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[Tiffany makes an effort to seek Shiro out at least a few times a week. Sometimes she just checks in, but if she has the time, she tries to engage her in some way. Today is one of those days. Arms full of drawing pads, markers, and crayons, she uses her foot to knock on Shiro's door.]

Hey Shiro, you in there? You wanna come draw in my cabin?

Edited (I accidentally a whole sentence) 2015-09-15 12:21 (UTC)

[Shiro likes visits from Tiffany. Her cabin doesn't have much--dingy marble, dark corners, a beanbag couch and a broken piano--but what she has, she shares. There's drawings, too, now: pictures of everyone she's met that she can make sit still for a picture, her map of the barge sprawling across a good chunk of one wall. It's visible when she throws open the door, leaning out into the hallway.]

Tiffany! Shiro always wants to come draw. Want help? I can carry!

Nah, it's okay. I got it.

[Tiffany has noticed the map before, and has always been curious about it. It doesn't strike her as something a child would draw (and in her mind, Shiro is very much a child).]

Do you have trouble finding your way around sometimes?

Hm?

[She looks back over her shoulder, noticing the map, and opens the door fully so Tiffany can see it.]

Shiro doesn't get lost much anymore, but I like exploring. And there's lots of places to hide, here. Shiro's map shows her where to go, and who lives where. See?

[She walks over to the wall, lifts one specific section of colored hallway to reveal a fairly accurate depiction of Tiffany's own room, with a painstakingly written name on it.]

This way, Shiro knows where everyone is. Won't forget. And Shiro remembers everyone's name!

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.

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