The ladies in full color and in block A. This particular cell is generally considered the best one since it faces south so you gradually get the sun, it's right over the kitchen so it's warm in winter, however it's cool in summer, and because it's on the first floor it is dry. It's colloquially known as "the boudoir" and is women-only; if and when young girls or pregnant women end up here somehow, they usually get block A.
It's currently a holding cell for this disparate quartet before they will be escorted to Kessem, the nearby prison colony for women.

They've only been here for two days but already cabin fever is getting to them. Lena is consumed by inner fury she desperately tries not to project on her companions, partly because she wants to save up every drop of it for when she is finally released; Anita just cries at the drop of a hat (and at night, she dreams about flames... lecking, flaring, hot and beautiful, cleansing unto oblivion); Zoë rarely speaks at all, and still seems to believe all of this is a colossal mistake; and Eirein, who has accepted all of what happened with a sort of roguish fatalism is getting more and more anxious as the reality of being taken to prison, for real, becomes more and more tangible.

A noise has just made apparent that the guard who has been given this assignment is approaching down the corridor and their stay in Block A will be terminated. It's as much a relief as a source of panic.

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