personal malicious desire to be validated into a selfless act of putting other's needs before her own. Her validation mattered little now, although she still secretly yearned for it. Aside from this, she was restless. She enjoyed moments of peace, but her relentless thoughts drowned out any peace that could have come to her, and instead, she found herself watching the distance sorrowfully and yearning to adventure once again. Felicity had become somebody she liked on their travels, but here, she was destined to turn back into her old submissive, worthless self.

She stood ankle-deep in cold water (wearing boots), thinking preemptively about this as her line rocked with the current of the river. She shook the gross feelings off, deciding instead to avoid her issues entirely, and thus focused instead on the subtle movement of her fishing line.