Page 29 of Cozy Prisons
The ceiling was also repaired, although it was clear where the damage had been. Daxus had a talent for organization but not for using repair paste. The paste kept hardening on him before he had it spread completely so he’d have to apply more. There was now a downward-facing mound where the hole had been.
There had been a lot of annoyed rattling while he worked. It made Nataly giggle quietly to herself.
As long as the rest of the ceiling was stable, Nataly didn’t care. She got Daxus to stop fiddling with the ceiling by tryingto unload a box of shelving by herself. If she hadn’t done that, Daxus might’ve kept going until she had a column in the center of her domicile instead of a little, misshapen dome.
“This is perfect,” she said to the empty room.
Daxus was a hard worker but still attentive whenever she talked. He never set anything up without checking with her first. Once they were done, Daxus had even taken all the trash to the reclamater and brought back dinner. There was still only one chair, so he sat on the worktable and she sat in the chair.
The entire time they were cleaning, organizing, and then eating had felt like a long date.
Nataly wasn’t ashamed to admit it was the best time she’d had in a while. Not only was Daxus great company, but the anxiety was now only a low-level buzz she could easily ignore.
Daxus’s magical effect on her anxiety made her regret sending him home. He’d offered to stay and sleep on the floor, but she’d been determined to try out her new plan. Besides, asking the guy to sleep on the floor seemed selfish and a poor reward for all the help.
She needed to get over her issue, and the only way she knew how to deal with a problem was by chipping away at it until she either broke through or exhausted herself. It probably wasn’t the most effective way to deal with things, but it was her way.
Tonight she was determined to start fixing herself, and she couldn’t do it if he was present.
She busied herself with going over the data crystal from a mover bot that wasn’t moving correctly. Eventually, she found the problem code where someone tried to add a patch that taught the bot to climb steep mountains, but it was for an older version, so instead the code made the bot think it could climb anything, including trees.
“And fixed,” she declared, removing the patch and cleaning up the fragmented code where the patch had inserted itself. “I’m sorry bot, but climbing rocky hills will never be in your skill set.”
After setting the crystal into a finishing bath to rebuild the protective coating that was rubbed off when it was removed from the bot, she stood up and stretched. Talins came from such a rich society that they were used to simply throwing out bots like the mover when they stopped functioning. Nataly and the rest of the humans couldn’t imagine being that wasteful, so she spent a lot of time fixing things the Talins thought of as useless.
They sure appreciated her when the resupply ship was late or understocked!
She liked that her work was useful but not stressful. It was the perfect balance of busy but not frantic.
Once she finished stretching, she faced the door. It was late and most everyone would’ve gone to bed by now. It was time. No more stalling or putting it off.
She walked to the door, stood in the open doorway, and looked for a spot. There was a mark at the end of the narrow path to her domicile. She thought it was where Hale had stopped and scuffed the dirt up in a circle, as if they kept changing their mind on which direction to go; forward or back to her domicile.
That was the perfect distance. Focusing on the circle, she ordered her legs to move. Her strides were short and slow, but she made it there. She didn’t rejoice yet, however.
Turning around, she stared at her home while counting to five. The moment the count was up, she let herself walk back.
She stumbled a little walking back over her threshold, but no panic took her to her knees or made it hard to breathe. After leaning against the open doorway for a few breaths, she repeated the process.
She’d arbitrarily decided that she needed to do this ten times before she could consider herself successful. This was the firststep. She’d keep doing the same little route every night until walking this distance didn’t bother her at all. Then she’d pick a spot further away and do the same thing.
Eventually, she’d be able to walk anywhere without any issues. Or at least that was the hope.
Except every time she walked to the spot, it got harder, not easier.
“No,” she whispered, feeling her chest get tight halfway to Hale’s dirt circle. This was only her sixth time; she had four more to go!
“I’m practicing,” she told her body, even as her legs stopped moving and her heartbeat kicked up. “This is supposed to be easy. This is nothing. Home is right behind me.”
All the familiar indicators started screaming at her to turn around and retreat back to safety. If she couldn’t even do this, how was she ever going to fix herself?
Tears burned her eyes as she fought with all her willpower to keep herself facing away from her home. If she turned around, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself. Her palms had tiny, healing cuts where she’d punctured herself yesterday during the ship’s unloading. By some miracle, Daxus hadn’t noticed.
She dug her nails in again, letting the pain help her focus. She was able to make it another two steps before her legs froze again. The spot was at least four more steps away.
A little sob escaped her. She was so tired of this.
“Nataly?”
