Daja's thoughts have been blurry for the past few days. It's dangerous, when she's working on boxes that must hold in the deadly Blue Pox, but she has only an hour or so each day (counting meals) to take a break.

Her life has been reduced, she sometimes moans in the back of her mind, to sleep and work. Every morning, she wakes up in the forge, has breakfast, works on the boxes, has lunch, works on the boxes, has dinner, works, and then sleeps. She rarely visits Discipline; when she does, she sees almost no one. Daja doesn't actually articulate this. She thinks this:

...She is saving lives and she isn't making mistakes and...

She should be too tired to miss her siblings, but she does. She wants to see Sandry's smile, because when she laughs and chatters, everyone in the room pays attention. She wants to match wits with Briar, because his mind is fluid and so is his tongue. She wants to enjoy the small, quiet, and oh-so-precious things with Tris, who can spend hours in one place, a calm presence against Daja's movement.

She wants, she wants, and she can't have it all. Daja tells herself that their presence (while she's awake enough to notice it) will be her reward, and works on.