Somehow, no matter how much she swept the wooden floors during the day there was always more dirt and dust to sweep before closing up. It was a fact of life. But Charlotte didn't begrudge that, just whisking it all around into neat little piles with the broom from a tiny cupboard. The sooner she was done the sooner she could clock out and leave for the night, but that was no excuse to do a bad job.

Things had certainly changed for her, completely and totally. Following along after Castti to Ulimaroa had made her day to day life something she hadn't recognized anymore. Having been groomed for Benedictine's service and then after becoming a part of her forces, there had never been a time before when she'd been making all of her own decisions instead of closely following orders or the choices of other people higher up than her. A month or so into the rest of her life, she still woke up at sunrise and would lay in bed for a little while, not sure of what to do with herself and frozen before her phone's alarm would go off and she'd finally get up for the day. After ending up at the Hidden Gem as a matter of course, she'd had enough savings to be able to pay for her room, but not a lot more. There hadn't been much to bring from her trailer in Tennessee with her other than her armor, a few moon rocks, and a poster of the solar system she'd tacked up in the living room. Having never travelled before, she'd packed light out of a desire to leave as soon as possible.

Depression and despair had stolen the joy right out of her life to the extent she'd barely been taking care of herself. At first paralyzed when she'd come to Argo, she'd either stayed huddled in her room or stuck close to Castti, only brave enough to visit her at the hospital when she was free and occasionally outside of it. Otherwise, at first she'd been scared of her own shadow. Eventually her outfit had come up, and Charlotte had confessed that other than her white armor she only had things like sweat pants or oversized hoodies to wear, no other real clothes. She just hadn't needed anything else before now. The solution had been a simple but elegant one; Castti had lent her some of her old dresses and shoes, and while Charlotte had needed to roll up the sleeves and take the hems in a little, she'd been quietly pleased with the gesture. She liked how she looked, and although a part of her felt like a kid wearing their mom's clothes, it wasn't a bad feeling at all...

Looking up, she took in the empty gift shop with a little relief that no customers had snuck in that she'd need to talk to. It was a full on tourist trap located close to Argo's city center, a place that sold junk and things like Rock Candy or plastic keychains with a real chunk of Argite in them (the chunk being about the size of a grain of sand). But it was where she'd managed to get a job at, mainly because they hadn't required a background check or any actual work experience. What mattered was that they paid her for her time, even if the pay wasn't great. After she swept Charlotte straightened the shelves and displays up, making sure everything was organized with a fastidious attention to detail. The barrel of Fools Gold took the longest like always, because people liked picking up the pieces and putting them down somewhere else when they realized they didn't really want to buy them.

After it was all set back up and taken care of, Charlotte gave the little store another once over before flipping the sign to closed and counting down her cash till, turning out the lights and then locking the door behind her after she was done. Before she set off toward the hotel, Charlotte took a look around the town square bracingly. Having came from a midsized town in Tennessee, she hadn't been sure of what to expect with Argo. Her mental picture had been something like the Mines of Moria, only with more guardrails and street signs, but after she'd reached the city and passed into the underground she'd been relieved to find out that wasn't quite true. While Argo was under the earth, most of it was still wide and tall enough that she never felt hemmed in or trapped. There was plenty of infrastructure and hallmarks of civilization down here. There also weren't any bottomless pits (or orcs) to trouble her, just old stone and a layout that had confused her at first before she'd memorized her route to and from work. Despite that she wasn't quite used to the lack of wind or all the illumination that wasn't sunlight, but it still felt new and exciting enough.

Making her way downtown, walking fast, faces passed and she was homebound. While she could have taken the Tubes and gotten where she was going a little quicker, Charlotte didn't mind walking. Argo was very outside her experience, and she still needed to get used to the new place she'd started to call home. Occasionally looking up from her phone or the ground to make sure she was going the right way, she finished texting Castti and put it back in her pocket. She frequently would message her throughout the day either to touch base or just to talk to her, never going too long without either replying to her or mentioning how things were going... It was nice to have someone that cared one way or another, and even though Charlotte wondered if she was being annoying sometimes she couldn't help it. Castti had never seemed to mind, at least. Squinting at the street signs and heading downward toward the bottom part of Argo, she kept to herself as she went on her way. When she made the last turn and saw the Hidden Gem in the distance she perked up and hurried a little faster.

Only after she reached her room and locked the door did Charlotte relax, setting the sandwich and fries in a bag she'd picked up from the Bar down on her coffee table and flopping facedown on her couch. Scoli and Maple seemed like nice people, but she still wasn't able to quite look either in the eye when they talked to her. Castti had introduced her to the both of them pretty soon after she'd arrived in the city, after the preliminary work to find out why her sense of taste was so muted. Up until now Charlotte had been less and less mindful of food, even going whole days without eating anything because she just wasn't hungry. She had just been going through the motions of a life, not really concerned with much of anything like it's upkeep. It had left it's mark on her, she now underweight and unhealthy, but as of late she'd at least made an effort to come back from all the bad habits she'd picked up. She still had to remind herself to eat and then actually follow through, although instead of bags of chips or whatever snack foods were available in the moment to eat so she wouldn't feel faint she had actual meals available to her. It was all a part of the fugue she'd fallen into, not so much just being sad as barely being alive... She still wasn't quite out from under it, and she still had bad days, but Charlotte knew she was doing better than she had in years. Even having feelings again in the first place was a big step forward. Having any hope at all was better than having none, and things were always looking up.

After getting her food out and chipping away at her sandwich with a knife and fork, Charlotte replied to Castti's text back and then set her phone down, not sure what to do with her evening. Normally she would take the small telescope she'd bought and head out to the surface toward a part of the mountain that was dark enough to stargaze, but lately she'd felt something weird when she did. It was a crazy sort of thing, but she couldn't shake the impression that the moon was looking at her. Not in some metaphorical way, but that the moon was actually staring down and seeing her, the person. It obviously couldn't be true since the moon was just Earth's satellite and made of inanimate rock, but... Something about it worried her. If it kept happening she'd bring it up to Castti, but for now she just chalked the feeling up to her mind playing tricks on her. She was finally considering her state and what she wanted out of herself, so maybe she was probably just being self conscious.

Deciding on a quiet night in with a nice long documentary about the Mars rovers built and deployed over the years (All seven of them) Charlotte settled down on the couch, bundled up in a soft blanket and feeling full and warm. Her life was boring and sort of humdrum, but it was her boring and humdrum, and that made plenty of difference. As the details of NASA's pathfinder mission and the Sojourner started across the screen, Charlotte wasn't aware of her small smile while she watched. It was just that she felt like she was finally home, in more than one way.