Marylou takes a walk on the plains

As the oldest of six sisters. Marylou had certain responsibilities. She kept the boat in good repair, and organized expeditions up and down the Vertigo River with the next oldest sisters, Hartgutt and Troybilt. They were still teenagers, young in a sense, and yet they were all post-diluvial. Every one was. The great flood was over a hundred years gone, but still felt daily. For fifty years the lands were full of water, only people on the mounds had survived. That was the legend, and Marylou had heard it many times before from her mother.
“So what, who cares?” she asked, kicking at dried stalks of grass on her way up to the high plains above their home in the cliffs. She didn't care for talk at all. It didn't matter to her how long her family had been here on this land. It may as well have been forever. She knew nothing else, and neither did her mother or her mother's mother. The point was, they'd been here a long time, since way before the flood, and it was time that Marylou got out.
Everyone had their place out here. She was in charge of the boat and trading, Mother the cooking, Hartgutt and Troybilt the garden and fishing, and the younger three sisters fetched water, and cleaned the house. That was the order of things. She'd been going up and down this river for four years on her own, though never very far.
She'd walked out half a day and back again on the plains. Up on the plains, she walked fast. Partly it was just her nature. But out here, you never could tell what might be coming your way. She scanned the land, dried up mud and tall grasses. Her brow was just as straight as the horizon. She was wearing an outfit that her sister Troybilt had sewn for her from bits of cloth. Everything was handmade, there was no such thing as store-bought anymore. Well, you could buy clothes at the Pouteau Outpost, but those clothes were handmade too, just made by somebody they didn't know.
She was out for a walk, she just had to walk lately. Everything at home was so annoying. A mud house full of women, what a recipe. Also, it was part of her job to keep a look out and see what all was going on. Mostly not much.
“That's the problem,” she said to her companion, a talking cat named Javier. His long fur was orange, and his tail bushy, allowing for him to stand on hind-legs when the situation called for it. He accompanied Marylou most everywhere, running on all fours to catch up.
“Slow up a minute,” Javier said as he suddenly stopped and began licking his hindquarters. “What exactly is the problem?” he asked solicitously, and then resumed cleaning himself thoroughly.
“That nothing ever happens around here. Case in point, you're licking your bottom.”
“My darling child,” Javier said indignantly, getting to his feet. “Even the most seemingly mundane act, like licking one's own bottom, can attain profound significance when one is fully present.” And with that, he threw himself onto his back and began taking a dust bath.