wrecked_egg | IC Voicemail:

Yeah. That's a good idea. Maybe I should make one.

[She's mostly joking, but she does look pretty impressed. The attention to detail, especially, is the work of someone far older than Shiro acts.]

You did a real good job.

[It's easy, when she's coloring, when she's drawing. She doesn't have to be anyone. She can just make the pictures in her head be real, can make her memories solid. It's good. Gives her something to hold, something to see when she closes her eyes at night. And in this case...she doesn't want to forget anyone, even if they leave. Maybe she'll tape a new room over an old one, but she'll leave the old one. Just in case. No one gets forgotten.]

You think? Tried really hard. Lots of rooms Shiro's never seen, and lots of people won't let me draw 'em, but maybe soon Shiro will have a whole map!

If they won't let you, you can just draw 'em in secret. From your memory.

... But I love the one of my room. Love it. It's great.

My memory isn't so good sometimes. Try hard to remember, but some stuff is easy, and other stuff--Shiro thinks about it, but it comes out funny? Like the picture's messed up. Like watching TV, and the picture goes fuzzy, or gets those lines...

But drawing helps! Shiro remembers better with pictures. And Shiro likes Tiffany's room a lot! It's like you, a little.

It is?

I never thought about it like that. It's just a room to me. And now there's an extra room inside it, for Lourdes. I can show you the door so you can draw it in where it's supposed to go.

[She shifts the supplies in her arms so that she has a free hand to hold out to Shiro.]

Okay! Shiro will add.

[reaching out, she takes the top part of the stack of supplies, a few boxes to make it easier for Tiffany. She wants to help.]

So Tiffany shares rooms now?

[Tiffany lets her, giving her a little grin as she does.]

Yeah. We been doing it for a few months, but now she's got her own room. The Admiral added it.

You know about asking the Admiral for stuff, right? If you need anything?

[Shiro makes a face at the Admiral's name.]

Admiral won't give Shiro what's important. Ganta, home. Why ask if she can't have?

... Yeah. I'm sorry. You're right, he's not gonna give you those things.

Shiro thinks maybe Ganta will come anyway one day. Ganta came back for Shiro before. Shiro just has to wait again, that's all! And then when Ganta gets here, Shiro and Ganta will find Admiral, make him say sorry!

[Because he took her away from something important, from someone important. Stole her from home, and she doesn't even know why. That's the worst part.]

... I don't know if it helps much, but a lot of people think you shouldn't be here. They think it ain't fair that the Admiral made you come.

Why'd he bring Shiro? Why's he bring anybody?

I don't know. People've got different ideas. A lot of people think it's 'cause you need redemption.

[And while she isn't a fan of that approach in general, Shiro especially is someone she has a hard time thinking of that way.]

Maybe you just needed to get off your world for a while.

"Redemption..." So, um, if you do something bad? Come here to say sorry?

Shiro was okay back home. Was dangerous, fighting all the time, but Shiro had Ganta. Shiro had friends. Was learning...

Did Tiffany need redemption?

I guess so. Only I don't believe everybody's here for that. It's complicated.

... I needed both. I needed to get away from there and I needed to learn that some of the stuff I was doing was bad. But I don't feel like I got redeemed.

Lots of things are complicated here. Shiro's confused a lot. Things easier back home.

So Tiffany learned what stuff was bad, but didn't say sorry? Make up for it?

I'm going to. You know how wardens get deals? Mine is gonna be to bring back somebody I killed.

[She didn't know that, about Tiffany. Knew she was a warden, that she'd been an inmate, but not what she'd done. A moment of connect the dots as they walk, and she finally asks.]

That why Tiffany was an inmate? Cause you killed someone?

I killed a nurse. She was mean to me and it made me feel bad, so I shot her.

Shot her...

[It doesn't bother her, that Tiffany's killed someone. She knows what death is. And she knows that people are fragile, so fragile. It's easy to hurt them. But now that she knows, she can ask Tiffany questions maybe nobody else would answer.]

You feel bad about it?

Yeah. It was a bad thing to do. She was a nasty person, but she didn't deserve to get killed.

But when you did it, you didn't feel bad about doing it. Just now?

I kind of did. But I never thought about it, you know? It made me feel bad, so I thought about it in a different way.

What kind of way? How do you make feeling bad not feeling bad?

I listened to people who told me it was a good thing.

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