"I think you overestimate how often I find someone I am actually interested in, at all," Abrogail says softly. A butterfly lands on her hand, where it rests on her chair's arm, and she lowers her head and gently blows to shoo it away. "Maybe Carissa Sevar would be as common as iron in dath ilan; here she is gold. You picked her up too easily to appreciate what you now have, I think."
"I'd still walk entirely away from Carissa Sevar if that was the cost of a 'trope'-free life. I am just worried that - walking away is not the correct way to prove that a 'trope' can have no existence? A compact between us ensuring that I cannot possibly end up with Sevar under any circumstances, and my then having my fun with her and putting it behind me, seems possibly wiser. Possibly. You would probably know better than I do."