"Good work, Hourglass," she says, and it's easy to hear the pride in her voice. "For your first time in a dungeon, you did fine."

(Pause, to let it sink in, and to pat the girl on the head.)

"Now. What could we have done better?"

She thinks. "Well, with the second pair we escorted out..."

They work three more dungeons together that week. In between, they cuddle away their backlash and alternate unwinding (her with video games and Tumblr, Scarlet with her Spanish soap operas), debriefings, and verbal mentoring - more professionalism and some victim interaction roleplay. 

"b-b-but you're just a child!", Scarlet wails, her voice at the edge of hysterical. "You can't really be an esper. Oh, oh, oh no, I need to be rescued soon, my son is getting married today, he's going to think I hate him and his husband," and she starts fake-sobbing.

"...Ma'am, please calm down. I'm an adult esper. I'm just short. Here, I can show you my ID." 

"Cut!" She waits a beat. "Far too annoyed, Hourglass. Try to keep it in! ...or try to keep in mind that they're just ordinary people, in a very stressful situation. They'll be confused, they'll be scared. And it adds a lot of stress, trusting someone to rescue you when you think they're mad at you."

Pause. "You can't avoid that all the time, of course. People who get anxious easily can go haywire in dungeons, and it's usually better to just get them out than to try and soothe them. But you should try to hide it when you're annoyed with a victim. It's usually not their fault, and it rarely helps." 

"Alright. I get it, just..." She sighs. "...can we take a break with the short/child shit, though? It's grating." 

She hums. "How would you handle that situation in the field, if you can't talk them through it?" 

"Ask them to wait while I escorted a DRT operative or fellow esper there."

And she's forgetting somethin- "Or carry them out myself, if that's safe." 

"Very good. We'll have you practice carrying some of my weighted dummies, later, but for now, let's move on to a new scenario..." 

Scarlet and Hourglass share a bed every night now, with the backlash they're taking doing dungeons. The girl is almost noxiously clingy in her sleep, but it's good for guiding, at least.

And she panics a bit, almost every time she wakes up. Squirms, shakes. Starts to hyperventilate, eyes wide.

The first time it happens, she wonders if it was a particularly nightmare. The girl isn't interested in talking about it, though. 

The second time it happens, Scarlet notices that Hourglass only calms down when she realizes she can move her limbs freely. From then on, she starts rolling over to make sure the girl can more easily.

The fourth time, she says "...you should try talking to someone about it," in her best approximation of a gentle voice, once it's obvious Hourglass is awake and alert.

"Mmmmm." Sad clingy blue girl. (She's still backlashed, which doesn't help.)

The next morning, however (at least after she orients and calms down), Reve explains in short, fractured sentences how she spent most of her hell week.

(Scarlet thinks about how Hourglass often gets really anxious when she's backlashed, even when the symptoms themselves are relatively mild.)

She sighs. Alright. She'll give this a try.

"Look, Hourglass... ...Reve." She takes the girl's hand in hers.

"For all of us - almost all of us, I suppose"... (bungling this already, huh) "...for you and for me and for everyone I've worked closely with - hell week was the worst week of our lives. It happened to us without any warning, and we couldn't do anything about it. Most of us almost died. Some do die. And then then we come out of that knowing that using our powers will put us back there." 

She shrugs. "There's espers out there that never use their powers. Not even once. And it's a damned shame, when any of them could be the next... oh, what's his name, that kid who teleports half the world around..." Hourglass starts to open her mouth, and Scarlet cuts her off with a vaguely irritated hand-wave. "You know who I mean."  

"Anyways. It's a shame, but - I'd yell at anyone who nagged them about it. Especially if they weren't an esper. They have no idea what it's like, to spend a week burning their hand on a stove and then make a career out of poking it on the daily."

She squeezes Hourglass's hand. "What I'm trying to say is - it takes real courage to do this. And you should be proud of yourself, for that." Pause. "I know I am."

O-oh. She blushes, a bit, and straightens up. "Thanks."

"Leave that bra on, girl," she says drily. "My daughter has seven years on you, I don't want to see your tits." 

She sighs. That backlash...

"Here's your phone. Pull up that video app you like, pick something fun to watch." She's pretty sure Hourglass will stop trying to get more guiding if she gets enough stimulation, even with this much backlash. 

Oh! Phone!

She opens up the gaming livestreaming app and clicks almost randomly on a vtuber she likes.

Much better.

...

"Is that a cartoon character playing a video game? Who are they talking to?"

"Oh! No, it's a vtuber, which is a..."