"Glam, you came to us. We're trying to help you. But even if you don't see that now, we can't withdraw after finding out about abuse in the system."

"One, no, you came to me. Two, still waiting for the argument. There was no abuse, there was a lack of appropriate rules, and if you really are trying to help me, is it that hard to explain to me why this is literally the best option you had and how there were absolutely no good third alternatives and how you spent way more than an afternoon trying to brainstorm them?"

"We sent the first message, but you were the one who decided to meet," Al says. "I'm sorry if it's not clear right now. It'll all make sense when you're older."

"...oh no. You are not pulling that. That is literally the same thing every patronizing adult says to a minor when they don't think the minor's capable of personhood and agency. You're acting no better than them." They almost threaten him again, but a voice in their head says he may well be recording this conversation and that they've damned themself enough already.

"I am trying to help you, Glam," says Al. "I'm about to get in the car, gotta hang up." The line goes dead.

"I fucked up big time and I need someone to scold me in a reasonable way."

"...I fucked up big time and I need someone to scold me in a reasonable way. Or glare at me. Or ignore me completely and make me turn in circles inside my head for a long time until Piggot calls me to her office. Or something."

"I didn't call them! I—they talked to me, in the forum, and I talked to them in person, and the guy was so reasonable, and now I just want to undo it, I told him specifically Yates was okay, she was just doing her job, I wasn't mistreated, I didn't even want anything to change right now! I could've handled—" They think back on what they read on the forum, multiply it a thousand times over, and shudder, but go on. "I could've handled the rest of the year, it was just, supposed to help other people in the future, a rules change, not—"

"So you should have gone to Piggot and said, 'Director, the Youth Guard reached out to me about the gender thing. I haven't replied yet because I don't really want to make a federal case out of it, but it's -" She pauses, maybe reading something on her helmet display. "- harder than I thought to take having my cape persona referred to as a girl even knowing that Loen will go live in a few weeks. Can we come to some sort of compromise'. And then you have put the fear of the Youth Guard in her heart and you get everything you want. I might have suggested if I'd known the two people solution wasn't cutting it, but..."

"I didn't know they'd make a federal case out of it! I have barely started patrolling yet and I'm already fucking it all up, Yates was right, I can't fix any fucking thing—"

"I could deny it all. Say, say they forced me to do it, coerced me, lied to me, make their case that much weaker. Piggot and Yates didn't abuse me, they—they could've treated me better but I'm not some whiny baby that can't take that, oh Scion I'm some whiny baby that can't take that aren't I."

"They don't technically need you, I don't think."

"Why not. What's even their case?"

"Their case is they can outspend the Protectorate and they look really, really good to the public and any given Protectorate department would rather instantly knuckle under than risk getting into a legal contest."

"Damn it. Fuck. Fucking shit." Glam swearing a lot. They're not very good at it, clearly, but still. "Well then why did they even need me to come to them? Why didn't they just push for this before?"

"Waiting for moments like that is how they look really good to the public. But they have the social capital to spend down if you don't help."

stop. They land, hugging their knees again and burying their face on them.