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I learned from a good teacher, thinking like that.

[It certainly is a lapse. It stands out in contrast to what she's come to expect of him — measured, calibrated, thoughtful responses. No, she thinks: something about that one bothered him.]

What did you do with the knife? The "task at hand". What was it?

I think you'd like my mother. She'd like you.

[He hesitates only a little before he answers; this is actually a less uncomfortable line of questioning than he worried he'd invited. She wants to talk about knives, not girls.]

A duel. I won. There's a custom with crysknives: they can't be sheathed after they're drawn without tasting blood.

But you'd rather she didn't come here, would you. Even though you miss her.

Was the duel to the death, or just to first blood?

I've thought about it. I don't know. I can't decide where she'd be safer. It was amtal. An old word. It means to test to destruction. I wasn't destroyed.

You're teaching me all sorts of new words today. I wish I had more to offer in return.

Was it the first time you'd killed someone? Dueling with a girl's gift of a knife?

I was afraid, the first time I killed a man. I suppose in a duel you don't have the luxury of being afraid. Or at least not of showing it.

I wasn't afraid. I was ang Yes. I was tired, after. Were you tired?

Once the terror wore off. Though it wasn't the killing that bothered me, really, but the circumstance. The part afterward where I realized how powerless I'd been, and how close it had come. That I was only still alive because he'd been stupid and selfish enough to delay killing me long enough for me to kill him first.

It's all right if it bothered you. It's not supposed to be something that comes easily.

I know. I was prepared for that. It's different for a duke's heir than a princess. I knew that it would happen one day. It's not an easy thing, but it's done. I'm all right. And I'm sorry that happened to you. I am. You shouldn't have had to do that. Someone should have protected you.

Would you have? If you'd been there. Would you have killed him for me?

Is that why you were dueling, to protect the girl who gave you the knife?

In a heartbeat.

[He doesn't have to think about that at all. Of course he would.]

It was for my mother. They wouldn't let her fight for herself. Old customs. The girl knew the man I killed. I don't know if they were friends. She thought I was going to die, but she wanted me to die with honor. Do you think that means anything?

What about now? Would you still kill someone for me?

[She should know better than to press her luck, probably, but it's hard to resist when it's that question in particular. Irresistible, when Paul is offering up the answers she wants to hear, and once upon a time someone else didn't.]

She was one of your Fremen, wasn't she? Everything you've said about them is customs and gods and traditions.

I do think it meant something. That she thought you were doing the right thing by protecting your mother, maybe. Or maybe she just liked you. Girls are like that sometimes.

Renfri. Of course I would.

[The idea she didn't realize that bruises Paul, a little, not at her hands but on her behalf.]

She is. Her name is Chani. And they are? Girls, I mean.

I see you've not been around very many girls to begin with, have you.

What did you want it to mean? I'm sure you hoped it meant something.

[He notices the dropping of the topic, and in the spirit of new restraint, he'll let it drop. Even given the alternative.]

I've been around girls. It was more formal, but I have. Nothing. I was just curious.

[Knowing Renfri, it'll probably come back up again sooner or later. Most things do — just like her.]

Was she pretty?

She's beauti I didn't notice. Why?

Mmhmmm. Well, I'd wager she noticed you. You're noticeable.

Likely all the moreso after you won a ceremonial duel with her knife.

It doesn't matter very much. She's not here. But thank you. (I think.) What about you? Are there any people you noticed, back where you're from?

Sometimes, I suppose. Never anything lasting. People still thought I was pretty even after I had to cut off my hair, and I used that, sometimes.

I noticed the man who killed me. He was a witcher with white hair and a fast sword. Like me, I thought. Witchers are man-made monsters. I asked him to kill my wizard for me, but he was determined to stay out of it. He didn't, though. I had nine other men willing to help me, and he killed all of them.

Not very romantic, is it.

[Paul sits with that, for a while, until the cold-snap fission fury in him fades enough that he can think of his words instead of throwing them like knives.]

Renfri, that wasn't your fault. Do you know that? It wasn't. You weren't the monster. I know that. I know you. I know what monsters are. If he couldn't see where the monster was, between you and that wizard, then he was no better than him.

You hate him, do you?

I think you're right, you know, that you know me. That you see me. So tell me something, please, because I want to know. Is there anything I could say right now, for better or for worse, that would change your mind about me?

Shouldn't I? There are. You could tell me that you've been lying to me all along, and playing me for a fool. You could tell me that you intend to hurt other people I care for. I don't think you would, but I've been wrong before. Would you say those things?

I don't know. I don't know if I hate him, even; I keep going back and forth on it. I don't hate him like I hate Stregobor, I know that much. But I don't hate anyone like I hate Stregobor, so.

And no, I haven't been lying to you. I've left out some ugly things about myself, perhaps, but not for sympathy or to make myself sound better. Just from being human.

Is it lying if you see someone better in me than I see in myself, and I don't go out of my way to dissuade that?

I can't tell you I understand, because I wasn't there. I wasn't you. But I do know what it's like to have someone betray you, and not hate them, even if you should. And Renfri, if trying to persuade me that there are ugly things inside of you is your standard of honesty: you're the most honest person I've ever met, and every human is an irredeemable liar. You don't owe me your heart cut open so I can judge it. You don't owe that to anyone.

[She should tell Paul sometime, she thinks to herself in the quiet that follows, while she sits in the low light of the archive shelves and looks at the words glowing candle-bright on the glass face of her Omni — someday, she'll have to tell him more of the things she doesn't say. How sometimes the words that leave his mouth are an echo of Geralt's and it brings her to a standstill, when it doesn't make her want to knock his front teeth out. How he has his own brand of honesty and it lies in the flames of his anger, in those moments where he forgets himself and burns hot instead of ice-cold, and says all the right things without thinking.

It's been a long time since she's wanted anything except to bloody her sword with the life of one single man. Then that too was taken away, and she'd thought she'd all but forgotten how to want anything at all. And then she'd thought she could find it again by knocking together whims like flints, throwing aimless sparks in the hopes that just one might land on something dry and right for kindling.

Now it feels like a thin wisp of smoke rising. I want to turn over seashells and see if there are crabs. I want to look at the ocean and believe in something friendly in its depths.

It isn't much, but it's something. And it'd be such a shame to let it burn out.]

I should learn to ask you for help more often.

[And then, shortly thereafter: ]

Do you want to tell me about it? Why you know what it's like?

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