"Coming up!"

Flywheel will, in the meantime, use the bathroom and wash up and get dressed.

(...she cries while she brushes her teeth, but probably it's normal to just break out crying, the day after your partner dies while you watch?)

He certainly doesn't find it remarkable. He puts a plate of eggs in front of her.

She's going to check the fridge for hot sauce.

Bottle of Frank's.

Flywheel uses an amount of hot sauce that you might expect given her takeout order yesterday.

 "Thanks," she says hesitantly, before she starts eating.

"No problem. Did you... sleep okay... I forgot to warn you I'm a sleep-talker."

"...I did not sleep amazingly, but the talking wasn't why." Pause to nom. "What's that third language you speak? The one that's not French, I mean."

"Tagalog. Substantial Filipino population around here."

"Huh." She nods. 

Say something he's! not backlashed!

Indeed he is not. He's just eating his eggs.

Weh.

"...is now a good time to explain my backlash?" (...she doesn't look very happy about the prospect.)

"Works for me."

Flywheel takes a deep breath. "So - in addition to the thing I explained, my backlash makes me... more convenient, easier to manage."

(She hugs herself, a bit.)

Headtilt.

Augh.

"...it - takes me more effort to do things, unless people ask me to do them?" (She's maybe trembling a bit.) "Sorry, I know I'm not explaining it well, I don't - I really don't like talking about it."

"That makes sense, guy in Japan retired over something in that genre getting out publicly, it sounds scary..."

"Yeah." Flywheel remembers reading about that, when Willowbark sent her the article, and feeling some kind of way about it. "It's - there's a lot of backlashes I'd rather have." 

Nod.

She should really be more clear...

"...are you ok with giving me advice or keeping me on track in the field? At least for today."  

(That's not exactly being more clear, dipshit!)

"I... don't think I currently know enough to be effective at that?"

That makes sense. "I can manage myself fine at up to moderate backlash levels and can answer questions about my capabilities and limitations either now or in the field as it comes up." 

"Can you walk me through an example of needing to be kept on track?"

Sure. (She hasn't stopped shaking, not entirely, but she's ignoring it.)

If she's already above some backlash threshold and following an agreed-upon plan (e.g. find and kill a worm, go kill the dungeon core guardian and shatter the core) and conditions change, she'll usually remember to report it in and ask if the plan should change, but it can be hard for her to decide on her own to change the plan if the way conditions changed weren't scoped out in advance. 

"Is your reporting itself impaired or does this just boil down to me shotcalling as the tactical situation changes?"