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Who: Merlin & Tiffany
Where: Tiffany's cabin
When: A few hours after the pairing announcement on January 15th
Warnings: Well, Tiffany has the potential to be kind of awful so there's that. Will keep this updated.
Also: Sorry about posting so much lately :x

Merlin's been up for a few hours when the announcement comes through, and the relief could knock him to the floor. The last three-and-a-half weeks have been the longest of his entire life to date. For the most part it's been a grey drift of time, and nothing he's tried to fill it with has given him the sense of direction and purpose which is granted to him by the brown card file which appears in his cabin.

It's almost enough that he feels like he can forgive the Admiral for subjecting him to the flood without any prior warning.

He takes up the file, and five minutes later he goes to tap on the door of her cabin.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is the first time someone's knocked on her door, and it surprises her. It's another happy reminder that she has a door to knock on (in Litchfield, most people would just barge into each other's cubes with no warning, and she and her friends hadn't been exceptions to that).

"Hello? You can come in."

... Or can they? She doesn't know whether or not the doors lock automatically. Just in case, she jumps off her bed and heads over to the door, pulling it open.

"Oh, hey. Merlin. Guess you heard the announcement, huh?" After a brief moment's hesitation, she steps back so he can come in if he wants to. Her room is nice: Anya had it done up to look like a fancy hotel room, with some basic furniture and a big, fluffy bed.

"I heard."

He steps over the threshold, hands behind his back, and glances around. He's seen a little of this room from the video she's recorded on her communicator, but in its wholeness it's much more impressive.

"It's nice in here. Did someone ask for this for you?" He remembers her mentioning a new room.

"Oh, yeah! Anya. She and a guy brought me a lot of snack food, too."

She looks down at the folder in his hands.

"Is that my file? Did you read it?"

"....no. No, I didn't."

He drums his fingertips against the card.

"I'd like to. Eventually. I believe it'll help me to help you, if I know more about your life. But I don't know that I should, until you can trust me to know so much about you."

She just... looks at him, and then laughs a little, like she isn't sure whether he's actually joking or not.

"But don't you, like... have to read it? Since you're my warden. Ain't you gonna get in trouble?"

Merlin shrugs slightly. "I have to understand you. But I can understand you by talking to you. And you can lie to me if you like, until you feel like you want to be honest, or until you're alright with me reading your file. And that might be now, and it might be never."

He sets her file down on the nearest table.

"Until then, this is yours, and if I get in trouble then I get in trouble."

So not only is he not reading it, but he's going to let her read it.

She snatches it up before he changes his mind. She's really curious about what it says.

"Okay. You wanna ask me some questions, then?"

"If you want to answer, then yes."

He tilts his head over his shoulder.

"We could go up to the Enclosure? Go for a walk."

She's already started flipping through her file, but looks up when he says that. "Okay." She's never been in the Enclosure, and she's pretty curious.

"Can I take this?"

He nods, smiles faintly.

"Of course. It's yours. And you might want to bring a coat, it could be cold in there."

"Oh. I don't have a coat." She considers this conundrum.

"You think we can ask for one?"

"Probably."

He shrugs off his jacket and holds it out to her.

"You can borrow this for now?"

"Okay." She takes the coat, putting down the file for a second to put it on. He won't get cold without a coat, she figures, because he can probably do a magic spell to warm himself up.

"What level's it on?"

It's true. Though generally speaking he just tends to tough it out when it's cold.

"It's above the deck. I'll show you." He shoulders the satchel he had to slip off to remove his coat, then goes to the door, opening it for her.

She picks up the file again and heads on out.

"Behind one of the locked doors, right? There's a lot of stuff I can't open."

"Yes."

He shuts the door behind them and walks at her side towards the staircase.

"I have an Item which marks me as a warden, and it acts as a key. Though there's some places I can't get into either, like the kitchen."

"Why, 'cause you ain't a cook?" She skims through her file as they walk.

"Must be. Did - did you have a job, in your prison?"

Prisoners aren't put to work in his experience, but they seem to have jobs here. Maybe it's true of Tiffany's recent past as well.

"Yeah, I worked in the laundry. Eleven cents an hour!" She glances up from the file to look at Merlin. "Do we get assigned jobs here, too? I know I saw some inmates working in the cafeteria, but I didn't know if that was a volunteer thing or not."

"Nobody's told me that you'll be given a job, so...I suppose that's something we have to work out ourselves."

He pushes open the door onto the deck and heads toward the structure atop it, not far from the greenhouse. It's still cold and there's snow on the deck but he doesn't shiver.

"Would you like to work? I know I've been losing my mind with nothing to do all day," he adds wryly.

"Nothing to do?" She looks over at him again, wondering if he's joking. "You serious? There's tons to do here."

He spends a moment trying to access that perspective. She does have a point - yes, there's tons to do. His issue has been that he's come here having basically had two full-time jobs and nothing he's been able to do here so far has felt...meaningful.

But maybe all they did in her prison was lock her up and make her do laundry. For eleven cents an hour. (How much is that?)

"You're right. I more meant something that would give your days some...structure. And help you make friends," he adds, though from casual observation she seems to be doing alright with that.

Well, he does have a point. She had a large group of followers back in Litchfield, but the ones she was closest to were the ones she did laundry duty with. She's still not thrilled about the idea of working, but she assumes he probably wants her to, and she isn't going to protest.

"All right. What do you want me to do?"

Merlin slows as he crosses the deck. There's still something dauntingly beautiful about the infinite starlight, the twinkle of snowflakes as they drift onto the deck.

"...Well, there's the kitchen. The library. I think people do their own laundry, but there are a lot of machines that must need looking after. Where would you rather go?"

"I get to pick?" People at Litchfield had been able to make requests if they wanted, but those requests weren't always awarded (and Tiffany knew of some people who had purposefully not been given what they wanted, because they had done something to piss off the guards). She's pretty sure she hasn't done anything to piss off the guards here, though.

"I dunno. Are those the only choices I get?"