tucky | IC contact for lastvoyages

"No. No, I'm not going to cower. I can't physically best her, but if that risk is minimized I'll not hide."

She's too proud, and she isn't here to be scared, or to set such a weak example.

"Okay. Then-- do you want me to not keep her away from you? Besides with the shield, I mean."

Edited 2021-08-13 21:16 (UTC)

"Just the shield," she confirms, feeling silly but a little more sure of who she is at the same time.

"Will there be consequences for her, Tiffany?"

Here is a woman who believes in just punishments, who will be disappointed.

"Yes," she says carefully, stirring her cooling tea with a pinky finger. "But I don't think locking people in Zero helps anybody here, and I know it would make Callisto worse."

"A prison sentence on a prison boat seems foolish and not likely to reach the intended goal." Which, somehow, would appear to be graduation. How, she doesn't know. She wouldn't know what to do with herself if she'd gotten someone like Callisto for an inmate.

"What will you do?"

"I know you're probably being sarcastic, but I got solid reasons for thinking it wouldn't do anything here. Besides just not liking cells for personal reasons, I mean. I'll tell you a little bit about it if you wanna hear, but-- I wasn't gonna ask you to care or to listen if you didn't."

She takes a small, quick sip of her tea, the first she's had so far.

"We already talked. She's not-- doing well, right now, so I don't know how much of it got through - not that much, I don't think. But I told her what she did made me sick and disgusted, and I think that matters to her at least some, even though sick and disgusted and scared is what she was trying to make people feel. So we talked and we're gonna keep talking, and I'm gonna jump on her ass if she takes out her anger on innocent people who can't fight back again, and I'm gonna keep standing up to her when I'm not fucking unconscious, because I'm not going to back down, because I'm not scared of her, and she didn't turn me off her or drive me away, I'm fucking furious at her and my heart hurts for her and I--"

She cuts off this diatribe to gulp in a breath. Shakes her head to clear it. Reigns herself in.

"She did that on the network, in front of everybody, on purpose, to make herself look as bad as possible. I'm sure it worked for some people; I'm sure there's people who'll never, ever stop hating her for it, and I wouldn't blame 'em for it. That's a hard as shit consequence to live with, even if you're trying to bring it on yourself on purpose."

"Her punishment for my torture and murder is the knowledge that some people will hate her?"

She sounds completely incredulous. She'd listened very well to what Tiffany had said, and the other part had been that Tiffany isn't well pleased with her inmate, and she's going to keep being vigilant. Which didn't work this time, because she was 'fucking unconscious'.

"I've bullwhipped tenants for far lesser crimes than that. I took no pleasure in it, but they at least knew not to, to - to impregnate an unmarried woman, or to steal from me."

"We don't bullwhip people here," she says - squaring her shoulders, trying to keep her voice steady. "We don't use that kind of power over people."

"I know we don't," she says, sharply, hands curled into fists on the table. "But there must be something better. To a woman like that, something - something better than the fact that some people may dislike her. Some may dislike me! It's no punishment!"

"Being seen as a monster and knowing they're justified for it is a whole lot bigger than dislike," she says, forcing her fingers to untense around her teacup. Bullwhipping. God.

"And I'm sure that's going to hurt her badly again the next time she does this. How is it a deterrent, Tiffany? I just -"

She knows Tiffany's loyalties have to lie with her inmate, and not with the victim, in this case Anne. But it hurts to think about. That nothing will be taken from her but the opportunity of friendship that Anne sincerely doubts Callisto was interested in anyway.

"I have not met a single person who was deterred from anything by getting locked up to rot, or whipped, or humiliated, or-- anything like that. All that does is make people like us more angry and more bitter and more violent. That's just trying to stop shit on the surface instead of trying to help fix a deeper problem."

"Who is people like us? You're not one of my tenants, and you can't convince me that you've ever done to anyone what she did to me!"

"I--" Had not meant to say that, truthfully, no matter how much she feels it. "Yeah, I have, actually. Not that brutal, and not always for the same reasons, but still pretty brutal, and angry, and-- and vindictive."

That takes the wind out of her sails pretty effectively. She sits back against her high-backed chair, and lets out a strong breath.

"I see." She doesn't. She runs a hand over her face, then through hair hair, where her fingers catch in some knots.

"So that's why. When you did that, you would have wanted someone to react the way you're reacting to her, now."

"I would've wanted somebody to listen and care, yeah. That don't mean I think everybody is obligated to--"

She thinks of Piper Chapman, suddenly. Piper Chapman, who she still doesn't really like, but who she can't really blame for reacting the way she did: not in real life, and not in relived flood memories.

"But I also really do think locking people up in smaller cages ain't a real deterrent for anything, and I think it would make Callisto worse and more dangerous. She's not out in public right now, and I think she's gonna stay that way for a while, but if I'm wrong and she comes out while she's in a mood for this kind of violence, I'll get her in the Enclosure with me - or get between her and anybody else, if it comes to that. But right now, right at this moment-- she ain't locked in anywhere, but hasn't moved for a few days, either."

"So she's... compliant," she says, wonders. She looks at her, then away again, at her teacup, feeling adrift.

"No. She's-- she's."

Tiffany pauses again, struggling to find a word that would both describe Callisto's current state, while at the same time not giving away anything too personal or private.

She settles on just describing the bare facts - the things anyone could see if they took a trip down to Zero.

"She's in a cell, with the door unlocked, but mostly she's stuck inside her own head."

"Oh."

She takes a moment to evaluate that, then nods and sits back against her chair. "I see. Then - then the protection. It should probably..."

Still happen soon.

"I'm doing it today," Tiffany promises. "And I know you said you-- but I still wanna keep her away from you for a while anyway."

She's quiet for a moment, leaning forward with hunched shoulders and taking a few more sips of her tea.

"I tried to torture someone to death once. I was gonna cut her up, and then I was gonna stab her, and that didn't-- work out, but I still terrified her. And then when I was here, right after I graduated, my second temporary inmate tortured me to death."

She's been on both sides of this, she means; she knows how both sides feel.

The first happened back home, then; the second here, and after graduation. Both events to be remembered. Both terrible. But there's a divide there.

"Then you... then you make a much better warden to her than I would have done," she says, cautiously. "I suppose my inexperience must seem silly. To you."

"No," she says heatedly. "No, you don't; you don't at all. I remember how much it hurt, and I remember how it felt after, and I remember how much it fucked me up. I remember how much I hated the person who did it. I don't think you seem silly, and I wish-- I wish you hadn't gotten experienced with this when you were so new."

Her face twists with frustration, anger, and she nods at the table.

"Yes. Yes, so do I, Tiffany."

But the fact that Tiffany is telling her it doesn't seem silly is a little bit comforting.

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