Chapter Text
Chapter One:
˗ˏˋ⚡︎ˎˊ˗ The Robotics Club President ˗ˏˋ⚡︎ˎˊ˗
───── ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ─────
“I’m sorry, you guys, but ‘hat club’ is not a valid student org. You’ll have to speak to Ms. Lindahl and have it properly approbated.”
The students at the mic whispered to each other before one brave soul stepped up. “Uh, Ms. Treasurer, how do we get approbated?”
“Approbated! You know, ‘authorized?’ ‘Sanctioned?’ I mean to say, you’ll need to ensure your club is officially approved by the school before we can consent to any funding for your… eh, ‘hat club.’”
The group thanked her and moped back to their seats.
“Thank you, ‘hat club.’ Next,” Becky said, steady and even, tapping her clipboard. “Robotics Club—which…” She surveyed the floor, “it seems are still tardy. My goodness. Although I’d made everyone aware of the time and location for the budget meeting on the morning announcements, the weekly email, and on practically every corkboard in the school, not even the Robotics Club could make it on time—”
The auditorium door yielded to the frantic ushering of six Robotics Club officers wheeling in a utility cart bearing some sort of boxy object shrouded by a tarp. Theodore “Tobey” McCallister III didn’t enter so much as arrange the room around himself. He wore the uniform of someone who wanted to be perceived as precocious—pressed shirt, tie knotted in a half-Windsor, shoes that gleamed black—like whatever argument he was about to make would have merit just because it came from “boy genius” Tobey McCallister’s mouth. His officers trailed behind him wearing their basic Robotics Club polos, as if their noble president had forgotten to give them the memo for dress code.
“Madam Treasurer,” Tobey spoke into the mic, with a smile more for manners than for mirth. “Esteemèd and honorable council. Thank you for granting us common-folk your blessèd audience.”
A few giggles carried through the auditorium. Becky refused to entertain his sarcasm. “Actually, our bylaws technically call this a meeting, not an audience.”
“Please; no need to play with your semantics,” he said, waving her off. “Although I do love a good bylaw.”
Becky slid his form to the top of her stack. Requested: $3,000. Purpose: parts, fabrication, software subscriptions, and—she squinted—ethics symposium materials.
“What exactly is this ‘ethics symposium,’” Becky asked, “and why are we buying materials for it?”
“The upcoming City Safety Expo, Madam Treasurer,” he answered, “wherein Robotics shall demonstrate the righteous responsibility wrought from light, metal, and human command.”
He lifted the sheet from the cart with a flourish. The covered object was a stout, boxy robot roughly the size of a toddler. Its eyes shone green and its little smile lit up with LED. It blinked. Somebody in the second row whispered “aww.”
“This,” Tobey announced, “is our compliance demonstrator. These models will showcase perfect ethical behavior via its relatively—ahem—naïve intelligence and strict protocols concerning property damage and law adherence. It’s exceedingly ‘nice.’ A model citizen. And, quite adorably simplistic in its design, as well—Ahaha—so that no one might treat it as a human.”
Becky rolled her eyes as he chuckled. He paused, looking pleased with himself. “We call it our Stop and Smell the Roses Bot.”
The robot zipped a bit higher on its extendable legs and tilted its bouncy head to face her. “Hello, Madam Treasurer,” it chirped. “Your hair looks well-groomed and not at all too frizzy today, especially considering the humidity.”
Becky cracked just a bit. “Ah, Tobey… You think that’s ‘nice?’”
“Roses!” Tobey called to the bot, “Apologize this instant for offending our dear and honorable Treasurer.”
“I apologize,” the robot said. “It was simply an observation. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I do not mean to offend at all—I—I only like to observe and remain positive. Look at this lovely room, for example. I quite like this room. Lovely room. Lovely room. Lovely—”
Tobey smacked the robot lightly over the back of its head and murmured something at it before folding his hands, the picture of innocence. “Ah—Apologies… He’s dreadfully nervous.”
Becky snorted. “Maybe you should’ve called him the self-flagellation bot.”
He grimaced and gingerly tucked the bot’s arms back into its sockets. “We believe that our demonstration, where judges will be evaluating not only performance but community impact, could reflect well on the school. And, incidentally, on the Student Council’s valuable support.”
Becky held up her finger and canvassed her documents. “As of right now, we’ve also received requests from Choir, Debate, Boys’ Basketball, Newspaper, Cheerleading, and Model UN. Your current ask is more than either sports team.”
“Yes,” Tobey said, “because Robotica is a bitter meritocracy. Parts cost money and the laws of physics refuse to be negotiated with. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the rules; God did.”
There were murmurs of agreement. Becky knew better than to follow the crowd, but she still considered all her variables: Robotics did bring trophies, significant payout, and it was Fair City High’s most highly acclaimed (and also most infamous) club—mostly because it was led by one former boy villain Tobey McCallister.
She cleared her throat. “We have $10,500 to distribute this quarter. If we give you your full request, everyone else will need to scale back significantly. Here’s what I’ll propose: $1,800 for Robotics now, with an opportunity to revisit if by Ms. Lindahl’s consent.”
Tobey sneered and measured the faces of his officers behind him. “How wonderfully pragmatic of you.”
“As much as I’d love to support Robotics, we’re developing a budget, not a wish list. I hate to burst your bubble, McCallister… But Santa Claus does not exist.” The room giggled again.
“Well! I suppose I’ll take your little quip as a hint. I do feel as though I’ve been professional about this.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “It’s terribly predictable that you’d prefer to hoard funds rather than invest them where they’d multiply.”
“Predictability is what keeps our lights on,” she said. “The Robotics Club will be fine on $1,800 until we know how the fundraisers go. We’ve watched you long enough to see what you can do with this sort of money. You’re all very creative; I’m sure you can work around $1,800.”
Tobey adjusted his glasses with the nice kind of condescension. “Hm. I suppose if we were the sort of club that required… pom-poms, or mi-ni-skirts,” he enunciated with disdain, “or playing mindless children’s games on the pitch, our request might be met with more enthusiasm.”
Someone smacked their lips and others muttered among themselves. Becky looked at him like a warning. “McCallister, that sort of talk will not be tolerated here. It simply is not true that the other clubs don’t work as hard as Robotics; they do. You’re allowed your opinions, but please keep your language professional.”
His gaze upon Becky sharpened toward something sour before he settled his eyes back on his bot. A hand rose to his jaw, his thumb grazing his lip in assessment. He turned back to the remainder of the council. “Well, then: prudence has triumphed. We will do valiantly with what we’ve been given, as heroes often must.”
He said “heroes” the way other people said “angels.” Becky wrote the allocation down. “Motion to approve the revised amount for Robotics?”
Hands rose among the council; the motion passed. She typed a few instances into her sheet and felt Tobey’s unwavering glare. She looked back up so as to signal, you may now say goodbye. He was more than happy to oblige.
“Thank you for your stewardship,” he said. “Madam Treasurer.”
“Thank you for your presentation, Robotics” she said.
He nodded to the robot and petted it as though it had fur to tousle. “Say goodbye politely, my dear little bot.”
“Goodbye politely,” the robot sang, chipper. The room laughed.
───── ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ─────
The evening imbibed its last sweet nectars of sunset. The school’s honorable pragmatic treasurer doffed her skirt in exchange for a cape, and she patrolled the city with just as much diligence as she would if she were actually paid to. She heard its distant whirring; saw its mad spin above the buildings—smooth, glimmering, hovering like a big, armed gyroscopic television with propellers: a scout drone. It zipped between alleys—beeped, noticed her, and piped lightly from its speaker, “PRIMARY SOURCE! PRIMARY SOURCE!” Propellers flittered around her from side to side, old angle to new angle, like a massive housefly, impossible to swat away.
“No—Agh! Please, leave me be—you big thing; I have work to do—” Becky remonstrated.
Its eye dilated like it’d seen something precious, screen flushed with a pixelated cascade of red hearts, then lines, letter by letter: “Hello WordGirl… See me anywhere?” Its speaker picked up again, “I’VE A MESSAGE FOR YOU—REGARDING CITY SAFETY,” small and plastic like a whining mouse.
WordGirl sighed and hovered eye-level with it. “This better be important, Tobey.”
The drone zipped obediently down the brick streets of the town square and toward the brilliantly lit silhouette of Fair City Mall, the cars below still honking on account of rush hour traffic. There above he leaned on the railing of the fourth-floor balcony with a remote in hand: one bulky, whimsical, antennae-laden thing with a screen centered upon it. The mall’s candied lights made a halo out of his hair he most certainly did not deserve.
“WordGirl! — Good evening,” Tobey said, as if he planned their rendezvous. “I was hoping to catch you. Literally. Hah! Only joking—I meant that figuratively.”
She hovered lower and crossed her arms. “You don’t have another lecture in mind, do you?”
“Eugh! ‘Lecture’ is such a lecture-y word. Think of it as…apologia,” he said, pleased with the Latinate shape of it. “It’s my pleasure to inform you that, May the third, City Hall is sponsoring a safety expo. Robotics was invited to display advances that make Our Fair City safer. I’ve got a number of models I’ll be showcasing onstage, and I’m set to give a speech. I thought—how perfect! — this aligns most wonderfully with your own industry as WordGirl: Safety. I thought I might contend for the valuable work you do for us within the broader ethical context.” His drone looked over and promptly bobbed its head like a sycophant. He continued, “Well, more than the ethical context: the historical, philosophical, judicial, political, psychological, pedagogical, dare I say emotional—”
She lifted a hand. “Tobey, please. That’s enough suffixes for one night.”
He laughed softly, and for a flicker his face looked younger—like the kid whose robots used to plant their fists in every taxpayer-funded work of infrastructure in the city. “My darling WordGirl… I only mean to ask you: Would you be so kind as to grace us with your presence at the expo?”
She opened her mouth.
“—Please, WordGirl. I only mean to demonstrate our new protocols. For safety. I know the children will be thoroughly pleased—and the mayor, as well. If you might only operate a few of my bots, speak a few commands—let it be a privilege rather than a chore. They listen invariably well. We’ll even set up a corral: no robot usage outside of the designated area. My drone and I are mapping out the town square as we speak.”
Beside him, the drone displayed a video of WordGirl punching through one of his robots’ chest plates. The caption read: “WordGirl’s Necessary Enforcement of the Fair City’s Unenforced Justice System (Case Study).”
WordGirl pinched the bridge of her nose. “Tobey, this is a lecture. This is the encyclopedic example of lecture.”
The drone went dark, chastened.
Tobey smiled, tapping the corner of his mouth. “I do wish you’d consider an appearance. Even a minute. A mere beckoning to a bot to ‘follow me.’ You can even ask the bot a difficult moral question, if you’d like; they’re programmed with responses that are charmingly diplomatic. Just—a sliver of your presence; imagine the educational impact. A generation of young, eager minds weaned on sound judicial doctrine, by none other than WordGirl herself.”
She lifted her weight off the balcony, discreetly placing a bit more distance between them. “You can call it what you’d like, but a lecture is a lecture. And your material is utterly inappropriate for a safety expo.”
“I disagree. You are Safety incarnate; you are the being which keeps this city safe. If I neglected to mention you at a safety expo, then I’d have neglected to mention Safety at all.” He looked up to her, leaning on the railing with his cheek planted in his palm like he’d already decided the object of his devotion.
She winced, scoffing lightly. Changing his mind was a battle she wouldn’t dare waste her energy trying to win. “I’ll think about what’s best for the city. I appreciate your assurance that you won’t break any more park benches.”
“Be assured, my dear WordGirl! I don’t break park benches,” he said, satisfied. “I break conceptual barriers.”
“Mm, and occasionally noise ordinances. Goodnight,” she said, and then took off before the conversation could do what it always did: spiral into a debate where he made her feel simultaneously adored and condescended to, as if she didn’t know what was best for herself or the city she fought for.
───── ✐ ✎﹏ ✐ ✎﹏ ✐ ✎﹏ ─────
Principal Lindahl’s voice, plummy and sonorous, crackled through the intercom: “In partnership with City Hall, the school has the privilege of hosting the Fair City Safety Expo on Saturday, May third. I encourage our clubs to get creative—think of how you can support city safety, and please apply for exhibition slots! There will be plenty of fundraising opportunities. I’d like to highlight in particular our very own Robotics Club and Student Council, as they will co-lead the Logistics Committee.”
She’d already been made aware of her role in the event. The Student Council president and vice president were “absent for mental health reasons” yet again, leaving Becky in charge of most things—a position she thought she might avoid by serving as the humble treasurer instead. Life had a nasty way of making every new role she took on stretch her as thin as physically possible, which might be great for America’s Next Top Model, but not so great for taking breaks.
“Madam Treasurer.”
She sighed. He gave her a terribly polite smile that read more to Becky like a test of her boundaries; how might I make sure she lets me do whatever I want? How might I make sure I get as much freedom here as is feasible? How many robots will she let me squeeze onto the stage? And so accumulated her list of the boy’s potential problem-causing.
“Thank you for your professionalism,” Becky fluffed her fringe through her fingers and stuffed a second bookbag in her locker, “but you can be normal now and just say my name.”
“All right, Becky,” he said, tasting it like he was tuning an instrument, despite having said her name thousands of times before. “This should be smooth sailing; you and I always make quite the team. You’re a stellar taskmaster.”
“Thank you—” Becky started before recognizing his snark, “…I think.” She slammed the door of her locker and took to her next class. “You understand I try to be fair; to do my work diligently. There’s no need for compliments—or veiled insults. Let’s just get down to brass tacks, please.”
“Are you completely devoid of all delight? Tell me, you have hobbies, do you?” He walked backward in front of her with annoying ease. The scrambling bodies in the hallway parted for him like he was Moses over the Red Sea. “And I should clarify: Accounting does not count as a hobby.”
She frowned. “That’s incorrect; I take delight in many things. I take delight in doing good work, and I’m happy to volunteer for the betterment of the school and the city. I hope you feel the same way about your own work.”
He scoffed. “Christ! Do you only speak in PR? When was the last time you took a day off, hm? You’ve got friends, haven’t you?”
She walked a tad slower in focus, lowering her voice. “Yes, I have friends.”
He looked around dramatically, derisive, “Where? Are they in the room with us now?”
“No. You’re acting very childish; don’t be a bully. I do have friends. You must know Violet, for example.”
“Really! I haven’t seen you two round each other in a while.”
“Then I don’t imagine you keep very close tabs on me.”
“I’m only saying: you sit alone at lunch.” She opened her mouth to rebut before he spoke over her, “Of course, I don’t point that out to mock you—”
“I have to do work during lunch,” she chided. “I love Violet, but it’s not as though I’m her only friend. She has other friends she can share niceties with in the meanwhile. I implore you: worry about yourself. And I assure you: I am well taken care of.”
He looked at her a moment. “Hm.”
Hm? Hm? I don’t need to prove myself. The city is safe under my watch. I must make sacrifices no one else will ever see. Of course I have to work all the time; it’s just the way things are. Everyone is better for it. I’m better for it. The city is better for it. She stayed silent.
“Fine. Have it your way,” he acquiesced. “Here are your ‘brass tacks:’ We’ll need a floor plan, vendor permits, insurance waivers, media coordination, and of course, a security plan that integrates with my—”
“Not your,” Becky countered. “The school’s. The city’s. The expo is not going to be The Church of WordGirl by Pope Tobey.”
“Mm. Blasphemous and flattering,” he said, amused. “But no. It’s a public education effort. With a presentation in defense of vigilantism—”
“McCallister!” She snapped her fingers, “McCallister, McCallister. Please, please, please. This is all I ask—all we ask: No robots outside approved demonstrations. No drones without permit tags. And no—and I mean no—talking about WordGirl. Other people may mention her: the mayor, the fire marshal, the principal, the populace—but not you. I do not want to hear her name on your tongue for the entirety of that Saturday. Got it? And,” she felt on a roll, “no giant signs with your full name embossed on them. You should reflect on the fact that I even feel the need to say this.”
“I wouldn’t emboss my full name,” he said, wounded. “These days I write my initials. It’s better for the brand: T.M., as in, Trademarked! Ahahaha.” He took special care to enunciate “Tuh-rade-marked.”
“Tobey…”
He shrugged and played concession. “Very well. We’ll do this your way. Paperwork first, spectacle second. How tediously… responsible of us.”
“Oh, stop that! You say ‘tedious’ as if it’s an insult.”
“On the contrary,” he stuck up his nose like an arrogant prince. “I have found that most of the world runs on tedium. Which is precisely why I’m very fond of celebrating that Heroine who breaks the tedious cycle and upends the justice system—forces the world to run on action rather than bureaucratic inaction… Bypassing those cogs in the system who are—how shall I put it… small-minded bean counters.” He wagged a finger in front of her eyes. He said it lightly, with a smile, and several people in the hallway laughed, thinking it was a joke. Becky felt the prick. It was that rotten underhanded habit he had. He didn’t need her to like him. He needed her to approve line items.
“Bring me your vendor list during lunch,” she said, monotonous. “Hopefully I can start the permitting requests by this afternoon. The earlier we file, the cheaper the fees.”
He inclined his head. “Certainly.”
“And Tobey?”
He paused.
She met his eyes. “If anything with your name on it steps one toe—one metaphorical toe—out of line at that expo—”
His grin flashed the edge of something like respect. “That’s quite alright. Please, don’t worry yourself over me.”
Becky watched him make his way through the hall as every conceivable future disaster he might cause began flooding back into her brain. She snapped back to the present: a calculus quiz in two minutes. Then, a meeting after school about the fundraiser. Then, of course, the Robotics Demonstrator Credential she needed to train for and the shopping she needed to pick up for her mom and the homework she needed to help TJ with—then on top of all that, having to sneak off every few days to stop some villain from destroying City Hall or save the bank from being robbed. But she knew herself. She could juggle. She had to.
───── ˗ˏˋ ꒰ ✉︎ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ─────
The day of the expo was fast approaching. Becky sat with her laptop hot upon her thighs, drafting the emails she’d been meaning to with her face in a state of ardent concentration. The permit office was a gray maze of laminated signs and the usual, unusual crowd: people from all walks of life forced to share the same thick air for as long as it took to get a paper with their face on it and their name in a system. She took a number and arranged her documents with the reverence of a surgeon laying out tools. The expo needed temporary-use permits, amplified-sound waivers, vendor certificates, and—because this was Fair City—an “Autonomous Mechanism Demonstration Clearance” form, revised after last year’s incident with Chuck the Evil Sandwich-Making Guy’s Roving Panini Press—which he claimed was “for the public good.”
Tobey slid into the seat beside her without asking, smelling faintly of solder and gasoline, stubborn black grease still lingering beneath his fingernails. He wore black trousers with a belt, but it seemed he removed his button-up, leaving his undershirt—a white t-shirt—beneath. He gave her the briefest nod, civilized and knightly with cheeks ruddy from heat.
“You’re late,” she said, looking him up and down. “Geez, are you okay? You look sweaty.”
“I’m exactly on time,” he said. “You’re early. I had to help my team mount a combustion chamber. And I’m not sweaty, I’ve just been outside for hours this evening. We had to keep the garage open so that we didn’t die from carbon monoxide poisoning. Where have you been, hm? Sitting in your little air-conditioned clubroom all day?” He said it like “club–room,” pretending as if the word sounded silly, anyway.
She scoffed, “What do you…? Robotics uses like three different classrooms in the—ah, let’s just get down to brass tacks, please.”
“There you go again with your ‘brass tacks.’ Brass is not a very reliable alloy, you know; I prefer stainless steel.”
She decided not to reward that after seeing the smug grin creep up on his face. “Do you have the safety schematics printed? And Robotics’ presentation?”
He struggled at first, embarrassingly, to unstick the zipper of his backpack, deviating from his typical methodical composure and cursing beneath his breath as his apparently clumsy fingers—presumably a result of his overexertion from the day—couldn’t seem to grip the little clasp. After a short battle and a refusal for help from Becky, he handed her a neat stack.
Each page was tabbed, labeled, and highlighted in a way that made her heart do a very dignified, treasurer-shaped dance. She checked its entries against her spreadsheet. Geez, this is good… He must have worked on this for quite a while, she thought to herself. She continued reading, her eyes tracking closer and closer to the page. This is very good… Very, very good. Excellent—my goodness, he even formatted the slide decks the way I like it…
Color washed her face as she remembered one freshman year English project where she grew so frustrated with his messy PowerPoints that she did the entire assignment herself. Ugh—I was hoping he didn’t remember that. He must have thought I was a total control freak... Maybe I was.
She breathed.
“Fail-safes, pre-clearance checklist, emergency stop protocol…you did these yourself?”
He tilted his head toward the overhead light. “It’s not as though it was difficult.”
Another weight lifted from her chest upon reading the PowerPoint title aloud: “Design Ethics: Three Principles.” Her mouth hung open, almost incredulous. “Excellent topic! Thank you for writing a keynote that isn't about WordGirl. I truly thought you may not be able to help yourself.”
He smiled.
He smiled.
Becky looked away and pursed her lips, deciding she had too much on her plate not to simply risk it and trust him—trust him—that his presentation would really only be about "Design Ethics."
The clerk called their number. They stood together, a double helix of competence and stubbornness, and approached the counter.
The clerk had a name tag that said “CHELSEA :)” and adjusted her glasses to peer over the forms with the genteelness of a highly respected judge.
“Temporary use, sound amplification, food vendors,” Chelsea said, flipping. “And—ah. Robotics Demonstration. Hm. Those are touchy, hon. Robotics authorization is usually reserved for city defense. This might be difficult, especially with your reputation,” she looked over at the boy, “McCallister.”
He laughed: a reaction he quite often had the displeasure of making to reassure the city folk—especially those whose buildings had been toppled and are less keen on giving him a second chance. He let the usual script run, “It’s been years, ma’am, but I understand your concern. As you said, it’s perfectly legal under the proper conditions—especially for a safety expo—to demonstrate robots that uphold safety,” he couldn’t help himself, much to Becky’s chagrin, “I’ve already got thirteen patents, eight pending. My Titan models are looking to be utilized by the military. I’m all about safety. It’s unfortunate such a bad reputation precedes me!” He laughed again, just to punctuate.
Becky added quickly, in an attempt to pad over his hubris with some actual documentation, “We’ve attached the safety schematics. Triple redundancy, kill switch placement, and on-site operator certification. We’re prepared to do a dry run for the inspector, as well.”
Chelsea made a noncommittal noise, somewhere between “Okay” and “Hrrgh.” She flipped to the schematics, and Becky held her breath because there was always one missed detail, one checkbox that snagged the whole sweater. The woman tapped a line with her pen. “Operator certification must be on file with the city. Do both of you have your Robotics Demonstrator Credential?”
Becky’s stomach sank. She hadn’t had time to attend the training; the online portal had crashed twice the week before, and then she’d had to leave homeroom to thwart a robbery involving a trampoline and lots of rope. She completely forgot about it.
“Of course,” Tobey said, and reached into his backpack again, which he didn’t dare zip back up. He placed two sheets on the counter. One had his name. The other had hers.
Becky blinked down. “What.”
“I covered the training for you this morning,” he said, as if discussing weather. “You’re welcome. I haven’t the slightest idea why you needed to be in the restroom for forty-five minutes, but I’ll do you the dignity of keeping it to yourself.”
“But I didn’t go to any training,” Becky whispered into his ear. He flinched a little and grimaced at her sudden infiltration of his personal space.
“It was asynchronous,” he murmured. “I assembled your documentation based on your known competencies and wrote a letter for equivalency of experience.”
Becky stared at the sheet. “How did you get my signature? How—how long did this take?”
“Only about ten minutes. I pulled it together during second period. And the signature—you signed a stack of budget forms last week,” he said, bland. “You’re very consistent. It’s admirable.”
“That’s forgery.”
“It’s efficiency,” he countered, then, sotto voce, “and a little forgery. But benevolent.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “You cannot just—”
Chelsea slid the papers back with the bored elegance of a queen dismissing a question. “Looks in order.”
Tobey smiled at Becky with the polite satisfaction of a cat who had presented paperwork instead of a dead lizard. “This is what teamwork looks like.”
“This is what a gray area looks like,” Becky said, but the heat in her cheeks wasn’t only irritation. It was—she refused to name it—impressed.
They left with a manila envelope of stamped permits. The stamps were oddly beautiful, circular rosettes of ink that made bureaucracy feel like a ritual blessing. On the steps outside, the Spring air moved across the street like someone tidying up; the sun made the courthouse windows gleam.
“Thank you,” she said, because she had been raised correctly. “For anticipating the credentials.”
He inclined his head. “It was either that or watch you fight the portal for three days. Your time is better spent tyrannizing the budget.”
“Treasure-izing,” she said instantly. “Not tyrannizing.”
“Yes, yes, yes. Sure.”
───── ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☆ ⋆⁺₊⋆ ─────